I think we have a hard time understanding the reality of our situation. Though I do like the idea of a PBS commercial explaining why we are valuable, I think the real problem is us. We are completely out of touch when it comes to the economics of home building for middle class people. The average middle class person simply doesn't make enough money to afford a 5 figure expense for drawings when they only make about $50K a year. The people aren't likely to pay half their annual salary just because we claim we can catch windows located less than 24" from the floor (that can be there provided the glazing is tempered). The builders I work with are very knowledgeable about Residential Code and I think this expert stance isn't enough when it seems redundant to most people. You pick a bad Builder or bad Architect and your egress windows may end up too small. It sounds too much like we're selling them an extended insurance policy they don't really need. We have to prove design matters by actually designing for them for a fee and list of services that's appropriate for their budget & needs. We can't tell regular people that they have to buy a Rolex if they want to know what time it is. We need to provide a nice Timex that they can afford.
Unless the Builders in your area are already spending 5 figures for each design, then it isn't likely your middle class client will convince a bank to include that expense in the lending. This is why Appraisals are so important. The bank isn't going to lend more than what the Appraiser values the project for. They are simply averaging the recent sales in your area, so we share value with our community of competitors. Anything smaller or larger, too cheap or too expensive will not be valued near the same per sq ft as the houses in the middle due to the simple mathematics of averaging. People have to come out of pocket for design, because the bank won't talk without presenting them with a Schematic Design first. The mass producer simply shows up to the bank with the same plan that has sold at market over and over. They see this as a favorable scenario. When my builders approach them with unique designs they meet skepticism because the design is unproven at market. Even after years of consistently selling the top comps in my area, the banks still see more comfort in lending on a mass produced design that has a sales history, despite the fact that their sales are consistently the lowest, these are the guys caught with multiple copies not selling after the crash, and my houses tend to sell before they're finished while the others tend to spend more time on the shelf. When the builders start noticing you're behind the designs that sell, they will see you as valuable.
I used to be of the arrogant mindset that middle class people need to be educated out of their tackiness. It's their fault for not understanding good design. The reality is that most people are not necessarily attached to any one type of design or style. Functionality and every day living are the most important reason for making the final decision. All it takes is one awkward moment or space and a perfectly good design is deemed undesirable. Unfortunately, regular people aren't exactly offered a great selection of quality. It's like going to Walmart. There are hundreds of flat screen TVs that are all pretty much the same quality, same price range, and pretty much look the same. You don't see a diamond encrusted model or a designer Gucci model. It appears like there are many choices, yet it's all pretty much the same cheap Chinese made stuff. The real problem is that we think the people are the reason we're not connecting, yet we can't see our role in the problem. If you price your customer out of your product, then you lose the customer. This is the root of the Housing Crisis, we simply priced everyone out of affording a home by pushing values up well beyond wages. After each crisis destroys our profession, we find a way to add more services, but not more clients. Our lousy business strategy has been to sell more services to the same people at a discount, thus working ourselves more for less money.
We aren't going to convince anyone to spend more money on an "expert" insurance policy at a time like this. We aren't going to force people to use us by requiring stamps until we are already integrated into the typical process, economically. We can only raise our worth by showing more people what we can do. Trust me, I'm the angriest when my houses sell themselves and the realtor walks away with 2-4x more than my fee. WHY? Because the realtor has made themselves valuable like we have not. The builders will pay dearly for the inside info on the next best property that hasn't been advertised yet. They are the centers of information. They tell the builders what's selling, who is looking for what, and ultimately they bring the buyer that puts money in the builder's pockets. What are we offering that's not already being handled, though poorly, none the less making us seem like an expensive, redundant "expert". This is like selling a middle class person a Gucci for $4000.00 or a very similar knock off Gucce for $40.
Regular people appreciate good design as much as anyone. We have to make it available first. It's our fault this isn't happening, not because middle class people are tacky and don't understand that our stuff is better. 80% of all new houses are spec houses. We need to become a serious part of that delivery method if we want to affect the majority of people. Most of us want to leave behind a legacy like Wright's, so reinventing the wheel tends to go hand in hand with modern design. After interviewing hundreds of clients over the years, I can say that modern design "style" isn't what turns people off. Most folks don't mind the look, it's the fact that we tend to use "modern" as an excuse to drop the ball when it comes to the practical functionality of the house. Form is more important than Function. I never hear complaints about storefront glazing, steel beams, etc. It's always about things like the all too common master suite on the second level by itself with the kid's rooms on the main. My favorite that I've seen more than once is the master suite opening up like a loft to a two story space over the family room. I'm sure this makes a pretty cool building section. This might be OK for Charlie Sheen, but parents have a hard enough time finding "alone time", so we create a form similar to the sound box of an acoustic guitar and point it at the main public space? The perception is that Modern design is full of wheel reinventions that roll like cubes or ellipses, so please make sure the house works good AND looks good. Invention is in our nature, so make a virtue of necessity. Reinvention can be deadly, as the original intent of the invention is not consistent with the reasoning behind reinventing it.
Builders can't sell in volume, so they are looking for another avenue to make profit. In the last year I've worked for 4 new builders. They are realizing that quality is the only way to profit from a lack of quantity. These guys are used to building with very little info. Strip your services down to the bare minimum of what the code official requires and let the builder handle the rest. If the price is right, they'll give you each lot for a unique design and you'll break their cookie cutter mentality. You'll find yourself making better money per hour providing the minimum set up fee over bundling services for a discount on larger work. Even at a time like this, there aren't enough licensed Architects to satisfy the current housing need. We can expect lots of quantity in this market of clientele. 3% vs 97% of the population, think about it.
If you don't design spec houses, then no one will know what your work is worth. A 10-20 year old Architectural house that sells at used prices will make your work appear less valuable than a new builder box. This is why we look over priced. No one knew I was valuable before more than one builder had the same sales results using my designs. Our society has this much contempt toward the value of design. They rationalize how it was the builder, the location, the cunning salesmanship of the realtor. They're all too used to mass production and design meaning little in the equation. At a certain point they ran out of reasons and had to accept that it just might be the design that is creating the added desire. Eventually I was the only thing consistent in the equation. We need all of our areas to come to this realization and there has never been a better time than now to get the Builders hooked on Design. I promise, if we insert ourselves into this sector now, we will see our worth skyrocket in the future. If we go from designing 1% of spec houses to 50%, then our numbers will have to quadruple. Could you imagine our lobbying possibilities if we actually had some real numbers? AIA, could you imagine quadrupling your membership dues? We need to make changes to the way we do business to include a larger cross section of society if we want design to matter to this cross section. We can't expect people to desire us first by showing them a cool bank design and charging bank design prices. We need to prove our value for a price they can afford and eventually they won't want to live without us. That's when our worth goes up! We can't expect this to work in reverse and that's what I hear when we talk about commercials educating people into paying a lot of money for drawings when they've been getting along without us. If you have to use crack dealer tactics and practically give it away the first time, each mass produced plan we pull off the streets and replace it with unique Architectural designs, the sooner people will understand the value of good design. I appreciate the emails from those of you already seeing some success at reaching out to this market. Some are already hiring because of the increased work load. Keep up the good work! It's like paid community service!
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Eric Rawlings AIA
Owner
Rawlings Design, Inc.
Decatur GA
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Original Message:
Sent: 12-15-2011 00:32
From: Rand Soellner
Subject: CRAN Committee Attends Reinvention, Requests your feedback
Bless you, Allen, for your thoughtful suggestions.
I might have one other, off the top of my head: PBS commercials about residential architects, and the extremely detailed attention we all commit to our craft. In the commercials, explain about the 904 page International Residential Code, the International Energy Conservation Code and all the State tweaking of these that require such an ability to focus, learn and remember and apply all of that to design that also satisfies client functional requirements, local zoning and planning requirements and also expands the evolves the practice of architecture at its most intimate level: one's own home. The AIA has said, historically, that designing a home is one of the most complex design activities in which an architect can engage. Okay: let's explain that to the public! The AIA also, historically has said something about a particular range of compensation for that effort (which we cannot discuss in this forum), however, it should at least be mentioned in such commercials that due to the complex nature of residential design, it warrants substantial compensation (again, nothing specific here) for those who do this well. Perhaps this might raise the public's awareness of what we do as Not being easy, Not being cheap, and being a great reward for their life's accomplishments.
Just one small example: I help out a few local economy builders with their modest homes. I have corrected several things about their windows (once again, just one example). They had window sills below 24" above their floor levels when the ground outside was a story or more below them. IRC requires them to be at least 24" above the floor. Also, their 2nd floor bedroom windows were typically double hung, but due to the height restriction mentioned above, they could not achieve their secondary means of egress off 5.7 clear SF of opening. I have made at least one of those windows in those 2nd floor bedrooms casements, which solves the problem. Codes are complicated and ever-changing. How many unlicensed designers have any incentive to stay on top of that, or have any legal licensing to compel them to do so? None. And that's just one example.
There are, of course, many more examples and probably more that are much more interesting to the public at large and I am sure with a little thought as to what those might be, the subject of some hopefully entertaining and enlightening commercials might be conceived. Several of our members have repeatedly mentioned about how homes designed by architects should be appraised at a higher value than those not designed by architects. I couldn't agree more. Perhaps we can obtain some input from the cutting edge of this industry, which, as I understand it, is undergoing a review of this policy. That would be one way to encourage people to use more architectural services: their home is not only more functional, more beautiful, and more enjoyable: it is worth more. Surely people can understand that message, if we can present it in attractive and entertaining manner.
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Rand Soellner AIA
Architect/Owner/Principal
Rand Soellner Architect
Cashiers NC
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