Harrison Owen
AT&T
had an interesting problem. The design team they had assembled to create their
pavilion for the ‘96 Olympics had lived up to all expectations. The design, in
fact, was so good that AT&T was invited to move its pavilion from the edge
of the Olympic Village to dead center. Since exposure was the name of the game,
and $200,000,000 was riding on the project, making the move was an easy
decision. There was, however one small problem. At the edge of the Global
Village, 5000 visitors per day could be expected. At the center that number
moved up dramatically: 75,000 people at the gate. Talk about exposure, but
clearly a structure designed for 5000 would not accommodate 75,000. To make
matters worse, the original design had taken 10 months to complete, and it was
now December with the Olympics a bare six months away.
The
23 member design team was a dispirited group when they assembled to meet the
challenge. The knew they were good, and given the time, could easily rise to
the occasion. But the time was not there. As they sat in a circle, preparing to
engage in what they perceived to be a very doubtful enterprise called Open
Space Technology, one of their number was heard to comment, “I think we are
about ready to turn a disaster into a catastrophe.”
Two
days later, the atmosphere was rather different. A totally new design had been
created down to the level of working drawings, and everybody agreed that
aesthetically it was much better than the earlier one. In terms of
implementation, they were actually further along with the new design than they
had been with the old one, for as they planned they were also ordering up
materials for delivery. Perhaps most importantly, everybody was still talking
to each other, and some even described the undertaking as “fun,” complaining
only that they should have used Open Space the first time.
For more
information contact Peggy Holman