Considering Architects and Clients’ Interactions Through the Design Thinking Framework

As the quality of the relationship between designers and users highly contributes to the success of the design process, involving users in the design process is more than ever crucial to the project. This paper argues that Design Thinking could help architectural routines evolve regarding the interactions between end-users and architects. Though the Design Thinking principles may serve as an inspirational framework, we claim they still need to be adapted to architects’ needs and fields’ constraints. This paper focusses on the Belgian housing design field, specifically questioning the posture architects tend to have towards their end-users through 5 narratives collected from on-field practitioners. The aim is to establish a parallel between day-to-day architectural practice and Design Thinking as a mindset and as a process, as to delineate the essential points architects might benefit from and as to question the role that end-users could furthermore play throughout housing design processes.