WHY ARE
solutions
not solving?
Beyond fixes that fail
As levels of uncertainty increase, so does the temptation to seek comfort in tangible solutions. We see more and more rhetoric of building a regenerative future, better world, and positive change, which more often than not results in greenwashing, performativity, sustainability-as-usual, and failed inclusion, leaving us to collectively drown in a sea of fixes that fail. That’s because traditional solutionism is not only insufficient in addressing complex challenges, but also often perpetuates the very harms the solutions are trying to solve. Most processes don’t create the space to hold the complexity, uncertainty, durations, and ambiguity for their solutions. How do we start getting our solutions to actually solve for the complexity of the world that we currently live in?
it all
starts in
the room
What’s invited and excluded in your rooms?
We believe that solutions that solve problems are not over there but in here. Rooms are intentionally insular spaces that allow us to design conditions that open up groups and possibilities to new ways of understanding, seeing, and acting. As Olúfẹḿi O. Táíwò proactively asks, can “we build the kinds of rooms in which we can sit together, rather than merely seek to navigate more gracefully the rooms history has built for us.” Just like the world outside, most rooms divide. It takes inspired design, courageous facilitation, and committed groups for rooms to prefigure the very worlds we’re trying to create. To become spaces that expand notions and possibilities—that break status quo cycles and socialized norms.
While some rooms have four walls, not every one needs to nor should. Rooms are what and where we make them. We frequently find ourselves sitting in circle on a forest floor or by the warmth of a campfire and in those little square virtual boxes bringing people together across vast locations.
No matter where they are, our rooms often share these characteristics:
(un)Learning
Lighting that illuminates assumptions and biases through sharing perspectives, experiences, and inquiries.
Disequilibrium
Flooring to dance between conflicting realities and contexts.
Patterning
Colours and shapes that open new ways of seeing and visioning.
Accountability
Furniture that contours to each person’s shape enabling the group to be fully held and supported exactly as they are.
