Project Delivery

I feel like I know Eric Rawlings and wished I could trade notes with him as I regard his background (at least)

Mr Clarkson:

I find it timely that Thomas Friedman is the keynote speaker at this year's AIA Convention.  If you subscribe to his theory expressed in "The World is Flat", you get paid based on the highest value that you bring to the table, and everything else can be performed as a comodity. 

I would suggest that the profession has their model backwards.  Construction Documents can be done by technicians, so they are not of high value.  Design Thinking and the problem solving it leads to is what we bring that adds value to our clients.  Yet, our compensation is based largely on CD's, and we think that is what we are selling.

Architects need to learn, individually and as a profession, to create a vallue proposition for clients that emphasizes the special skills that architects have, and how it benefits clients, from a client's perspective.  As long as we maintain the current model, and continue to avoid risk, others will continue to diminish our role, in part, because we don't look at it from the perspective of our clients.

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Walter Hainsfurther FAIA
Kurtz Associates Architects
Des Plaines IL
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An excellent and well made point Mr. Hainsfurther.

I for one am a proponent of BIM  and CAD in general. and believe that I do some of my best design thinking and problem solving while building a BIM model or drawing a technical section in CAD. of course in order to accomplish this, these tools have to become second nature to their user, just as sketch paper and pen are to most of us.
I may print something and sketch over it in order to "free myself of the keyboard" at times, and I may scan a sketch or produce a cad drawing or massing study in order to become more precise or view an idea from multiple angles and perspectives.

My point is that regardless of the "tools" one chooses the end goal is to produce the most thoughtfully and well designed BUILDING both technically and aesthetically and to the extent we as a profession are able to do that we will remain viable. If we cannot avoid technical errors, effectively produce "greener" buildings or compete functionally or aesthetically with "interior designers" we will be marginalized and replaced by specialists in these and other areas. Some believe they can do all these things and more for their clients, others embrace the need to have specialists on their teams to address the ever increasing breath of knowledge required to produce a building.
 
Regarless of your individual position, my advice to our peers would be that if you find yourself unable to participate or contribute to the building process, than perhaps you may need to reevaluate your personal skill set and determine in what way you can bring the highest value to the table, as Mr. Friedman stated, and reinvent yourself accordingly. The profession is changing, just as it has continued to do for the last century, Yearning for the past will not stop the process of evolution, just allow it to pass you by.  
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Mark Aylward AIA
Owner
Aylward Design, llc
Littleton CO
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Original Message:
Sent: 04-06-2011 10:02
From: Walter Hainsfurther
Subject: Collateral Damage :The Profession

Mr Clarkson:

I find it timely that Thomas Friedman is the keynote speaker at this year's AIA Convention.  If you subscribe to his theory expressed in "The World is Flat", you get paid based on the highest value that you bring to the table, and everything else can be performed as a comodity. 

I would suggest that the profession has their model backwards.  Construction Documents can be done by technicians, so they are not of high value.  Design Thinking and the problem solving it leads to is what we bring that adds value to our clients.  Yet, our compensation is based largely on CD's, and we think that is what we are selling.

Architects need to learn, individually and as a profession, to create a vallue proposition for clients that emphasizes the special skills that architects have, and how it benefits clients, from a client's perspective.  As long as we maintain the current model, and continue to avoid risk, others will continue to diminish our role, in part, because we don't look at it from the perspective of our clients.

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Walter Hainsfurther FAIA
Kurtz Associates Architects
Des Plaines IL
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Mr. Hainsfurther,
I think you have a good point in that what architects actually sell to their client is not the documents but rather the "design thinking and problem solving" that helps them achieve their goal of getting a building built.  However, until we can convince our clients that they are significantly benefitting from our intangible offerings, most will see architects as required to purchase a set of "blueprints" so they can get a contractor to give them what they really want, a building.

I know this is a terribly pessimistic view and I work to work to explain what architects really do whenever I can.  But I still think the majority of the public still think that our product is strictly the documents, and that we need to produce them as quickly as possible so that the contractor can start building.

I also agree with you that we do have our model backwards and that we do avoid a lot of risk.  However, I currently don't know where to begin to start turning it around.

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Paul Bielicki AIA
Project Architect
McCarty Holsaple McCarty Inc.
Knoxville TN
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Original Message:
Sent: 04-06-2011 10:02
From: Walter Hainsfurther
Subject: Collateral Damage :The Profession

Mr Clarkson:

I find it timely that Thomas Friedman is the keynote speaker at this year's AIA Convention.  If you subscribe to his theory expressed in "The World is Flat", you get paid based on the highest value that you bring to the table, and everything else can be performed as a comodity. 

I would suggest that the profession has their model backwards.  Construction Documents can be done by technicians, so they are not of high value.  Design Thinking and the problem solving it leads to is what we bring that adds value to our clients.  Yet, our compensation is based largely on CD's, and we think that is what we are selling.

Architects need to learn, individually and as a profession, to create a vallue proposition for clients that emphasizes the special skills that architects have, and how it benefits clients, from a client's perspective.  As long as we maintain the current model, and continue to avoid risk, others will continue to diminish our role, in part, because we don't look at it from the perspective of our clients.

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Walter Hainsfurther FAIA
Kurtz Associates Architects
Des Plaines IL
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Gentlemen -

I have been following your posts for a while and feel it is time to add some to this thread.  I too have been hit pretty hard by this difficult economy but continue to push forward.  In the past six years I have worked for two compaines that had gone BK and one where i was laid off due to very little work. So I have started over many times in the recent past.  Not a great experience and tough to deal with but what do you do.  So I started my own firm and have been fortunate to make some great contacts in the past that is helping through these times.  I have a very different perspective of things now that drive me forward.  The processes and delivery methods that are 'emerging' today will be the only way to perform any medium to large scale projects in the future.  I have done the following things in the past that i will be implementing for me and my families future.
1.  Work for yourself so that you do not have to go through this again.
2.  Start to build your own work.  Start to do Architect ' Build (i think that this creates a higher sense of design intent that maintains this intent)
3.  Get a General Contractor license to be able to do this.  I know that this does not seem desirable to some but it will foster your future.  
4.  Start to become an Architect Developer so that you own your own properties that you design, build, and own that will FEED you in the future so you do not depend on FEE income.
5.  Educate yourself on the ways of the world.  Read "Rich Dad, Poor Dad" by Robert Kiyosaki to start and all of the other books that he has written so you can expand your way of thinking.  Rich Dad wants you to become financially independent so we do not have to be dependent on anyone especially the government because there will be no SS for us.
6.  Learn BIM software to implement BIM Processes as this will be the only way to work now and in the future.  i have been doing things this way for nine years and will never look back.  As Eric says below it does change things for the better and really leverages time and effort.
7.  Start to consider using Pre-fabricated technologies to implement the delivery of your projects.  A great book to read that defines this and their processes is "Prefabricating Architecture: How Manufacturing Technologies Are Poised to Transform Building Construction" by Stephen Kiernan and James Timberlake.  Great read and expands the mind.I have been involved in many ways over the past 9 years in this industry and it changes your thinking dramatically.

I could go on and on about these things that I feel very passionate about. Take control over your future.

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Chad Conrad AIA
CEO ' President
C2 Architecture, Inc.
San Marcos CA
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