ABSTRACT
This chapter looks at the role of design leadership in helping with the requirement to understand future needs when making significant investment in infrastructure development. It illustrates how a clear vision can help shape that investment and the design responses that they depend on. The chapter shows how by putting received wisdom to one side a new attitude of mind can be created in the design team and how this enabled a new benchmark in airport terminal design to be developed. The UK's Design Council closely followed the role of design in this project and the case that follows was documented in close collaboration with them. The project was launched with an architectural competition, to which leading architects were invited to pitch for the design concept work. The UK Government required that all major developments must be approved through a formal consultation process, whereby stakeholders had the opportunity to comment and reject the proposal if they wished to.
