Design as Responsibility 2 - Concept Drift

A project can remain recognisable and still lose its concept. At handover, an interior may be compliant, buildable and visibly close to the approved proposal. The palette remains and the principal forms remain, yet the sequence has weakened, the hierarchy is less legible, privacy has shifted or an operational requirement now interrupts the intended experience. No single decision appears disastrous. Each may have solved a legitimate problem. What was never judged was their combined effect. Concept Drift examines what happens to design intent after approval, as coordination, value engineering, procurement, substitutions, site decisions and operational requirements reshape a project. Written for interior designers and others responsible for carrying design through delivery, the book explains how to: Distinguish necessary change from concept drift; Make concept-critical conditions explicit without freezing the design; Test whether a technically acceptable alternative preserves the role of the original decision; Recognise cumulative consequences while there is still time to respond; Match the evidence and review effort to the scale of the concern; and Turn a concern into one of four actions: Protect, Revise, Validate or Defer. The book includes a six-question opening screen, an eight-question concept test, ten delivery catch-points and three practical tools for use during project delivery. This is not an argument for protecting an approved design at any cost. Design intent can be questioned, revised or replaced when better evidence emerges. Nor does the method replace technical review, commissioning or established project controls. Its purpose is more specific: to keep the spatial and experiential consequences of change visible alongside cost, programme, compliance and…