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Architects and Designers: Nobody Cares What YOU Want

9/13/2016

7 Comments

 
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Contributed by Elias Saltz
In my very first post on this site, the one titled, “Is Construction Broken?” I listed a few ways in which the profession of architecture is contributing to the ways in which construction is broken and needs to be fixed.  I’m providing the link so readers can go back and refresh their memories on the whole collection but for the rest of this post I will be addressing my first observation, which read in part:
 
...architects see themselves as designing for themselves, or believe they’re working for the good of society, the environment, adopting “improving life” or other lofty goals that create real conflicts of interest that they don’t even recognize.
 
One of the most prominent architecture school tropes is the studio crit, which goes something like this:  After making incremental design revisions to their projects over the course of several weeks, students work several straight days and nights to create the beautiful models and drawings that would show off their work. They pin all the drawings up on the walls, stand bleary-eyed in front of all their fellow students and several professors who would serve as critics, and deliver an explanation for what they’ve done.  Then they’d brace for the inevitable avalanche of negativity.
 
A lot of the time, as I recall, the students would lace their explanations with the phrase, “I wanted to...”  For example, they might use broad sweeping proclamations like, “I wanted to have a building that gave the impression of melding the sun and the sea.”  Other times they didn’t have to be so lofty; then it would just be, “I wanted to put the classrooms next to the dining hall.”
 
Well, guess what, architects and designers? Nobody cares what YOU want!  Your desires are not relevant.  You’re not hired to do what you want. You’re hired to help clients solve their problems and fill the needs they have for their facilities. These days when I watch home renovation shows on TV I often hear the shows’ designers tell the homeowners things like, “I want to create a sense of serenity in your master bath.”  My response would be, “if that’s what you want, do it in your own house. You’re designing my house and you’re going to do what I want.”
 
(as an aside, you never see episodes of those shows where the homeowners berate the result of the designers’ work no matter how stupid it looks)
 
Clients give architects and designers authority to make myriad decisions on their behalf as to the planning, broad-picture and detailed design and material selections that go into their facilities because they lack the knowledge, skill and necessary time to make those decisions for themselves.  They trust their architects to look out for their best interest, so when it comes to making decisions, architects, stop and ask yourself these questions:
  • Am I thinking/designing in a way that creates a facility that’s in line with the client’s stated goals?
  • Do these particular choices make sense from the client’s and user’s perspective?
  • Am I making choices that avoid costing unnecessary money or creating downstream risks for my client (and if not, can I rationally justify the costs/risks)?
  • Can I communicate my thought processes and decisions to my clients in such a way that allows them to make informed decisions about my recommended choices?
At its core, architecture is (or at least wants to be) a professional service. We claim to have expertise and the ability to solve our clients’ problems.  This involves deciding how millions of our clients’ dollars are spent.  I ask my readers to try to think of any other profession where the practitioners’ desires matter at all, let alone matter more than clients’ stated needs.  In surgery, for example, skill, experience and knowledge matter.  The surgeon’s only relevant desire: to do the best job possible and give the patient the best chance of recovery. If a surgeon thinks it would be more aesthetically pleasing to blend the spleen and the appendix, the surgeon keeps that to himself.
 
Back in school, a studio critic would sometimes admonish a student not to use “I wanted” in their project description but instead to speak to the ‘concepts’ behind the design.  Unfortunately, ‘concepts’ in that context are just another word for the same outcome: a design that makes its moves to please the designer or to impress the magazine-publishing design community.
 
As long as we architects persist putting our own desires above our clients’, our ability to claim to provide professional service is compromised.  We want to be taken seriously in this industry, so do your part and start acting serious.
7 Comments
Randy Nishimura link
9/13/2016 11:18:46 am

Elias:

I'm probably going to step in you know what, but here goes anyway: Yes, our clients' interests should be paramount because we (architects) are hired by them to provide a professional service necessary to advance their goals. All of your questions for architects to ask of themselves are absolutely the right ones. That being said, I believe your last question ("Can I communicate my thought processes and decisions to my clients in such a way that allows them to make informed decisions about my recommended choices?") is perhaps the one that hews closest to a professional ideal many architects aspire to.

Frankly, some clients do not always know what is in their best interest. What is in their best interest may not initially align with what makes sense from their perspective. They may not understand that the goals they articulate upfront may be at odds with their long-term benefit. For example, a school district may insist upon building the greatest possible amount of enclosed space at the least possible cost, as quickly as possible; however, this short-sightedness may result in a facility that is so cheaply constructed and operationally inefficient it cannot be adequately maintained and necessitates ongoing and costly repairs or premature replacement. The architect might instead advocate in favor of building less area more durably, and addressing near-term space shortfalls with temporary facilities with the expectation that taxpayers would support incremental additions over the years (as opposed to wholesale replacement of a seriously deficient structure).

As you imply, the key is providing our clients with the necessary information so that they may make informed decisions. This is where what the architects "wants" is influential and beneficial. Architects are trained to look at the big picture; our clients do not always enjoy the luxury of being able to do so. Our education does encourage us to think in lofty terms. Why should that be so problematic if it brings to the table a perspective our clients may not have considered? How is this a conflict of interest if we help equip our clients with the facts necessary to make informed decisions?

I know many architects haven't done the profession any favors by often acting arrogantly and believing they know best. We architects do have to do what it takes to elevate the profession back to a position where it is held in a reasonably high level of regard. Upholding our clients' interests first and foremost is a step in this direction. On the other hand, I believe we also owe a duty to them, and to the society of which they are a part, to ensure what they believe best serves them is truly in their best interest.

Randy

Reply
Elias Saltz
9/13/2016 12:05:37 pm

Hey Randy,

Obviously, the key to successfully linking the client's stated needs to the outcome that best serves those needs is frank communication.

The desired outcome of architects' training and gained professional experience should be that we have the ability to offer sound advice to our clients and in some instances help them understand that what they say they want is not really in their best interests, and then to offer alternative perspectives. But we must use objective facts or sound economic analysis to the greatest extent possible and not just offer our opinions or advocacy position-of-the-day when we communicate our advice.

The point of informed consent is really the "informed" part. If we're offering suggestions based on our own lofty goals, it's incumbent on us to tell the client when that's the case. Too often we wrap our goals up with our other personal hobby horse initiatives but we aren't honest about that.

Elias

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Ross Spiegel link
9/13/2016 12:58:47 pm

Good observations, all. You could have titled this posting "C'mon baby light my fire" given the sensitivity that the design profession has to criticism. I have found over the course of my career that many clients have a vision of what they expect their project to be but when they hire design professionals to formalize that vision they have difficulty understanding what is produced. As design professionals we have a responsibility to bring our expertise to bear to incorporate the owner's vision into the physical representation that we produce on their behalf and to explain to them how it translates their vision into a building. That in no way should restrict us from exercising our ability to produce a project that shows off our talents as designers.

Reply
Elias Saltz
9/19/2016 04:39:27 pm

Ross,

Architects have so many tools at our disposal for making clients understand our designs. When I was a young architect we had traditional 2D architectural plan and elevation drawings, plus physical models, and hand-drawn renderings. Now we can produce unlimited numbers of computer renderings at various levels of realism - from quickie SketchUp models all the way through high-res photorealistic images, virtual reality walkthroughs, full-scale 3D printed detail components, etc.

It seems to me that if a client doesn't understand the design after being shown all that our tech-savvy wizards can produce, then the design doesn't conform to expectations. Our "talent as designers" should begin with a talent for communication and gaining comprehensive understanding of clients' needs and their vision before we even put the first line on paper (or pixel on screen).

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Ross Spiegel link
9/20/2016 07:55:06 am

Elias-

I agree with your comments. Unfortunately too many architects prefer to design a monument to themselves rather than translating their client's requirements into the building. So even though our skill set to convert thought into physical reality through the magic of rendering programs and being able to actually put a client into the future building through a graphic representation is quite advanced, that doesn't mean we are doing so at the service of the owner as opposed to our own ego.

Ujjval Vyas
9/20/2016 03:41:46 pm

Randy, did you want to itemize a few "lofty" ideas that you think architects have to teach sophisticated business people or anyone else for that matter?

I am always struck by how often architects seem to think they know something special when they are usually poorly educated and repeaters of truly banal "deep thoughts" (a la Jack Handy). The banal being repeated by really nice guys who are good grandparents or Narcissistic navel-gazers doesn't stop it from being banal (or often just maudlin, uneducated, or infantile).

Reply
Dave Koons
9/28/2016 02:25:45 pm

My first design job, while in Architectural school, was a new two-car detached garage, with small apartment on second floor. The owner fired me when I would not put the garage where he wanted it to be ... At the base of a hill, where the rainwater would wash into the garage. Owner scolded me for being to "focused on my own desires of beauty." The next person he hired was better able to explain the problem, and essentially got paid for my design & layout with a few tweaks. It taught me an important lesson, the older architect set boundaries, and was able to deal with the client's lack of knowledge better than I, as a student.
summary: not all conflicts between the architect and client are artistic squabbles.

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