Practice Management Member Conversations

This message has been cross posted to the following Discussion Forums: Practice Management Member Conversations and Technology in Architectural Practice .
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This article originally appeared in COLUMNS magazine, a publication of AIA Pittsburgh. This is a Viewpoint article by our chapter president, Mark Dietrick, AIA...

Several weeks ago, the New York Times published an article that highlighted computer programs that can help owners bypass architects and questioned the wisdom of such an approach.  While our first reaction as architects to this concept and many of the ideas represented in the article is likely absolute abhorrence - architecture is a process that only trained architects may orchestrate - I have spent the last couple of weeks pondering what we can learn from this story and generally what it might mean to be an architect in the information age that is radically transforming our world.....

Read the rest of the article here.


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Erin Raff
AIA Pittsburgh
Pittsburgh, PA
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While the article is thought provoking, it is also a way to look to the future optomistically. 

I have been one for embracing CAD and now BIM.  BIM is the present, but it looks to be a short life cycle unless it embraces more information covering regualtions, manufacturers' data, and easy of use.  Meanwhile the A/E industry is disintegrating from decimation of the mid-level workforce once again.  Unfortunately the same disingetration occured in the early 1990's and we have been paying for it in recent years with poor project management ...Those who would have been our PMs of today left the industry because of no work in the early 1990's.  Those that survived received limited mentoring from those that knew "how to design buildings."

We now have a larger dichotomy of experience than ever before and it is growing!  How many experienced architects (those who KNOW buildings!) know how to use BIM?  Who will still be there in the near years following THIS economy slump.  The gray-hairs are fewer, and technology is overtaking the younger professionals.  The question is whether technology can encapsulate the knowledge.

This is where I have to put my faith in technology for our future...

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Brian Scanlon AIA
Jacobs Global Buildings
Arlington VA
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Project and business management training is vital to our profession, but it seems most universities with architecture programs make students take calculus and physics, neither of which I have needed in practice.

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Roger Retzlaff AIA
Green Bay WI
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Original Message:
Sent: 08-08-2012 09:26
From: Brian Scanlon
Subject: Bypassing Architects? Confronting Change in the Information Age

While the article is thought provoking, it is also a way to look to the future optomistically. 

I have been one for embracing CAD and now BIM.  BIM is the present, but it looks to be a short life cycle unless it embraces more information covering regualtions, manufacturers' data, and easy of use.  Meanwhile the A/E industry is disintegrating from decimation of the mid-level workforce once again.  Unfortunately the same disingetration occured in the early 1990's and we have been paying for it in recent years with poor project management ...Those who would have been our PMs of today left the industry because of no work in the early 1990's.  Those that survived received limited mentoring from those that knew "how to design buildings."

We now have a larger dichotomy of experience than ever before and it is growing!  How many experienced architects (those who KNOW buildings!) know how to use BIM?  Who will still be there in the near years following THIS economy slump.  The gray-hairs are fewer, and technology is overtaking the younger professionals.  The question is whether technology can encapsulate the knowledge.

This is where I have to put my faith in technology for our future...

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Brian Scanlon AIA
Jacobs Global Buildings
Arlington VA
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