Designing Through the Storm: Architecture, Activism & Audio Histories with Lee Moreau

Gerry Scullion: [00:00:00] Welcome to This is H City. I'm Jerry Scion, founder of the Human-Centered Design Network. And as always, I'm your host for today's conversation. This is H City is dedicated to exploring the world of human-centered design, service design, and innovation, helping you bring better design practices. Into your organization now, before we jump in, make sure to like, subscribe and share this episode with your network.

Gerry Scullion: And if you want to take the first step in, bring in human-centered service design and that approach to your organization, just sign up for my free five day email course. The link is in the description. In today's episode, I'm speaking with Lee Morrow, founder of others Tomorrow Design Studio, focused on service design and experience design.

Gerry Scullion: And Lee has extensive background in architecture and human-centered design. Having worked with leading organizations like IDO Continuum and two by four. Now we cover a lot in this conversation, including number one, the shifting role in design and turbulent times. Now we explore how design is evolving amidst all the [00:01:00] layoffs and the industry shifts that we're seeing around the world and what designers need to do to stay relevant.

Gerry Scullion: Number two, the power of community and oral history and design. Lee really shares why podcasting and storytelling play a crucial role in shaping the future of human-centered design. And number three, why designers need to embrace Adaptil adaptability. Whoops, that's a tough one With change is in industry and politics.

Gerry Scullion: We discuss the importance of designers leaning into change rather than resisting it. This conversation touches on political shifts affecting designers, the role of education and the need for resilience in profession. It's a really honest, it's an unfiltered look at where we are at currently in the state of the world today, and I really appreciated Lee's time and his honesty in getting into it.

Gerry Scullion: Let's get straight into this conversation.

Gerry Scullion: Lee. I'm delighted to have you on the show. Um, [00:02:00] we've just catching up all.

Gerry Scullion: And, you know, they get very really kind of like, you know, upset when I don't credit them. But Rachel, she's, I'm obviously joking there folks, Rachel is a, is a big friend of this podcast and has been on it a couple of times, and it put me in touch with Lee. And I'm not gonna do an introduction for you, Lee, because you're, you know, a heavyweight in the world of design.

Gerry Scullion: But maybe we'll start off, tell us a little bit about yourself, where you're from and what you do.

Lee Moreau: Uh, yeah. Hi Jerry. Thank you so much and for having me. Um, thank you Rachel, for connecting us. And uh, I am, what do, where am I? What do I do? I'm sitting here from Boston, Massachusetts. It's early morning 'cause Jerry's over there on the other side of the pond.

Lee Moreau: Uh, in the, in the afternoon. Uh, I, um. I mean, I'm a designer who kind of stumbled into the world of design consulting and human-centered design, um, from an architecture background. So, um, I'm a [00:03:00] licensed architect. I thought I'd be doing architecture forever and that was my place. And then I just got really lucky and found that I.

Lee Moreau: You can think about the world, uh, in a much more thoughtful, prioritized, and deliberate way than the architecture mode of practice that I was engaging in at the time. So I found this world of human-centered design and now, uh, after 20 years of practicing at, um, firms like IDEO and Continuum and two by four, um.

Lee Moreau: All amazing experiences in great studios. I started my own studio in 2019 and perfect timing

Gerry Scullion: just before a pandemic. You know,

Lee Moreau: it was, I have to say, I think it was perfect timing for me because I think if had I stayed in the job that I was in, um, at the level that I was at, I would've probably been spending a lot of time trying to make very, very hard personnel decisions and.

Lee Moreau: Yeah, things that would've been about keeping things afloat and protecting people you love. And instead, I was able to [00:04:00] spend that time. And while that's all important, I was able to spend that time building, building, building a, a, a new mode of practice and a new organization, um, slowly. Right. So

Gerry Scullion: so you're talking about other, other s other tomorrows, yeah.

Gerry Scullion: So, so talk, talk to me about the kind work and the clients that.

Lee Moreau: Uh, the work is by and large, um, what I would describe as service and experience design. So I think my. Um, you're hearing maybe some applause outside because somebody walked in the door.

Gerry Scullion: That's me. They, they've, they've seen that I went with the green jumper. Um, they thought that was amazing. So there's round of applause.

Gerry Scullion: So,

Lee Moreau: uh, no, when people walk in the studio, sometimes they get a round of applause spontaneously, and that's always like a kind of a, a great, uh,

Gerry Scullion: I love it.

Lee Moreau: A joke. Um. Most of what we do is service and experience design, and I think part of that comes from what I do best with that kind of architectural [00:05:00] background, the spatial thinking, like it was remarkable to.

Lee Moreau: To be in an architecture practice in my career where they started to think about architecture as, uh, a touch point for large organizations and brands as opposed to just this precious, formal thing that's like magic and you don't wanna put a sign on it at all, let alone a brand. Um, but to think of buildings, um, and the built environment as part of this larger ecosystem, fast forward 20 years, I think it's no surprise to us, um, that that's the way that.

Lee Moreau: Large organizations are thinking about, um, space. So service and experience design becomes a natural extension of that. Um, yeah, we have 11 practitioners now doing this work. Um, and the clients vary widely, and that's why I'm a consultant because. I have this sort of intellectual wanderlust and I don't like doing the same thing twice, and I share that with all my colleagues.

Lee Moreau: And so [00:06:00] anything from large massive tech companies or financial services companies to mom and pop local organizations, um, those are, you know, that breadth is because we're an independent studio and you make those choices. Um,

Gerry Scullion: yeah, absolutely. Let's go back to training as an architect. Um, did, did you, did you practice as an architect?

Gerry Scullion: I did. Yeah, I did.

Lee Moreau: I, and I loved it and I'm, I'd still love it. My, my wife is an architect. Almost all my friends are architects. Uh, and many of them are tremendously talented. Yeah. Um, almost, um. Like sobering, talented architects. And I see how kind of amazing that practice can be. But I also see some shortcomings in the practice, which is that we spend a lot of time, it's, it's architecture is very complicated, right?

Lee Moreau: There are huge financial implications, there are organizational implications. There are, um, so many different sort of [00:07:00] technical and uh, um. Economic and sociological things that you need to think about as an architect. All of that burdens the process. Um, um, that said, I think what we're taught to do in architecture is very much the same, I think as what we do in human-centered design.

Lee Moreau: Yeah. It's just that the practice, the professional practice of architecture doesn't, um, provide the time and frankly, architects don't get paid to do the kind of design research that we do. And that's just, I think that's changing. I think that's changed frankly along a lot in the last 20 years since I kind of left architecture.

Lee Moreau: Um, and for the better. I think there are architecture firms that are, um, really changing the mode of practice, um, and bringing human-centered design type and design research capabilities into the process. Um. But there's still a long way to go. And so I, I wasn't gonna wait around for that. I found another path.

Gerry Scullion: Alright, fair enough. [00:08:00] So as a, uh, an architect, and I've had architects on the show many times before, one of them famously quoted himself as a reformed architect. Yeah, I, I always thought that was quite, uh, quite an interesting framing. I I

Lee Moreau: say recovering architect

Gerry Scullion: bash. Many of the architects I know, and even in Dublin, they're remarkable. They're very forward thinking. They, they bring a lot of the proactivity of lots of other practices into, into their practice. But I'd be keen to know a little bit more around the formal training that you received as an architect and how that really kind of stimulates.

Gerry Scullion: The practice where you see today, like, you know, because they obviously didn't teach you how to use Miro or Figma or any of these tools, um, when you were studying to become an architect and now you find yourself, I dunno, I'm gonna have a guess here. 20 25, 30 35. I have no idea how many years ago, [00:09:00] 50 years.

Gerry Scullion: What do they do in architecture to really set archite up to make sure that they've got the resilience, uh, and adaptability to design for the future.

Lee Moreau: I mean, the practice is not based on tools. So the beauty of, I think, architecture and, and many studio based practices is that it's studio based. And so what you learned is how to.

Lee Moreau: Be adaptable and operate in a studio environment, collaborate with others, and it's, that's actually the fundamentals of the education. And this is where I get nervous about where education is going because it is becoming more oriented on professionalization, more tools based. I have lots of students, even graduate students coming in saying, I just wanna learn how to use X, Y, Z tool better.

Lee Moreau: My response is usually like, that's completely the wrong way to approach this. So like, let's unwind that, um, and try to contextual, contextualize what you want to do [00:10:00] in a broader conversation. Um, so, you know, I think studio culture is, whether it's architecture, uh, sculpture, uh, whatever it is, that's, that's the fundamental.

Lee Moreau: And if you know how to operate within a studio with other folks, then. You can start to layer things on. Yeah,

Gerry Scullion: I mean, I had, uh, a podcast yesterday with, uh, the authors of this book here, which is still on my desk. Martin to Mitch and, um, Steve Beaty from UX Australia. Uh, we're talking about designing tomorrow.

Gerry Scullion: Writing that down. Yeah, it's a really good book. Um, it's, I'll give it another quote out on this podcast, strategic Design Tactics to Change Your Practice, organization, and Planetary Impact. And one of the things that I'm really keen to hear is like you, you've worked in really large organizations, you've worked as an architect, you know, where are you seeing design currently?

Gerry Scullion: And obviously with all the stuff going on. Where do you see design [00:11:00] sitting amongst all this and what's our role? Like? I mean, the, the noise that's coming outta the states at the moment in particular somewhat distance ourselves from the other real core, core problem in the world. And that's, you know, global warming, a lot of the homelessness crisis an epidemic.

Gerry Scullion: Where does design sit in all of this for you? Now that you've got like the architectural background, the designing republic spaces, I'm keen to hear, and you're working in education as well in Northeastern, what do you think our roles as change makers are currently and where it's gonna go?

Lee Moreau: I mean, that's a fantastic question.

Lee Moreau: I think we're, uh, we are in the midst of, or maybe I hope. I hope we are emerging from a sort of, uh, market correction in the design world of sorts, where we saw all this sort of insourcing of design talent into [00:12:00] large organizations and large companies. We're seeing a lot of layoffs, right? Yeah. Companies are dispensing with those teams.

Lee Moreau: They're saying like, that's not important anymore. Yeah. Um.

Lee Moreau: Those are like very clear financial decisions that are being made. Frankly, they are not long-term, um, uh, decisions. And so I think what we're, that's why I refer to it as a market correction because I think the work is still there. We all know that these problems that you just described, whether they're something that we think of as tractable or not, are, um, they're present and we need to be addressing those.

Lee Moreau: So I think there's going to be a continued need for, um. The way that we manage, uh, and we help others manage the changes that are happening in our lives. I mean, my definition of design, and this is what I, what I teach, uh, is that, um, design is our hu uniquely human response to change. It's the, the one thing that we do [00:13:00] when confronted by.

Lee Moreau: Difference in the world by new tech, by new anything, right? Um, design comes to the fore whether we're doing that in our homes and this sort of like everyone is a designer kind of mode or we're doing it for others, right? Um, all of those modes of practice I kind of believe in and I think are on some sort of spectrum.

Lee Moreau: Um, as professionals, I think we have to really roll up our sleeves and get a little bit more engaged with the world around us. And I think that means getting more political. That means, uh, and I think we're starting to see, we're gonna start to see people saying like, no, this is like, I'm not gonna do that kind of work.

Lee Moreau: Um, I think we're gonna, at least in the United States, we're gonna be confronted by having to make very serious choices about whose side are you on? Um. Uh, the politicization right now that's happening. The Trump administration with Elon Musk and everything is just absolutely bonkers. Um, and we're gonna have to take sides and it's gonna, I think it's gonna [00:14:00] be, uh, a much more politically engaged set of conversations than we've had in the past, and I think that's great.

Lee Moreau: Um, and I think it's gonna make a lot of people uncomfortable. Um. But that's what we need. Um, the stu and my students all know it. Uh, and if you're in my classes, you're aware of what's coming. Uh, you're aware of the fact that even as designers, we've been signaling some of this stuff for 50 years and not really addressing the root causes.

Lee Moreau: Um, and that has to change.

Gerry Scullion: So without kind of playing too ignorant, what is coming

Lee Moreau: in?

Lee Moreau: Well, here in the United States, I think we're basically, um, we have a tyrannical leader who is going to, uh, take away a lot of access to, uh, human rights. Civil human rights. I mean, yeah, I mean, Trump is going [00:15:00] to basically make life harder. For many people who are not, uh, of the means to survive and to, um, and so those support systems which have already been eroding for decades, and we know we're aware of this and we're trying to, you know, build back better.

Lee Moreau: Great idea. But there was so much to do and, and that's all being, uh, upended right now. So, no, I think we're to, I.

Gerry Scullion: We are going back, like we're, we're taking decades, step backwards, like, you know, in terms of any of the progress we've made and anyone out there who thinks otherwise, I'd love to hear from you and get your perspective on, on why you think that might not be the case.

Gerry Scullion: But all the work that we've been doing. Jerry has,

Lee Moreau: Jerry do my, I I should, I should say before we as you, before you kind of continue. I am speaking on my own behalf. These are my own me. Organizations that I'm affiliated with, and, you know, these are my own, these are [00:16:00] my own thoughts and positions. So I just wanna put that out there before we, I get, uh, absolutely.

Lee Moreau: Yeah.

Gerry Scullion: Lee's given his own perspective on things, the way we currently see, uh, the, the version of reality that we see in front of us. But I'd love to, uh, understand, you know, there's so many happening in.

Gerry Scullion: Has not never, you know, imagined that this would be a case where designs just slashed across the board. We find ourselves at a, at a huge crossroads as designers. I feel, especially in the US at the moment, and as you said, like taking sides is one option, but you know, taking it a little bit more of a reframing thing, I'm trying to.

Gerry Scullion: Take the side of either like, you know, right or wrong, uh, I'm kind of trying to understand what's actually happening and where their perspectives are. And what I'm hearing is there's a lot of people are afraid there, there's just a lot of fear of, um, you [00:17:00] know, everything being taken away from you. Any of my American friends, most of them, uh, are kind of.

Gerry Scullion: Designers still need to put food on the table. Many of them have children and families to provide for, and it puts itself in a, in an awkward position of saying, well, actually we need to get money. Mm-hmm. Like, what does that look like for a designer in America at the moment, finds themselves outta work, who spent a lot of money going through education and thought that they were in a steady job in the.

Gerry Scullion: And healthcare is gone and mm-hmm. They, they, like, I know this is going into a really political podcast. I'm trying to understand what does the future look like for those designers? Sh should they think about leaving the states and moving into other countries? That's what a lot of my American friends have message me saying Maybe I should move to Ireland.

Gerry Scullion: Um, [00:18:00] can I sponsor? But, um, so what's your advice? Well, like you've been at design conferences and you're working with clients. What do you say to people? Like what can they do at this time to make themselves, uh, feel less at unease?

Lee Moreau: Uh, I, you know, I, I understand the, in the, uh, instinct to want to get out and remove oneself from this.

Lee Moreau: Yeah. And I think, you know, for some people that's gonna be the right choice. Um, I think there's a lot going on in the question that you're asking, so maybe we can try to unpack that. Um, I think there was to some degree, uh. Built up over time, some slightly unrealistic expectations about what design could do that were built up.

Lee Moreau: I, I feel like, um, Robert Fabricant in a couple of essays that he wrote for, uh, fast Company last year started to, to really tease this out. Um, and, you know, I, I think these were slightly unrealistic expectations. Uh, we weren't really being honest with ourselves. And when given [00:19:00] opportunity to. Really take charge and lead.

Lee Moreau: We, we didn't, we leaned up back, right? Instead of leaning in, we leaned back and we sort of said, Hey, you know, I don't know how to be a designer and to be a corporate leader or a government leader, I'm just gonna like kind of go with the flow. And we leaned away from what we do best, which is navigate change.

Lee Moreau: I think, and I, and I think obviously a lot of these layoffs, both at the corporate level and the, and the kind of government level are tremendously unfortunate. Yeah. We are going to have to come back, we're going to have to rebuild. This thing that we're seeing happening right now is super detrimental.

Lee Moreau: Yeah. But I, I find there's a bit of hope in watching an administration completely dismantle, um, all of the things that we built in the last, let's say 75 years to a hundred years. Right. Um, in terms of, uh, the social sector, um, uh, and support systems here in this, in this country. Because I know we can build back.

Lee Moreau: Yeah, absolutely. If you can [00:20:00] dismantle something, we can, I don't know if, is this a word to mantle something, you know, TLE? Yeah,

Gerry Scullion: yeah, yeah. Rebuild made it up. It's, uh, it's to tomorrow wise a word

Lee Moreau: that I like that. Okay. We'll go with tomorrow wise. Um, I, I think the, this is all going to be therefore us. The question is, can we take care of one another in this interim as designers in this interim?

Lee Moreau: Large tech companies, um, I think are also our, our, um, kind of benefits models for what the designer's expectations for what they should be paid became as inflated as the tech sector in the last 15 years. I think that was maybe confusing us a little bit. You saw people jumping off to meta and other companies and making.

Lee Moreau: Two or three times their salary. It's hard to come back from that. Right? But that is the sort of market correction I think we're dealing with. Um, but I still think that the needs of human beings are there. [00:21:00] Fundamentally, the work is gonna have to get done. We're just have to find different ways to do it.

Lee Moreau: Um, and I live in Boston, so put this in context because I've got, we have a, a, a very progressive mayor who is going to put the effort in to filling the gap. Yeah. And, and where the federal government is going to kind of back away, so that, that does give me hope as well

Gerry Scullion: for the future. Definitely. I mean, you, you're right about that.

Gerry Scullion: This administration is destroying all of that work and. Does give us an opportunity to rebuild, and this is where design can be at the center of that conversation. But it does, does give us that kind of like second level horizon of how do we get to that point, um, without leaving and designers leaving and becoming something else where they can, you know, I don't know, put food on the table and we, we could be at risk of, of losing, you know, tens or hundreds of thousands of, in the states to other professions at some point.[00:22:00]

Gerry Scullion: It's a.

Lee Moreau: Sorry, Jerry, that wouldn't be the worst thing in the world. Hmm. Uh, you know what I love? What I love most about designers is our adaptability and our ability to flex and to find opportunities to make a difference wherever we are. And if designers leave the, quote unquote, leave the discipline and go use those same design tools in other modes elsewhere, that's actually probably the best possible outcome because,

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