LES MAISONS D’OISEAUX ECHANTILLONS

On track for a future LEED Heavy Metal rating, this exclusive collection of absolutely Net-Zero, 100% re-cycled, hand-crafted, lo-flow, formaldyhyde free (maybe), arbor-infill, no off-gassing, off the grid, anti-mansions are so small, they only need five points for LEED Platinum and promise to deliver a very HIGH level of volatile organic compounds for years to come.

Made entirely from old product samples found in the office, they are truely for the birds, but we didn’t actually consult with the birds because that might encourage NIMBYism.

This green (brown, blue, red, etc…) initiative by DNM Architect may pigeon-hole the firm at the top of the birditect pecking order, but we have swallowed our pride and ducked additional commission to avoid robin’ other architects the chance to thrush to our flock.

My first LEED home (so far)

While all of the houses DNM Architect has designed recently are some shade of green, and a recent house in Sonoma is even tracking 191 points on Green Point Rating system, I have never had the opportunity to work with the USGBC LEED rating system.

A new house underway in San Francisco, however, has offered the ideal set of conditions to register for LEED for Homes certification, and we are setting sail (alternative renewable energy, that’s good!) towards a LEED Platinum rating.

First, it is important to understand what LEED is, and is not, and why it is frequently not a very compelling program for custom residential work. LEED is simply a third party certification of the various “green” strategies, materials and features incorporated in a given design. Having an expert on board, and adhering to the process required to complete the LEED checklist, will almost certainly yield a greener design than not having this expert on the team, but this is a potential advantage of LEED, not an inherent advantage. A LEED certified home is not any “greener” than an identical non-certified home; merely, its claims to being green have been inspected and certified by an independent expert, called a LEED Green Rater. And, this certification process has a cost.

The decision path that led us to register our project for LEED for Homes was short, straight and not driven by any ideological desire to promote green or make a statement. It was almost entirely a financial decision.

When I started the project, my client was not more or less neutral on the idea of “green” design and energy efficiency. He was not opposed, as long as it did not add cost or compromise his other priorities for a high-quality, spectacular modern design exploiting killer downtown views to the north. We were given three primary goals: complete the project under budget, by the end of 2013, and in such a way that its appraised value is 25% greater than its cost.

We finally decided to register for LEED for Homes based on three factors:

1. Although no one can quantify it yet, we are confident that it adds some value to the property, and that this value will only increase as USGBC continues to build the LEED brand,
2. Because a LEED for Homes is still a novelty, we are confidant that being part of this program will increase publicity for the house. Being published in recognized magazines, does add value to the property,
3. The client enjoys and values being on the cutting edge. Being a leader in the green movement (OK, not a very early leader) has value for him.

We have registered for LEED for Homes and held our first meeting with our Green Rater, Kirk Russell of Strategic Green LLC. After reviewing the design and checklist, we are targeting a Platimum rating. The design is still in design development phase, and I am looking forward to posting images and tracking our progress through the LEED system in future blog posts.

Things I learned from my former employer but didn’t appreciate at the time.

I was lucky after graduating from architecture school to land a great position with a small architecture firm in Atlanta, Taylor + Williams, Architects. My primary responsibility was to act as project architect for a very large custom estate in north Georgia, with a big emphasis on the word, “act.” As a recent proud graduate of the Howard Rourke School of Beauxarchitecture, I see only now that I was too confidant in my own abilities and under appreciative of others.

Soon after starting this dream job, our young clients came to visit the office to see our progress and discuss some outstanding design issues. We gathered near my desk to look at drawings and a model I had built. I cannot recall exactly the issues, but I do recall contradicting and correcting my boss, Richard Taylor’s, words over and over as he valiantly diverted my headstrong remarks into friendlier waters and our clients (who have remained good friends) looked on both incredulously and sympathetically, for him.

Redfaced, he valiantly patronized, parsed and persisted. At some point, the meeting ended (like my young career!), the clients exited the office, and Richard returned without a word to his office. All was quiet. I returned to my desk; my colleagues were silent before a dead man. Soon, I received a summons from his office, “MARLATT! GET IN HERE!”

The office in which Richard held court was a large parlor of an old Victorian townhome. I entered at one end to find him behind his desk, perhaps 16 feet away, in shadow with his back to the large bay window and the Atlanta skyline in the distant background. An Atlanta legend among architects, Richard is 6’-4” with large hands and a larger personality. He has won design awards, sought buried planes in Greenland, and owned bars. He is an avid pilot and even owns his own small plane that we would use to visit job sites, even when it probably made more sense to drive.

“MARLATT! DO YOU KNOW WHAT THEY SAY ABOUT PILOTS?”

“Uh, no, Richard…” (where was this going with this?)

“THERE ARE TWO TYPES OF PILOTS IN THE WORLD! DO YOU KNOW WHAT THEY ARE?” (even I could understand this question was rhetorical)

“THOSE WHO HAVE LANDED WITH THEIR WHEELS UP, AND THOSE WHO HAVE NOTYET LANDED WITH THEIR WHEELS UP!”

His eyes alit, he suddenly laughed, emerged from behind his desk, extended his hand, and bellowed,

“WELCOME TO THE CLUB!”

While I stood stunned, but with my appendages and employment intact, Richard took his usual place on the sofa and, with Sharpie and paper on the marble coffee table, began a debriefing of our disastrous meeting. At some point, I sat down. Point by point, he reviewed where I was right but acted badly, where I was wrong (and acted badly), which ideas I should continue to develop and which ones to drop and why. He would speak soon to our clients to explain my impertinence and the next time we would better prepare ourselves to act as a team. We talked about who is boss, who is not, and why.

I don’t think that lessons are drawn simply and fully from single anecdotes, but this experience clearly set me on a path – upon which I would make many morewheels-up landings - towards understanding that the business of architecture is a team sport. A team player respects his or her colleagues and supports the entire team – including consultants - until there is no alternative. You learn to play your position on the team, or you get off the team. Richard and I were both unprepared; we should have practiced what we planned to show and say. Surprising your adversary can be good; surprising your teammate is almost always bad.

I also began to learn that clients can be both friends and friendly, but if you intend to stay in business, they exist to pay for services and results. Time spent watching internal disputes unfold is not billable time. Clients do not need, want, or value posturing and squabbling.

Finally, interwoven with these lessons, Richard’s discipline to keep the client meeting on track when he probably should have just slapped me, and then to quickly turn this entire episode into a “teachable moment” for the benefit of the client and project, is an example to which I still aspire in my own business. 

Architect Lexicon: Challenge

CHALLENGE | OPPORTUNITY | OBSTACLE

We often say that we don’t like problems, but, in fact, we can’t live without them. More precisely, we can’t make a living without them. Problems are so important, that architects (most professions, actually) have three words for them.

Challenge: Any problem before it has been analyzed.
“Well, Ms Jones, razing a landmark orphanage to construct a seven story house 30 feet above the height limit certainly sounds like a (insert adjective here*) challenge!”

Opportunity: A problem for which there might be an architectural solution.
“However, we may have an opportunity to receive a variance by mitigating the neighbor’s concerns by enhancing the streetscape and providing carbon offsets (i.e. improve their views and plant trees)”

Obstacle: All other problems
“But, this challenge is not without significant obstacles: the law, for example.”

* The adjective really tells the story. For example:
1. “exciting” - Ms Jones has money,
2. “daunting” - Ms Jones has no money,
3. “impossible and unethical” - Ms Jones works for the planning department. 

Architect Lexicon: Inform

Like all professions, architects share a jargon that can be confusing to clients and other mortals. Many words are useful and inevitable shorthand that improve our efficiency, some are silly but harmless, but some words reflect habits that we pick up in school and don’t question enough later in life. 

For example, everyone is familiar with personification, the attribution of human traits to objects as in “the angry sky cried tears of rain as the wind howled.” Architects, however, sometimes apply this literary device to abstract ideas by claiming - with great sincerity -that one idea can “inform” another idea. For example, “the design’s Palladian classical parti* ‘informed’ our decision to ignore the client’s budget.” This is generally followed by a more appropriate use of the verb “inform,” as in, “the client informed the architect to try again.”

Using personification to breathe life into the inanimate is an invaluable literary device, but personifying concepts and ideas is, at best, a wasteful mannerism, and, at worst, a sure sign of the speaker’s lack of security in the idea being conveyed. By claiming that an idea “informed” a decision, the architect is shifting responsibility and keeping a distance from his or her own choices. It is a way of saying that he or she does not understand, cannot defend, or cannot articulate the reasons behind the choice or decision that was made.

Ideas exist in the mind, and they don’t talk to the decisions (who are too pig-headed to listen, anyway). They are not independent actors or outside consultants to the design process. The architect is not a spectator, but the conductor of an orchestra of ideas. I, the architect, research, analyze, discard, and sculpt many ideas until, wrongly or rightly, I form an opinion and make a decision.

Then, I inform the client that we are over budget…

* parti: the basic organization of a design. You are unlikely to receive an evite for a parti.

Seeking Clients Seeking Architects

For more than 10 years, I have subscribed to an internet service that forwards prospective clients to me. Someone - almost always a homeowner - enters some basic information about his or her project into this search engine and hits “send.” If the project is in the San Francisco bay area, I receive an email with this person’s contact details and whatever additional information he or she provided. A small number of other architect/subscribers receive the same email. It is then up to each of us to contact the sender and “close the sale” by whatever means we deem appropriate.

This is a pretty bad way to look for an architect and not a very enjoyable way for an architect to find clients. Rather than meet only local architects with some specific experience in his or her type of project, the prospect is contacted by a random set of those architects who happen to subscribe to the internet service. Most residential clients will hire an architect only once or twice in their lives, but the search engine tries to reduce the selection process to something similar to choosing a plumber or a pizza.

But, world is far from perfect, and for people who have no other access to architects through friends or work colleagues (sorry AIA, few people outside of the profession know that you exist), this method presents their least worst alternative. I have won and lost many jobs using this search engine. My ego informs me that the clients who chose me “got lucky,” but I have also been frustrated to lose work to architects whose key qualification was apparently to place their call 10-20 minutes before mine. Who would select an architect based on speed dialing? Answer: someone who does not understand or appreciate architecture.

Rather than treat this strange method of finding an architect as a problem, however, we should see it as a symptom of three greater problems. First, the majority of people who seek an architect for a residential or small project have a very limited understanding of what an architect actually does. They may have been told (by a builder, building official, or friend) that they “need” an architect. They don’t see their building as a problem; their “problem” is that they need an architect.  During my initial contact, I am frequently challenged to position my services as something more than a code-mandated evil. It’s not their fault; the precious little consumer information that I have seen about architects is either simplistic or has the appeal of one of those brochures a doctor might give you to explain some disease you’ve contracted. I think some people understand architecture only as a treatable skin condition.

Secondly, these same good people, having never used an architect before and not understanding his or her function, naturally underappreciate the added value that good design brings to a building. This includes not only intrinsic values such as light, air, space and organization, but measureable values such as increased resale price, greater efficiency of space, materials and time, and reduced errors and changes. Invariably, clients come to understand these potential values after their project is complete, but by then their understanding may come through regret over missed opportunity rather than recognition of a project that exceeded their expectations.

And, thirdly, it is far too difficult for people who want to build to find architects, and for architects to find people ready to build. It’s a great disconnect. Here we have two groups motivated to meet each other, but with some exceptions, they don’t. Architects are ready and willing to explain what they do to anyone interested (and frequently to anyone not interested!), but those interested people refuse to congregate in one place. They don’t all read the same magazine or belong to the American Institute of Potential Clients. Conversely, potential clients would love to be educated about architecture, but most of them don’t know it yet! They just know that they are confused and anxious about a huge commitment to building. They know their own symptoms, but there is no one to provide the diagnosis.

I don’t see any simple solutions to these problems because architecture is an extremely low-volume / high-value activity and these problems all imply broad investments in education and promotion. Nevertheless, I do believe that real progress can be made by focusing efforts on a few targets.

For example, there is a 100% correlation between people who might hire an architect and money. It takes money to build so the AIA should focus on where the money is. People with money tend to have investment advisors who are always trying to reinforce their own value to their clients so that they remain loyal investors. Rather than tweet every dreamer that “likes” Dwell and might attend a home tour, the AIA should partner with Fidelity, Schwab, Vanguard and other investment firms to offer educational seminars about architecture (combined with financing options, of course). Like retirement and college planning, hiring an architect should become an aspirational dream!, not a skin condition to be treated.

There are already some programs that promote good design as good business, but they focus only on commercial work. The federal government also does a commendable job promoting good design. On the residential end of the spectrum, however, there are only complaints about the home appraisal profession and its blindness towards the value of quality over quantity. This seems to me to be a worthwhile target for the AIA’s lobbying arm. If the value of good design in commercial projects can be quantified in terms of staff retention, building value and cost efficiency, certainly there is enough historic data to measure the extra value of a well-designed home. If we don’t believe that, we need to change our line of work. The AIA can work with the appraisal industry to find ways to identify and quantify these criteria. With persistence, the AIA’s objective should be add something like “design stamped by an architect” to an appraisal report with a dollar value attached to it.

Improving the way that people can find architects and vice versa may always be difficult and expensive because this is fundamentally about exposure in a world packed with competition. It is hard to afford a constant rain of publicity when our cash flow model looks more like lightening striking. Some simple grass roots type efforts might help, however, such as AIA organized “architect’s fairs” in city neighborhoods where local residents can simply converse with architects, and architects can meet interested people. These can be inexpensive events, taking place in local schools or churches, and perhaps coupled with contractors, a building official and a planner.

Focus, simplicity and persistence can yield incremental and constant improvement. There can always be a place for using a search engine to find an architect, but the person who is doing the seeking and the architect who is found will be better served if our profession can better communicate to potential clients what we do and why it is valuable. 

Creativity, Beauty, and Morality

Creativity, Beauty, and Morality are the standards by which every work of art, including architecture, should be evaluated. The absence of any one of these qualities from a work renders it something other than art. I plan / intend / hope to develop these ideas further in subsequent blogs.

Before developing ideas about Creativity, Beauty, and Morality, however, we have to must accept another basic premise that nothing is created from nothing. Every seemingly original work has a context and is derived from some preceding work(s), either as its logical extension or its rejection. This is not a radical or even original premise, but it is critical: an  Einsteinian concept of a universe where total energy remains constant can be applied to art. Artists and architects do not create something from nothing. Sometimes physically and sometimes metaphorically, they only rearrange and re-express qualities of an existing universe in fresh objects and expressions. Creativity can be characterized as connecting the same old dots in unforeseen and interesting patterns. This is no way diminishes the achievements of artists and architects, rather, it reinforces the idea that the potential for art is everywhere among us at all times, waiting to be extracted by the artist’s fresh vision of stale parts.

Creativity is a function of Destruction.

¨       There is no creation without destruction (of buildings, trees, ozone, ideas, values, preconceptions, etc….). Since creation is a new arrangement of existing parts, the old arrangement has to make way for the new.

¨       The creative process is necessarily one of erasing and redrawing patterns, tearing down and rebuilding ideas.

¨       When evaluating the creativity of a work, look at its shadow. What has been erased or disrupted by the current work? What is the cost of this disruption? Is the value of what is lost greater or less than the value of what is replacing it?

Beauty is a function of Order.

¨       Beauty is finding the inherent order within a set of elements. It might be an obvious static order such as a geometric pattern or an evolving dynamic order like a trigonometric function.

¨       Order only has to reference itself to be successful. Does the work establish an internal logic and follow it?

¨       Order can also reference external sources, but still must respect its own rules about how to treat the reference. Is the order derived from historical precedent, from other disciplines, from nature, from theory, or from something else?

¨       A work can be creative and beautiful in a single act by destroying a preconception of a previous order and replacing it with a new order. Gehry’s Guggenheim Museum in Bilbao is an example of destroying/replacing both formal notions of building form and cultural notions of a gritty riverfront in northern Spain into a cultural destination.

Morality is a function of Net Gain.

¨       There is no absolute scale to measure it, but a work should be a net gain over what was destroyed in order to be considered “good” or “moral.” Remember that when something is new, something else is always lost. We have to find and weigh this loss to judge the morality of the work.

¨       Fundamentally, we must always ask, “Is it ‘worth’ it?” A new building may be both creative and beautiful, but is it more creative and beautiful than the previous landmark that it replaced? Is the new work worth the loss of old trees or even of old traditions, communities, and ideas that link present day society to its past?

¨       The answer to the question, “Is it worth it?” is always subjective and subject to change over time, but it must be ‘yes,’ for a work to pass from a willful or gratuitous expression of ego to the sublime designation of a work of art.

Creation without beauty = anarchy.

¨       When the thing created brings no order, It is simply destruction and often a political act.

¨       Sometimes simple destruction is necessary to clear away major obstacles to future expressions of beauty. For example, the music of the Sex Pistols might be considered simply destructive (it was intentionally and provocatively not beautiful), but paved the way for more refined music from REM, Elvis Costello, The Police, etc…

Beauty without destruction = banality.

¨       It is usually just the blind and uninformed application of old rules to new situations. Nothing is invented, nothing is disturbed.

¨       It is characterized by timidity and conformity. Worse: it is BORING.

Morality without both destruction AND beauty = impossible.

¨       Morality can only be measured as the balance between beauty and its prerequisite destruction. Without both, the equation is missing variable and incomplete.  We cannot take a position on the morality of a work because we are missing information.

¨       A political act of destruction (i.e. creation without beauty) can be judged as morally good or bad, but this is not an artistic judgment, so outside of this discussion.

Distinguishing Profession from Business

Richard Farson, a former AIA Public Director, has a good article in the current issue of arcCA, the journal of the AIA California Counci. Click here for the entire article

The paragraph that resonated most with me (and should with any professional) is:

“(The AIA) has to make a distinction as to whether architecture is a business or a profession. Not that it can’t be both, but they are not the same. Business serves “wants,” professions serve “needs.” If architects intend to serve great public interests, they must be able to exercise professional judgment. They cannot commoditize themselves, serve only market interests, or become subordinate to their clients. The AIA could be immensely helpful in supporting such a professional posture, even when architects are serving business. Lawyers, physicians, professors, accountants all serve businesses, but as professionals. Indeed, it is their professional judgment that business needs most.”

And, he concludes:

“The future of our democracy, indeed the future of our nation, is deeply threatened. Our infrastructure, both physical and social, needs to be completely redesigned. Yes, redesigned. Architects have our future in their hands. Will they answer that calling?

Let’s keep reminding them that they still have that secret weapon, that beautiful and reliable mystique.”

Joining the AI…ehhh

I am a loyal, frustrated, enthusiastic, passive member of the American Institute of Architects (AIA). I watch it commit tactical errors, abandon initiatives, be fleeced by corporate sponsors (full disclosure: I was one such sponsor in a past career), and generally spend too much time looking in the mirror. Its punitive dues structure reminds me of the Middle Age window tax, which left us only with fewer windows and the Mansard roof.  Indeed, I don’t have strong feelings about the AIA, but I DO feel strongly about architecture as a way of thinking, as a practice and as a profession. And, it is a simple reality that the AIA is the only enterprise with even a whisper of a hope of translating my personal passion into the collective action required to defend it. Therefore, I am a member - not reluctantly - but with reservations and a wary eye.

But, lest I appear as arrogant as I actually am, I’ll add that I am also a guilty member. I pay my dues to the Institute, but not what is due my profession. No one needs to tell me what to do for the AIA; I’m already over-educated. For every good reason to participate, I’ll pay you five to procrastinate. I just need to budget my time and make it a priority to contribute to rather than abandon the Institute because, as Ben Franklin may have actually said, “if we don’t hang together, we will surely hang separately.” I promise. I’m getting to it. Soon. Really.

Most architects have heard the old cliché that architecture is a great profession, but a lousy business. It’s true for too many architects, but it is a lousy business because it is a WEAK profession. Our talent to think creatively as individuals undermines the imperative to act collectively as an industry. We’re bad lemmings.

We don’t appreciate that architecture is still a young profession that is not as universally accepted, understood or respected as our peers in medicine and law. Although buildings were obviously being designed by individuals and groups for centuries, the idea that the practice of architecture might be a “profession” was born only in the late 18th century as a preoccupation for gentlemen (and it sadly remains a hobby for many of us). The Architect’s Club, founded in England in 1791, was one of the first architectural societies and admitted only members of the Royal Academy or other fine arts academies. The first professional organizations did not begin until the early 19th century in Europe and the US with the formation, in December 1836, of the American Institution of Architects by Thomas U. Walter and a handful of Northeastern architects. 

The profession evolved gradually during the late 19th century in the US and Europe, but licensing and protection of the title, “architect”, were not pervasive until well into the 20th century. By this measure, our profession is not yet a century old. Architects like to trace their roots to “master builders” of centuries past - and even as far as the Egyptian god, Imhoptep (my gods, we’re egotistical!) - but it is unclear whether the modern equivalent of yesterday’s “master builder” translates into today’s architect or is, in fact, just a general contractor.

Far from being an organization struggling for relevancy past its prime, I believe that the AIA is struggling with the profession’s adolescence. As a father of teenage boys, I actually know something about this. The hard work of defining and defending territory is not pretty, but it is essential for to grow and prosper. Architects may represent the last bastion of generalist three-dimensional thinking in a world beset with problems.  Only through organization, however, can we make our case to the world of how good we are as a group, while elevating ourselves individually to actually become as good as we claim. Our organization is the AIA.

Choosing an Architect

Architectural firms come in many sizes and types and they are not all appropriate for you and your project. The average firm is made up of 5 to 10 people, but many are smaller (1 to 2 people), and some have over 100 architects on their staff. Some firms specialize in one or more project types, others do not. Some have structural, mechanical or electrical engineers on their staff, while others select the consultant most appropriate to work for them for each specific project. Each architectural firm brings a different combination of skills, experience, interest, and values to its projects. 

The first challenge is typically to identify a list of potential architects. The reality of the architecture business is that firms cannot spend much on marketing themselves so you may not even be aware of the firms that are around you. The architect of your wife’s friend’s kitchen or you child’s pre-school may, or may not, be the best choice you.

Ask friends and colleagues who have worked with architects for referrals. Use Google (you will anyway), and check out listing services that feature design that you like such as Houzz.com. Find out who designed the homes you like by looking up their address on the permit section of your city’s building department website. Consult your local chapter of the American Institute of Architects for member firms that specialize in your type of project.

1. What do you see as important issues or considerations in your project? What are the challenges of the project?
2. How will you approach my project? What are the first steps?
3. What is your design philosophy, and how will it apply to my project?
4. How much time should I budget for the design phase and obtaining a permit?
5. How will you gather information about my needs, goals, etc.?
6. How will you help me establish priorities and make decisions?
7. What is your process for taking my project from our first meetings through construction?
8. Who from your firm will be dealing with me directly? Is that the same person who will be designing the project?
9. Who will be designing my project?
10. How busy are you? How many projects do you typically carry at once and how many do you have now?
11. What sets you apart from other architects?
12. What would you expect the fee to be for this project? What is included and what is excluded?
13. If the scope of the project changes later in the project, will there be additional fees? How will these fees be justified?
14. How do you handle incidental charges and mark-ups for expenses?
15. What does your typical contract look like? Does it follow the AIA contract form or another?
16. What do you expect me to provide?
17. What will you show me to explain the project? Will you produce renderings, models, drawings, or sketches?
18. What services do you provide during construction?
19. How disruptive will construction be? How long do you expect it to take to complete your project?
20. Can you provide a list of past clients that your firm has worked with?