THE EXPERIENCE DESIGNER

Tim Kobe is the Founder and CEO of Eight Inc., best known for conceptualising the original brick-and-mortar Apple Store. He shares the principles behind what drives his multi-disciplinary practice.

- Low Shi Ping

THE SECRET IS EXPERIENCE DESIGN: The ultimate value of architecture is the experience that people have with it. It is what makes architecture wonderful. When you think about designing for human outcomes, the experience that people have when they engage with your client should fundamentally be the most important aspect of your work. There is a narrative that goes into that and it is important to study, understand and apply it.

We worked with Steve Jobs for 12 years when he was running Apple. He didn’t talk first about the shape of things or materials. He talked about what it did for people. And then he made the most beautiful objects, with the greatest care in crafting them. But his focus was on the human outcome first, because it’s the only way you create design that has meaning.

HOW THE DEVIATION CAME ABOUT: In architecture school in the old days, the discussion was always around the ways of viewing architecture – be it through hand drawings, renderings or three-dimensional models. That meant the form and shape of buildings were at the forefront of the critique. But these were only one small piece of what good design is about.