Editing out the opportunity

It’s week four of the Shattering the Meme Novena.  Especially in a recession economy, which focusses on lack and limits, our focus must shift to releasing judgement of ourselves and others in order to be more open to the possibilities that come from less rigid thinking.

How well do you know yourself?  Your real interests and capabilities?  I bet they are in there buried down deep, disconnected from what you actually do for a living, expressed maybe as a hobby, or maybe not at all.  Today, I would like you to ask yourself why.  Why are you so disconnected from what you really love to do?  Go, on, give all your reasons.  I’ll bet you have some really good ones.  Masterful rationalizations, all.  So good in fact, that I bet you have never even attempted to set any of the things that would help you realize your dream life in motion.  Or maybe you did in a halfhearted way, since you didn’t want to take that much risk or invest that strongly in something that wasn’t going to work out anyway.  Yeah.

What you have actually done without even realizing it was to edit opportunity right out of your life, just as a surgeon would excise a tumor.  You never truly explored the possibilities or made many plans.  You just knew you couldn’t or shouldn’t go in that direction.  What an insidious meme, the one that leaves us subconsciously longing and always suppressed, all the while believing that we are better off just doing what life expects of us.

Judge and Jury
When I work with coaching clients, this is often the biggest hurdle I find.  As a first step, I encourage them to do some very introspective work to get clarity about what they love to do and attach that to the reason they want to do it.  Then I ask them why they are not doing it already.  That is a profound question.  The answer, when you stop to think about, it is that you are not allowing yourself.  This lack of permission comes wrapped in all kinds of reasons that seem valid until you dig a little deeper.  Things like, “I have too many responsibilities right now to spend the money it would take to get set up,” or “The market for that is too small to really allow me to earn a living.” When I ask my clients how they know that those outcomes will occur if they allow themselves to explore a particular passion, they often have no answer.  They just know.  Because their conditioning (education, early childhood, work experience) told them so.  Before they even allowed the idea to be fully formed and vetted, all on their own, they shut it down.  Deemed it unworthy of seeing the light of day. 

Make the investment
It can be scary to follow your heart.  But you need to think about all the things you are losing by not doing so.  What is your happiness worth?  What does the stress you are experiencing right now doing work that doesn’t serve you cost in terms of your health and well-being?  What does the rat race do to your quality of life, or that of your family?  In economic terms, this is called the opportunity cost.  What you choose to forgo by playing it safe.  Playing is safe also prevents you from receiving the big payoff in every dimension of your life that comes from living with passion and purpose.  Clients, employers, members of your network, will all notice you in a much more positive way once you choose to invest in acquiring the skill and experience you need to do the work that you really love instead of the work that gets fed to you by default.  When you look at all of the costs of playing it safe (physical, mental and spiritual), it becomes obvious just how precarious of a position you put yourself in by staying stuck instead of making the bold moves towards living your true life’s purpose. Playing it safe isn’t so safe after all.

Beat back the lack
We can all fall prey to focusing on what we don’t have.  Especially in this economy, where we are faced with constant bad news, it’s easy to believe that we need to hold back instead of charging forward.  We want to conserve instead of expand.  To carefully guard our reserves, whether time, money or networking capital “just in case.”  Well, the rainy day is happening right now if you are anything but fulfilled and purpose-driven in your life and career.  The stress of trying to maintain the status quo is what makes you feel like you and what you have to offer will never be enough. Believing that there just isn’t opportunity to be had becomes a self-fulfilling prophecy.  What’s needed instead is to look at what you have to offer and to whom it will make a difference.  Sharing what you have to offer starting right now and making a difference in the world is far more important than holding back.  I liken this thinking to refusing to make a $20.00 donation to your favorite charity because you want to wait until you get rich and can give them an endowment.  It’s kind of ridiculous when you look at it in those terms, isn’t it?  Every little contribution you make does make a difference.  What’s more, is that they add up and propel you forward.

Shatter the meme:
The number one regret of the dying as reported by nurses who cared for hospice patients was that they had not lived a life true to themselves, but instead tried to meet everyone else’s expectations.  Allow yourself to think about who you really are and what you really want, even if it seems ridiculous or frivolous.  Play with the thought, get comfortable with it instead of immediately filing it away because you can’t see the path to achieve it.  In fact, banish all thoughts of “how” and just focus on why you have this dream.  The more you can get in touch with what motivates you, the easier it will become to not only see opportunities, but to fearlessly pursue them.  Then, choose to take action.  Once you do, you will be surprised at all of the opportunities that start to come your way related to your true life’s purpose.  It’s not a miracle, they were always available to you, but now you no longer have them painted over with wite out.

What’s your Mountain?

How is being an architect like scaling Mount Everest?  I always read accounts of climbers with a sort of sick fascination, part of me wondering what would ever possess anyone to take on this task.  You can’t even see very far from that high up, and your body is so ravaged by the lack of oxygen and extreme cold that you can’t hang out up there and enjoy it.  As someone who is not athletic and is proud of myself that I attend yoga class three times a week, I don’t have a refined appreciation for the physical.  Especially an extreme sport like mountain climbing. I didn’t see the appeal of putting your life on hold for nearly a year to train, then scale this mountain.  Why, why, I thought would anyone risk their life like this?  Why would they make themselves so uncomfortable, put their bodies through such a grueling experience?  I recently read Mark Inglis’s story of how he scaled Mt. Everest as a double amputee. Mark’s account helped me to see that it was about more than just the ego. 

It’s easy to take the concept of scaling Everest as a totally literal pursuit.  The man vs. nature plot at its finest.  But that would be getting it wrong.  You don’t climb the mountain to conquer the mountain.  You climb to conquer yourself. It’s about setting a challenge and devoting yourself single-mindedly to meeting that challenge with every resource of your physical, mental and spiritual being.  If you are going to climb Everest, you cannot let anything stand in your way, especially not yourself.  You clear out your life to train and then make the climb.  And then you let go, you work with, not against the mountain.  You respect its seasons, weather patterns and above all the advice of your guides.  Depending on the year, you may not make it up and the fact that by waiting, you live to make the attempt another time has to be enough.

So back to life as an architect.  What’s your Everest?  What big goal do you have that you would devote yourself to achieve?  What matters so much to who you are that you will make the time and the space to realize it?  If you don’t know, or came up with some wimpy goal like “get a promotion,” you are not alone.  Maybe just thinking along these lines made you feel slightly depressed because your career is so NOT going the way you hoped it would.  You may even be rolling your eyes right now and thinking that having a goal as big as yourself is as ridiculous as it is unattainable.

I’m here to tell you that it’s not.  You can have a career that is life-affirming because it reinforces your sense of purpose in this world.  But first, you have to be deeply in touch with what that purpose is.  You have to have a personal mission statement and a plan that includes steps you can do today that align you with that purpose.  You have to clear away all the fears and all of the rationalizations that are holding you back.  Like the mountain climber, you have to eliminate all the waster activities in your professional life that are not directly moving you towards your goals. 
As a reader of this blog, you aren’t content to have just an average career.  You want to make a difference.  You want to operate as an inspiration to the world.  And I want to help you get there.  In addition to my blog posts, I offer career coaching services that allow you to work with me one on one on your individual career quest.  I’m also so excited to announce that I will very shortly be publishing my first book, Career Crisis.  This book contains many of the strategies I use with my coaching clients, but it let’s you use my techniques and act as your own coach.  It’s not very long on purpose because it’s not meant to dictate, but to guide you.  You have to do the work, but if you do, I promise you’ll be amazed at the transformation you see in your career and in your life.

Find your career mountain and know that you can get to the top.  Get ready to challenge yourself to your greatest potential, to concentrate your efforts to a single purpose, to push through hardships, and finally, to stand up on that summit and say, “Yes, yes, I did it!”

(Re)setting your Intentions

New Year's resolutions are something I have always viewed as pointless.  You either want to make a change or you don't. If you do, you begin that process at the point you set the intention, not some arbitrary time on the calendar.  However, there's no shortage of self-improvement advice this time of year, which inspired to write this New Year's Eve post because I felt that all of that wasn't enough- you need a lot more than retrospect on the passing year or self-improvement tips to help you have a successful year.  You need clear intent.

There's all kinds of superstitions and advice about what (or what not) to eat or wear or do to usher in good luck for the new year.   Some friends and I had a lot of fun exchanging our family good luck traditions on facebook, which led me to think about my favorite quote, "Luck favors the prepared."  You bring opportunity to yourself by being ready for it.  When you have a clear sense of who you are and what you want from your life, you become open to the things to which you can say yes, or no, on a daily basis that will usher in transformation.  No resolution will do that for you.

This chart perfectly sums up the open attitude
and clarity of purpose needed for success

Change, and the willingness to embrace it brings opportunity.  As a feng shui expert, I've been preparing for a new year by cleaning and clearing clutter from my life and will spend tomorrow re-setting intentions for the year ahead with my family.   I find this a good way to mentally let go of that which no longer serves me and make room for new opportunities. So don't drive yourself crazy trying to set all kinds of new goals.  Look within and take stock of how you have evolved.  Have you gotten sidetracked from your existing goals?  Do your goals from five years ago no longer serve you?  Are you complacent in your goals, or do you need to step outside your comfort zone to really achieve something big?

I invite you to do your own space clearing.  In the process of weeding out that which you don't need, use, or love, think about what the stuff you surround yourself says about who you are.  Place objects that affirm who you are or want to become in a prominent place.  Success is about your willingness to change.  You don't need more resolutions, just goals attuned to the person you wish to become.  Wishing you a happy and abundant 2013!  

See a countdown of the most popular Patron posts of 2012. 

What scares you as a creative?

Happy Halloween everyone!  Tradition has is that Halloween is the start of a transitional time when we are more connected to the spirit world- next stop is All Saints Day, when we look to our spiritual guides followed by All Souls Day, where we honor our ancestors, friends and mentors who have gone before us.

Keeping with the spirit of these three days, I wanted to take a little time as your virtual mentor to reflect on releasing the fears that hold you back, identifying your inspirations, and finding people willing to help guide you on your path to fulfillment. I love this infographic I found at Design Taxi for its humorous (precisely because it hits on some core truths) look at creative phobias.  That's the trick part- the way that we talk ourselves out of going for the things that we really want in our careers.

Now for the treat:  I am developing a series strictly related to mentoring and am looking for your input on the issues that are most important to you.  Please take some time to post in the comments section about your pressing career dilemmas.  You don't have to get personal or overly detailed (if you want to do that, please email me at thepatronsaintofarchitecture@gmail.com for a one-on one coaching session), just list some of the basic hobgobblins blocking your path to success.  Those career cobwebs' days are numbered.

Mission-driven

Week two of the Change the World novena takes us to the Democratic Republic of Congo to explore the concept as space as a basic human resource and the leadership role architects can play in making sure everyone has access to a supportive built environment.

 L'Ecole de Centre de Emmanuel: View of Courtyard

Leslie Nepveux is a young architectural designer.  Her story begins not unlike that of most young architects.  She worked hard to earn her degree in architecture from Oklahoma State University, graduated in 2005, got a job, and got laid off five years later.  Like many of us, Leslie was also searching for deeper meaning in her career and not so much finding it in a traditional work setting. A casualty of a bad economy and the old experience conundrum (no one wants to hire you without it, but if they don’t hire you, you won’t get it), Leslie took the bold step of deciding that she wasn’t going to wait around for the career-defining experiences she wanted to come to her.  She ignored all of the conventional wisdom and wrote her own set of rules.  Then she went to Africa. 

She wanted the work she did to make a difference, and she knew something about the needs in the Democratic Republic of Congo (DRC) from her parents, who had served as missionaries there.  So, she emailed a contact of her father’s who is based in DRC and asked if they’d like to have an architect on the team.  If you’re thinking, “of course, they said yes, and it was probably like volunteering for Habitat for Humanity, only in Africa,”  you would be wrong.  What Leslie brought to the table was something only an architect could: vision. 

The local community non-denominational church in Kinshasa, DRC serves the region through a series of sister churches. They had identified two pressing needs related to the built environment; an addition to the three room school in Kinshasa and a prototype clinic/school building that could be constructed in more rural areas.  Because the area is so impoverished, waiting to raise the funds to hire a local architect would only delay the much-needed work.  Leslie’s offer to volunteer her time couldn’t have been better timed.  After sending out letters to friends and family to raise funds to pay for her flight and lodging, she set off on a two-week trip to Africa to meet with the Building Committee, explore the site and collect information from members of the community and conduct traffic studies and site observations.  She also took the time to learn about local construction methods (buildings are made of bricks formed on site utilizing excavation soils). 

Leslie’s skills are in management and production, but she had to pull together a planning and design team to respond to the project.  She assembled a team that included interior designers, structural engineers, and architecture professors and conducted a twelve person brainstorming session to generate big ideas.  What emerged was a concept that emphasizes the community’s needs for flexibility and leverages the functional and physical location of the school as hub of the community.  Multi-function classrooms also serve as office or meeting space when necessary.  An open outdoor courtyard space can be used for gatherings or performances.  Throughout the design process, she kept in touch with her clients in Kinshasa electronically, making tweaks to the design (the courtyard shape went from “L” to “U”), while also making sure that her construction details were simple and allowed interchangeable local materials.  For example, while the design calls for the classroom walls to be constructed of stone with a rebar foundation, that locally made adobe can be substituted, to make use of the excess soils on site as needed.  Leslie is currently in the process of helping her clients obtain a more complete cost estimate, which will then lead to fundraising efforts in order to begin construction. 

Leslie has volunteered all of her time to the projects in Africa and supported herself over the past two years doing contract work.  Like many who have had to cope with losing a job, she has also struggled with balancing earning  a living with being able to devote herself full time to doing the work in Africa.  When I asked her what the most significant things she has taken away from her self-directed internship, she had these insights:

It’s more about the concept than the design.  Especially in a third world country, materials and methods can be very fluid and dependent on availability of resources.  It’s important to stay flexible and that means that the concept driving design has to be that much more powerful and relevant in order to survive through construction.

Engaging the community is important.  Without their buy-in, the best efforts can be derailed, or your work will not have it's intended effect of helping people.

 You can (and should) work with an architect.  Leslie hopes that her work has helped to increase awareness of the value that architects bring to a project.  “Communities need to know that they are capable of hiring architects,” she says. Outreach efforts certainly help.  In addition to her experiences in the DRC, Leslie went with an engineering team in October of 2011 to Ghanna for a two week master planning charrette.

Leslie has recently been named a Design Fellow at the Building Community Workshop, a non-profit community design center doing work she loves, partly due to her self-sought experiences, which gave her the specific skills and expertise she wanted to cultivate.  Leslie’s message to her piers is very profound, “ As bad as the economy has been for employment, it has helped us grow and realize other areas of our life where we can practice architecture.  Being diverse is important and we get one-dimensional from our training.”  Seven years out of college, she has worked internationally, made a difference in several impoverished communities, learned about vernacular building techniques, managed a schedule, budget and design team, worked with clients and user groups.  She gave herself the career path she wanted, instead of hoping that opportunities would come along if she just took a job “for the experience.”

More than once during our interview, Leslie said, “I wish I could do more.”  If you’d like to help her design vision become a reality, you can make a donation to the Congo Projects

Leslie Nepveux is a 2005 graduate of Oklahoma State University. She is currently a Design Fellow at the Building Community Workshop and only a few exams away from completing the ARE. You can see more of her recent work in Africa at cargocollective.com/congocollective

Power to the People: Unleashing User Insights

Patient centered design has been around for a long time. From Planetree, to LEED for Healthcare  and Evidence Based Design, the importance of the environment to outcomes has been advocated, documented and linked to design and operational decisions. The Beryl Institute is devoted solely to the cause of improving the patient experience. It’s great to have all of these resources. Even better as an architect to have healthcare clients embracing the needs to address the issue. But something gets lost in translation as we go from intent to implementation. Healthcare environments tremendously impact their users, who often have little opportunity to control them. We need to know we are getting it right, not just designing and building attractive surroundings based on precedents.

That’s why I was excited to read about a project recently launched by Penn Medicine in conjunction with the Wharton School of Business. Called “Your Big Ideas Challenge,” the effort reached out to staff throughout Penn Medicine’s system to present their innovative ideas for improving patient care. The top ten will be selected and presented at a town hall meeting. There were many compelling ideas, but what I was most interested in was the process. By empowering staff to think about how they can better serve patients, they were free to do more than air grievances or whine about needing more space. Instead, they could influence the change. Just think about how powerful this process could be when it’s time for the next design project:

Unlock information
There is only so much time at traditional design meetings and only so many staff usually allowed to attend. When you couple that with the fact that most of these people are not adept at reading plans or processing the information we present, counting on meeting feedback is actually a very bankrupt model for design. Instead, after discussing goals for the project with stakeholders, we should frame those goals in the form of questions back to a much more comprehensive cross-section of staff and empower a little innovative thinking that can lead back to either discrete design decisions or the development of design elements that will support an operational change. For example, if you develop a project goal that you want to create a less stressful environment for families, you might ask staff about how they would address commonly encountered family issues or complaints.

Cut a wide swath
Many times, we develop “departmental myopia” on our projects. We forget about just how much impact related departments or core process (lab, housekeeping, maintenance, food service, social services) or groups like infection control and facilities have on a space. Make sure to get the insights of these staff as well. The interchange of things that we don’t even realize happen in a space is often the area most ripe for a design intervention. These extra-departmental folks can provide the lowdown.

Re-integrate Information
So if you follow these suggestions, you now have a bunch of data. Hopefully, you also have a lot of ideas germinating as well. The last and very crucial step in getting the most innovation (and generating the most value) possible, is to re-integrate it back to the project. Invite key players from the extra-departmental group and a more robust sampling of staff from your departmental group to the next design meeting. Provide a recap of the results and how you are planning to use them in design. This allows the innovations to give way to some collaborative discussions, which will give the design team the most useful feedback possible going forward.

Liberation: six steps to set your creativity free

Does your thinking always default to “fault?” Are you trapped in an endless game of “gotcha” with yourself?  Have you imprisoned your creative spirit in a cage of self doubt? As someone who expects perfection out of myself I can relate to the fears and desire to overachieve and exceed expectations that hold creative people back.  I recently read an excellent article on letting go by Tony Schwartz that got me thinking about how we can set ourselves free of things that don’t serve our highest self in order to make room for the things that do.  Sounds like a scary proposition- but it’s not.  What it is is nothing short of liberation.  Just as fear of failing can immobilize us and keep us stuck in a rut, letting the perfect be the enemy of the good causes us to aim low, and apologize for taking chances.  It causes that judge and jury in our heads to consistently level a guilty verdict. This is my list of six common creative prisons and recommendations for breaking out:

Shackled to the past
Maybe it took you a while to really get the hang of model building, or a design program.  Maybe you got some harsh criticisms of your work.  Maybe that first internship was a bit rocky as you learned the ropes.  Maybe, just maybe you learned from all of this and are now competent.  However, you got used to viewing yourself as inexperienced and mistake prone.  That self-image no longer is a true representation of the architect you are today.  Like the person who’s conquered a lifelong weight problem, and can’t stop seeing themselves as fat, you are locked inside your initial years as a fledgeling architect. Re-write your resume, update your LinkedIn profile, do something to affirm the architect you are today and keep celebrating that in order to change your self image so that you can feel empowered to make decisions from the point of view of who you are, not who you were.

Confined by busywork
No one ever says on their deathbed that they wished they’d worked more.  If anything they probably wished they’ed enjoyed life more and made more of an impact.  No, you can’t blow off deadlines, but you can prioritize.  Are you letting your to-do list be your excuse?  Whether it’s deadlines at work or personal projects, not giving yourself permission to move forward is not only silly, but it makes you feel so uninspired that you probably won’t actually get all those tasks done anyway.  You eat a pie one bite at a time.  At the beginning of each day, look at what parts of your life goals you can accomplish on that day.  It may be a single task and that’s fine because it advanced your agenda.  Contract, distill and excel.  When you say no to the expansive opportunities before you in order to scratch off some (insignificant in a global view) task, you are really saying no to your own expansion.

Locked into Entitlement
Do you brood about what’s not right or not fair in your career?  The client who treated you poorly, the promotion you didn’t get?  Do you beat yourself up over every real or imagined misstep?  The root of those feelings is an unyielding and harsh view of yourself as all or nothing.  Like a teenager, you believe that you deserve certain things and that life is lived at the extremes of always and never.  As your mother probably told you then, “life’s not fair.”  She was right.  Life’s not just about you.  The people you interact with have their own motives- you are far better served when you focus on understanding them because what really matters is the result and how you respond to a situation, not all the things that happened along the way to cause it.

Energetically in Isolation
You might think you took the high road by not telling your boss off, or giving that unappreciative client a lecture on the value of your service.  But you are still holding on to the resentment and it colors all of your future interactions not only with the individual in question but with others in your professional and private life as well.  Realize that by being non-confrontational, you are choosing to make yourself invisible- no wonder you aren’t on these people’s A-List.  Think about your passion for what you do as a ball of energy that lives at your core.  The more expansive the energy, the further out the glow extends.  Other people are attracted to that glow and want to work with you.  The greatest architects have such expansive energy that people will crowd into lecture halls to hear what they have to say, buy their monographs and wish they could work for or with them.  When you can’t let go of all of your resentments or regrets, you diminish your energy.  Think about that glass-half empty colleague or friend  How drawn to that person do you (or clients) feel?  Then realize that, at times, we are all that person.  Choose to be aware of when you are letting your anger, doubts and fears diminish your energy.  Then take steps to let go.  Stop suppressing your emotions and instead think about whether you actually made your point of view heard.   Calmly and with an open mind approach the person and ask them to recount their decision/actions from their point of view.  You may be surprised at what you learn.

On the chain gang of Trying Too Hard
Are you trying to make your clients like you more by practically wiping their noses for them?   Score points with your boss by being a workaholic?  Being a doormat diminishes your expertise and loses any respect people will have for you.  A project is a partnership and all involved have to understand their roles and responsibilities.  Decisions and directives (or lack of them) have consequences.  Don’t try to sweep client driven issues or office problems under the rug and cheerfully try to compensate by doing others work for them.  So often, we try to just make our situation work and do it all. You never want to put yourself in a position of being held accountable for an outcome in an areas where you have no responsibility. Your boss and your client’s main objective is to have a successful project.  If they aren’t giving you what you need to accomplish this, the greatest service you can provide is one of coaching them on how they can help make the outcome a success. 

Rotting in the dungeon of the Status Quo
What’s good for General Bullmoose is not necessarily what’s good for you.  If you are trying to live up to the expectations of your family, co-workers, society, you are engaged in conformance.  Conformity erodes creativity.  I am not suggesting that you have to be an angry, angry artist who rejects the world in order to be successful.  I am telling you that you need to know yourself and make decisions because they are right for you.  Unfortunately, we’re all likely to hit cruise control when we feel that our lives are basically going in a good direction.  It usually takes some disruptive event to create a breakthrough.  Why?  Because being shaken out of your status quo stupor makes you refocus on what really matters to you.  In the disruptive state, you reject limits and question rules.  Make bold, purposeful moves in your life and you will fail, but you will also succeed beyond your wildest dreams.    When you take actions with purpose, not just because you can or should, miracles can happen.

Who caged your creativity? Who cares?  What’s important to remember is that you hold the key to your own creative freedom. Unlock your own liberation.

Wellness the Series: Urban Rx: Cures for Sick Places

My most recent article for Urban Times discusses ways neighborhoods can develop strategies to challenge blight.

Every city has at least one: the neighborhood with rampant crime, boarded up buildings, empty lots. Few stroll its streets and the businesses that remain have bars on the windows. This kind of place had a heyday once, but is now in a tragic state of demise. Often, such places are in strategic urban locations and ripe for revitalization. But, short of calling in the bulldozers, how does a neighborhood go about fomenting its renaissance? It starts with properly diagnosing the reasons for decline (every story is not the same) and working closely with neighborhood residents and businesses to develop the prescription to turn things around.

Read the Symptoms, Treat the Problem

A sketch I did showing the importance of mixed use and a variety of building textures, styles and colors as part of a charrette for the revitalization of Phoenix's Wilson neighborhood.

So often, response to urban decline is reactionary: high crime translates to constructing fences and more security, for example. However, responding defensively to a series of symptoms has the unintended consequences of creating an even more hostile environment, sending not the message of toughness, but a message that no one, not even the neighborhood residents, are very welcome in the neighborhood. Most people don’t understand this, neither do most planning and zoning commissions. Hence, we end up with everyone’s fears written into the codes, instead of everyone’s hopes.  Something like higher crime is usually a symptom of a greater urban disease, which is why applying the aspirin of “lockdown” to the cancer of urban decay seldom works.  What a community really needs to do is take a long hard look at itself and begin to look at social and economic factors that have changed for the worse, then look at strategies for making a change:

Urban decay Vandalism at the Broadford Works on Ann Street. (Photo credit: Wikipedia)

• Character is Brand – Most struggling neighborhoods are suffering from an identity crisis, while they know they need to have a more walkable community that feels safe and is clean, they need help figuring out their unique path to revitalization.  No two neighborhoods are exactly alike.  If you take the time to talk to the people who live there you’ll find out why they stay, and even more, why they’re willing to fight so hard for revitalization. That character, which is an experience not available elsewhere in the city, is what needs to be celebrated and cultivated in everything from the streetscape and plantings, to the type of businesses that are courted, to the density and style of the buildings. Think about traffic patterns and flows, the accessibility of parking and how parking impacts the feel of the space. The brand that develops is what can be used to court new businesses. Brand builds the expectation of the customer/user.  It needs to be based on a solid and clear vision, integrated as an experience, and it has to deliver on its promise.

• Leverage Assets – For any community, being able to achieve what it wants (its vision for a future), from what it has (its character and history) involves knowing what it needs. Copying what worked for another neighborhood is no guarantee of success. People are not attracted to generic, soulless communities to live, work and play. They are attracted to the quirky, wonderful little neighborhood with the interesting mix of shops and restaurants that is worth the trip. Once they spend enough time there, they may even become interested in living nearby. Communities must be being willing to start small – maybe just a few blocks on a main road to develop a critical mass. Look at the merchant mix and think about the message that it sends, then work with the owners of the businesses you want to keep to help them find locations where they can be grouped in a way that they help one another succeed (i.e. a series of restaurants and shops in a row).

• Get Momentum – Even the most thorough and realistic of plans won’t lead to revitalization if the community itself isn’t engaged. While it may be impossible to have complete agreement, it is not impossible to reach out to local businesses and law enforcement as well as grant programs and other opportunities available at a municipal level. Seeing these first steps of positive change allays fears and suspicion and encourages residents to be more involved as well because they can see the effect of their actions. Most struggling neighborhoods have plenty of missing teeth in the form of abandoned or under-occupied buildings and vacant lots.  However, in order to convince new businesses to locate there, a neighborhood must have some momentum going. Even something as simple as a streetscape improvement project shows a commitment to change and reinforces that all-important brand.  Don’t forget to grow entrepreneurs from local residents and always aim for authenticity.

Seek Alternative Therapies

Photo c/o dennoir (flickr)

While they may have had their place, traditional zoning codes with their restrictive description of uses have little relevance for the modern city.  Zoning codes are about achieving uniformity and compliance, not about cultivating character – kind of like Mom saying “no.”  What if, instead, we thought about codes as a list of everything you can do, should do, might do?  Form-based codes  are a great alternative for urban areas because they are not about segregating uses, but about encouraging density, walkability and character.  Many cities have implemented them and many more like my home city of Cincinnati, Ohio are in the process of doing so because they allow redevelopment to be shepherded in a way that reinforces identity of place over simply following rules.  Form-based codes focus on the fine grain aspect of experience, looking at things like human scale and pedestrian friendliness.  True to their name, this code system is less about land use than urban form, with an emphasis on creating public space shaped by private buildings.
Communities that take the time to really know their needs, and are willing to fight for them, do get better.  What’s critical is to stay true to a vision, pull the community into the effort, support local businesses and never stop improving.  Think of redevelopment as a bird flapping its wings – it can soar as long as it continues the effort, but can glide only so long before it will plummet.  It takes time, patience and tireless commitment for an ailing neighborhood to recover, but blight is curable.

Superheroes of the Built World

Last week, I took trapeze lessons.  A group of co-workers have taken on a challenge to do extreme sports activities over the course of the year and sent an email inviting others to join.  I could not hit reply fast enough- what an adventure!  When I got up on that platform, my inner daredevil took over and it was beyond thrilling.  I only regret that I do not have the body of an acrobat, and thus could not do things like a catch and release (but I tried, I tried).  After I develop more core strength, I will go back again in the hopes of successfully completing this stunt.  My four year old self is begging for the opportunity. You see, this was a childhood fantasy come true; I loved going to the circus and, next to the clowns, the acrobats were my favorite. I wanted to be one when I grew up, causing my mother some bit of consternation. While I did pursue gymnastics lessons though high school, I never competed and by the time I was eight or so, I had abandoned my dream career in the circus for being an astrophysicist, then a teacher, then an artist, only finding my way to architecture late in high school. My time on the trapeze got me thinking about what our childhood fantasy careers are really trying to tell us about who we are.

One thing they don’t tell us is to play it safe

Children crave the action oriented, things that serve an obvious purpose with a touch of adventure thrown in. They don’t dream of hours spent in mind-numbing meetings, being heckled by a bullying boss or playing office politics.  They don’t fantasize about the drudgery of overtime because of over-promised deadlines.  They most certainly do not aspire to being awarded some silly title that will pigeon-hole them into a constrained set of roles.  In fact, if you were to present any of these dismal (but all too real) scenarios to a child, they would respond by proposing some bold brash action to put the perpetrator of such misery in his or her place.

This visceral response, commonly echoed in comics, and even some movies, allows the hero to stand up for him or herself, indulging in the supreme satisfaction of defeating evil, telling off an annoying person, double crossing a backstabber  or ceremoniously walking away from oppressive expectations like a toxic job or relationship.  Many times this is coupled with  a physical act- literally vanquishing life’s villain.  We can’t legally do many of these things in real life, so we bury our frustrations and resign ourselves to our fate.  Kapow!  That’s the sound of me smacking you upside the head (virtually of course).  When you feel the urge to be resigned is when you should resign - literally - from whatever is oppressing your ability to be great.  Reconnect with your childhood self and your innermost passions- in other words, look beyond the ordinary career path.

What would Wonder Woman do?
As a child, you truly believed you could change the world.  What you may not realize is that you still can.  You don’t have to accept less than your expectations.  In career paths laden with compromise and nuance, our purpose gets lost.  This is a creativity buzzkill to say the least.  Choose to embark on a more adventurous route:

Lead a double life
No, you don’t need to have a secret identity (unless you want to), but you do need to have more than one dimension.  You can deal with the sometimes mundane aspects involved in being Diana Prince when you know that as Wonder Woman, you are saving the world.  Many times when I talk to someone who is frustrated in their career, they usually work at their job and that’s about it.  They have become flattened, so the consequences of the day to day effort involved in a project or interpersonal business relationships become all consuming.  If you have lost perspective in this way, you need to look for opportunities to live your passion outside of your job.  Volunteer in the community, apply to be a member of a board or commission- do something else that matters to you to expand your network.  It might seem counter-intuitive, but when you expose yourself to fun and inspiring activities (like trapezing), you actually become better at solving workplace problems and making career choices.

Be a hero
You are an architect, so why isn’t your city better?  People on the street may not cry out for help like they do in comic books, but it’s not very heroic of you to keep ignoring obvious need.  Heroes don’t let a purse snatcher get away because they’d rather wait for their archenemy to launch some diabolical plot.  They help wherever they are needed.  So should you. Take initiative and work to make a change. 

Confront your nemesis
What’s holding you back?  What are you too afraid to even attempt?  If you take the time to really think about it, these root fears of inadequacy or failure are the excuse you use not to pursue things that really matter  to you.  They make you risk adverse and keep you stuck in that rut you always complain about being stuck in.  Challenge yourself and remember, those elaborate plots to eliminate the hero were always foiled in the end (mostly because they were way too elaborate).  Your nemesis is really just you over-thinking everything.

Over the next few weeks, I am launching my second Patron Saint of Architecture novena (click on the tab at the top of the page to read last year's Breaking Points and Turning Points novena).  Change the World (an experiment), will profile cities as seen through the lens of the real-life superheroes who weren’t afraid to step outside their comfort zone and champion a cause in the built environment.  What they did made a difference, and you will get to hear their stories so that you, too can be inspired to use your powers as an architect for the greater good.   Before you shut down this idea by automatically thinking that you can’t possibly pull off a stunt like this, I want to share the most profound thing I discovered at my trapeze lesson: falling is truly no big deal.  It’s how you get down when you are done with your act.

Be your next restoration/preservation project

“Creativity is as much about restoration as challenging yourself,” I thought one Sunday morning while feeling utterly weighed down by a bunch of stuff I had to do.  The creative mind is just not built to slog, yet as creative individuals we often get ourselves dug in so deep with our big ideas or constant ideation that slog we do.  I posted my thought on the Patron facebook page  and twitter the following day and was a bit surprised by how much that statement resonated.  In an interesting bit of synchronicity, I also happened to read posts on three other blogs that I follow with a similar theme.  Apparently it’s been a long spring.  I know it has for me.  Since February, I have been so busy between work, blogging for both this site and Urban Times, getting feng shui certified, and general life management (taxes anyone) that I feel as though I can barely come up for air.  So in the interests of opening the collective windows of our minds to let a little sunshine in, I have listed my top six personal restoration projects:

Recognize the difference between struggle and effort
As architects, we're no stranger to long hours.  But there is a difference between the creative effort that flows from us and the stuff that feels way to much like work.  Working in "the zone" can be incredibly energizing.  Feeling oppressed by your to-do list is a depleting struggle.  When we are in struggle mode, we feel that we have to burn the candle at both ends just to keep on top of things. If you are struggling, you are working hard, not smart and you should stop that right now. 

Fun is inspirational
Sometimes your best idea for a project may come from observing a food vendor at a carnival.  Not only does having fun provide us with restoration, it also gets our brains channeled in a different way- which is the very essence of creativity.  Here's how it works:  When you are noodling a design problem, you never really stop thinking about it, it lives in the back of your mind.  When your thoughts stop flowing (struggle mode) and you try to force them, the brain gets locked into a nonproductive static loop.  When you go do something else, your mind is free to play and suddenly you find yourself seeing parallels between the problem you are trying to solve and all kinds of (seemingly) incongruous things.

Put yourself on the schedule
Haven't had a haircut in months, got a knot of tension in your neck that you've been downing Advils like candy to work around?  You are ignoring self care.  Just as a building needs to be maintained, so does your body, mind and spirit.  When we put ourselves last, we operate from a mindset of depletion.  This restricts access to our creative flow, impacting the way we relate to our clients coworkers, even friends and family.  Grumpy, energy-sapped you is not necessarily even going to want to attend that industry lunch, let alone be a networking superstar who walks away with a pocketful of business cards.  Some of your best contacts can be those casual ones, like the woman you see each week at yoga, the manager of your salon, your dentist, the mother of your kid's play date.  Seek out and frequent restorative care and activities of all stripes and take the time to invest in your relationships there.

Abolish prerequisites
Perhaps it was the experience of taking college courses that got us here.  We so often feel that we have to choose between the things we would like to do and all the required activities of life. Chores (both at work and at home) are NOT a prerequisite to any other activity.  When it comes to work/life balance it's not "either/or", but "both /and." I personally struggle a lot with this one.  I find that it helps to plan to reward myself with at least one thing a day in order to keep my energy levels up and to try and take a break and switch gears whenever I catch myself getting stuck in the struggle.    

Ditch the victim within
When you feel diminished and small, that telegraphs in your actions and interactions.  Being expansive allows you to have a positive outlook, and channel your creativity.  It also draws others to you like a magnet.  That interaction with others in turn leads to more creativity.  Walk away from Victimville, home of oppressive depleting tasks and unrecognized effort and choose to empower your efforts.  Get the help you need to slog through the tasks that deplete or depress you, be selective in your commitments, seek out and ask for what contributes to your life and career goals.  Are you doing the work of your draftsman?  Ask yourself why you feel you need to do this: lack of trust in their work (fire or train them better), perfectionism on your part (done is better than perfect), or a way to avoid your own fears or hesitations on taking on creative challenges (take the leap).  If you truly find yourself drawn to chores when faced with a big project or challenge, think about why you are subconsciously choosing to be a victim of busy work instead of giving yourself permission to shine.  Then go do something fun instead of scheduling those fixtures. 

Be outcome focused
In a perfect world, we'd all live with such clarity of purpose that every action we took would be advancing that purpose.  In real life, we get distracted.  It's a lot easier to put effort into an activity when we understand how completing it will contribute to achieving a long or short term goal. Staying result-focused helps us get through the tedious work, because we can see where it ends.  It also helps us to trim the unnecessary activities we often take on because we assume we have to, but haven't fully thought through why. When you are outcome focused, you honor your own effort and the efforts of others.

Just like a building, our figurative paint can peel, our mental light bulbs need to be changed and our air needs to be circulated to keep from breeding mold spores.  We can also find that upon closer inspection, we need a little remodel of our lives to keep on track with our higher purpose.  Take on your life as your next project without fear of bold moves- making space is what you do.

Can prototypes help you think outside the box?

It seems like a good idea at the time- if you are going to build something more than once, you should develop a prototype.  In theory, your standard can then be tweaked with lessons learned from each subsequent project, allowing the ultimate in efficiencies for design, construction (hello purchasing power), maintenance, even optimizing the efficiency for staff, patients, customers, vendors, you name it.  However, the idea of a prototype is very different from realities on the ground: this project, in this location, with this demographic and these codes.  I used to do a lot of commercial retail projects (where prototypes reign supreme) and I think I only ever once built anything straight out of the box.  That was in a really small town where the community was happy for any development at all and the city planner was also the plan reviewer and the building inspector.  I also got a building permit in less than 24 hours, so that should tell you something about THEIR standards.  If you think that developing a prototype is a shortcut, a way to circumvent the design process, it’s time to take another look at your motives:

The standard with no standards

Architects and their clients alike are guilty of developing prototypes based on the lowest common denominator in an attempt to build more,cheaper, and faster.  Elementary schools with no windows that got replicated over and over in two rapidly growing school districts who shared a facilities manager is a distasteful (yet sadly real) example that comes to mind.  Sure, the buildings were practically indestructible and went up in record time, but the staff and students were placed in an environment that was one step below prison requirements.  I’ve also worked with prototypes that were so low-budget that the building essentially served as a billboard and nothing more.  How much time and money (including architect and landscape architect fees) do you think got wasted every time the cheap, somewhat gaudy prototype exterior had to be upgraded to pass muster with a local planning department?  Avoid unintended consequences that cost you time and money by having design goals for your prototype that extend beyond the desire to save time and money.

One size does not fit all

Other organizations try to create prototypes for finishes and standard room types.  The goal is to circumvent a lengthy design process, including extensive user input.  This use of prototypes is especially prevalent in the healthcare sector, but you can also find it in the residential market in the form of subdivisions offering a choice of models.  Theoretically, the prototype has been carefully researched and will provide the most efficient and “best” layout for each type of space.  In practice, users customize their space as soon as they begin using it because it doesn’t really work for how they need to use it.  Standards for colors and finishes may also need to be modified if they project the wrong image to a community because there is a culture clash related to how the organization is perceived.  You are not necessarily even saving time and money when the prototype for a room or department has to be applied to an existing building or unique use and therefore requires modification.

So is there ever any circumstance where prototypes are good?  While a bit of a slippery slope, a prototypical design can be used as a tool to enhance the user experience, and learn more about operational goals and the specific design elements that can help achieve them:

Prototype as Pilot

It’s really exciting to think about a project as a test lab for all an organization wants to achieve with a particular space.  That can’t happen if the prototype isn’t constantly in question.  Not only should extensive mock-ups (including finishes) be constructed, but input from staff in all departments, at all levels, patients, customers, other community members should be sought.  Once a prototype design gets the green light, a thorough post-occupancy evaluation of the space should be conducted to learn about what worked and what didn’t BEFORE this prototype is used again.  Lessons learned need to be examined as part of the design process for the next project where the prototype will be used.  Don’t forget to collect data related to demographics of your building occupants; you may start to notice some patterns that cause your prototype to evolve into options over time.  You need to have a very clear set of goals for the project and each element of the prototype should be carefully researched to contribute to those goals.  When an element fails or underperforms, it needs to be analyzed in the context of those goals to determine whether the cause is a design or an expectation.

Prototype as module

There are many different scales of prototypes: master plan, building, department, room.  It often makes sense to have a prototype just for room types and finishes.  Sometimes, it is more important to map ideal processes and flows that you want to standardize and develop modules that can be applied with a greater degree of flexibility to an individual project. Prefabricated construction can often do more than prototyping to help you build cheaper, better and faster, without compromising a solid design approach that applies evidence based design and enhances the environment.  This module can be easily fit into a multitude of existing conditions, and has the flexibility to adapt over time.  Modularized prototypes give you a kit of parts that allow an open and honest dialogue with user groups about what needs to happen in the space to ensure that the standards of care are supported, not circumvented by design.

We’ve all certainly seen plenty of badly applied prototypes.  However, even in your own experience, there are design elements and combinations that work and that get used over and over in projects (although we don’t label them as prototypes).   These can represent just as much of a closed circuit as the officially sanctioned prototype and lead to equally banal and unresponsive design.  Saving time and money can be accomplished in a lot more interesting and effective ways than cookie cutter architecture.  The important issue is to constantly upgrade your knowledge based on a thorough assessment of how a design performs and to apply what you learned to consistently raise your design standards.

You Can’t Get What You Don’t Know You Want

The art of being fully present is perhaps the hardest to master for architects, who are always referencing the past and planning the future (usually under some level of duress).  We get so caught up in achievement that we lose sight of why we’re paddling so hard toward that waterfall.  There are danger signs and people shouting to get our attention, and we don’t even notice them because we are so hell-bent on accomplishing- what?  As you ponder this and take a deep breath, consider this quote from legendary conductor Ben Zander on what it takes to deliver a transformational performance, "This is the moment- this is the most important moment right now.  Which is: we are about contribution.  That's what our job is.  It's not about impressing people.  It's not about getting the next job.  It's about contributing something."

When you get right down to it, that is the essence of who we are as architects.  It’s the essence of who all people are and we function in our highest and best states when our work has meaning and makes a positive difference in the world.  Cool-eh?  Easy, not so much.  That’s because to be fully present requires trusting that the outcome will be OK even if we don’t worry about it.  To be fully present means that you have clarity about yourself and your purpose in the world and everything you do is about realizing that purpose.  It’s kind of like applying the principles of Lean design to your life.  If you never pause to plan, to ask yourself what you really want, your life’s purpose will get lost.  Here’s how to set the right goals for yourself so you can get on with living your truth:

Restore balance
If you’re experiencing dissatisfaction in your career, but can’t figure out how to jumpstart change, it’s most likely because you have lost sight of your goals, or maybe never really had any in the first place.  I’m not talking about the expectations others have for you or the things you feel you “should” be doing.  Aspirations are not true goals.  Take some time to get to know yourself better and identify what moves you as an architect:

1. Read something inspirational about the built world each day.  You get to decide what that is, whether it’s a favorite blog (ahem), news item, or article.  The only rule is that it has to be uplifting, not anything that will upset or irritate you. Hint: It does not need to be “official architecture press.”  After a while, notice the patterns in your choices.
2. Try to spend one hour of each day in silence, uninterrupted.  Getting off of the treadmill of what you do all day with all of its disruption and conflict allows your thoughts to settle and you to become more conscious of them.
3. Begin each workday by sitting in stillness and set an intention for the day.  I know, I know, you’re busy, but jumping right into the fray deprives you of being able to see how the tasks before you can be used to nourish you and help you realize your goals.  Otherwise, they will create stress, which will deplete you. When you have clarity, you will express it in every action you take, which will reinforce and feed your creative identity.

Start asking
It’s hard to ask. It feels funny.  You could get turned down.  But I think the hardest part about asking is that you would have to know what you want or need and be able to clearly express that need.  We’d much rather stew about what we don’t have than figure out how to get it.  Most of us live in a haze of half-realized thoughts and our brain ping-pongs through them as we form judgments and assumptions about life.  We don’t even clearly realize our intentions much less put them out there. Do you expect others to know you well enough to just lay opportunities at your feet?  Worse, do you expect some fairy-godmother type mentor to tell you what you should do at every turn?  That passivity will at best get you what others feel is convenient for you to have, according to their purposes.  There’s a difference between saying “I want to be recognized, be a partner, win awards, get published,” and “I want to design spaces that make people better.”  One way will actually get you there.

Focus on who you are and what you bring, living in the moment taking time to know yourself and your identity as an architect and you really will change the world.

The Skinny on Lean

Forget all that stuff about firmness commodity and delight.  Today’s design drivers are Lean, Green and Clean.  If you embrace evidence-based design, you probably already find your efforts fall into these categories.  Most institutions have fairly robust initiatives related to sustainability and infection control.  It’s the third leg of the stool where things get a little fuzzy.  While every vendor can tell you how their product contributes to your sustainability and infection control efforts, can they tell you how it provides greater value by promoting efficiency and service?  Lean is a concept that most embrace in principle but have no real idea how to put into practice-ask ten people to define Lean for you, and you get ten different answers.  Yet this is such a powerful tool for improving patient satisfaction, outcomes, employee retention, reducing errors and eliminating waste that any design effort that doesn’t take Lean into account is falling short of its potential.

Lean started at Toyota as a manufacturing process.  Apply it to the design of buildings unfiltered and a lot gets lost in translation, for example focusing on efficiency to the detriment of the human experience. The Lean Construction Institute, a non profit organization, is a great resource for helping architects and their clients work together to get a building design that supports its optimal use and generates value. I like to draw analogies to the Leaning Tower of Pisa as a mnemonic device in understanding why we need Lean:  inadequate foundations set in unstable soils and a flawed design led to a failed effort that corrective actions over it’s 177 year construction history (talk about inefficiency and waste) never did manage to put right. Lean processes help us take a step back and consider what we are really doing instead of getting swept up into the chaos of a frantic deadline:

A process about a process
A hospital can hire a Lean consultant and optimize processes without moving a wall.  As architects, our goal is to understand how design can support and even facilitate those processes. If the organization has not already done so, consider hiring a Lean consultant to observe existing conditions and help make improvements.  This allows your design efforts to be focused around the best operating conditions, not a bunch of old habits.  If a consultant isn't something the project can afford, do take the time to work with staff and understand and map the variety of activities they engage in daily to provide patient care.  You can do observations and start to notice the redundancies and waste that is built into the current system. 

Think differently about a solution 
Lean is also about empowerment.  By involving project stakeholders and coaching them through a collaborative process, you encourage them to think about how they could do their jobs better.  You also encourage everyone from the C-Suite on down to filter everything they do through the lens of whether it improves the experience of the patient.  This will inform the design in amazing ways and help you to set project goals that keep the design on track, even during value engineering.

The value proposition
Lean is, above all, a  multidimensional tool for improving value.  Value is a slippery metric.  It is not, as I’ve stressed multiple times in this blog, another word for cost.  Value may include cost, as when the lifecycle of a piece of equipment is measured against first cost and cost savings.  Value can also include intangibles, like improved satisfaction, that may generate revenue.  Still other measurements take into account indirect costs such as reduction in FTE’s or patient length of stay or lawsuits/non-reimbursement due to errors.  

Frank Zilm, Jody Crane and Kevin Roche have produced what I view as the most concise and understandable breakdown of Lean for Healthcare in their article for the Journal of Ambulatory Care Management “New Directions in Emergency Service Operations and Planning”   In their article they cite five key components:

Creating Patient Value
A value stream is a patient’s path through a set of services during a visit.  A facility will need to define value streams for all of the typical services they offer by department as well as by acuity level.  Departments then work collaboratively with leaders to identify ways to provide more value (such as shorter wait times, more amenities for family members, ease of access to the facility) or eliminate things that take value away (such as long waits for the transport team, inability to sleep well due to noise and interruptions) for each value stream they identify within their department.
Eliminating Waste
The next step is to categorize each element in a value stream as either value-added or non-value added.  The article suggests that non-value added items are one of eight forms of waste traditionally defined by Lean:

1.  Transportation – care delivery is delayed by the transport of patients, supplies or equipment
2.   Movement- staff should have supplies close at hand to their work areas, which should be proximal to the tasks/staff/patients they need to interface with. Think: right amount, right place, right time.
3.  Inventory- overstocked inventories represent capital that will potentially be wasted
4.  Waiting- this is wasted time for all involved.  In healthcare, this means less silos and territories and better utilization of resources such as exam rooms or OR’s.
5.  Overprocessing- doing more than the patient needs because of overlapping protocols
6.  Overproduction- generation of reports or materials that are not used
7.  Defects- errors or incomplete work that must be subsequently re-done.  Often there is waste generated by a lack of communication or even problems with wayfinding.
8.  Lack of human creativity- the ability to problem solve and improve processes

Promoting Flow
Study of service responsiveness within a system.  This uses tools such as queing theory to map flows from arrival through service delivery and exit, with a focus on responsiveness and system capacity.  Other ways to study flow include “spaghetti diagrams”  which track the movement of individuals through a system to identify where flow is impeded or non-linear (too much retracing of steps involved in a process).
Continuous Improvement
This is a quest for perfection that is embedded at every level of an organization.  By clearly identifying what will add value to the patient experience, staff at every level is empowered with the tools to suggest ways to improve performance. 
Developing People
Unlike traditional top-down leadership hierarchies, lean encourages a bottom-up organization that recognizes that those doing a job have the most insight into the processes involved.  By empowering staff at all levels, a more collaborative work environment is formed with a focus on delivering value over beauracracy. Resources for improvement are provided while obstacles are removed.

By working collaboratively and filtering it through the value process, it is easy to determine which strategies will make people better and which won’t.  These strategies can be reinforced through architectural elements. Focus on the value adds and drop the waste, and you’ll end up with a project a lot more successful than that famous belltower in Pisa.

Getting Out There: Keys to Being Published

So you’re flipping through the latest copy of a design mag and you pause to look at a project and think- “I could do that. Actually, I DO do that.  How come I’m not in this magazine?”  Good question.  Talent is but one facet of fame.  Doing good work and hoping to be recognized via a “stumble-upon” strategy is therefore a very poor marketing strategy.  In case you don’t happen to live in New York, Chicago, Miami or LA, network with influential industry movers and shakers, and have exceptionally famous clients commissioning you for seminal projects, you will need some help getting discovered.  Save the spiel on how you don’t care about such shallow things as recognition- that’s archispeak for “I want to win awards and get published but I don’t know how.”  Do read on for some tips from my friends in the business of sourcing and writing about architecture:

Be a compelling source

Publication writers are always looking for a story that will resonate with their readers. Whether it’s a design issue, technology innovation or insight into the practice of architecture, how has something you are doing changed the equation?  Even something you have attempted and failed may be a more thought-provoking story  than the firm that plugged along successfully with the status quo.  Remember, being “good” is not the same as being “interesting.”

Be source-able

You don’t need a PR agent to tell your story.  Too many architects believe that they can be passive, letting some guru outsider observe their genius and turn that into a press release that gets actual press.  What they need to be doing (as I have advocated in many, many previous posts) is clarifying their vision and purpose as a firm and developing a mission statement for each project.  Not only will this help clients to be on board and the design team to stay aligned with the project goals, but it differentiates your firm- its product as well as processes.  Now you can write a press release, or social media blurb that really says something and that allows architecture and design media writers searching for a particular topic stream to notice you. You may even get attention from more unlikely sources that deal with very broad (say New York Times) or very niche (say green urban planning) markets.

Be a source that’s sorted

Take some time to compile a list of all the publications that cater to what you do.  These can be local and regional publications, or national broad-based and niche magazines.  Get a copy of their editorial calendar.  If, for example, you know that Architect is planning to feature healthcare in its October issue, time your press release about your paradigm-shifting ED to coincide with their schedule so it doesn’t get lost in the shuffle or tragically just miss the cutoff for that year.  Tailor any press releases to align with the individual flavor of a publication.  Consider different angles like highlighting building materials, design process, client management, or technology in order to be relevant to them.  It also helps to be aware of what has been featured previously.  If your project or topic is too similar to one that was published in the last two years, it’s not likely to garner much interest; but if you can build on the theme and present a new twist, or can tap into the overall goals of the publication itself, you might just get some traction.  A lot more traction than a generic broadcast of a press release.

Please share your publishing experiences: what worked, what didn’t and what you’re about to try next.  Here’s to seeing all of you in print soon!