Unchain the Brain

In week eight of the Shattering the Meme novena, we examine the meme of self-limitation.  No matter how much we may say we want change in our lives, we tend to cling white-knuckled to the comfort of the familiar, never realizing how much that is keeping us stuck.

Unconsciously, we believe that we are only allowed a certain measure of success and that anything else is presumptuous.  In our careers, this manifests as a holding back, no matter how unhappy or unfulfilled we might be.  After all, what would your boss think if you said you wanted to own the company one day?  How would a client react if you said at the start of the project that you wanted to have it published?  It is certainly a conditioned response, this self-limitation meme, but did you ever stop to think about what would happen if there were no big thinkers?  We might all still be living hunter-gatherer existences.  It is not presumptuous to think big, it is wasteful to limit yourself.

In our lives we have a total of four resources; time, energy, relationships and money.  Everything we need is acquired by spending one or more of them.  The money thing is pretty self-evident as we live in a cash based economy.  But what about the others?  Well, much as having money wouldn’t do you any good at all if you buried it in the ground and didn’t spend it, you have to spend your other resources in order to enjoy what they can bring into your life as well.  Notice that I said spend not squander and also realize that these four resources are interdependent.  To live at your highest potential you have to understand that these resources (in effect all that you have) must be leveraged by actively investing in the life and career you want to have.

Well, that didn’t work
Failure.  That would mean that we had squandered our big four resources, right?  Wrong.  We operate in such fear of failure that it is easy to forget that it is the only means to success.  Our brain shuts down around the idea of risk-taking, or we dream big, but only at a really fuzzy global level and don’t see how their are opportunities for action all around us that would set us on the path the realizing those dreams.  Part of unchaining your brain from that rock is to cultivate resilience.  Failure of a task or venture is not failure of you as a person.  It simply means that that particular thing did not work out.  You may even be on the right tack and just need to allow for a different variable.  Find out why what you tried didn’t work, make the necessary adjustments and try again.  Even something as big as losing a job or a client does not make you a failure, it simply means that something wasn’t a good fit.  Resist the urge to extrapolate that event to your whole life and let pessimism and “I told you so” limited thinking kick in.  Instead, realize that you always have choices and resources.  Commit to moving forward and take control of the situation instead of being a passive victim.

Kick the “but”
When I work with clients and make suggestions that take them outside of their comfort zone, it is not uncommon to hear the “yes, but...” response.  What they are really saying is that their fear of the unfamiliar is stronger than their desire to succeed.  When you put it like that, all those excuses sound downright silly.  But we don’t very often put our “yes, but...” statements in that context, do we?  Instead, we buy into all of them, we turn our fears into pseudo-facts and talk ourselves right off that ledge.  Did you ever notice the relief you feel in those moments when you can convince yourself NOT to make a bold move?  However, what do you really get by staying stagnant in your life or career?  It’s easy to think that you are conserving your resources of time, energy, relationships and money by playing it safe, but the exact opposite is true.  No matter how much it may cost you to take a risk, think about what it costs you to stay stuck.  Is your energy sapped?  Are you upset all the time?  Do you harbor resentments?  Are you really enjoying and savoring life? 

Stay Curious
Instead of fearing change because you are focussing on what you may lose, think instead about change being the gateway to endless possibilities.  In nature, change is the means of generation.  Do you feel depressed that it is autumn and the leaves are going to fall, or do you enjoy the splendor of the trees cloaked in shades of yellow, red and orange?  You, too are part of the universe and the events in your life are meant to constantly evolve and change. There are cycles of growth. Even when you are in a “winter” it is only in preparation to regenerate again in a “spring.”  Recognizing when your fallow period is related to being stuck or that you are just between leaps evolves cultivating a curiosity and sense of wonderment.  In short, an appreciation of change.  Instead of shutting down your potential with “yes, but...”  reframe that response to say “what if...” and see what happens.  Stay open to all of the possibilities instead of focussing on the problems.

Shatter the Meme:
As human beings, we would be nowhere if we didn’t have a sense of wonderment and the desire to experiment.  It is your birthight to embrace the possibilities that come from a world where change is the only constant.  There is no virtue in limiting yourself and not working to achieve your fullest potential.  Instead, you are wasting your resources and cheating the world out of the opportunity to benefit from what you uniquely have to offer. Let your creativity soar- removing all the obstacles to your time and energy you place in your own way.

Shattering the Meme

For the third annual novena at the Patron Saint of Architecture, I want to help you to see all of the unlimited potential you have and start putting it to work for you.  Novenas are an annual chance to look in-depth at issues that affect how we operate in the world.  In past novenas we looked at how we can truly make a difference in the world, and how to overcome the things that drain our creativity.  This year, we will center around all of the things that we may not even know are holding us back, so that you can shatter those memes and become all that you were meant to be.

Memes, those ideas or beliefs that pervade our culture, are hard to avoid.  Like frogs in the pot, we don’t even know that they’re affecting us, they just seem to be the way it is.  As creative people we are especially susceptible to memes because there’s a certain voodoo around the act of creation.  When your work involves acts for which there is no right answer, you can only respond by evoking memes. The memes of a culture and its expectations, the memes of professional conduct, the memes of what a relationship with a client is supposed to look like.  But what if the meme is wrong? 

We can see the short-term effects of memes in viral internet content.  People get caught up in the topic, idiomatic speech may even be affected.  Then it passes.  Observing these micormemes allows us to see how something can be incredibly relevant due to factors taking place at the moment then pass away like a fad. I want to try to look at metamemes in much the same way.  That’s a lot harder to do.  Even if you can see that there may be something beyond, you might not see why it’s even in your interests to pursue it. 

Live outside the fishbowl
It’s important to realize that memes can operate on two different levels.  The horizontal level is what we absorb from our peers and other surroundings. Those memes can be, but aren’t always, easier to identify.  The more insidious memes are the ones that operate on a vertical level through cultural inheritance.  It’s what you learned about the culture of your profession from your professors and mentors, what your employers and co-workers have enforced, even what your parents thought.  If memes are all around us and have helped to form our beliefs about who we are and what’s possible in our lives and careers, that means we are not necessarily aware of them.  In this nine week series, we are going to bust through some common memes and shatter all of the limitations they hold.  I warn you, this will be both challenging and scary.  Your first reaction will be to disagree, but I ask you to sit with it and really think about why you might be unwilling to question a given issue.  We may not arrive at the same idea for shattering it, but just the realization that there could be a different approach is powerful.

Change the Equation
Believe it or not, most of us live our lives as if everything we encounter were a basic algebra problem.  We use the formulas we know to solve for x (ex. 6 + x = 10).  Unfortunately, solving for x means you have used a meme to eliminate the other variables, in our example that would be the number six or even the outcome, the number 10.  This very straightforward approach to problem solving often causes us to have tunnel vision about achieving outcomes.  If you have ever become frustrated about why you could be doing “all the right things” and still not get the desired outcome, you know what I am talking about.  I want to challenge you to think of things in a different way:  what do you really want the outcome to be?  Not the outcome you think you should achieve, but the one you really want.  Then, work backwards to see how you could achieve it.  Allow there to be more variables and less givens about the situation.  Use a little calculus, or even some differential equations.

Enter the World of Innovative Transformation
Innovative transformation is about challenging yourself to have a game-changing response to the opportunities in your life, instead of your automatic one.  How often do you start a new project the same way you start every other project?  I’m willing to bet you have all kinds of reasons why this is the best or only way to approach things.  You might be open to tweaking your process, but probably feel resistant to throwing it out wholesale.  But what if you did?  Silence all those limiting beliefs and just think about that.  What could happen?  Now think about all of the little things, the small and large decisions you make every single day.  Instead of making them on auto-pilot, start being conscious of them, and start asking yourself what assumptions are tied up in your typical actions.  Change your thinking and change your life.

For the next eight posts, I’m going to present common metamemes that we all deal with and give you strategies for looking at them in a whole different way.  I hope you’ll share your thoughts and experiences as you work to shatter each one.  The Patron community supports you and I know that you are unlimited.

Feast Day 2013: You are Unlimited

Today the Patron Saint of Architecture celebrates three years of helping bring inspiration and creativity to the forefront of what we do as architects.  What started as a personal need to affirm that architecture could and should be so much more than the professional opportunities that I was experiencing has now become a worldwide network of people who share that same purpose.  Each year, I build on the original intent and expand the content offerings; going from this blog to a facebook page, Pinterest account and, in this past year, a book.  As I challenge myself to experiment with new media and outreach efforts, I hope to not only build a community of creatives, but to encourage all of us to stretch outside of our comfort zone. 

I’ve come to realize that the comfort zone is a pretty deceptive place.  It’s what we know.  So we operate within a set of self-imposed constraints that limit our thinking about what’s possible.  Many of these constraints come from our education and professional experiences, and have permeated our understanding about what it means to practice architecture.  That’s why this year’s novena will be Shattering the Meme.  We’ll spend nine weeks exploring things about the profession of architecture that we just assume “have” to be that way and work to stop accepting the limiting premise of each one. 

In conjunction with this novena, I am launching my first ever series of teleclasses.  Based on my book, Career Crisis, which launched in April, the teleclasses begin next week with a free introductory session.  I am excited to bring the theme of applying your passion and purpose meaningfully to your career alive in an interactive way.  It’s one thing to read something, but nothing compares to actually being able to work through issues in a more direct way.  As architects, we often feel that we can and should be able to do it all, from graphic design to marketing to management, so it is natural for us to  think we can be our own coaches as well.  But coaching by its very nature is not a DIY endeavor. A coach can help you to understand your unique situation in a whole different way.  You need someone to encourage you to think beyond what you think is possible and challenge you achieve things that you really want (because that's the scary stuff you won't ever push yourself to do).  Someone who will tell you when you are allowing yourself to get distracted by being “too busy”  or when you are losing focus. 

You can begin to experience what it's like to work with a coach in the teleclasses, where we will spend an hour on each career theme and also do some individual “laser coaching,” where I will take questions from participants and provide targeted advice live on the call. 

If you want more, you can always work with me one on one in my career coaching program, which is a three week long intensive process.  I’m also pleased to announce a new coaching offering this year:  I Need a Quickie is specifically tailored to architects who really want to seek out coaching, but are still afraid to invest in themselves in this way.  While nowhere near as intensive as a coaching program, this new offering will let you buy an hour of one on one time with me to talk about career issues important to you.  I’m hoping that by offering this bridge to coaching, many of you will see how valuable it really is to work with me or another coach to up your game.  Wherever you are in your career, however much or little you have accomplished, you can always set your sights higher and achieve even more. 

We kicked off last year with the Change the World Novena, where I profiled architects who have taken it upon themselves to make the world a better place through the built environment.  Many of you viewed those architects as people who were somehow different from you.  You thought, “What they’re doing is great, but I can’t do that.  Who am I to think I can change the world?”  This year I’m not accepting that excuse- you are a gifted, creative, person, or you wouldn’t be an architect.  Who are you not to use that talent?  Get unstuck and shatter all those memes that are convincing you otherwise!

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.

I Am Not a Waitress

I have been absent.  Busy.  Eating too much pizza and not enough green vegetables.  The truth is, I’ve been feeling sapped.  The creative brain can often operate on hyper overdrive with more ideas flooding in that we can process.  We embark on myriad projects stretching ourselves in too many different directions.  My ambitious novena project has proved more difficult than I’d imagined to execute as finding then coaxing interviews out of built environment champions from all over the country has proved to be a bit like herding cats (you know who you are out there).  I’d like to also blame the flurry of events in my 3D life for why I have not blogged more in recent months (real estate crises, hectic work schedule, launching feng shui business, family matters), but this blog is about 3D life, not escaping it, so that’s not a good excuse either.  While I still feel guilty about not posting at my usual weekly pace, I’ve also come to realize that sometimes you just need...time.  We cannot flog ourselves into a creative frenzy, producing on-demand delights for the pleasure of others.  In short, I am not a waitress, and neither are you.  As creatives, we respond to, synthesize and process information to solve problems, but we will fail every time we try to follow orders.

I was recently reminded of this at a client meeting.  Because I am a healthcare architect, many of the people I work with are physicians.  Brilliant, worldly, folks who often themselves have a passion for the arts and architecture.  Certainly people who are used to speaking up and being the authority.  In this particular meeting, the person in question was sure that she had the answer, suggesting it in the meeting and even pulling me aside later to press her point.  I personally always like to think through and interpret what people have to tell me about space because I can often gain a great deal of insight on how to best solve the problem.  However, in this case, we’d already explored that path and the suggestion had more cons attached to it than pros.  I bristled inwardly at being told how to do my job.  I marveled at the audacity and confidence of this individual at the same time I wondered why as architects we so often demur.  Those that don’t are deemed “arrogant”  and “difficult”  and had better have a hell of a lot of talent on their side to make up for the fact that no one really likes them.  It led me to want to explore further the fine line between creativity and collaboration, between clarity and conformity and when it all degrades to just serving up a requested old favorite from the menu.

Let’s start with a round of intention and purpose
If you don’t know what you want, there is no way you can get it (or recognize it when you have).  While we often think that pushing ourselves to work harder is the key to success, the real key is your passion for what you do. This passion is contagious and will fuel any project and actually foster more collaboration that being a sycophant ever will.  As my yoga teacher likes to say- “if it doesn’t feel good, don’t do it.”  Truly words to live by, yet so many of us are caught up in life’s compulsories to the point that we forget what all those things were a prerequisite for. 

Next course: time and space 
While we often think that our best ideas come out of the pressure of the last minute, they are made possible by the fact that during periods of relaxation, something we negatively label as procrastination, we subconsciously form links between our problem and seemingly unrelated things out in the world.  If you can’t focus, there’s probably a reason and no amount of time at your desk will improve that.  The mind at play can recharge and see problems from new angles while the mind under pressure and a heavy workload reverts to reconstituting the last successful idea.

Send those negative thoughts back to the kitchen
The devil you know can be mighty seductive.  No matter how much we complain about all the things holding us back in life, we have a laundry list of excuses for why we can’t let them go.  These are your fears and they have no place in the successful outcome of anything.  Fear of failure prevents you from making bold moves, or causes you to sabotage the ones you do make too soon, leaving projects unfinished.  Fear of disapproval prevents you from voicing your thoughts or being an advocate for the expertise you have when you are challenged.  Fear of losing control makes us inflexible idea-hoarders, unable to collaborate.  When you play it safe, you stay stuck in a comfortable rut, all the while telling yourself you are making a wise choice (nice job, inner critic). 

Finish it off with a nice routine
When your creative process becomes automatic, you don’t question it anymore.  That makes it infinitely less likely that others will question you either.  Being creative is a constant work in progress.  You have to nurture your creativity for it to blossom.  Just like that never ending chore of cleaning the kitchen, creativity requires a daily investment of your time, and things quickly become a mess after a day or two of neglect.  Get in the habit of feeding your soul by making rest, exercise, and a ritual of creative tasks a non-negotiable part of your day.

Being an architect is nothing like waiting tables. We are in the business of providing our clients with something they don’t have today, of working with them to shepherd a vision into a built reality.  To do that, we are going to have to expand beyond literally writing down a list of criteria to satisfy. Our purpose in the design process is to work with our project team and clients toward defining the right problem and developing an innovative way to solve it, not delivering the daily special.

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.

Aspiration vs. Inspiration

Most of us are not unfamiliar with achievement.  On the battlefield of office politics, project expectations, and ever shifting work paradigms, we focus on scoring small victories daily.  We are also not without ego.  We want to do amazing work and have that work be appreciated and recognized.  But, with so many metrics by which our performance is judged, we can’t possibly dance to all those tunes.  How many times do you find yourself settling into a single mode, putting on, say, your sustainability hat to the neglect of managing things, or your manager hat to the detriment of thinking outside the box?  Let’s not even go to lean thinking, silo-busting, or ROI.  We’ve been conditioned to aspire, and that soon becomes our undoing.  That’s because aspirations are external motivators- other people’s ideas of success.  Attempting to please everyone muddies the waters and results in mediocrity, especially when the goalposts keep moving as new metrics get developed.  Aspiration is a treadmill, not a path.  It’s time to hit the off switch on these bad habits:

Exceeding Expectations
Implicit within this lovely catchphrase phrase is the idea that the expectations were clearly communicated and that they contained some threshold for clearly measuring success; which is not really in fact what will be considered success as you should have exceeded it.  In this economy, our clients cannot succeed if they pursue mediocrity and they hire us to access and facilitate fresh thinking.  Transformational projects never arise out of metrics.  They arise out of questioning existing patterns and habits and freeing ourselves from expectations.  Stop handicapping your vision. Instead of asking, “what now?”  ask “what if?”

Expectations are also tied up in emotion.  The fear of not meeting expectations leads everyone involved to play it safe.  That isn’t inspiring to anyone.  Instead, try pulling back to a more logical viewpoint, one that justifies thinking big by providing a path to get there. Focus on the solution and the trials and tribulations of the process will seem less onerous.

Marching into the Abyss
Of course we would like our next project to be user-centered, efficient, restorative, and transformational.  Of course we want to collaborate with the project team to leverage expertise and find innovative solutions that are faster to build, more cost effective that the traditional ones and save even more money over the life of the project.  Of course we want to attract and retain the best staff, satisfy our patients, residents or customers, and generate positive marketing. That some enterprising souls have found ways to codify these things (LEED, Lean, Evidence Based Design, organizational management, BIM, etc.) should make it easier for us - right?  Eh, not so much. 

When you try to add project expectations and tools together like a layer cake, you don’t get much real benefit from them.  Moreover, you drive yourself and your project team crazy chasing rainbows.  LEED, for example, can actually hurt the project’s overall quality *gasp* not because LEED is inherently evil or that sustainability shouldn’t matter, but because you aspired to be sustainable instead of being inspired to provide a better environment.  When we lose focus on why we are building in the first place and get distracted with “measuring up,” we start doing things that are not in alignment with the project goals or our personal ones.  We miss opportunities to enforce these goals in ways that would probably blow the doors off the LEED scorecard.
 
Chasing Proficiency
Scattered energy impacts nothing.  Trying to follow all of the buzzwords and metrics is more than just exhausting, it obscures your clarity.  Let go and start practicing with purpose.  When you know what you are all about and pause to plan how to express that in your work, you suddenly find yourself passionate, energetic and clearly communicating your vision to others.  Your inspiration leads them to be inspired as well.  This alignment of purpose and passion creates the focus that allows us to achieve the seemingly impossible. It is this distilled message and effort that leads us to mastery over mediocrity.  Mastery is what our clients crave and seek out, what the market rewards. Achievement is not about ego, which is limited by aspirations of what “should” be.  Instead, it is about having a consistent philosophy that can be understood by others. When you are functioning as your highest self, others will see you that way as well.

Simplify and pare down instead of frantically rushing to adopt whatever trend you recently read about.  Focus on the things that really matter to you and design on purpose instead of by default, allowing all the checklists, codes, technologies, requirements and strategic alliances to limit your vision then using that as the excuse for why the project wasn’t better.

Aspiration is playing into the expectations of others, inspiration is following you own path.  Do you want to get somewhere or not?

The Architect Brain- and How it Holds Us Back

We are trained as architects to be hyper-focused on detail.  We scrutinize relationships among elements, fret over details of code, think about every device that will be installed on a wall.  We draw finishes and juxtapositions of materials to the nth degree.  This same level of, well, obsession, gets applied to the way we operate.  Although we outwardly say that it’s a practice and that we can’t be held to a standard of perfection, we hold ourselves to that standard and react (at least inwardly) with shame when an error or omission occurs.  We condition our clients to expect perfection and implement all kinds of safeguards and quality control measures to “guarantee” mistakes won’t happen.  But the bottom line is that it’s about control.  We think that if we monitor every action of our staff, clients and contractors that we can swoop down like a hawk as the least sign of indiscretion and right the wrong.  That’s exhausting.  Furthermore, when was the last time it actually worked? 

If we were building the same building on very similar sites over and over again, we could just about perfect it over time. But most of the time, what we are doing in design is creating something from nothing.  We have developed a schizophrenic architect’s mind that allows us to be creative (embracing change) yet detail –oriented (resistant to change and looking for a right answer that can be applied formulaically).  Unfortunately, our creative mind does not win out often enough.  We ask of clients or superiors, “what do you want me to do?” and train our interns by saying, “this is how you do it.”  Then we become controlling about every detail of performance, documentation and implementation.

In an industry defined by disruptive change, we can take a cue from several recent neuroscience studies about how to deal with it creatively instead of procedurally.  Because architecture is really all about ideas.  A recent article in Strategy and Business magazine  by David Rock and Jeffrey Schwartz gives some really great insight into how to let go of fears and start making amazing buildings.  Here’s how to deal with taking the leap:

1.  Command attention by eliminating distractions so the entire project team is focused on the information being presented.  Engaging your audience makes them stakeholders in ideas as they are developed.
2.  Create a compelling vision of the project and why certain design characteristics make a difference in how the building will support its users.  The authors call this mental mapping, and it shapes the expectations and attitudes of our audience, allowing them to have moments of insight that forge new neural connections.
3.  Sustain the focus.  Keeping creative or innovative approaches in the consciousness of the project team (daily is recommended) helps the new vision to become “the filter through which every decision is made.”  Isn’t this our dream for every project- to lock into the owner’s vision and support it with an amazing design that makes the lives of all who experience it better?  Think about why this so often breaks down (or fails to even get started) on most projects.  Now think about how you can articulate and sustain focus on your project.

The devil is in the details
It’s time to perform an exorcism.  Our obsession with detail sets us up for both madness and failure.

Technology and the Built Environment

It surrounds us and yet we don’t even think about it.  Until something goes wrong, that is.  I’m talking about the ubiquitous presence of technology in our hyper-connected wired world.  This is way more complicated than remembering to program space for the ever-expanding IT room, or having the electrical engineer on your project sprinkle data outlets throughout the plans.  Serious technology, the kind that sophisticated buildings require to operate every day, involves everything from the energy management systems (EMS) so critical to sustainable efforts to security systems and even inventory/supply management.  It requires the stuff we don’t see, buried into walls or hardware devices and the stuff we do, like touch screen room controls.  If you, like most architects, are leaving these critical issues up to equipment vendors to install prior to building occupancy,  it’s time to start realizing the role that technology can play as a design driver.  I invited my colleague ans sustainable technology expert Raymond Kent, Principal of Sustainable Technology Design Group, to weigh in on how to better integrate technology design into building design.  Raymond is an award winning technology design expert, and rock-star of the information technology world, who also has architecture experience.  He has published numerous articles, written books, and guest lectured on sustainability and technology design and co-chairs the Technical Advisory Committee for the STEP Foundation.

What exactly is sustainable technology? 
Designing technology in a way that reduces the plug load side of energy consumption.  The Department of Energy recently published its first report showing that anywhere between 10% and 50% of building energy usage comes from power loads.  The wasted energy from standard approaches to technology design can often offset any energy usage being reduced through LEED measures.  Right now, the LEED system does not deal with this issue, but it’s an important enough factor to achieving net-zero and regenerative buildings that InfoComm, BICSI, and CompTIA, three major forces in the technology and AV world, have formed an organization called the STEP Foundation.  The STEP guidelines will include items such as IT, security, life safety, basically all low-voltage industries.  As co-chair of the STEP technical advisory group, I’m working with industries to take the STEP process from generic to specific so that there will be recommendations for security AV, etc. that we are planning on taking through the ANSI/ISO standard process.  This will create a total facility management system for owners that allows them to significantly increase their building performance while also reducing their carbon footprint above and beyond LEED.

How does your expertise inform or even drive the design process?
A lot of architecture firms struggle with the fact that they are not just designing brick and mortar.  When AV systems and controls are applied later, they often look tacked on and clash with the building aesthetics.  You’ll see plates on the walls, cables, speakers.  It’s important to think about the needed connectivities and networks early on in the design process.  Things like computers, lighting design. sound systems and AV can be as much as 30% of the construction cost and failing to consider this during the planning stages of a project can either mean the Owner has to compromise their technology, or that the design team will have to value engineer elsewhere to cover these costs.  What architects lump into soft costs, clients are more and more expecting to be part of base services.  Because architects are not trained to consider these things as part of building infrastructure, having a technology consultant on board as part of the design team is critical to the success of almost any kind of project.

So, how does an architect know when it's appropriate to have a technology consultant on the job?
Not every job will require a dedicated technology consultant.  However, their input can make a big difference to the success of your design.  I suggest that designers form relationships with technology consultants so that they can bounce ideas off of them and get advice on the level of involvement appropriate to the project type and Owner expectations.  Many times, the Owner is not voicing these ideas early enough and asking the right questions can save a lot of redesign later.  Even buying a couple of hours of time to review a set of schematic drawings can make a huge difference on the quality of the project.  A change in lighting alone can totally change the feel of a space.  An electrical engineer is not a lighting designer and is not trained to provide this level of expertise.  Architects need to realize that a Technology consultant can also help them program and layout a facility.  They can assess the situation and point you in the right direction.

Will we ever be truly wireless?
No. Security is a big obstacle.  Bandwidth is also an issue.  There is not a viable means for transmitting a wireless signal, so many factors can degrade it.  Content will always exceed capabilities.  Although power is not the issue because there are wireless power sources available, there will always need to be wires or fibers to provide some type of physical transport.

That being said, there are some great technologies that have emerged such as Audio Video Bridging (AVB) a new open protocol that is being adopted by prosumers.  AVB allows switching of an audiovisual and control stream to multiple devices so something you are watching on your phone can be transferred to your home TV when you arrive via your network for example. It works by sharing and accessing data quickly and efficiently in the cloud or other connected server system.  AVB will allow someone to arrive at a destination and download a presentation from the cloud right to the room’s projector and use their tablet device or phone as the remote.

What effect will handheld devices have on infrastructure?
Huge, huge, huge.  I see a day soon when my tablet computer or phone will become a room control device.  What you can do is so powerful.  The ability to operate remotely is unparalleled and will just continue to grow, but the power needs to be managed sustainably.  Right now, these devices use lithium batteries.  Lithium is a very scarce resource that is not always ethically mined.  It has to be extracted from other materials and it takes thousands of tons of earth to produce ounces of lithium.

Will the nature of how we use and perceive space change because of technology?
The boundaries of space are going to continue to blur.  How we work and commute will make us more efficient and collaborative.  However, everybody needs to have a home base and spot to center themselves.  The need for solitude and focus won’t go away and if we lose that, we are missing the point of innovation.

What is your biggest piece of advice for owners and architects about technology?
Owners really need to think about what they are doing in a space and do their homework about the kinds of things that will happen.  They need to involve the end users  to find the synergies and efficiencies in what people are already doing and bring this to the design team so that the logistics and costs of these ideas can be considered along with the rest of the project.  Most people are familiar  with AV from their local retail store.  Commercial grade equipment costs a lot more but will perform and last for you in a way that the retail stuff can’t.  Architects need to trust the technology consultant and not second guess them - your technology will perform only to the quality of the information you provide.  When project needs are clearly understood upfront and everyone is transparent about costs and budget, your technology consultant will give you a project that will perform at a great price.

Because Someone Had To: The Flawed Thinking of being a Trouper

In the last three weeks of our novena, we are focusing on transformation. Last week we looked at our career path and how to make the necessary adjustments to achieve maximum potential.  In week eight, we do the same for our work process.

At my old firm, there used to be a mantra uttered by the staff whenever confronted with an impossible situation.  “Get ‘er done,” frazzled architects and interns would say, as if a results-oriented approach would make the crushing deadline, impossible budget, or demanding client seem less overwhelming.  The objective was to hunker down and focus on the most streamlined path possible to meeting the objective, then put your nose to the grindstone and crank it out.  There was a certain pride, even, in the ability to be uberproductive in the face of such odds.

How many times have you found yourself faced with a problem for which you were ill-trained, understaffed and poorly equipped and just muddled through and made up a way? Woe to anyone who dare criticize the final product, means, or method, so proud are you to have accomplished the task.  If you feel like an innovator in situations such as these, you’d be right, but only in a can’t-see-the-forest-for-the-trees kind of way.

You feel proud of yourself for accomplishing something in a jerry-rigged half-assed way- because someone had to.

Perhaps it is our experience of studio instruction, where professors try to avoid placing too many parameters on the task at hand in order to encourage individual exploration.  We are just a little too comfortable as architects with working with an ill-defined problem and making the best of it.  A lot too willing to make sacrifices in order to get the job done (hello, all-nighter mentality). The trouble is we are diverting our creative energy to dealing with procedures instead of devoting it to design.  We make managing the schedule and the budget the design problem, not the design issues.  We’re rewarded for this flawed thinking when the metrics of success for a project are: 1. On Time and 2. On Budget and the people assessing our performance have taken those two measures completely out of the context of design.  It’s time to realize that being a trouper means only that you were willing to be put in a box and not complain about it.  What kind of team player does that really make you?  How to break free:

Don’t accept the premise.  Dealing with impossible design parameters is exciting, challenging and opens the door to innovation. Dealing with impossible demands from clients, co-workers and bosses is draining, stressful, and leads you to keep recycling the same solutions over and over again because you know they will work.  Do not confuse the two. 
1.  Schedule, budget, and aesthetics are interdependent variables of the design problem. They are not design problems in and of themselves. 
2. Use the pre-design phase to determine design parameters that will meet schedule and budget goals.  3.  Stay focused on the design problem, knowing that these are addressed. 
4. Start saying no to the things that aren’t about solving the design problem.  These things are not only distractions, but they affect all of your variables, therefore compromising the design itself.
5. One you define the problem to be solved, don’t dilute your efforts by allowing others to introduce new problems.

Always take time as a team to revisit the view of your project from 35,000 feet.  This helps everyone understand the goals and big design ideas and stop obsessing about the details that are actually off the reservation.  It's easy to get distracted by concerns crises that seem critical to one or more team members, but responding to panic with panic sends the project off on a tangent.  Instead, ask how a given change in direction or new area of exploration will help meet the overall goals.  If it doesn’t, then it’s a waste of time and money.  How’s that for meeting those on-time/on-budget metrics?

Everyday Miracles: Small Steps and Big Moves

Feast Day May 26

It’s the first anniversary of ThePatronSaintofArchitecture!  A virtual festival to celebrate a year of growth and discovery with all of you, loyal readers from literally every part of the world!  I started this blog to explore the severe disconnect between the work we all want to do and what it feels like is available for us to do. 

As someone who believes that you can design a bus stop and not only have a blast doing it but also innovate the way we understand that type of space, I couldn’t help but believe that my personal crisis of inspiration had less to do with the kind of projects I was working on than the way those projects were managed both internally and externally.  My minor in business and concentration in psychology of habitation and sociology kicked in and I started to really observe how firms market themselves and execute projects. 

What I noticed was that our inspiration isn’t being squashed by all of the things we typically identify: demanding clients, changing delivery methods, new practice requirements, a crappy boss.  It’s being squashed by our own limiting thoughts about what we really want to accomplish.  With all of this floating around in my head as well as the conviction that as architects we can embrace a better way, ThePatronSaintofArchitecture was launched on May 26, 2010 to celebrate the power of design and joy of creation.  (you may now eat your virtual funnel cake).

I’d like to invite you to join the procession through some of our biggest themes of the past year (and visit the hyperlinks to explore previous posts on these themes in more detail):

Set your intention
You can’t give voice to other’s needs until you find your own.  Avoid becoming an architecture bliss-ninny by getting in touch with your values as a designer and the reason you became an architect.  What do you believe about good design?  When was the last time you felt inspired? Explore the enzymes that catalyze your natural creativity into inspiration for innovation to reclaim your creative voice and draw clients and staff into your passion for what you do.

Share the spirit of design
We often fear our clients, believing that we must appease them and started to really pay attention to that dynamic as well. However, when your work and the way you approach projects is in alignment with what you believe about design, clients are drawn to that.  Do it consistently enough and you will actually be sought out by clients who specifically embrace your vision and want you to shake a little of your fairy dust on their project. It’s confidence that inspires and we must never let our clients lose sight of the end goal- a great project

Understand the culture and the community
That pre-design phase is the single biggest differentiator of a mediocre and great project. learning how to tame the many-headed monster of a large client with lots of silos and specialty departments.  So is learning to translate between what a client really wants and what they are actually saying.

Have mercy on the end user
The best projects are the ones that resonate with the people who have to live, work, play or heal in them every day.  Understanding their point of view transforms what would otherwise just be sculpture into architecture.  Do what no other art form can do- design for the fourth and fifth dimensions (time and light).

Many are called
The practice of architecture has changed, becoming both more broad-based and more specialized and certainly more integrated- sustainability, evidence based design, biophilic design, and new construction delivery methods can actually be used to enrich design when we embrace them as part of our process instead of viewing them as distractions.  Don’t fall for the trick that design is an isolated individual experience.  You are an architect not a painter.  Your art has to work.  It s not born from late nights before a deadline and a great unveiling ceremony.  You cannot, no matter how great the talent, conjure up the perfect design based solely on your instincts.  Seeing the value of evidence based design, sustainability, integrated project delivery and many other trends affecting the design and construction industry to improve and inform the design process as well as as a means to convince your client of the value of your design decisions is the path to salvation. and dismiss the distraction of messy user requests, budget annoyances, team relationship issues.

Use your gifts
When you fail to know yourself and what you uniquely can offer, your desperation causes you to focus on winning instead of creating.  How many times has our profession been undermined from within by a relentless need to compete, to get any job at any cost? Swim to more placid waters where you can focus on creating great work that those swimming in the bloody water of the shark tank don’t have the energy to do.  Let them devour themselves consuming ever scarcer resources while you focus on the abundance of limitless possibility.

Look for some exciting new features and resources in the next few weeks, including ways to work with me to sharpen your own career vision or the vision for your next project.  I hope you will continue to share your insights and stories with everyone (use the intentions page to help our community manifest your answers) as we look for guidance in navigating a profession that for many of us is actually a vocation. 

Fear of Failing

We hate to fail so much that we go to any lengths to avoid it.  Even when that means holding back our potential, leaving ideas unexplored and not trusting our inner voice.  We forget that failure is how we learn.  Just watch your average baby learning to walk and you can see that.  The desire to try new things and work at them until we get them right is hardwired into our biology, and yet we spend so much of our time trying to suppress that when we become adults.  Would you tell a child learning to ride a bike that they should never expect to fall?

There is an old adage that you should take action now and apologize later, often paraphrased as asking forgiveness instead of waiting for permission. I take issue with the words apologize and forgiveness, because they imply that if you take a risk and fail, that you should somehow be sorry for what you have done.  Maybe you shouldn’t be sorry.  When we fail, it is because we are doing these three things which ultimately are critical to our success:

Connecting the dots
Seeing the bigger picture and pattern within it is key to understanding a larger need that your design should meet.  If you myopically solve the small problem right in front of you, your solution is like to create more problems through unintended consequences or quickly become obsolete. Reaching out beyond the culture of a firm, interacting with non-architects in your community, building social bridges, all lead to opportunities and experiments.  Launching a new venture or bringing that possibility back to your boss can seem scary because it is so experimental.  So can convincing clients to go down an unproven path.  However, seeing relationships between conventionally unrelated elements leads to greater design relevance.

Moving outside of your comfort zone
It’s really easy to do what others expect of you.  It’s really hard to go beyond and do what you expect of you.  You may have buried your own goals and aspirations so deeply after years of working that you can’t even remember them anymore.  So, while you complain about the slow death of your creative spirit, you also pull up your chair to the comfy fire that is the boundaries of other people’s expectations.  Being willing to take a step back and challenge conventional assumptions is the only path to innovation.  Having the courage to challenge yourself and make a bold move is terrifying and exhilarating at the same time because you just don’t know what will happen.  People with inquiring minds look at a situation but are not blinded by all of the rules that govern that situation  By seeing the world differently and asking they arrive at ways of defining a problem that no one else considered.

Taking a stand
When something really matters to you, you want to be an advocate for it.  Whether that is a common goal you share with a client or pro-bono work you wish to do to help your community or the planet.  You might be pretty good at this outside of the office, but what would happen if you incorporated these same passions and beliefs into your work?  Would it make you more passionate?  Define you as an architect more fully? Attract some really great clients?

You didn’t become an architect to slog away at mediocre tasks fixated on minimum standards and  simply meeting expectations.  The world needs you to innovate and soar and give them great spaces that support the way we live work and play.  In fact, when you look at risk taking from this perspective there is no such thing as a failure, only a learning experience that brought you to a major career breakthrough.

Emanate to Innovate

Top-down, bottom up, there are all kinds of theories out there on innovation and how to cultivate it.  Most focus on creating a collaborative work environment where everyone feels empowered and where leaders are selfless mentors who walk the walk and set the tone.  Sign me up to work there and find some more companies like this to be my clients! 

The truth is that often neither the worker bees or management gets it, and those that do don’t get it right all the time.   I stumbled across this fun little site a while back called wecreate and read a fabulous post called The Key to Sustainable Growth that focuses on what research has shown to be the biggest innovation firestarter- company culture.  While the article offers quite a few handy tips on how to mean what you say and walk the talk, what I found most interesting was the idea that a culture should emanate from each worker. 

Being empowered doesn’t mean a whole lot if you don’t understand what you are empowered to do.  This idea that making people accountable will lead to innovation is a fallacy.  Accountability makes people retreat inside themselves and take the safest and surest route since they are implicitly going to be blamed if something goes wrong.  Empowerment is a whole different beast.  When someone is empowered, they are able to shape the process and terms for which they will later be held accountable and agree to those terms not just stand there holding the bag at the end.

Understanding what you are empowered to do isn’t helpful if you are not inspired by the mission.  Does your company have a mission statement?  Do you even know what it is?  How about your clients?  Long, vague statements are irrelevant.  A short sentence that captures the essence of who you are and why you do what you do means something and serves as a guiding principle to staff at every decision point along the way.  This mission will either resonate with employees and cause them to radiate the company culture, or it won’t.  Those who aren’t inspired will leave or soon emerge as ripe for the chopping block.

No mission can be undertaken fully if it doesn’t have the proper resources behind it.  By resources, I am not necessarily talking about money.  I am talking about good processes, and good ability to obtain and share knowledge.  A mission is just words if it isn’t backed up by tools and expertise as well as a willingness to share it freely with others.

So how do you create a culture of innovation for yourself and your clients? How do you have it emanate from each and every employee, every project?  Its not top down or bottom up but in between, across and through that matters.  Please share your innovation experiences- I’d love to hear what worked and didn’t for you!

Treat[ED]: Shifting the Emergency Department Paradigm

I’ve designed quite a few Emergency Departments, from large to small and concepts from zoning, to universal rooms to interior nurse cores and observation units. I have even participated on a team developing standards for one of the nation’s most prominent health systems. While all of these efforts focused on the patient experience and the standard of care, what we have really been doing is rearranging deck chairs on the Titanic that is the ED. ED volumes keep increasing at a pace that no expansion strategy could ever really address. Patients are not getting better access to care, in spite of our efforts. I guess that’s what happens when you treat the symptoms instead of the problem.

I have had some recent exciting conversations with Dr. Todd Warden whose work on implementing aggressive processes to improve ED throughput is a game-changer.  An article detailing his work

explains how we have traditionally been using not only the wrong metrics to project volumes during programming, but also the wrong paradigm for processing patients. As architects, we love a good form follows function argument and Dr. Wardens’ insights into ED function create some very interesting implications for design that I share with you here:

The ED is not a hopeless case

“I think the ROI benefits of strong new ED processes tightly integrated with complentary design bodes well for future of ED. I am working with a revenue cycle company Besler, who is interested in the impact of ED improvements on increased revenue and decreased cost of operations.” To help us better understand how this works, Dr. Warden focuses on some specific patient statistics. “The moving parts are Left Without Being Treated (LWOTs), elimination of Diversions, and over time increased volume due to improved patient satisfaction.” These variables can be significant when you consider the following example for a typical ED that sees 50,000 patients per year. “LWOT’s, if at 5% for a 50K volume ED is $400-500 for every patient that walks out and about 10% of those patients would be admitted, representing a loss of anywhere from $1 to 1.5M.” There is also a tendency to over-focus on the external causes of ED overcrowding, including efficient interface with other departments and the ability to get patients who will be admitted out of the ED. Dr. Warden’s concept for managing ED throughput challenges traditional process in order to deliver a more efficient outcome from within the department. This might seem like a management or operational exercise, but it is actually supported by the built environment:
1. The patient shouldn’t own the bed
Dr. Warden’s approach begins with a challenge to the way we program space. His study of departments has indicated that the way we typically calculate a peak ED volume actually does not account for the amount of fluctuation between the highest and lowest daily volumes and therefore provides an underestimation of the number of patient spaces needed. Further, we typically understand one patient space to mean one patient bay or exam room. In fact, many patients who come to the ED do not require a stretcher or a private room or bay at all. Even those who do may not need to be in such a space for the entire length of their stay. “By adhering to the idea that the patient owns the bed, we create a lot of needless crowding and bottlenecks”, says Dr. Warden.
2. Integrating process with Design
Two areas that Dr. Warden focuses on are capturing the true measure of volume and efficiently moving that volume of patients through the department. Interestingly, building more rooms is usually not the answer he recommends. “I really see three levels of intervention. The first is completely process-driven. By getting the ED staff to work more efficiently, they can get patients in and out of the department quicker. The second level involves renovation to create a better space for handling patients who are not ready for discharge but do not require a bed. Sometimes, giving up a few ED rooms or a section of waiting are can create this space and allow more patients to be treated. The final intervention occurs at facilities that must add additional space in order to manage their volumes. In these cases, I actually recommend that they build a space called a Rapid Evaluation Unit or REU. More importantly the additional volume created with a high-performance method such as the REU allows the additional volume to be absorbed usually without needing additional staff so most falls to the bottom line. By applying these principles to design, the ED unit is about a third of the construction cost of a typical unit but provides double the annual capacity of the same number of traditional ED beds.”

Read more similar content in an article by Dr. Frank Zilm, FAIA and FACHA on New Directions for the ED

Design is Like Healthcare...

I call it the “duh” moment- when someone can frame an issue in a way that is so obvious that it inherently makes sense.  You wonder how you never came to that conclusion on your own.  I experienced on of those moments today while reading Scott Simpson’s “Change of  State in A/E/C” for Design Intelligence. It compares the sea change going on in our world to the one that has and is still occurring in healthcare. Doctors and hospitals are “always” kind of things that we will never stop needing, but the particular services they provide and the way in which they deliver them has changed. Sound familiar?

The piece particularly resonated for me because I have a foot in both worlds as an architect who specializes in healthcare. Like many physicians and hospitals, our industry has been slow to move from a traditional cost-based, risk adverse model. We are annoyed that our value or expertise is questioned and rush to create defensive contracts or lobby for legislation that will protect our design processes. What we don’t do is stop to consider whether these processes even still serve us. As Simpson puts it, “there’s not much evidence that all of this management and monitoring is being used strategically to design better buildings or deliver them more efficiently, which is what clients really want.”


Simpson does a great job at projecting trends from the demise of mid-size firms to the rise of multidisciplinary project teams. It’s a futurist view, but an instructive one that I hope will inspire you to look beyond the way things are and start looking at how you can be a leader in delivering:


Architects now have to sell their expertise and value instead of their time
Outcomes matter more than the services provided, value does not equal cost. Simpson cites the example of physicians, who are the primary deliverers of care. At one time, physicians determined how they would treat patients and were paid unquestioned for the services they provided. Today, many have become employees of large health systems and the care protocols that they use are largely dictated by insurance company requirements, which are increasingly being tied to outcomes for the patient. Similarly, architects have focused on being compensated for time or as a percentage of the construction cost for producing a design product. We want our talent to act as the justifier for our decisions. Architects need to have a much broader understanding of what their clients value as well as a way to frame every decision within that context. Start framing the services and expertise you provide as a series of value-adds and tying financial incentives to your ability to deliver according to metrics that are important to the owner (lower maintenance costs, better building performance, etc.). Far from diminishing design freedom, this practice will actually justify in real terms what has in the past seemed arbitrary or purely aesthetic.

Teams, not firms, will design, document and deliver projects.

Just like the once-dominant general practitioner has now become only one member of a team (not all of them physicians) of specialists who manage a patients health, so too will the architect be perhaps the owner’s guide, but certainly not the only player in determining what’s best for a project. You wouldn’t go to a doctor who routinely performed tests without confirming with your insurance company that you had coverage, or who refused to give you access to specialists when needed. It’s the same in design. The standard focus on phases of design and bidding will become irrelevant as technology allows more sophisticated modeling of options. Into the funnel will go decisions about design, sustainability, schedule impacts, operating costs, return on investment needs, outcomes on user experience and out will come a determination of value. This will happen for multiple scenarios throughout the project and the entire team, including the owner and their stakeholders will weigh the options to select the one providing the highest value. Look for more collective contracts and increased emphasis on integration and collaboration. Better yet- suggest them and become an influencer of their content.

If you don’t lead the change, the change will lead you

Physicians have become marginalized by the business of healthcare. Although they still play a critical role, that role is no longer dominant as other players like insurance companies, government agencies, equipment manufacturers, lawyers, and the corporate structures that manage large health systems have come onto the healthcare scene. The solo practitioner with an independent practice who referred patients to the local independent hospital is a relic in today’s healthcare environment. Architects should learn from their medical counterparts that resisting change diminishes your power to shape it. My favorite quote from the piece nicely sums up the issue, “The irony is that architects, who are so good at inflicting change on others, are woefully reluctant to embrace change in their own practices.” Change or become irrelevant.

Are You an Architecture Bliss-ninny?

Do you eagerly await the next installment of your favorite design mag, have books chronicling the work of your favorite architect and actively follow you favorite firms and design blogs?  While there is nothing wrong with having heroes, appreciating good design or learning about trends or amazing ideas, there is a fine line between celebrating and sharing creativity and defining success as an architect by stylistic trends. Are we accepting the wrong premise?

If you can believe that success is not about calibrating yourself within the spectrum of your competition, but instead about you and what you contribute right now, would it matter if some other firm was bigger or had done more projects?  We need to stop defining ourselves by the terms set by others who have been successful- that is who they are, what they did, and however great an accomplishment, it does not represent the only or best answer that will ever be possible to achieve.  

Don't get lulled into conventional thinking about what design is all about.  My 16 years as a practicing architect have lead me to both moments of glory and despair about my career.  I believe that you can  keep the faith as an architect, and it is in the moments when I have done so that I have realized my greatest successes. Below are my design canons. Click the links for more in-depth information on each:

1. Stop being rick-adverse. You lose your design magic when you lose sight of your design values and stop promoting them.  You can never take a risk if you are afraid to fail and no great innovation comes without risk.
2. Know what you stand for as an architect.When you are engaged in what you do and really believe in it and yourself, that passion allows you to make the connections that truly move a client to believe in you as well. 
3. It's about innovating, not about competing. Calculating and worrying as a management style leads us to view our profession as a hostile environment where we are trying to beat out competition to a few scare resources and opportunities.  This kind of mindset holds us back from our true potential and the limitless abundance that it can bring.

Know yourself and promote your unique vision, follow the heroes whose work informs that vision.  Don't just smile and nod your head in the face of the design media and profession's definition of success.