Stimulating design creativity by public places in academic buildings

Design creativity is constrained by the limitations of knowledge of a given designer or even of a design team. Also, each design process is a dynamic process because novel design ideas may emerge spontaneously and their occurrence is unpredictable. One way to increase the probability that novel ideas are produced is to provide designers with additional knowledge, which will expand their design space. The other way is to create an environment stimulating generation of novel ideas. Such an environment should allow and encourage reflection, relaxation, formal and informal interaction among people, and knowledge sharing. The concept of structural hole in sociology is introduced and extended by distinguishing three classes of structural holes: domain, thinking, and working structural holes. It is postulated that an environment with abundance of structural holes can be created by proper public places. Such places should be comfortable to stay and easily accessible and they could be, for example, entrance halls, restaurants, activity centers, or corridors, which are discussed in the paper.