Committee on Design

This message has been cross posted to the following Discussion Forums: Practice Management Member Conversations and Committee on Design .
-------------------------------------------

As we continue to muse on the meaning of and need for good design, let us look at the CULTURE that we are part.

We are not living and practicing in isolation.  This current culture of ours, one that is mostly about entitlement, self-centerdness, technology-obsessessed, informationally overloaded, non-introspective: what do we expect from the product outcomes that architects deliver for our clients' desires?

And in a climate of retreat from civic-mindedness, where government is considered "socialistic" if interested in anything more than defense and tax give-aways to the corporate and privileged elite: a modern-day Parthenon is hard to produce, let alone high-speed rail and great urban design.

Why is it that in Europe, Japan, Canada and even China (at least with its 2008 Olympics stadia) those societies continue to far exceed us in producing with design excellence in the public arena?

On the flip-side, when I watch Charlie Rose, such as his stellar interview of David McCullough this evening - I still have hope!

And this is just about context, not even process...
-------------------------------------------
Steven Gottesman AIA
Senior Architect
URS Corporation
Sacramento CA
-------------------------------------------

Response to Steve Gottesman, we are trying to figure out what it is about design excellence that COD can usefully make available to AIA members.  Your question about other countries is also a declaration.  Can you answer your own question?  Can you give us examples of buildings or urban designs that cause you to ask this question?  And maybe tell us which ones in the U.S. should be compared, and I guess, in your opinion, will be found to be lacking.  A comparison of that sort seems likely to yield some clear characteristics of architectural design excellence.

Mike Mense FAIA