Treads
Design the answer. It may not be a building. Produce a proposal as a treatment for the issue. Don’t limit yourself to the conservative constraints of planning or titles. Do what needs to be done.
VI
Run the numbers. Win in the end. Engage with financial expertise to calculate the construction and life-cycle cost projections of your proposal. Compare this to the amount the government spends annually to deal with the issue.
VII
Get yourself together. Pool talent. You’ve done the numbers so now you may need some help. Don’t be afraid to ask. Find others who are working on the same problem, even if their ideas and disciplines are different.
VIII
X
Build public support. Demonstrate the urgency. Call a town hall meeting, send your report to newspapers with punchy quotes, do a letter drop to local residents, demonstrate the effectiveness of your proposal in a quick and dirty urban intervention. The aim is to create public support for the urgency of your scheme. As it is addressing an urgent issue, not a commercial motive, this should be easy.
XI
Solicit your future client. (You now hold all of the answers.) This will ordinarily be the government or local municipality, but it is equally possible to find a private investor if the life-cycle financing is attractive enough. With a solution to a thorny issue, public support, and a strong funding argument all taken care of – you have an offer that cannot be refused. It’s set right up on the tee, all they need to do is hit it off and take all the credit, while you take home the commission.
Find the loophole.
XII
Often, your design will need to go against the status quo in order to deliver. Find faults in their legislation. They cannot say anything if you do everything they expect.
(Only for the brave.) Now you have a taste for action and relevance to society, time to get out and find another issue.
IX
Assemble your argument. Biased advice is best. Assemble your work so far into a document that outlines both the issue and your prescribed solution. Of course this is biased advice, but your future client will thank you for producing something they can easily act upon.
Return to step 2.
Antidote
Unsolicited
V