YAF CONNECTION 16.01

CONNECTION THE ARCHITECTURE AND DESIGN JOURNAL OF

THE YOUNG ARCHITECTS FORUM

REDEFINING PURPOSE

This issue focuses on innovative practice models.

We will report on the Practice Innovation Lab hosted by the YAF in 2017 and follow the conversations sparked by that event. We will also bring stories of how emerging professionals are innovating in the practice of architecture.

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VOL 16 ISSUE 01

CONNECTION

THE ARCHITECTURE AND DESIGN JOURNAL OF THE YOUNG ARCHITECTS FORUM

CONNECTION EDITORIAL COMMITTEE Editor-In-Chief Yu-Ngok Lo, AIA Senior Editor Ian Merker, AIA Senior Editor, International Correspondent Vikki Lew, AIA Senior Graphics Editor Nicholas Banks, AIA Contributing Journalist Gabriela Baierle-Atwood, AIA Contributing Journalist Kate Thuesen, AIA Contributing Journalist Jessica N. Deaver, Assoc. AIA Contributing Journalist Sharon Turek, AIAS Contributing Journalist Jason Adams, Assoc. AIA

2018 YAF ADVISORY COMMITTEE Chair Lawrence Fabbroni, AIA Vice Chair Lora Teagarden, AIA Past Chair Evelyn Lee, AIA Advocacy Director Stephen Parker, AIA Communications Director Yu-Ngok Lo, AIA Community Director Abigail R. Brown, AIA Knowledge Director Ryan McEnroe, AIA Public Relations Director A.J. Sustaita, AIA

AIA National Strategic Council Representative College of Fellows Representative AIA Staff Liaison

Jack Morgan, AIA John Castellana, FAIA Milan Jordan, Assoc. AIA

THE AMERICAN INSTITUTE OF ARCHITECTS 1735 New York Ave, NW Washington, DC 20006-5292

P 800-AIA-3837

www.aia.org

CONNECTION is a the official quarterly publication of the Young Architects Forum of the AIA. This publication is created through the volunteer efforts of dedicated Young Architect Forum members.

Copyright 2017 by The American Institute of Architects. All rights reserved.

Views expressed in this publication are solely those of the authors and not those of the American Institute of Architects. Copyright © of individual articles belongs to the Author. All image permissions are obtained by or copyright of the Author.

ON THE COVER: MnDOT STRAIGHT RIVER

INNOVATION: PROGRESS OR DISRUPTION?

Carl Elefante, FAIA

INNOVATING OUR PRACTICE CULTURE

Lawrence Fabbroni, AIA and Lora Teagarden, AIA

STRATEGIC COUNCIL ON PRACTICE INNOVATION

Jack Morgan, AIA

REDEFINING PURPOSE

Yu-Ngok Lo, AIA

MAKING THE UNIMAGINABLE TANGIBLE

Illya Azaroff, AIA

A’18 YAF CONTRIBUTIONS TO THE YOUNG PROFESSIONAL COLLECTIONS REDEFINING PURPOSE: PRACTICE INNOVATION LAB BUILDING NETWORKS 2018 AIA ARCHITECTURE FIRM AWARD

an interview with Snow Kreilich Architects

CENTER FOR PRACTICE

an interview with Cara Hall, FAIA and Gene Schnair, FAIA

ACTIVATE ARCHITECTURE

an interview with Beau Frail, AIA

TEAM DAEDALUS: DESIGN, DEVELOPMENT & DATA

Stephen Parker, AIA

05 06 08 10 12 14 16

SAFETY REST AREA © Corey Gaffer Photography

See more in this issue's feature on this project starting on page 24

24 34 38 40

DATA-DRIVEN ARCHITECTURE: 2018 AIA YOUNG ARCHITECTS AWARD WINNER PROFILE

an interview with Anthony Viola, AIA

THE FUTURE OF CONSTRUCTION ADMINISTRATION

an interview with Brian Filkins, Akash Gaur, AIA, Aaron Maller and James Norris

CREATING CONNECTIONS

Shelby Elizabeth Doyle, AIA

CROUCHING ARCHITECT, HIDDEN DATA

Jason R. Adams, AIA

INNOVATING FOR SUSTAINABILITY

Vikki Lew, AIA

TECHNOLOGIES, TECHNIQUES, TECHNE

an interview with Alvin Huang, AIA

44 50 64 70 72 74

PHILANTHROPIC DESIGN: 2018 AIA YOUNG ARCHITECTS AWARD WINNER PROFILE

an interview with Stephen Parker, AIA

CREATING CONNECTIONS BETWEEN STUDENTS, FIRMS AND THE COMMUNITY

an interview with Kayla Berkson, AIA and Allison M éndez, AIA

MENTORSHIP MASH-UP

an interview with emerging professionals leaders

MAKING A SOCIAL AND PROFESSIONAL IMPACT

an interview with Emerging Professional Sara Loy, Assoc. AIA

RECONNECTING SCIENCE TO THE HUMANITIES

Jessica N. Deaver, Assoc. AIA

CODE OF ETHICS & PRACTICE INNOVATION IN GLOBAL CONTEXT

Vikki Lew, AIA

78 82 88 100 103 104

OUT OF THE BOX: 2018 AIA YOUNG ARCHITECTS AWARD WINNER PROFILE

an interview with Nicole Martineau, AIA

BUILDING A SUSTAINABLE MODEL FOR HOUSING IN THE U.S. Brian Gaudio, Assoc. AIA

A PRACTICE OF WORK-LIFE BALANCE

an interview with Jason Winters, AIA

ARCHITECTURE BUSINESS PLAN COMPETITION

an interview with Charrette Venture Group

INNOVATION IN ARCHITECTURAL PRACTICE

Bruce D. Turner, AIA

EVOLVING SPECIFICATIONS

David Stutzman, AIA

NOURISH THE SENSES

Vikki Lew, AIA

#YAFchat

A.J. Sustiata, AIA

#YAspotlight EXECUTIVE DIRECTOR SPOTLIGHT

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VOL 16 ISSUE 01

REDEFINING PURPOSE - CONTRIBUTORS EDITORIAL TEAM

YU-NGOK LO, AIA

is the principal of YNL Architects, Inc. He is the communication director of the Young Architects Forum National advisory committee of the AIA and the editor-in-chief of the YAF publication CONNECTION. Lo is a recipient of the 2016 AIA Young Architects Award.

VIKKI LEW, AIA

began her architectural career in San Francisco and started practicing internationally in 2006. Her diverse portfolio includes healthcare, university, residential, financial institute, retail, mixed-use, super-highrise, and master planning. She served on the AIA Hong Kong board of directors as the secretary from 2016-17.

GABRIELA BAIERLE ATWOOD, AIA

is an architect with Arrowstreet in Boston, MA. She is currently serving as architect licensing advisor for both the AIA Massachusetts and NCARB. Atwood continues her involvement by being a member of the Boston Society of Architects and their Emerging Professionals Network, BosNOMA and MakeTANK committees.

JESSICA N. DEAVER, ASSOC. AIA

is a recent graduate of the University of Houston Graduate School of Architecture and Design and holds a bachelor of science in Radio-TV-Film from UT Austin. She has worked in the film and television industry writing, shooting and directing in both Texas and New York. Deaver has been recently published in the literary journal The New Engagement

IAN MERKER, AIA

is an architect at Rainforth Grau Architects in Sacramento, CA, specializing in the education sector. He is the film curator for AIA Central Valley and a former YAF regional director.

NICHOLAS BANKS, AIA

is an architect for the education studio of Corgan in Houston, TX. He is the chair of the intern and associate network for AIA Houston, where he encourages local associates along the path to licensure. He has been a contributor to YAF CONNECTION for over four years

KATE THUESEN, AIA

is an architect and associate at DLR, Des Moines, IA with vast experience in both the K-12 and higher education industries. She holds a BArch from Iowa State University.

Thuesen is currently serving as the YARD representing the central states regions.

SHARON TUREK , AIAS

is a fourth year student at Cal Poly San Luis Obispo working toward a bachelor of architecture. In addition to her involvement with her local AIAS chapter, she is the student and California Coast representative for the AIACC communications advisory committee. She is currently closing off the 2017-18 school year with a co-op internship with ZGF Architects in Los Angeles, California.

JASON R. ADAMS, ASSOC. AIA

is a principal and partner of [STRANG] Design, LLC. He is a graduate of the University of Colorado at Boulder and an active member of the AIA, IALD and the Urban Land Institute. Adams currently serves on the AIA Fort Lauderdale board of directors and the AIA Florida/Caribbean board of directors as the regional associate director.

SPECIAL THANKS MATT TODD, AIA

STEPHEN PARKER, AIA

ABIGAIL R. BROWN, AIA

SHELBY MORRIS, AIA

joined Columbus’ Design Collective and leads integrated project teams in a variety of project types. He is entering his second year on the board of directors of the AIA Columbus component. Toddy also serves as the Young Architect regional director for the Ohio Valley region.

is an associate and project architect at Hickok Cole in Washington, D.C. Brown currently serves as the Community Director for AIA’s Young Architects Forum, she is a past chair of the AIA DC emerging architects committee, and she is a recipient of the 2016 AIA DC Emerging Architect Award.

is an architect and planner with SmithGroupJJR in Washington, DC. He is the national advocacy director for AIA’s Young Architects Forum (YAF), Parker’s long term focus is advocacy for the National Design Services Act as co-founder of the AIA’s NDSA Coalition. This year, Parker was awarded the AIA’s Young Architects Award.

is an associate principal with The Beck Group in Atlanta, Georgia. He has served on the YAF advisory committee, YAF South Atlantic region director, and is currently serving on the AIA construction contract administration committee.

Morris was recently awarded the 2015 AIA Atlanta John Busby Award, the 2016 AIA national's Young Architect Award, and the 2017 Building Design and Construction’s 40 under 40.

PRESIDENT'S MESSAGE

INNOVATION: PROGRESS OR DISRUPTION? It is hard to miss that we live today in the “Age of Accelerations,” the term Thomas L. Friedman coined in his 2016 book, “Thank You for Being Late.” Friedman argues that the fundamental characteristic of our era is that the pace of change is beyond our capacity to adapt to it. The challenge every person faces today is coping with change so rapid that we cannot fully comprehend it.

Consider the implications of Friedman’s viewpoint as it pertains to the pace of innovation in the architectural profession and construction industry. Is the tide of innovation flowing or ebbing.

Does it indicate progress or disruption? Will it bring prosperity or destitution?

As I look for answers, I cannot ignore the lessons of my own experience. Throughout my career, I have witnessed firsthand a near-total remaking of the architectural profession. Let me explain.

While in high school, I “ran prints” in an architectural firm. The firm employed about 10 registered architects and twice as many career draftsman. Those draftsmen (yes, they were all men) made a good living by knowing how to put pencil to paper. By the time I was a fully vested architect, draftsmen were rare. Today, the job doesn’t exist.

It is a story of progress and disruption. Clearly, the computerization of architecture was inevitable, transitioning initially from manual drawing to computer-aided drafting. Today, with building information modeling and the integration of design data into virtual-reality platforms, the productive potential of computerizing architecture is being realized. At the same time, pathways to and within the profession have narrowed significantly. Manual skill has become all but irrelevant.

Far more powerful forces of change confront the profession today, in the Age of Accelerations. In its 2017 report, Reinventing Construction: a Route to Greater Productivity, the McKinsey Global Institute singled out the construction industry for its relative resistance to innovation. Compared with the overall U.S. economy, in which productivity has increased by about 3 percent annually, productivity in the construction industry has remained nearly flat for decades. Not only does this hinder economic growth in our profession and industry, it hurts productivity in every other economic sector.

McKinsey’s assessment of the construction sector comes as no surprise to most architects. Firms engaged in the largest building and infrastructure projects have far more opportunity to work at the cutting edge, where scale accommodates greater investment in innovation. On most projects, there is simply little capital to invest for future productivity gains. Throughout the construction industry, contracts and management systems are fragmented and even conflicting. Risk is inconsistently distributed and rarely supported with appropriate financial rewards.

Digitization in design and construction lags far behind sectors where direct computer-driven manufacturing has revolutionized industry. Some building components, like curtainwall systems, are produced using methods consistent with best practices in other industries. But for most construction, advanced productivity

REDEFINING PURPOSE

enhancements, like robotics, remain the stuff of research. Teams like the Massachusetts Institute of Technology’s Steven Keating, Julian Leland, Levi Cai, and Neri Oxman are prototyping the future.

Take for example their recent paper titled Toward Site-Specific and Self-Sufficient Robotic Fabrication on Architectural Scales. With such huge economic gains at stake, how long before their futuristic imaginings become reality?

But few firms, and even fewer schools, are paying heed to the Age of Accelerations’ implications for architectural practice and education. A notable exception is Yale professor Phil Bernstein.

At the recent Association of Collegiate Schools of Architecture (ACSA) annual conference, Bernstein presented a paper titled The Future of Making Things: Technology and Pedagogy in the Digital Age. The paper tracks the development of six technologies that will reshape architecture: big data, computational (parametric) design, simulation and analysis, the internet of things (IoT), industrial construction, and machine learning (AI). Bernstein plotted these innovative technologies on a timeline, relating their development to the career path of students entering architecture school next year. Bernstein’s timeline illustrated that by the time they have taken their place as fully vested professionals (5 years school + 5 years AXP + 5 years licensed practice = 2034), the following technologies will be mainstream: performance-confirming data, solution optimization through parametric design, calibrated modelbased prediction, sensor-modified performance, prefabrication, automated assembly, robotic construction, and learning algorithms.

Current practices in the design and construction of buildings cannot and will not continue much longer. Economic pressures are already directing billions of dollars into research. Revolutionary advancements in other sectors provide compelling models whose technologies and knowledge sets are beginning to find their way into architecture and construction.

Mindful of the example I witnessed early in my career, it seems inescapable that impacts as profound as the disappearance of the draftsman will be experienced again in the architectural profession. In the Age of Accelerations, it is not a question of whether innovation spells progress or disruption. It means both.

The question is, how will we build adaptability and resilience into our practices and education in the Age of Accelerations. ■

Carl Elefante, FAIA

serves as principal for Quinn Evans Architects in Washington, D.C. He has been an active member of the AIA at the local, state, and national levels. Elefante represented the Middle Atlantic region on the AIA Board of Directors and the Strategic Council, and he has worked closely with the AIA Committee on the Environment, the Historic Resources Committee, and the Sustainability Scan Advisory Group.

Elefante is the 2018 president of the AIA.

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CHAIR'S MESSAGE

INNOVATING OUR PRACTICE CULTURE

As part of the preparation for the Young Architects Forum’s Practice Innovation Lab, we asked participants to read the book “Blue Ocean Strategy” (by W. Chan Kim and Renee Mauborgne). A main focus of the book is finding untapped market space rather than “swimming with the sharks” – creating competitive advantages by shaping new opportunity. These principles should apply not only to the markets we endeavor to practice in, but also to how we view the growth and evolution of our profession.

In this spirit, I will be using the “Message from the Chair” to develop messages with people from underrepresented populations in our profession. While this isn’t meant in any way to be comprehensive, I do hope it serves as a small example of how we can partner in leadership and create more space in our profession. More diverse voices are imperative for our success and prosperity, and we need to work together to create a profession that continues to command respect not just for our work, but also for our introspection and action.

In 2018, the YAF is focused on contributing to leadership in the AIA Board’s equity initiatives and pushing for action on issues of harassment, abuse, discrimination, and bullying in the profession.

As far as innovations in our collective practices go, we don’t believe there is a more important area where we can and must chart new courses.

The message on the following page is an abbreviated and amended version of a letter that 2019 YAF Chair Lora Teagarden, AIA, and I developed with input from (and co-signed by) YAF leadership across the country earlier this year. We thought it would be good to share with our membership at large to communicate just one way we are advocating on your behalf. The YAF is by no means the only group working to lead on this issue – which is good news because there is lots of work to do, and success will require sustained efforts over many years.

Lawrenece J. Fabbroni, AIA, 2018 YAF Chair

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REDEFINING PURPOSE

Like numerous others in the profession, many of us within the YAF leadership had been contemplating when – not if – the profession’s own #metoo moment would arrive.

During Grassroots ’18, we received our answer in the form of a New York Times article detailing many allegations of harassment and abuse by architect Richard Meier, FAIA, over his career.

The women’s accounts are appalling and have been a stark reminder that as a profession, we have not been collectively proactive on issues of harassment, bullying, abusive behavior, and discrimination in the workplace. We believe more, and more diverse, voices will come forward throughout our profession, and we stand ready to help lead efforts to improve our profession. That, after all, is a core reason we all believe – and serve – in the AIA. We believe it is time to put the profession on notice that such behavior is intolerable and that we must all act together to create a more equitable practice culture.

We believe transparency, discussion, and action is necessary to affect the significant and widespread changes necessary to the health of our profession. Below, we have outlined what we believe would be positive, and necessary, next steps, and we are actively engaged with AIA leadership to work towards a series of goals which follow: 1. Building a Positive Culture from Day One We are committed to ensuring that architectural academic programs provide a clear understanding of what constitutes harassment, bullying, abusive behavior and/or discrimination.

2. Supporting Victims and Providing Resources We are committed to developing a support mechanism for victims who do not have adequate work environment or human resources personnel to aid them. AIA National is now studying the best mechanisms to accomplish this.

Lawrence Fabbroni, AIA

is the 2018 Chair of the AIA's Young Architects Forum, and an associate at Strada Architecture.

HIs commitment to advancing the profession and promoting emerging professionals has been ongoing for over 15 years, having served as the 2002-03 national president of the AIAS. He is a 2018 recipient of the AIA Young Architect Award.

3. Addressing Current and Future Allegations Given the current discussion centered on allegations concerning a prominent member of the profession, we have advocated that the AIA articulate the consequences of such actions, a topic that is under review at the national leadership level.

4. Messaging and Action at the National Level We advocate for a strong voice from all levels of leadership that permeates our membership and platforms so that our words and actions stand strongly in alignment for the greater good. We have been happy to see immediate and ongoing action since Grassroots, and we will continue to push for these issues to remain at the forefront.

5. Creating Impact at A’18 We are committed to making sure the issue has a presence at A’18, and are actively engaged as leaders in planning for this.

6. Leading at the Local Level We are committed to making sure this issue permeates all levels of the Institute, and we have begun discussions to help develop, support and promote local chapter programming.

As young architects, we often are described as the “future leaders of the profession”, but this is our profession right now, and we want to leave it better than we found it. We’re looking forward to working with all of you to accomplish that.

Our best,

Lora Teagarden, AIA

is a project architect at RATIO Architects in Indianapolis, IN, a published author, and business owner. She is a 2017 Young Architects Award winner and 2019 chair of the YAF. Her passion for the profession drives her to mentor young professionals and volunteer in her community.

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STRATEGIC COUNCIL NEWS

STRATEGIC COUNCIL ON PRACTICE INNOVATION A PARTNERSHIP WITH THE YOUNG ARCHITECTS FORUM

The Young Architects Forum’s Practice Innovation Lab, conducted in the fall of 2017, included participants with a wide variety of backgrounds, interests, and experience. A few members of the Strategic Council were participants, and one councilor was involved with the advisory group that designed the Practice Innovation Lab experience.

Attendees were members of traditional architecture practices and practices that have been recognized for their innovative approaches to issues such as work-life balance for the contemporary employee.

One such innovative firm is Kezlo Group, whose Jason Winters was the 2017 moderator for the Strategic Council and a member of the Practice Innovation Lab. A 2016 AIA Architect magazine article on firm practice featured Kezlo Group. Jason writes that the firm “has developed a result oriented work schedule for all employees including two female employees who recently started families and would not otherwise be able to work in the field. This approach allows for employees to work remotely and set a schedule that accommodates their personal lifestyle. Kezlo Group promotes this innovative practice model so employees can balance their home life with the demands of working in the architectural profession.”

The need for firms to innovate around the notion of work-life balance was one of several ideas expressed by the participating teams. Illya Azaroff, New York regional representative, took part in the planning of the Practice Innovation Lab and shared his perspective on several common themes that resulted from the work of the participants. According to Illya, “The conversations confirmed that "group" is more important than "individual," that social impact is both the key to relevance and a greater measure of success for this generation of architects.” Illya also noted that there was a common theme, focused on the “fluidity of relationships that coalesce around projects rather than an office entity.”

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These insights along with other lab outcomes are making their impact throughout all levels of the AIA and specifically in shaping the study-group work of the Strategic Council in 2018. The practice innovation work group will continue its work from 2017 and will use some of the outcomes and discussions from the lab to investigate potential future forms of practice. Specifically, this study group will focus on how the AIA might better position architects to be successful with evolving practice models and culture.

Several teams at the Practice Innovation Lab discussed the idea of subscription-based services that could solve a multitude of challenges and offer varied service opportunities for subscribing members. This concept informed the beginnings of a Strategic Council study group that is focusing on how to use virtual reality as a tool for helping members connect and lead on a broad range of challenges facing society. The working theme for this group is to answer the question, “How can the AIA engage designers of all types and connect them with tools to change the World?” This work group’s big idea states, “We envision an inclusive space which exists as a virtual sphere and expands our (members) ability to influence the 90% of the built environment which is not influenced by architects. We desire to increase the diversity of voices inside the sphere, generating a hive mind capable of solving both common and wicked problems.” This group is in the initial stages of its work on this topic. Early research has turned up many great developments in the AR (augmented reality) and VR (virtual reality) spaces. The challenge facing the group will be figuring out how to use this knowledge to develop a virtual model of collaboration and cross-pollination that the AIA can share with its members to increase their personal prosperity and the influence of the profession.

As an architect who has practiced for over 25 years, I am quite amazed by the amount of transformation the profession and the practice of architecture has experienced. As digital platforms continue to evolve, allowing us to shrink our world, these same platforms will change how we practice. It is important that the AIA develop frameworks that can support emerging forms of practice.

If you are interested in being a part of the Strategic Council conversation on practice innovation, the virtual-reality concept noted above, or any other Strategic Council study group, please reach out to either your regional representative or me. We look forward to adding more voices to our study groups to broaden the discussion.■

As Jason said in the video prepared on the work of the Practice Innovation Lab, “Traditional design services are constantly being affected by other services within the industry. … This requires innovation in how we think about delivering our services and what those services are.”

Jack Morgan AIA

is the architecture department manager for Guernsey in Oklahoma City. He served on the board directors of his local chapter, AIA Central Oklahoma Chapter and was the chapter president in 2014. Morgan also served on the state chapter's board of directors, AIA Oklahoma for a number of years and served as the chapter's 2017 treasurer. He is also the Strategic Council's liaison to the YAF.

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EDITOR'S NOTE

REDEFINING PURPOSE

THE PRACTICE OF INNOVATION

Welcome to our first 2018 issue of CONNECTION! In October 2017, the Young Architects Forum invited 60-plus architects and emerging professionals to explore ideas that have the potential to change the practice of architecture and redefine the future of our profession. The Practice Innovation Lab was a huge success, sparking conversations at the local, state, and national levels of the AIA. The YAF advisory group and the leadership team unanimously voted to adopt “Practice Innovation” as the theme of 2018.

As the journal of the YAF, it is only natural for us to align our theme with this year’s YAF vision. So our editorial team decided that the focus for 2018’s first issue would be “Redefining Purpose,” and we’re diving into stories of practice innovation. How are emerging professionals reinventing the profession? The architectural world is full of innovation, but for decades, we haven’t seen many changes in the way we practice. Why is that? How can schools help the next generation practice architecture innovatively?

As Evelyn Lee, the 2017 chair of the YAF, puts it, the Practice Innovation Lab (PIL) helped architects find new ways of bringing value to our clients. We sit down with her to talk about one of the most successful events in recent years. We follow up with participants to see how their experiences at the PIL changed the way they practice. Beau Frail shares his story of how the PIL inspired him to start his own firm. Jason Winters, the 2017 AIA Strategic Council moderator, speaks about how the PIL inspired him to think about his firm’s future. In addition to our PIL reporting, we expand the conversation and speak with professionals who are part of the community that is revolutionizing our profession, from technology (Shelby Doyle’s piece on computation and construction) to philanthropic design (Jessica Deaver’s interview with Sara Loy on social architecture). We also reach out to the AIA Center for Practice to see how the AIA is supporting this initiative.

We hope you find our conversation with Kathleen Simpson, director of firm engagement, insightful. And finally, we look at some of the things the other side of the globe is doing and models we could learn from. Our international correspondent, Vikki Lew, shares her experience as a speaker at the Façade Tectonics 2018 World Congress, hosted by the University of Southern California.

The subcategories for this issue focus on four practice-model trends and themes: “Building Networks,” “Data-Driven Architecture,”

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“Philanthropic Design,” and “Out of the Box.” We are hoping to bring as many perspectives as possible on the topic of practice innovation. Our other conversations include interviews with emerging professionals at the 2018 AIA Firm of the Year, Snow Kreilich Architects, and with two of the 2018 AIA Young Architects Award winners, Nicole Martineau and Anthony Viola.

As part of the CONNECTION tradition, I would like to welcome our new member, Jason Adams. Jason is the vice president of a Florida-based firm with a strong focus in the residential market.

He also writes occasionally on his own and contributed greatly to two books, “Environmental Modernism: The Architecture of [STRANG]” and “Rockhouse/[STRANG] Architecture,” authored by his firm. Jason will bring a unique perspective to the team, and we are excited to have him on board.

As many of our readers will notice, we combined Q1 and Q2 into a single issue. “Practice innovation” is such a broad topic that our team thought it deserved more space. This issue is made possible only by the tremendous effort put forth by the editorial team. Congratulations to them on another successful issue, with many inspiring conversations. I would also like to thank all of our contributors for the time they spent on articles and interviews. On behalf of the editorial team, we appreciate your continued support of CONNECTION. Lastly, I must end on a sad note. My colleague and friend Michael Lingerfelt suffered a heart attack in his sleep and passed away this year. I met Michael at the AIA Strategic Council, and we were in a work group together. A past contributor to CONNECTION, Michael was well-known in our community and a leader in disaster-relief efforts after Hurricanes Harvey and Maria. I offer my condolences to Michael’s family and friends. One of our fellow councilors, Illya Azaroff contributed an obituary to remember him.■

Yu-Ngok Lo, AIA is the principal of YNL Architects, Inc. He is the communication director of the Young Architects Forum national advisory committee of the AIA and the editorin-chief of the YAF official publication CONNECTION. Lo is a recipient of the 2016 AIA Young Architects Award.

REDEFINING PURPOSE

YAF RESOURCE GUIDE The YAF CONNECTION team is looking for team members to join the editorial committee. While we welcome skill sets of all stripes, our current need is for a Contributing Journalist. The position description is as follows: Contributing Journalist: Contribute a minimum of (3) articles per issue. Coordinate with outside contributors for contents and make sure they adhere to the established deadlines. Must be able to work in a remote setting with the ability to balance publication deadlines with employment. Ability to attend quarterly kick-off conference calls with the potential for intermediate update calls.

Proficiency in Adobe Creative Suite (Photoshop, Illustrator, InDesign) and Google products required. Applicants’ access to Adobe CC is preferred. Please provide a sample page or link of prior work.

This position has immediate availability with a commitment of one year and the remaining two issues of YAF CONNECTION in 2018 Position will be reevaluated at year's end based on need and performance.

If interested, please contact the YAF Communications Director (YAF CONNECTION Editor-in-Chief / Creative Director), Yu-Ngok Lo, AIA at yungoklo@hotmail.com for more information.

AIA’s Young Architects Forum YAF's official website YAF KnowledgeNet A knowledge resource for awards, announcements, podcasts, blogs, YAF Connection, and other valuable YAF legacy content ... this resource has it all!

AIA College of Fellows Check out the College of Fellows's reciprocal newsletter to find out more about what's going on.

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Don’t let them be out of the loop any longer. It’s easy for AIA members to sign up. Update your AIA member profile and add the Young Architects Forum under “Your Knowledge Communities.”

• Sign in to your AIA account • Click on the blue “Add a Knowledge Community” button • Select Young Architects Forum from the drop down and SAVE! Call for News, Reviews, Events Do you have newsworthy content that you’d like to share with our readers? Contact the editor, Yu-Ngok Lo, on Twitter @yungoklo.

Call for CONNECTION Articles, Projects, Photography Would you like to submit content for inclusion in an upcoming issue? Contact the editor, Yu-Ngok Lo, at yungoklo@hotmail.com

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MAKING THE UNIMAGINABLE TANGIBLE IN MEMORY OF MICHAEL LINGERFELT 1956-2018

For his entire life, Michael Lingerfelt made the unimaginable tangible, bringing to life fantastic experiences for the public and sparking the imagination of his friends and colleagues. That's why it is so hard for many of us to believe the unimaginable, that he has left us. “He is now with his Savior, and we can take comfort in that,” his wife, Rebecca, told me. I, like many of you, had made plans with Michael before he died: phone calls, meeting dates, and just plain fun. It is with heavy hearts that we acknowledge the loss of one of our greatest friends, colleagues, and mentors, Michael Lingerfelt, FAIA. Michael’s career as an architect was extraordinary and exceeded only by his life as a father, grandfather, mentor, and cherished friend. Michael has left us to continue his great work and incredible legacy of public service while he moves on to his next adventure.

To know Michael was to recognize that he approached life as a great adventure. He was an endearing friend who cared about the people around him and loved life. He left an indelible impression on everyone he met in the profession he dedicated his life to, and he was so deeply committed to causes such as disaster relief.

His creative spark made him invaluable during his 15-year tenure as a Disney Imagineer and to us at the AIA and on the Strategic Council. Michael often described himself as “A former Disney Imagineer, fellow in the American Institute of Architects, who loves God, family, the Texas Longhorns, and golf.” He was a disaster buddy to many of us and a seeker of the best diners, drive-ins and dives. That only begins to illuminate how he approached life and sought happiness.

Michael was born and raised in Texas and extremely proud of his roots. An NCAA Division I athlete at the University of Texas, he was a lifelong Longhorn. While at UT, Michael played football and lined up in the backfield with NFL Hall of Fame running back Earl Campbell. He often joked about the nicknames and banter on those great teams as if it were yesterday.

After college, he became a licensed architect. He received a bachelor’s degree in architecture from the University of Texas at Austin and a masters certificate in virtual design and construction from Stanford University. He often told the story, as only Michael could, of how he was hired at Disney, the beginning of one of his many adventures. He rose to become the director of architecture and engineering at Walt Disney Imagineering (WDI) and often

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REDEFINING PURPOSE

cited Mickey’s Ten Commandments in approaching problems that kept the public experience front and center. Whether it was about joy and laughter or public safety, those commandments made him a true citizen architect. His list of projects is impressive, and there are too many to name here. For an idea of his impact, consider that he was the lead on over $4 billion of work at WDI. To name just a few of his contributions, Michael led The New Tomorrowland Project at the Magic Kingdom, including the entire Main Street USA retail realignment; Rockin’ Rollercoaster at Disney’s Hollywood Studios; and Mission: Space! at Epcot. He was also the architect of record for the entire Disney’s Animal Kingdom theme-park project, along with Expedition Everest, where he gave personal behind-thescenes tours to families of his friends and disaster buddies. After his career at Disney, Michael continued to consult on many creative endeavors with WDI and built his reputation as an unbounded creative with a passion for helping people.

His public service with communities after disasters began when he became a consultant for FEMA and chair of the AIA National Disaster Assistance Committee, for which he led many efforts to make safer structures. Drawing on his Disney expertise, he cited the Disney building code, which boasts absolute protection and continuous operation of park facilities. He participated in training with FEMA safety personnel in safety assessment and CalOES SAP, instructing more than 1,000 architects in post-disaster safety assessment. He also became an instructor with the National Disaster Preparedness Training Center, training over 500 people, including mayors, city officials, and allied professionals, in resilient building design for coastal communities through Hurriplan. In these trainings, along with his dedication to serving the public, Michael saw a noble cause and took great pride in his work.

His extraordinary work and advocacy for architects serving the public through disaster preparedness were recognized as part of his FAIA distinction in 2012. Michael often talked about one of his most treasured career moments, being elevated as a fellow in the National AIA after 33 years of membership. In his fellowship distinction, Michael was highlighted as “an architect who made notable contributions to the public through his work with AIA and his extensive work with multiple post-hurricane safety assessments.”

life-safety evaluation and protocols for the Orlando Eye. Michael also served on the Federal Alliance of Safe Homes board and the Valencia College Foundation board, where he advocated for students to enter the architectural design industry.

For those of us who knew Michael, we always saw a willingness to be helpful, no matter what the task or challenge. At the root of Michael’s FAIA recognition was service and helpfulness, a true validation of who he was. In the industry of design and construction, which is often challenging and complex, Michael was a true leader who reminded all he worked with that any problem could be solved with patience, honesty, a laugh, and a smile. He always kept his composure, and he found a way to make things work out.

Above all else, Michael was a true friend and family man. Every meeting or phone call with him centered on family – how your family was doing, how his family was doing, and plans for a bright, exciting future. Family was his foundation for everything. It was why he worked hard, why he imagined a better future, and why he approached life the way he did. He was a devoted, loving husband to Rebecca and, as G Daddy, he was incredibly proud of his children and grandchildren. They were the definition of pride and joy to him each and every day.

Our thoughts and prayers go out to Michael’s family, friends, and colleagues. He will be missed. The legacy of who he was and the impression he made on all of us are immeasurable. His impact is profound, and I believe we are all better for having known him.

His family wrote that “His memory will be best honored by treating each other kindly and by remaining optimistic in the most difficult of times.” Rest in peace, my friend. Your work has just begun, and we will continue it for you. ■

In recent years, combining his passions for architecture and public safety, Michael became the architectural consultant for Universal Creative on The Incredible Hulk roller coaster and helped with the Illya Azaroff, AIA

is the principal of +LAB Architect PLLC. & Associate Professor at NYCCT (CUNY).

He holds an MArch & BArch from Pratt Institute and a BS in Geography & BSAS in Architecture from University of Nebraska Lincoln. In 2014 he received the AIANYS Presidents Citation and the AIA National Young Architects Award. He serves on the AIA National Strategic Council with Michael and is a very good friend of him.

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A'18 CONFERENCE ON ARCHITECTURE

Wednesday, June 20, 2018

WE 301

1:00 -5:00pm

MBA: Mastering the Business of Architecture for Emerging Professionals

All Convention (Thurs - Sat)

8:00am -5:00pm

Architects: Commit to Lead! (resources and commitments on anti-harassment in the workplace)

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YAF Contributions to the Young Professional Collections Be sure to check out our sessions...

Thursday, June 21, 2018

Friday, June 22, 2018

Saturday, June 23, 2018

TH 503 10:30 – 11:30am

FR 309 8:45 -9:45am

SA 113 8:00 – 9:00am

Rage against the Machines: Surviving our end of Architecture TH 517 10:30 – 11:30am

Positioning Yourself as a Knowledge Leader?

Demystifying the AIA Strategic Council FR 405 9:45 – 11:15am

YAF Practice Innovation Lab: Disruption of the Profession

Harassment in the Workplace, Part 2 - Commitment and Resources: Hearing Voices & Exploring Conversation Strategies SA 210 9:45 – 11:15pm

2+2 Achieving Outstanding Design: College of Fellow + Young Architects SA 414 1:45 – 3:15pm

Starting your own Architecture Firm: The Young Architects Perspective

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REDEFINING PURPOSE

PRACTICE INNOVATION LAB

BY YU-NGOK LO

Evelyn M. Lee, AIA

Laura Weiss, Assoc. AIA

Illya Azaroff, AIA

Jeff Pastva, AIA

leads workplace strategy at Newmark Knight Frank. She combines her business and architecture background to seamlessly integrate workplace experience with organizational culture and operational strategy. Lee was the 2017 chair of the Young Architects Forum Advisory Committee of the AIA.

is the principal of +LAB Architect PLLC. & Associate Professor at NYCCT (CUNY). He holds an MArch & BArch from Pratt Institute and a BS in Geography & BSAS in Architecture from University of Nebraska Lincoln. In 2014 he received the AIANYS Presidents Citation and the AIA National Young Architects Award.

is a project architect at Bright Common, treasurer of AIA Pennsylvania, and editor in chief of the College of Fellows Newsletter. He was also the 2015-16 editor-inchief of CONNECTION.

The AIA Young Architects Forum has always been relentless in advancing the next generation of leaders. The fast-evolving pace of our practice not only calls for new ways to design and build, but also new ways of working.

Ultimately, the goal of the Practice Innovation Lab was to create an event focused on the future of practice, challenge and inspire participants, and give the conversation a jump start as well as a platform for it to continue into the future.

Architects need to be more nimble and creative, not unlike innovators or entrepreneurs. However, the strategies and disruptive innovations taught at business schools are not directly applicable to architecture. With the drive to add value to our profession and the society we serve, the YAF launched the Practice Innovation Lab (PIL) in the fall to explore how architects could innovate the way we practice.

YL: What are some of the things you hope participants can get out of this event?

Yu-Ngok Lo (YL): Tell us a bit about the Practice Innovation Lab. What drove the creation of this event? What are the goals?

Evelyn Lee (EL): I'm going to be honest here and say that a large part of the PIL is driven by a personal interest for architects to find new ways to bring value to their clients. I was hopeful that the members of the committee and staff would tell me to stop where it headed in a direction that the YAF should not be focusing on or a conversation that we should not be having.

But they didn't stop me, and I think it's because it was the right thing to do at the right time.

The YAF has always focused on leadership in practice, but there are a lot of young architects and emerging professionals out there who are doing some amazing things with their practices that are really challenging traditional practice models.

That's the conversation that I believe the future leaders of the profession should be having.

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is an innovation strategist, facilitator, and coach. After a decade as an Associate Partner at IDEO she held leadership roles in a range of private and social sector enterprises. Weiss is currently a senior innovation advisor at Slalom and an adjunct professor at the California College of the Arts in San Francisco.

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EL: I hoped that the participants left with new ideas and thoughts on how they can go and potentially evolve their practices. The event brought together a lot of like-minded individuals, going forward I would like to find a way to maintain the network we created and find venues to host similar talks, charrettes, and the like on practice innovation.

YL: Tell us a bit about the moderator, speakers, and participantselection process. What are some of the criteria the committee had in mind?

EL: Moderator - I've known Laura Weiss, Assoc. AIA for a while now, having found her on LinkedIn when I was personally looking for what was next in my professional developments. I found her career path quite intriguing, having been an architect herself who left the profession quite a while ago, only to end up leading business practices in companies like IDEO and the Taproot Foundation.

She's made an incredible impact as a director at large on the Strategic Council, and I was incredibly grateful that she had time on her schedule to contribute to the Practice Innovation Lab. Speakers - We were searching for architects who were doing something different, as well as interesting speakers that were adjacent to our field. As a Ted fellow, James Patten had given a lot of really engaging and provocative presentations outside of the

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I would argue that architecture education teaches us to be strategic thinkers and even innovators. However, I think they could do more to teach designers about entrepreneurism.

The current state of practice is indicative of a culture that hasn't changed as fast as the world around it. profession. But as an interactive designer, he had very little time in front of an audience of architects – although his designs interact with the built environment. We thought this would be a great opportunity to showcase a relatively new type of design practice that more architects should be engaging with and building collaboration.

Susan Chin, FAIA, Hon. ASLA is a friend of mine and has been on the client side for a while now. As the executive director of the Design Trust for Public Space, she has been instrumental in the development and implementation of high-profile public spaces in the city of New York, including the Five Borough Farm, Making Midtown, Under the Elevated and Laying the Groundwork.

The panel presented us an interesting opportunity to have a dialogue with people that are approaching design solutions within the built environment differently. I first saw Andrea Sreshta of LuminAID pitch on "Shark Tank" with her co-founder Anna Stork. The two Columbia architecture student grads are changing the world in different illuminating ways. Under the watchful eye of Gregory Kearley, AIA, Inscape Publico has been successfully running a nonprofit alongside their for-profit business. Partner Katheryn Meairs, AIA, of the RED Office talked about the view from the client side developing their projects.

Each of the speakers was meant to serve as an inspirational break in between working sessions where the teams were putting together their pitches.

YL: What are the next steps for putting these proposals into practice? Or how could this event potentially change the more traditional architecture practice models we see today?

EL: It was never meant for the proposals to be adopted outright. At best, we thought that individuals might consider their experience

at the Practice Innovation Lab and reconsider what their practices could do to remain relevant in an ever-evolving economy.

What we didn't expect was for some of the teams to take their ideas to the next level. JAMB, one of the teams, along with the co-founder of Kelzo Group – who is owned by one of the participants, Jason Winters – is one of the finalists in the annual architecture business practice competition put on by the Charrette Venture Group. Others have been looking for ways to continue the conversation back in their regions, and we've had a few people outside of the Practice Innovation Lab who have reached out to us to see what it would take to run a similar lab in their state.

YL: Innovation is an important element of architecture. However, we have not seen many innovative (in terms of our practice model) changes in our profession in general until this decade. Why do you think this is the case? What can we do more on the academic side?

EL: I would argue that architecture education teaches us to be strategic thinkers and even innovators. However, I think they could do more to teach designers about entrepreneurialism. The current state of practice is indicative of a culture that hasn't changed as fast as the world around it. All of our innovation goes into the design process and reveals itself in the form of amazing buildings. But we are beholden to one of the most predictable economic cycles in history, the construction industry. We are thriving when our clients are building, and we find firms letting staff go and closing their doors in the downturn.

Things are beginning to change though. We are seeing more architecture schools partner with or integrate with business schools as well as new or developing fields within design to diversify the value that architects bring to the table.

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Regarding why we are seeing more innovation within the last decade, I think it was born out of the necessity of the last recession. Firms need to find ways to keep and pay their talent by offering expanded or different services outside of what has been considered traditional architecture services, finding new ways to create revenue.

YL: As a strategic thinker and an architect, how do you think strategic thinking can help elevate the innovative thinking of our profession?

EL: Architects are trained both in education and in practice to create solutions to multi-dimensional problems. The question has never been whether or not strategic thinking can help elevate innovation in the profession; it has been a matter of where we apply strategic thinking and innovation in practice.

The next person we reached out to is the moderator of the event, Laura Weiss, Assoc. AIA. As a designer who decided to pursue an alternative career, we asked her what innovation is.

YL: Tell us a little bit about your journey from being a traditional practitioner to an alternative career in design?

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Laura Weiss (LW): As you mention, I began my career as an architect, a goal I had dreamed of since the age of 12. But something unexpected happened during my years as a licensed professional and educator – I became increasingly interested in the business side of the creative process. I started to observe how architects worked with their clients and the general public and the impact those interactions had on what ultimately was produced. It wasn’t always pretty.

My professional story after that has three inflection points. The first was this recognition that, at least in the world of architectural practice, design activities and business decisions were not always aligned. This resulted in my decision to go to business school, to understand how “clients” think and to learn how design might somehow inform that process. This also exposed me to the broader world of innovation – beyond just the design of the built environment – and I gravitated towards the world of product design, which seemed much more commercially oriented and also much more collaborative than the field of architecture.

REDEFINING PURPOSE

Innovation is all about value creation. That's what differentiates it from something that is merely a technological invention.

OPPOSITE: EVENT KICKOFF - Courtesy of AIA ABOVE: GROUP BREAKOUT SESSIONS - Courtesy of AIA

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YL: What is innovation? Why is it important for the architecture profession to engage in practice innovation?

LW: The definition that I offer when asked “what is innovation?” is this: Innovation is something new that creates value. Innovation is all about value creation. That’s what differentiates it from something that is merely a technological invention. An invention is something new for which the value proposition has not yet been determined.

Innovative products and services generally add delight or ease to our lives, or likewise eliminate pain or struggle. As a result, innovation is a primary source of commercial success and often competitive advantage. But the achievement of innovation is challenging because it requires alignment of three disparate components – human need, technical feasibility, and economic viability.

Let’s consider how the quest for new value creation via innovation is playing out in the field of architecture. To be clear, architects are service providers, not builders. They are paid for the service they provide, which enables a building to be constructed. Yet architects have focused on the design of the artifact as their sole competitive advantage. The human experience of how a building is realized has changed little.

And therein lies a challenge. Clients don’t simply purchase or consume services; they also participate in creating it – making it slower or faster, better or worse, cheaper or more expensive.

(Think about this during your next encounter with an airline :-) What this means is that we should be more deliberate in how we engage clients and other stakeholders in the delivery of our work.

I believe that is the source of future innovation for our profession.

YL: “Collaboration” was mentioned in many of the team’s business models. What is the correlation between innovation and collaboration?

LW: Collaboration is critical to innovation because it enables divergent thinking. Often, in our quest to solve a problem or create something new, we focus on the solution. We rush to convergence.

But the best solutions come from an understanding of the actual problem we are trying to solve, and the best way to do that is to engage multiple different perspectives on the topic. This is not always a natural way to work because it’s a setup for conflict and disagreement. But that kind of creative friction yields the best

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results. And for service businesses, working in a way that engages all stakeholders – clients, partners, and others – is critical for productive relationships.

YL: The PIL is only the beginning of a campaign that revolutionizes the practice of architecture. What’s the next step?

LW: I believe that we need to take a two-pronged approach to realizing true change in architectural practice. The first, and most important in my opinion, is transforming the way architects are educated. There needs to be much more emphasis on leadership and interpersonal communications – the kinds of skills that enable architects to successfully address adaptive challenges, not just technical challenges. This may involve reimagining how we teach professional practice and immersing students in “real life” situations much earlier and in a much more integrated way.

The other way we will revolutionize practice is to educate the public – i.e. our clients – in the value of our services. This goes back to the issues of service design and delivery that I mentioned earlier. We practice in a system, not in isolation, so we need to redefine how value is created and distributed in that system. We cannot merely redesign our individual practices – this is not actually a businessmodel problem. It’s a system problem.

YL: How are strategic planning and innovation related? How do they inform each other?

LW: Strategic planning has many dimensions, but the basic premise is to explore and clarify ways to "beat the competition" (whatever that might be). Innovation is often the way to achieve an organization's strategic goals, whether it is focused on a new marketing strategy, a brand strategy, a new product development strategy or something else. Strategy without innovation is essentially a dead end, because incremental growth or change is rarely an effective way to address competitive threats.

The pursuit of innovation without a larger strategic objective is equally problematic as it is a waste of resources. Without an understanding of a real problem to solve (or an opportunity to exploit), it is very difficult to realize any value from such initiatives.

Finally, we spoke with Jeff Pastva, AIA and Illya Azaroff, AIA, participants of the PIL, to share their experience of the events.

REDEFINING PURPOSE

....the focus on the state and future of practice is not only important to me, but represents one of the most significant value propositions of the AIA.........Evolving models of practice are one of the ways we remain relevant and future-proof.

YL: Why did you apply for the PIL? Illya Azaroff (IA): I was part of the advisory group that put the Practice Innovation Lab together and it stems from the YAF Workforce Jetpack. I participated hoping to see a snapshot of future practice and challenge my own ideas of how my studio practices.

Jeff Pastva (JP): I applied to the PIL for a couple of reasons. The first is that the quinquennial summit helps shape the priorities of the YAF for the next five years. Since the YAF has been an important part of my development as an emerging professional, it was something I wanted to be a part of in the hopes that my institutional knowledge could add to the conversation. The second is that the focus on the state and future of practice is not only important to me, but represents one of the most significant value propositions of the AIA. As an organization, we have the intellectual, human, and financial capital to solve the challenges that face our next generation of architects. Evolving models of practice are one of the ways we remain relevant and future proof.

YL: What did you get out of the PIL? How did it change your own practice?

IA: What I found was that the lab explorations provided a cross section of the upcoming generation’s view on practice. It confirmed for me that "group" is more important than "individual", that social impact is the key to relevance and a greater measure of success for this generation of architects. Fluidity of relationships that coalesce around projects rather than an office entity was another common thread with the attendees. One area I found new and different from my view were several models that were positioned to serve other architects by filling the gaps in the current project delivery models and professional practice models. Overall I observed a collective model of practice rather than a pyramid approach. Something I strive for in my studio.

JP: I personally learned a few new models – from researchdriven to nonprofit/pro bono – that are not only financially viable but advance the role of the architect/designer in society. But I also witnessed the talent and passion we have to innovate. Architecture as a profession has a lot of involuntary entrepreneurs – those who strike out on their own because they have to or want the freedom to practice as a sole practitioner. However, a limited percentage of those firms have a business plan and fewer still a transition plan for future growth. When we get ahead and intentionally use design

TOP AND BOTTOM RIGHT: EVENT SPEAKERS - Courtesy of AIA

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to solve problems – including designing a firm – it shows how our experience, education, and natural talents have prepared us for success. We just need to act on it.

YL: What would be the next step for you and your practice?

IA: Currently, I am questioning my own practice and next stages for transformation.

• Service to something larger than self vs. the need to build new buildings.

• Redefining who the profession includes and who we serve was discussed and recognized as a healthy endeavor. In other words, question everything, and fear nothing.

I learned how to better structure workflow and risk for innovation that involves colleagues from this generation. I believe that the AIA should support risk-taking models and provide a flexible framework to support emerging relationship-based practice. How can the institute support incubators that are not tied to place?

JP: I would like to further explore the business plan my team (Daedalus) envisioned, but also spread the program to other chapters. An innovation lab such as this one will only have limited impact if it's held once every five years by AIA National. In order to take hold and change the culture, more voices need to be included, and more emerging professionals need to explore innovative ways of practice. Giving them some instruction and the push to innovate, sets this up for success in the future.■

See related articles: How the Practice Innovation Lab Changed My Practice, by Beau Frail Team DAEDALUS by Stephen Parker A Practice of Work-lift Balance by Yu-Ngok Lo Architecture Business Plan Competition by Yu-Ngok Lo

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REDEFINING PURPOSE

I participated (the PIL) hoping to see a snapshot of future practice and challenge my own ideas of how my studio practices.

ABOVE: PRACTICE INNOVATION LAB PARTICIPANTS - Courtesy of AIA

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BUILDING NETWORKS

2018 AIA ARCHITECTURE FIRM AWARD AN INTERVIEW WITH SNOW KREILICH ARCHITECTS

BY YU-NGOK LO

Snow Kreilich Architects is the recipient of the AIA Architecture Firm Award. Now in its 55th year, the award is the institute’s highest honor for a firm. Founded by Julie Snow, FAIA, in 1995, the Minneapolisbased studio is well-known for exceptional mentoring of its talented members. Originally Julie Snow Architects, the firm was renamed Snow Kreilich Architects four years ago. In the nomination for the honor, the firm is credited with “a restrained formal elegance and a refined minimal tectonic sensibility while avoiding the nostalgic and technological excesses of our discipline.”

Aksel Coruh

Christina Stark, AIA

Jason Dannenbring, AIA

Katie Myhre, AIA

Mike Heller, Assoc. AIA

Matthew Tierney, AIA

Natalya Egon, AIA

joined Snow Kreilich Architects in 2015. She holds an MArch from the University of Minnesota and a BS in architecture from the University of Texas-Arlington.

is an architect and project manager at Snow Kreilich Architects. She holds a bachelor of fine art degree in interior design from Iowa State University and an MArch and ecological design certificate from the University of Oregon. She is a LEED accredited professional and obtained licensure as an architect and certified interior designer in 2017.

is a registered architect whose training, research, and career have focused on thoughtful design solutions embedded in place. In addition to projects in the US, he has worked extensively in East Africa with nonprofit organizations and continues to do so within Snow Kreilich’s office.

CONNECTION

Yu-Ngok Lo (YL): Tell us about your firm’s culture (for example, studio culture, hierarchy structure – if any). Snow Kreilich Architects is a very diverse firm, with 50 percent of your staff consisting of women and minorities. Why do you think this is important?

Matthew Kreilich, FAIA

is a design principal at Snow Kreilich Architects in Minneapolis and the heart of the firm's collaborative working model. He was recently a juror for the Progressive Architecture Award and continues to participate on AIA juries throughout the country, as well as lecturing in academic and professional settings.

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The CONNECTION team reached out to Matthew Kreilich, FAIA, and other emerging professionals at the firm to share their success story.

THE ARCHITECTURE AND DESIGN JOURNAL OF THE YOUNG ARCHITECTS FORUM

is a Dutch architect who practiced at Claus en Kaan Architecten in Rotterdam and Neri & Hu Research and Design office in Shanghai. He has been a visiting critic at the University of Minnesota School of Architecture and received grants from the Mondriaan Foundation and the Netherlands Foundation for Visual Arts, Design and Architecture (Fonds BVKB).

has been with Snow Kreilich since 2016. He received his MArch from Princeton University and his BA in architecture from the University of Minnesota.

left a career in physics after developing a deep appreciation for the power of light and shadow in architecture. He attended Washington University in St. Louis and is currently working on multi-family housing projects.

joined Snow Kreilich Architects in 2016. She is active in academia and teaches architecture studios at the University of Minnesota. She received her MArch from Harvard Graduate School of Design and a BS in architecture from the University of Minnesota.

REDEFINING PURPOSE

Matthew Kreilich (MK): We are a firm of opportunities. If you have an idea, interest, or passion, we want you to bring it forward, and we are open to finding ways to support it. Julie and I try to encourage this as much as possible. A lot of our growth and evolution of the firm has come from our studio members. It has been exciting to see studio members lead both small and large initiatives within the studio, from weekly ARE study groups to the soon-to-be established nonprofit 501c3 that will allow us to more clearly focus on pro bono projects and research. We have recently added a leadership level within the firm that supports our firm in project delivery, business development, and operations. In terms of diversity, I think the simple answer to this is that the more diverse the firm, the more diverse your responses will be to the questions architecture and your clients pose.

Jason Dannenbring (JD): The studio is comprised of staff with varied experience and degrees from all over the world. Our hiring practices aren’t limited to the Twin Cities, which helps to assure that new voices are constantly being added to a studio that also has staff that have been with the firm for many years. The

continuity provided by those who have been employed longer helps to maintain some consistency for office culture, while the hiring of new employees with a diversity of experience and place help to assure that our thinking and culture continue to evolve. Similarly, having a diverse staff helps to assure that our thinking and approach to projects and office culture take in the best aspects of these different views and approaches. Our marketing, administrative, and accounting staff also play a role in our studio, and they feel very integrated with what we all do on a day-to-day basis. Unique voices are an asset.

New hires are encouraged to give happy-hour presentations, sharing experiences from past lives, and staff that have been with the studio for several years are responsible for leading studio presentations that may cover our past work, drawing standards, sustainability initiatives, etc. These presentations are very low stress and more fun than work – they also help to assure that we have an opportunity to think about what we’re doing beyond a day-to-day, project-by-project basis.

ABOVE: CHS FIELD © Paul Crosby Photography Courtesy of Snow Kreiich Architects

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Matthew Tierney (MT): The studio feels inclusive, maybe more importantly than feeling diverse. It is a place where the richness of the conversation often colors the design approach in unexpected ways. That process can’t happen without a diverse group using design as the medium to converse freely from one’s own personal perspective. Often, a conversation amongst people who come from different places and backgrounds uncovers the critical issue that naturally unfolds the design approach. It is a joy coming to the office every day with the prospect of learning something about another’s beliefs while questioning your own values. The constant and changing influences that come along with a diverse office culture keeps the work fresh, alive, and breathing.

Natalya Egon (NE): Making architecture revolves around the very things that make us human – shelter, comfort, and social engagement. However, historically the profession has been viewed as an elitist or exclusionary profession, and in some ways, it still is – there is a great barrier to entry to the profession if you simply consider the schooling, hours, and legal requirements needed in order to call yourself “Architect.” But the goal of any good architect should be to make great spaces for everyone. This dichotomy between who makes architecture and who uses it has been addressed a lot lately – but is something that Snow Kreilich has always thought about.

Not only do we strive to provide thoughtful spaces for everyone by not specializing in one typology or client type, but we also strive to make our day-to-day operations representative of who we are serving. It is definitely one of the attributes that attracted me to the firm in the first place. As a young female architect, it astounds me how easy it is for women to be excluded from leadership positions in this field, and I greatly appreciate how this just isn’t an issue at Snow Kreilich Architects.

YL: Tell us a little bit about your firm’s work. Your firm spent a lot of time providing pro bono services. Why is it important for your firm to do this type of work?

MK: Our firm was founded on designing pragmatic warehouse buildings throughout the Midwest. We have grown to work all over the country but continue to have a focus on common, everyday building types, from offices to border stations and bus stops to ballparks. We pride ourselves in elevating projects that are often overlooked. Over the last few years, we have been increasing our pro bono commitments. It allows the studio to practice outside of our typical project types, ranging from a school in Africa to a research center for leatherback turtles in Costa Rica. This work is incredibly fulfilling in terms of its impact on these organizations. They often are operating on volunteer time and grants, so our donated time

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REDEFINING PURPOSE

A lot of firms have "bread and butter" projects or specialize in specific project types. Our studio has never been structured this way. Some of our best work are project types we are doing for the first time.

ABOVE: MnDOT STRAIGHT RIVER SAFETY REST AREA ©Corey Gaffer Photography Courtesy of Snow Kreiich Architects

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has significant impact on their business model. Seeing the positive impact of this involvement is inspiring.

YL: How do you think your firm’s business model is different from other traditional design practices? Moving forward, do you think there is a need to adapt future trends?

MK: We don’t focus or specialize on a single project type. A lot of firms have “bread and butter” projects or specialize in specific project types. Our studio has never been structured this way. Some of our best work are project types we are doing for the first time. We never assume we have the answer; instead, we bring a rigorous research and design process to all of our projects. Our studio is always evolving. To be a successful business, one has to evolve with future trends. This is a large part of Julie and my role in the firm. We need to drive change, innovation, and new approaches to the design process.

YL: How are emerging technologies impacting your firm?

Aksel Coruh (AC): I think we perceive the benefits of emerging technologies as extending rather than replacing tried and tested tools that architects have developed over time. We’re embracing the collaborative dimensions of BIM to achieve a higher level of coordination with consultants, while VR walk-throughs allow us to lower the threshold of understanding a project’s spatial qualities for clients not familiar with traditional 2D drawings.

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At the same time, I think we continue to pay close attention to the value of “offline” processes: the tactile quality of amassing a material palette for each project, reflecting on inspiration from site visits, and sketching as a way of focusing on key elements of a design, which on-screen modeling often makes difficult to see.

JD: The studio actively invests in the latest technology, and staff are encouraged to use these tools in their work. Those with more experience using a tool are encouraged to lead workshops to help share knowledge with others. While there hasn’t been an explicit requirement for older staff to learn complex modeling programs, I have been consistently impressed with the effort and attempts made by everyone to try to learn to use these tools. Almost everyone participates.

In regards to new technology in architecture, the studio is constantly engaged in material research and pushing projects to engage with new building technology. The Twin Cities are home to some pretty amazing companies that develop building products or are engaged with the latest in architectural technology: 3M, Viracon, MG McGrath, and Permasteelisa are all examples of just a few of the companies that we actively engage when developing our projects.

We’ve worked to establish informal relationships with these fabricators, and we regularly check in on their latest developments and share this with the studio at large.

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BELOW: U.S. LAND PORT OF ENTRY - WARROAD. MN © Paul Crosby Photography Courtesy of Snow Kreilich Architects

KM: As a part of the AIA 2030 Commitment and a member of the Architects Advocate network, Snow Kreilich pledges to working toward smarter design, smarter buildings, and carbon neutrality through our work. Emerging technologies, particularly in the BIM energy modeling realm, contribute to our commitments.

YL: How did your firm survive the last recession?

MK: Our studio doesn’t focus on any single project type, which helped minimize the impact of the recession. We witnessed a lot of 80-person firms with a single project type get cut in half if not worse.

It was not a good time for architects. We were fortunate to have had some large-scale public work at the time of the recession, which did not stop the way the private-sector work did. One of our major GSA projects at the time was one of the last ARRA-funded projects during the recession. We were fortunate to have had this project in the office at the time. It allowed our firm to be less affected than other firms at the time.

YL: The human resources side of the business has been a challenge for many firms (both small and big). How does your firm retain talent and train future leaders?

MK: Creating opportunities for everyone is critical to retaining talent. We have recently created four leadership positions within the studio that oversee project delivery, business development, and operations. This has allowed Julie and I to focus on strategy

and design. Our studio members are the most important aspect of our business. We fail or succeed based on their contributions.

Maintaining a healthy work environment is critical to the success of our business.

Christina Stark (CS): The diversity of project types, roles, and opportunities for growth make Snow Kreilich a desirable place to stay long-term. Our firm intentionally takes on diverse project types, rather than specializing, and because the firm is not divided into typology-based studios, designers have the chance to work on an incredible variety of programs. Additionally, firm leadership tries to maintain continuity of staff on projects from start to finish, so studio members experience a range of responsibilities. With a firm size of just 30 people, there are many leadership opportunities, and the firm is always interested in getting involved in topics that are important to our staff. For instance, we have small groups that focus on Revit knowledge sharing, sustainability, licensure, nonprofit opportunities, research, and team-building activities such as happy hours and social events. Many of these focus groups are led by junior staff, offering the opportunity to pursue an area of personal interest and also take on a leadership role in the firm.

JD: The partners are amazingly supportive and a complete pleasure to work with, which makes coming to work pretty easy and probably helps a lot with retention. The studio engages staffing in a serious and pragmatic way that assures staff isn’t working too

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LOFTS AT MAYO PARK © Corey Gaffer Photography Courtesy of Snow Kreiich Architects

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REDEFINING PURPOSE

Our studio members are the most important aspect of our business.

We fail or succeed based on their contributions. Maintaining a healthy work environment is critical to the success of our business. much (avoiding burnout) and are being exposed to a variety of experiences. Hours are carefully tracked on all projects, and when staff might have downtime, they will help those with deadlines. This means we all work pretty hard during the day, but it also means we don’t spend weeks working late into the night.

KM: One key aspect of fostering and retaining talent at Snow Kreilich is the dedication to continuing education. Members of the studio are encouraged to use annual funds and paid leave to seek out conferences, training, or events in areas of personal interest related to design. Designers also foster knowledge sharing between teams and across the studio during monthly lunch and happy-hour events. The studio strives to bridge knowledge and resources while also leaving room for curiosity in our work.

MT: The firm is big enough to offer the majority of benefits typically associated with a larger firm while being nimble enough to morph and change if required. Julie, Matt, and the senior management are incredible at allowing the studio to grow itself in an organic way while guiding the trajectory of the culture and work towards collective goals. They have set up an open infrastructure that allows staff to embed themselves in the operation of the firm in really meaningful ways. I believe from a human resources standpoint, a healthy firm structure is one where value and responsibility is dispersed, respect is omnipresent, and egos are kept at bay. I think we have all of those things at Snow Kreilich, and it makes me happy to come to work every day knowing those values are unwavering.

The work and the design process here is collaborative, critical, and iterative. It doesn’t get old because we won’t let it become stagnant or repetitive, and that’s a huge reason people stick around.

MH: A fairly unique strategy that I’ve observed at Snow Kreilich is the degree of responsibility and opp¬ortunities available to emerging professionals. In my experience at other firms, it can take a long time to reach a position where you’re given significant responsibility. This process seems much more accelerated at Snow Kreilich. One result of this is that young staff feel more ownership of their work, have more investment in it, and more quickly experience the satisfaction associated with seeing something you’ve designed come to fruition. I think this approach is a great fit for creative professionals, who thrive on watching something they’ve created take shape.

YL: How does Snow Kreilich support emerging professionals in

obtaining licenses? Do you think a healthy work-life balance is important?

CS: Many of the projects that Snow Kreilich takes on require a licensed architect team leader, so licensure is vitally important to the firm. Snow Kreilich supports licensure by providing time off for exams, test-fee reimbursement, registration-dues reimbursement, and study materials. Last year, several junior staff formed a study group and spent the year taking exams together. We met in our conference room after work once a week to study together, and the office provided dinner on our study nights. We were able to share knowledge and provide support for each other throughout the year. We are all licensed now and share tips and provide encouragement to those currently taking exams. Snow Kreilich also hosts a celebration for newly licensed architects.

Project managers help those collecting AXP hours to meet their requirements by assigning staff to projects or tasks that align with the hours needed. Licensure is much more attainable with a healthy work-life balance, particularly while studying for exams.

JD: Snow Kreilich absolutely supports the path to licensure, and as a percentage of our total staff, and for a firm of its size, I’m amazed at how many people have their license. It helps that we’ve had some very motivated younger staff who have made licensure a priority, and this has encouraged many who may have been waiting to sign up for exams and get their licenses. Since we don’t spend endless nights at the studio, we actually have time at the end of the day to study!

It is hugely important to maintain a healthy work-life balance if you want to be a career architect. I’ve seen and done the long-hours thing and have witnessed many talented people leave the field due to burnout or an inability to find balance with the office and life outside of it. Snow Kreilich and the livability of the Twin Cities really can make the balance of quality design and a healthy life possible.

KM: Snow Kreilich is amazingly supportive of emerging professionals. Those serving as NCARB AXP supervisors and mentors in the office work to support those on the path to licensure by creating opportunities for involvement in each experience area.

Project managers work together to identify relevant work in each phase of a typical project to introduce young professionals in the office to a range of practice and project scenarios. The firm covers the cost of licensing exams once completed and has also revised

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office policy to include paid time off to take exams. In this way, studio members aren’t required to use their personal PTO while on the path to licensure.

NE: Snow Kreilich fully supports the young designers in the office on their path to licensure. This not only means financial support for the exams, but also the added benefit of study groups, time off to take the exams, and an immense, growing library of study materials that has been built over the years by our newly licensed architects.

To give a personal anecdote, I began my exams five years ago while working at another firm, trying to study while consistently working overtime with zero support towards licensure, financial or otherwise. I slowly inched my way along but never felt motivated enough to actually finish. When I began working at Snow Kreilich Architects, I still had four exams to go. After joining our study group, I was instantly driven to finish, which I did six months before my rolling clock expired. Not only was the office supportive of this goal, but having the support of individual colleagues who were taking the same exams with me was priceless. The office is very aware of the great hurdle that licensure represents and treats it as such – we

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are always checking in on each other, and achieved licenses are causes for office-wide celebration.

This ties into the work-life balance that the office promotes. Our office is incredibly focused – at times in our open office, you can actually feel the depth and energy of concentration. At the same time, when it is time to stop working, we stop and engage with each other to keep abreast of all of the projects in the office. We host monthly happy hours that rotate between a range of presentations, bike rides, and urban explorations of local architecture. There is a participatory aspect to the office that goes past actual projects.

Snow Kreilich recognizes that people have different passions and encourages everyone to push those passions into the life of the office, whether it’s teaching, exploring new technologies, promoting sustainability, sketching sessions, or even brewing beer! All of these immersive and engaging things can happen because we have a work-life balance. Everyone has responsibilities outside of work, a simple fact that is sometimes overlooked in our profession.

I’ve been pleased to find that is not the case at Snow Kreilich.

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One key aspect of fostering and retaining talent at Snow Kreilich is the dedication to continuting education.

YL: Anything else you would like to add?

NE: I’d like to make a note on the types of projects we work on.

Having worked at several other architecture firms over the years, I am consistently impressed with the long-term goal of Snow Kreilich to breathe life and beauty into typically utilitarian spaces. One may not consider transit facilities or border-crossing infrastructure to be particularly engaging pieces of architecture, but why shouldn’t they be? These are not glamorous project typologies, which is all the more reason to engage the work of an architect in designing them.

This also applies to the different scales we work within – no matter the size of the project, the same goal of making clean and beautiful spaces applies.■

ABOVE: WAZATA RESIDENCE © Paul Crosby Photography Courtesy of Snow Kreilich Architects OPPSITE PAGE: U.S. LAND PORT OF ENTRY - VAN BUREN, MN © Paul Crosby Photography Courtesy of Snow Kreilich Architects

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CENTER FOR PRACTICE

ADDRESSING THE NEEDS OF AIA MEMBERS AND MEMBERS' FIRMS ON THEMES RELATED TO PROSPERITY AN INTERVIEW WITH CARA HALL AND GENE SCHNAIR

Gene Schnair, FAIA

Cara Hall, FAIA

has been engaged in many AIA activities including president of the San Francisco chapter in 2001; he chaired the AIACC International Advisory Group and served on the Executive Committee of the AIA Large Firm Roundtable. He was a member of practice and prosperity committee which was the precursor to this Center for Practice.

is the managing principal of GH2 Architects in Tulsa. She has served as chair of the AIA Documents and AIA Risk Management Committees. Hall has served as the Eastern Oklahoma Chapter president and as director of AIA Oklahoma. She is a member of the Oklahoma and American Bar Associations.

The mission of the AIA Center for Practice (CFP) is to facilitate easy and effective access to and integration of relevant AIA resources and services to enable its members’ practices to thrive.

The CFP is a new coordinating structure for member engagement and resources that communicate the AIA’s value proposition for firms. Cara Hall, FAIA, and Gene Schnair, FAIA, joined the AIA as Consulting Fellows in March 2017 to develop an environmental scan and action plan. The CFP also includes advisers from across the institute’s knowledge-generating committees and external firm leaders.

Yu-Ngok Lo (YL): How was the Center for Practice (CFP) created and what’s its mission?

Center for Practice (CFP): Prosperity is one of four strategic initiatives identified in the AIA 2016-2020 Strategic Plan. In accordance with this initiative, a two-year Center for Practice plan was approved in December 2016. As AIA looks to the prosperity of practice in the future, it’s important to emphasize a value proposition: that its resources and services empower members’ practices to adapt to and thrive, focusing on factors internally to the profession and externally that are effecting change in our time, such as culture of workplace, equity, and profession, collectively “firm culture;” research; technology; environmental; wellness; and economics.

YL: What is an environmental scan, and what’s its purpose?

CFP: The purpose of the full environmental scan is to create a framework for direction and action related to the Center for Practice’s mission. AIA has been and continues to be proactive in identifying strategic directions addressing the profession and its members. The breadth and depth of its programs, resources, and services serve a very diverse membership. Its volunteer base is dedicated and enthusiastic. The intent of the scan is to build upon the positive work that’s been accomplished by AIA and continues to be improved. In several cases, the scan identifies

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member experiences which may not currently meet firm leaders’ expectations. We believe that the CFP is the forum where issues pertaining to firms’ and practice-relevant users’ experiences should be addressed through a transparent and constructive expression of concerns. As such, some of the scan findings identify areas for improvement and are not intended to detract from the work that’s been accomplished.

YL: Tell us about the theme and findings of the scan.

CFP: The scan is organized into five broad themes: Connectivity, Facilitation, Integration, Firm Engagement, and Foresight. Nine initial findings are sourced and paired with potential recommendations.

Each section concludes with next steps to validate, refine, or refute the initial findings.

Connectivity: easy access to resources and services AIA.org holds a wealth of information and resources on running a successful practice. Organizing current website resources with member input will enable better user experiences for members and firms. The content should be named, structured, and organized in a direct and clear way for firm leaders, in addition to individual members seeking specific practice-related topics and resources.

The website should be credible, reliable, accessible, and intuitive. It should be comprehensive, responsive, and durable for all practicerelated information sourced, not just owned, by the AIA. Actions: Create a Visible Feedback loop for AIA.org: Conduct surveys and focus groups, and use analytic tools to evaluate the member-user experience, and identify desired improvements.

Improve, possibly through customization, communications to members on how to navigate and source information on practicerelated topics. Consider an online help desk or virtual “concierge” to support user inquiries or searches.

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Develop a strategy for members-only content:

leadership

To reinforce the value of membership, there should be a clear delineation on AIA.org of what information and resources are available to the public versus what’s restricted to members only.

Perform an examination of resources, surveys, and data. Develop a strategy for those that should be available to members only versus the public, paid or free. Ensure member-only access to these resources is clear and regularly communicated.

To integrate AIA resources and services, we must consider how the Center for Practice - as people, data, and programs - will be defined and measured. To do so, we should prioritize within the multi-year initiatives of the Knowledge Agenda, Research Agenda, and Digital Transformation.

Facilitation: effective access to resources and services for the 77,18, and 5

Dedicate resources to organizing, coordinating and curating through the CFP:

The AIA 2016 Firm Survey identifies 18,262 firms, broken down by size as follows: 77% (14,117) are firms of one to nine employees; 18% (3,214) are firms of 10 to 49 employees; and 5% (931) are firms of 50 or more employees. The AIA should promote a culture among firms of all sizes of sharing information and data. We should seek to meet firm leaders’ needs through a broad change in professional culture consistent with the trends in peer reviews, open sourcing, research, and data mining. The Center for Practice aims to develop a strategy that could be implemented, in part, through small but significant programmatic changes.

AIA knowledge communities (KCs), committees, and task forces are numerous and, in several cases, have overlapping efforts that would benefit from coordination. The challenge to collaborating in a complex network like the AIA is not to break down silos but to connect them together effectively.

Actions: Create a culture of sharing among firms of all sizes to propel the bell curve of prosperous practice: A culture of sharing - open sourcing, or at least, sharing nonproprietary intellectual capital - will improve the profession as a whole. Possible tactics: • Replicate the Large Firm Roundtable concept of peer-to-peer information sharing by creating a roundtable program.

• Create peer-review or advisory panels that advise members on practice-related topics.

• Leverage those advisory panels to recommend specific practice-related information gathering or directed research to the Center for Practice. Consider peer assessments of firms by experienced volunteers through non-disclosure arrangements or through AIA partnering collaborations with independent consultants.

Integration: effectively connecting silos of knowledge and

Actions:

CFP should be the integrator among the groups dealing with practice and prosperity topics. The KCs and other committees shall maintain their role as “content creators.” The CFP should ensure AIA.org is organized in such a way to be useful to all firm leaders. To do this, the CFP should create, organize, and maintain a curated list of practice-related topics based on the Architect’s Handbook of Professional Practice (AHPP); communicate current articles, research, and events around topics of interest to firm leaders; provide feedback and guidance to KCs, committees, and task forces on overlapping efforts and areas for future focus; seek greater collaboration and broader dissemination of knowledge created; and improve the integration of the AIA Trust into the CFP’s agenda as a resource for risk assessments and advice on business-related topics.

Actively track firms’ use of AIA resources: Firms’ use of AIA resources is difficult to track and measure because AIA membership and associated metrics are by individual, not by firm. The AIA should prioritize the collection and tracking of firms’ basic information and data as well as their use of AIA resources to evaluate the effectiveness of current resources delivery, tailored products and services when needed.

Embed research in the Center for Practice: Market, economic, and practice-relevant architectural research are increasingly critical factors in design and practice. The AIA will finalize the Architectural Research Agenda based on the 2016

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Roadmap; increase visibility and comprehension of market and economic research; and establish funding and a structure to support research into topics of importance to member firms’ practices.

The AIA is promoting higher levels of understanding (“literacy”) and access to peer-reviewed research conducted by firms, academic and research institutions, and related industries. The AIA is expanding its role as convener in the Design and Health consortia to convene partners and qualify collaborators on a wider range of topics – to serve as a matchmaker of firms and academic institutions interested in conducting research.

Firm Engagement: create a firm recognition program There is significant interest in setting up a program that recognizes firms’ practices for contributing to the welfare and prosperity of the profession – a program based on commitments to and achieving performance benchmarks. This, in turn, would identify a path toward prosperity for firms that don’t have the experience or knowledge to develop their own standards that contribute to a thriving practice.

Actions: Develop a firm-recognition program based on performance benchmarks: Develop a firm-recognition program based on an agreed set of performance criteria, encompassing best-practice contributions to the profession, innovation, workforce and workplace equity, commitment to ethics, continuing education, and mentoring and training. This program should translate to clients as opposed to being only of self-serving value. The program could be a defined but open recognition and commitment, like the elevation to AIA fellowship. The program should be scalable so that firms are recognized for achieving a categorical benchmark as they work toward achieving other benchmarks.

Foresight: build and maintain an AIA agenda relevant to the future of practice The AIA has a legacy of dedicating resources and providing services to its members to support prosperity in practice; enhance the role of architects in society; and protect natural resources and the environment. It is critical to maintain an agenda relevant to the future of practice. The AIA Foresight Report 2013 reinforces the point of relevancy: “Architects need tools and insights into the state of architectural practice to plan effectively. … The list of challenges can seem daunting. The AIA … recognizes that relevant information

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is crucial to how we work.” Relevancy must address the wider external context in which firms practice “to navigate the forces of change that influence decisions that will help professionals grow more relevant and effective.” The AIA Foresight series is a starting point, a summary of trends and factors affecting the AEC industry. It’s time to develop and expand Foresight as a publication to embrace research from both internal (professional practice) and external (demographics, socioeconomics, environmental and technological) sources to provide ongoing programs and information that will guide the profession and firms into the future.

Actions: Promote inquiry and dialogue concerning future practice through AIA services and resources: The CFP should foster inquiry and dialogue concerning future practice – to shape and enhance the outcomes of these transformations. The CFP should promote access to knowledge and sharing of information through leadership development, enhanced professional practices and standards, and relevancy and value to our clients and communities.

Additional investigation by the CFP over the course of 2018 is needed to develop specific recommendations on the future of practice within the context of prosperity.

YL: What are the priority actions for 2018?

CFP: We are defining programs, business plans, and resources to implement the proposed actions in the scan over the course of a multi-year plan.

The rollout of the CFP through communications and socializing is critical to achieving visibility and credibility among stakeholders: firm leaders, knowledge communities, members, components and AIA National staff. This effort should be addressed through a series of efforts: 1. Creating and distributing a CFP leave-behind/handout at various AIA events such as Grassroots, KLA, and the annual Conference of Architecture, as well as attendance by the CFP consulting fellows at these events.

2. Socializing (networking) includes a connection with the primary stakeholder communities whose agendas include practice and prosperity topics. These stakeholders’ communities are:

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i. AIA Trust ii. Center for Emerging Professionals iii. Equity and the Future of Architecture iv. Small Firm Exchange v. Large Firm Roundtable vi. Strategic Council Innovative Business Models Working Group vii. YAF viii. Leadership Institute To accomplish this, we have initiated a request to collect all practice-related topics and agendas for 2018 from each of the above groups.

We are also planning a roundtable discussion at the Conference on Architecture to reach out to firm leaders and members interested in learning more about the CFP initiative and sharing practice-related issues with other peers.

3. In order to address messaging and visibility of the CFP to the broader membership, communication with local and state components is important.

Pilot program for firm recognition We intend to work in coordination with the San Diego chapter on the development of a fFirm- rRecognition program. We plan to have discussions with chapter representatives during Grassroots in March.

A principal area of development is identifying the criteria for successful practice and benchmarks for recognition. This follows the work produced by the Practice and Prosperity Committee on “firm attributes.”

Product development and business plans Several of the recommendations are related to AIA National and AIA.org resource development. As such, business plans to support time and investment need to be developed to identify and justify the value added for each program.

1. Creating a concierge service through AIA.org or other resource 2. Providing an AIA.org web page and links for the Center for Practice

3. Revamping, coordinating, and maintaining navigational links on the website for more user-friendly and efficient access to a curated list of practice-related topics and resources. A prime example is the curation of “best practices.”

4. Working with the product development group on the next release of the Architects Handbook of Professional Practice.

Principal issues under assessment are the future of print and/or digital versions and the flexibility of real-time updates to maintain topical relevance.

5. Developing more robust and timely research and data analytics related to business practice. Coordinate surveys and data collection so that members have access to timely and relevant data. Primary examples are the coordination of firm benchmarking tools with the Firm Survey and new surveys such as Equity and the Future of Architecture.

6. Organizing expert advisers/advisory panels who can be tapped on special topics for insights and suggestions related to new CFP initiatives.

Foresight: program development based on a platform of topics and reports generated in the annual AIA Foresight Report. The AIA should leverage the publication and the research in the report with follow-up programs around topics related to the future of practice.

In addition, coordination with the Strategic Council Innovative Business Models Group is important to include in CFP curation and access through the CFP webpage.

YL: How is this relevant to YAF members?

CFP: The millennial generation will constitute nearly 75 percent of the U.S. workforce by 2025. In a recent study by an AEC management-consulting firm, it was found that the millennials’ ethos and sense of self-worth is increasingly driven by the positive contribution they are making in their work. And nearly 70 percent of millennials are drawn to leadership positions. For the architectural profession, this is all good news for the resiliency and sustainability of architectural firms, along with opportunities for new practices.

The Center of Practice can and should be a valuable tool for the upcoming generation of firm leaders to gain knowledge and have a credible source for inquiry and resources that will enable them to grow into the firm leaders of tomorrow. The YAF is encouraged to share its agenda with CFP and to join in the dialogue along with current firm leaders. ■

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ACTIVATE ARCHITECTURE

HOW THE PRACTICE INNOVATION LAB CHANGED THE PRACTICE AN INTERVIEW WITH BEAU FRAIL BY STEPHEN PARKER

Beau Frail, AIA

is the Principal Architect of Activate Architecture, a design firm based in Austin TX, that collaborates with communities, cities and clients to create socially engaged, sustainable, and beautiful spaces. Beau has managed multiple complex adaptive-reuse projects in downtown urban cores, led public interest design charrettes and developed outreach programs with the City of Austin promoting affordable housing.

In the spirit of the YAF’s new strategic theme, Practice Innovation, this edition of CONNECTION is highlighting emerging and innovative practices that push the profession forward. With a growing and diverse array of firms across the spectrum of practice, new business models are transcending simple monetary gains in the hopes of impacting society on a broader level. The YAF’s Practice Innovation Lab in the fall of 2017 brought together 60 emerging leaders to develop new, more sustainable models and inspire others to bring their ideas to fruition. One such example is the newly minted Activate Architecture and its founder, Beau Frail, AIA. Beau is an architect with a socially conscious drive, which is exemplified in his new practice. As a participant in the Practice Innovation Lab, Beau’s new venture benefited from the collective experience the lab afforded. We sat down with Beau and explored his insights as a young architect kick-starting not only a new firm, but a new, more sustainable model for public-interest design.

Stephen Parker (SP): Tell us about your practice. Why Activate Architecture? What type of work do you do?

Beau Frail (BF): I started Activate Architecture in Austin, Texas, at the beginning of this year to lay the framework for a practice that collaborates with communities and clients to create socially engaged, sustainable and beautiful spaces. I intentionally steered clear of an eponymous firm since the community-focused approach I’m taking to practice architecture is much more than one singular person designing alone in a corner. In my experience, the mainstream architectural practice has become narrowly focused on the needs of a select few with predominantly private interests.

Activating the architecture profession to serve broader public needs and create opportunities for participatory design will have a profound impact on our communities and the buildings they shape.

SP: Do you consider yourself a traditional practitioner? Tell us about your current business model.

BF: I consider myself traditionally trained, though I’ve always had an ever-growing side hustle of collaborative and innovative projects keeping me engaged in public-interest design. These projects were volunteer-based and relied on the many efforts of a few to meet the design challenge. While pro bono service is one avenue for meeting our community’s design needs, these projects are usually constrained in scope and capacity. I’m working to develop a business model for a sustainable public-interest design practice. The main principle of my business model is flexibility. As an emerging practice, I can start projects quickly and am open to taking on small projects, such as interior renovations, that larger firms aren’t as interested in. Leveraging my network and reaching out to colleagues to let them know I started my firm and am looking for more work has actually brought in most of my projects. Building and actively engaging with my network has proven to be essential.

Integrating more community-based projects into my workflow is my ultimate goal, and being flexible and patient for those opportunities as I grow is also part of my strategy.

ABOVE TOP: COMMUNITY FIRST VILLAGE BUILD - by Jessica Mims, courtesy of Beau Frail

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SP: You were one of the AIA YAF Practice Innovation Lab participants. How did the experience change you and your practice?

BF: The YAF Practice Innovation Lab came at a pivotal and formative time for me. I was launching into the entrepreneurial realm of architecture start-ups, and the Practice Innovation Lab offered a great opportunity to connect with colleagues with similar aspirations and who had recently started their own firms. I worked with a small group of architects and urbanists from across the U.S. to develop an idea for an innovative architecture business model, which aligned with my passions and reason for going off on my own. We also received books, including “Blue Ocean Strategy,” and heard from inspiring speakers, such as Susan Chin from the Design Trust for Public Space, which helped equip me with tools and knowledge that I reference back to frequently as I’m building my practice.

traditional services.

SP: Anything else you would like to add?

BF: Life is full of challenges. Find the opportunity for growth in each challenge, though it may not be revealed at first. Never stop pursuing your passions. Never give up. And always love more, both yourself and others.

Beau’s new firm, Activate Architecture, may just be getting off the ground, but it provides a compelling example for young architects pushing the profession forward. As the YAF strives to innovate practice as a collective effort, we’ll continue to find and raise up such examples for others to be inspired and encouraged to evolve the discipline of architecture for the better. ■

SP: We have started to slowly move away from the traditional client-architect relationship and are transforming it into a more collaborative relationship among all of the players involved. I see that in a lot in your projects. Tell us why you think it is important.

BF: In my experience, the more collaboration there is between the architect, development team/ client, contractor, the city, and other consultants, the better it serves the project. Architects are analytic problem solvers and artistic visionaries. These skills can be applied to pre-project efforts such as feasibility and test fits as well as post-project tasks such as post-occupancy evaluations and surveying to inform future projects. One project I’m currently working on is a proposal for renovating a historic post office into a mixed-use building that serves as a community center and cultural hub. My role has expanded beyond the traditional scope of the architect, as I became a part of the core team developing the vision for the proposal. I hope to see more opportunities like this as the value architects bring to projects continues to expand beyond our

ABOVE TOP: ACTIVATE ARCHITECTURE POSTER - courtesy of Beau Frail ABOVE BOTTOM: PRACTICE INNOVATION LAB TEAM PHOTO - courtesy of AIA

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TEAM DAEDALUS: DESIGN, DEVELOPMENT & DATA A PRACTICE INNOVATION LAB CASE STUDY

BY STEPHEN PARKER

On an overcast day in the fall of 2017, over 60 emerging leaders from across the architectural profession (and a little beyond) gathered at the 1776 Incubator in Arlington, Va. Their intent was bold − to innovate beyond the practice of architecture as it is known today.

Spearheaded by the AIA’s Young Architects Forum (YAF), this event was a departure from the YAF’s quinquennial strategic planning summit. In lieu of planning the next five years as an internal effort, the Practice Innovation Lab served as a galvanizing moment for the broader profession. Not satisfied with the status quo, the YAF leadership sought to disrupt the cyclical nature of our industry, the construction boom and bust that is one of the most well-understood economic patterns in modern human history. In essence, to collaborate, ideate, and compete to develop sustainable, innovative practices of the future.

These “innovators” − a mix of designers from firms large and small, academics, researchers, and entrepreneurs from across the spectrum of practice − were assigned to one of 10 teams and charged with developing these new business models. Here is the story of one of those teams.

Ideas ranged from gathering the best teams possible by creating a network of AEC professionals that could be recruited from across the country to crowdsource designs. The theme of networks was broadly applied by most teams in the hopes of leveraging our numbers for greater influence in our industry. Another shared theme was to be proactive and propose projects instead of reacting to client proposals. While the architect-as-developer hybrid has been well established, the emphasis was on new platforms for projects – either to be proposed, have teams assembled, or raise capital based on emerging trends in the industry. And finally, the focus on community was present in nearly all teams to some degree, reflecting the emerging ethos of the profession’s next generation.

For Team Daedalus, named after the mythic Greek inventor, these ideas and more were considered, integrating a number of emerging trends.

The Team

Emerging Trends

Team Daedalus comprised six diverse members from across the country. Teri Coates, AIA, is a D.C.-based sole practitioner and developer of Canvas Architecture. Jeff Pastva, AIA, is an architect specializing in multi-family residential projects from Philadelphia, Pa., and is the current editor in chief for the AIA College of Fellows.

Joanna Robinson is an associate AIA member hailing from Atlanta, Ga., and serves as a project coordinator at the design-build firm Beck Group. Yu-Ngok Lo, a Macau native, is the editor in chief of the YAF’s CONNECTION and founder of YNL Architects in Culver City, Calif. Jason Winters is the Strategic Council moderator and a partner in the Kezlo Group, a remote-only firm based in Annapolis, Md. Stephen Parker is a resident of Arlington, Va., serving as the YAF’s national advocacy director, and an architect and planner with SmithGroupJJR, serving as team leader throughout the Practice Innovation Lab.

Some of these trends had been in place for some time and were only now reaching critical mass. With the relaxing of “accredited investor” requirements for real estate investments, the threshold for entry into development has become much more accessible. In response, crowdfunding services such FundRise or eREITs (online or “electronic” real estate investment trusts) have developed to pool funding from a wider audience of smaller investors. Think Kickstarter for real estate investing but with “funds” based on investors’ objectives in lieu of individual properties. While this has made possible for the average member of the public, there is still a limit to what projects get proposed and funded.

Setting the Scene In the weeks leading up to the Practice Innovation Lab, team leaders assigned homework to get participants in the “frame of mind” to innovate. Two books in particular, “The 10 Types of Innovation” and “Blue Ocean Strategy,” were required studying, and every participant was mailed a free copy of each. The team’s weekly calls

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helped build rapport and gestate ideas. One important aspect of the Practice Innovation Lab that can’t be overlooked is the creation of an environment where failure is not only allowed, but encouraged.

Only through experimentation can we find the less obvious, more innovative solution, and that involves risk. Risk of failure. By failing faster, we can succeed sooner.

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Another organization hoping to fill the gap is Cooperative Capital.

This online investment firm strives to pool groups with a minimum of 500 investors from a local area with a $1,000 minimum buy-in.

While the investor pool is democratic, with each member voting, proposed local projects are selected and vetted by a panel of experts at Cooperative Capital. Our team was hoping for an even more accessible and locally focused approach.

Each of these and similar outfits still had minimum buy-ins and lacked a sweat-equity option. Also, each lacked the ability for

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architects, community members, or independent landowners to propose ideas or projects. And their use of data to identify projects of impact while capturing data or metrics from completed projects – financial success, impact on the environment, and community wellbeing – has been an opaque barrier to a better built environment.

Providing a sweat-equity path, capturing relevant data, and creating agency for idea generation became our focus.

The Purpose-Driven Pitch To capture the best ideas from communities, for communities, we gravitated toward creating an accessible, equitable platform that could generate positive projects of impact. In that spirit, our proposed company, Daedalus, leveraged data, design, and

development to gather ideas from the wider public for projects.

We hope to democratize design and development through a community-focused, design-centered, and data-driven ecosystem of networks.

The Platform: An Ecosystem of Networks Members would be recruited via a “freemium” model: They could sign up for the platform and peruse projects for free but pay a fee to post projects. Partnerships with AEC professional organizations (ABC, AGC, ASHE, etc.) would help recruit members looking to provide their services. Daedalus would collect a small fee only if members were awarded projects or contracts through the site; otherwise, it would be free to browse for members. Projects could ABOVE: TEAM DAEDALUS - courtesy of AIA

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be pitched in a Pinterest-style board format for the public to browse and invest in their area, building support or eliciting feedback at the local level. Nonprofit projects would have their initial consultation fee waived, and for-profit projects would be charged a fee for vetting and establishing project viability.

Augmented Intelligence and Data A purpose-built AI would help match prospective collaborators, partners, and financing in a predictive model. This AI-assisted process would become more refined as projects get off the ground and built. In this manner, data from project inception to completion and building operations would be in a continuous cycle or loop, creating an unprecedented resource. The ability to collect, access, and analyze at this scale and specificity would help bring the industry into the 21st century with more standard metrics for project success.

Building the Project Team Each level of the project team can be built out through the platform.

From the initial project partners or “Core Team” to the AEC professionals of the “Allied Team” to the more pedestrian investors of the “Community Team,” Daedalus empowers collaboration, investment, and development faster and more efficiently.

Core Team Different stakeholders could either invest money or in-kind services. For example, an architect who originated the project idea

could offer a proposed fee as a sweat-equity share. A landowner could offer land as an equity share in a proposed project. Once stakeholders come together to move a project forward, the Core Team or project partners would establish the founding partnership documents and relationship dynamics. Back-of-house services could be provided by Daedalus in an advisory role for a fee, or accounting, legal, and other non-AEC services could be arranged through the Daedalus ecosystem, helping to get projects off the ground. The focus would be for local businesses to benefit from this arrangement first and foremost, leveraging their hyper-local expertise in what is traditionally a parochial industry.

Allied Team Once the Core Team is established, the Allied Team can be built.

Engineers, designers, specialists, and consultants can be recruited to bring a project to fruition. They could be paid their negotiated fee or, if the Core Team permits, buy in via sweat equity. This would allow a greater number of AEC professionals to buy into projects from the ground floor, lowering overhead costs while helping firms diversify their income streams. If Daedalus wishes to finance or invest, that option is available as well.

Community Team The third and final level of the team includes crowdsourced funding as part of the Community Team. By opening up the equity stake to local residents, the average person has greater access to the real estate market as an invest opportunity. Also, by essentially voting with their dollars, residents can develop a groundswell of support for projects of impact in their community. This level of

TOP LEFT: TEAM LOGO - courtesy of Team Daedalus TOP RIGHT: COMPANY WEBSITE CONCEPT- courtesy of Team Daedalus

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participatory funding is lacking in today’s markets and can help bridge the socioeconomic divide, especially in rapidly developing neighborhoods.

Aspirational Practice Team Daedalus strived to democratize design and development during the YAF’s Practice Innovation Lab, and we hope this crowdsourcing approach will elevate our communities and provide greater economic opportunities for everyone in the process. With a platform that originates projects, builds collaborative teams, and serves the greater community in a participatory process, we can design with purpose and take greater ownership of our projects.

By leveraging the economic potential of our communities through crowdsourced funding and a sweat-equity model for the AEC industry, we can create a more sustainable business model now and into the future. We can balance good business with good works. ■

TOP LEFT: CROWDSOURCING IDEAS, DESIGNING SOLUTIONS - courtesy of Team Daedalus TOP RIGHT: COLLABORATIVE ECOSYSTEM OF NETWORKS - courtesy of Team Daedalus

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2018 AIA YOUNG ARCHITECTS AWARD WINNER PROFILE AN INTERVIEW WITH ANTHONY VIOLA

BY YU-NOGK LO

Anthony Viola, AIA

is a senior designer and team leader at Adrian Smith + Gordon Gill Architecture, He seeks to find new ways to realize a project using low-tech methods – such as 3D physical models – and high-tech processes like advanced computer simulations. By developing a clear idea of how each project fits into its site parameters and user conditions he is able to sculpt the building to its most efficient form.

Viola is a 2017 Dubin Family Young Architect Award winner and a 2018 National AIA Young Architect Award winner.

In March 2018, the AIA announced the 18 recipients of its annual Young Architects Awards. The winners met the criteria of being “practicing architects licensed for no more than 10 years and who have made significant strides in the profession, both in terms of leadership and contributions.”

Anthony Viola’s work and his passion for integrating the fields of design and technology caught the attention of our editorial team.

We were curious to hear how his architectural practice marries low-tech design methods, such as physical models with high-tech processes. His work is highly invigorating and inspiring.

Yu-Ngok Lo (YL): Some people might say that technologies nowadays are generating robust and mundane designs that lack intuition and creativity and architects are slowly becoming engineers. How do you respond to that? How does technology actually improve the quality of good designs? Why is it important to marry low-tech methods such as physical models, with high-tech processes?

Anthony Viola (AV): Tools will allow architects to measure what they value, and I hope that each designer employs technologies that are best suited for their respective values. Physical models are great for understanding massing visual/physical aspects of the design but are absolutely the wrong tool for understanding nonvisual aspects such as wind movement, solar radiation, which should be looked at in the projects we engage in.

We as a profession need to engage some realities of our designs in that, as contributors to over 40 percent of the world greenhouse gas emissions, buildings absolutely need to do better. For me, the way to reconcile this is through intelligent design – and our approach, where designs tightly follow an ethos of "form follows performance," is one way to do that.

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YL: Tell us about your experience practicing overseas (China). How does “technology” play a role in the design process? How did your overseas clients react to the more analytical approach of design?

AV: Much of the work that we do both domestically and internationally is recognized by clients as having a visionary and iconic design that is rooted in a performance-based process. In an earlier project in Seoul, for the Federation for Korea Industries, in which we designed a doubly curved glass conference facility, the client was exposed very directly to our process and the technologies we used for form generation, panelization analysis, and fabrication optimization, which resulted in a tightly integrated constructed project that they are very happy with.

YL: What are some of the things we can learn from other countries (in terms of technologies, business and practice models, etc.)?

AV: Different countries have different aspirations, and they are seeking leadership in the areas where they may want to grow their knowledge of industries. So in the case of the Expo 2017 project, Kazakhstan, for instance, it was a vehicle for them to promote new ways of thinking and technologies that start to speak to a postfossil-fuel economy. This approach is very ambitious and visionary and gave the existing industries some big shoulders to stand on and gave them new expertise in, say, design thinking, environmental technologies, and advanced construction. For our firm, a project such as Expo 2017 gave us an influx of fresh ideas and input from a strong international team of some of the best consultants and fabricators.

YL: Tell us about your project, Kazakhstan Pavilion + Science Museum. How did integrated parametric modeling play out in its design?

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ABOVE: SKETCHES AND DIAGRAMS - Courtesy of Adrian Smith + Gordon Gill ArchitectureA

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ABOVE: FKI TOWER - Courtesy of Adrian Smith + Gordon Gill Architecture

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AV: The Kazakhstan Pavilion and in fact our entire design for the Expo 2017 utilized computational tools in an integrated parametric model throughout the design process. The theme of the expo was "Future Energy," and our firm really pushed the idea of buildings as a key component in addressing that theme. We started off at a high level quantifying passive approaches towards building form and siting to reduce the required energy usage as much as possible.

Then, in the design of individual buildings, we began parametrically shaping and evaluating the architectural forms to direct prevailing wind flows towards buildings’ integrated wind turbines, to harness as much energy from the sun as we could while balancing a competing parameter of things like conditioned volume or exterior wall surface area. The Kazakhstan Pavilion undertook a similar approach and began with a premise of passively reducing energy usage first, then allowing the design of the building to augment the harvesting of energy from the wind and from the sun. A specific example of this was how the building was shaped quite literally to augment the flow of wind and direct its energy towards turbines located at the top of the sphere. During the design process, we designed and tested a variety of options, which were tested by our wind engineers at RWDI, but they were also tested against a set of other metrics such as the accessibility of program areas, daylight, and the potential impact of energy use and embodied carbon due to the increased materials used to create the various wind scoops.

This integrated and multidisciplinary approach is the way we work, and it infects every aspect of our designs.

YL: What is the Chicago Computation Group, and what is its mission?

AV: The Chicago Computation Group is a group of really interesting multidisciplinary professionals from various fields who intersect the AEC industry in the broadest sense. These people come together generally once a month to discuss the ways they are advancing design thinking through the use of advanced computational techniques. We think that there is value in approaching design in collaborative ways that bring together everything from data analytics and performance-based design to robotics and digital tool making. Architects and designers are not necessarily experts in these fields, but there is a synergy when the group of design professionals practicing architecture, structural and mechanical engineering, environmental designers, and researchers from various fields come together to discuss the ways in which we will engage that future.

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YL: How does your firm utilize new technologies (such as VR and artificial intelligence) in the design and project-delivery process?

What is the next big thing?

AV: We have a culture within the office that supports technology and innovation, especially as it affects our design process, so this includes digital fabrication technologies, parametric design and analysis tools, and interoperability tools. One of the things that I think we encourage at AS+GG is to have young professionals and summer interns bring fresh ideas and new technologies to the firm.

This allows us to stay connected with the latest developments and advancements, be it material technologies, new models of analysis, or VR/AR/etc.

As we move beyond the integrated computational and parametric approaches discussed above, I think one of the next big things that will impact the AEC industry is deep learning and AI. This type of technology forces us to engage projects with a much broader view with a larger set of data spread across many projects, allowing our projects to become more and more responsive, resilient, and intelligent.

YL: How can technology potentially change our business model (not only the way we design, but the way we practice being impacted)?

AV: I hope that at some point in the future, architects will start to reverse the trend of risk aversion and assume a bit more risk (and therefore reward) for some of the analysis/performance/ technologies we are bringing to projects as part of our process.

BIM technologies have maybe increased our profession's overall productivity, and business models such as IPD start to address the benefit of having an integrated project team, but we are seeing companies such as WeWork disrupt the AEC industry by making design (product) decisions based on a wealth of real-time performance data and analytics in a way that has been extremely successful.

YL: Anything else you would like to add?

AV: I am completely optimistic about the ability of our society to solve the very complex issues that we are facing regarding climate change, energy consumption, etc., and I think the design profession is uniquely poised to lead this effort.â–

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I hope that some point in the future, architects will start to reverse the trend of risk aversion and assume a bit more risk (and therefore reward) for some of the analysis/performance/ technologies we are bringing to projects as part of our process.

ABOVE: ENERGY HALL - Courtesy of Adrian Smith + Gordon Gill Architecture OPPOSITE: ENERGY HALL STUDY - Courtesy of Adrian Smith + Gordon Gill Architecture

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THE FUTURE OF CONSTRUCTION ADMINISTRATION

BY SHELBY MORRIS

Brian Filkins

Akash Gaur, AIA

Aaron Maller

James Norris

is the Operational Technology Manager at The Beck Group. He is responsible for developing companywide best practices, standardizing workflows for all departments, and training for the software utilized to implement these processes. Filkins is a graduate of the University of Wisconsin at Milwaukee with a Bachelor of Science in Architectural Studies.

is the Director of Parallax Team, Inc. He is an avid contributor to the BIM community on the whole, volunteering at Revit Forum.org (as twiceroadsfool), as well as speaking at many events including Autodesk University, BILT Conferences (previously RTC), and various users’ groups around the world.

The Future of Construction Administration is an intriguing topic that directly affects many of us as architects. The construction industry often has been criticized, sometimes unfairly, on the lack of research, development, and especially efficiency. Following a recent visit to Sagrada Familia in Barcelona, it became apparent to me how much the industry has evolved in the last 140 years. The brilliance of Antonio Gaudi’s design, phasing, and flexibility have allowed the project to adapt to technology, construction methods, and even new architects. His original models were destroyed during the Spanish Civil War forcing the subsequent architects to balance the traditional building method, Gaudi’s design, and modern technology. Originally scheduled to be completed around 2028, the finish date is now expected to be even sooner than 2026 with rumors that it could finish as early as 2021. The design team is onsite working directly with the contractor, and much like Gaudi, they utilize models to convey the design. Whereas Gaudi used plaster for the models and strings to work out the geometry, the current design team utilizes 3D printed physical models and computer models to analyze the structure. In 1900, the construction team would have utilized scaffolding or built the towers from the inside.

Today, the team is utilizing construction cranes to build what will become the tallest religious building in all of Europe at 558 feet tall while maintaining a faster schedule and utilizing less people. There are many lessons we can take from the process and ingenuity of Sagrada Familia.

With that, we have interviewed architecture, technology, construction, and real-estate leaders questioning “What is the

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is the Director of Design & Construction at Legacy Ventures. He holds a Master of Business Administration from Emory University, and is also a graduate of the College of Design, Construction & Planning at the University of Florida. Akash is a registered Georgia Architect, a member of the American Institute of Architects, and a LEED Accredited Professional.

is the Director of the Virtual Building Group at The Beck Group: He has spoken and chaired at many conferences on design and building innovation. He also has been involved in the AEC startup scene now for 4 years with extreme passion to help move the AEC industry forward in creative, pragmatic and scalable ways.

future of construction administration?” This group has developed, designed, constructed, and presented across the United States.

They continually search for ways to improve the design and construction process. They utilize the latest technology to promote interdisciplinary collaboration and are in charge of many major construction projects throughout the U.S. Their work is actively changing how we construct buildings and the architect’s role during construction administration.

Shelby Morris (SM): What are the biggest advances you have seen on the construction site in the last 5 years?

Aaron Maller (AM): If you read a lot of media (social media or physical media) you are bound to have seen a lot of *hype devices* pertaining to jobsites and construction in general: There are robots that plaster, drones carrying bricks, automated brick and block laying machines, augmented reality helmets and VR immersion stations, safety equipment tracking devices, aerial photo drones and laser scanners, and an assortment of other things that are all being touted as “revolutionizing the jobsite.” If you we’re to ask me directly, I would say that I tend to be a bit more on the practical side, and that I think a lot of the aforementioned devices are “neat toys” that we rationalized in to use, simply because we want to have them, and get to use them, while we are at work. (Not a popular opinion in the technology circles, but I stand by it). When I think about the responsibilities of the teams on the jobsite, I break them down in to an over-simplified list of:

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• What are the components that need to be built (What, and how many, and where do they go)?

• Who is building the components?

• How do the pieces go together?

• How do those building compoents interact with the other subcontractors scope of work that need to be built?

• How and when is the building of these components occurring?

• When is the component completed, and is it correct?

Why do I over-simplify these questions? Simply put: My opinion on where the biggest advances have taken place, is based not on the “sexiness” of the tools- but on HOW MANY of these things, the innovation tools can solve. Take Visual Programming, and Building Information Modeling. Building Information Modeling (BIM) isn’t new, and in 2018, I certainly wouldn’t call it innovative. I’ve been using it since 2004, and there were folks using it even earlier than that. By today’s account, I consider it mainstream in design. That is to say: If you are (properly) using BIM in Design (and modeling accurately, and documenting from your model without fudgery and fakery), you are right atop the bell curve of where professional practice has been heading.

ABOVE LEFT: A 3D PRINTED MODEL STUDYING THE COLUMN STRUCTURE AND FORMS INSDIE SAGRADA FAMILIA - Courtesy of Shelby Morris ABOVE RIGHT: THE ON-SITE MODEL ROOM AT SAGRADA FAMILIA. THE ARCHITECTURE TEAM WORKS ON-SITE DIRECTLY WITH THE CONTRACTOR BRINGING TOGETHER THE ART OF THE DESIGN AND MEANS AND METHODS - Courtesy of Shelby Morris

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But if you work and live out on the jobsite, things are a bit different.

They are both: more advanced, and less advanced, at the same time. How can that be? Well, quality subcontractors have been modeling (accurately, and well), and fabricating from those models, for quite some time. Since the bigger shops fabricate directly from their Steel and HVAC subcontractor models, those models come in the higher end of quality. But, the different trades run the gamut of modeling prowess (and fairly so: many of them are in spheres of responsibility that wouldn’t benefit tremendously from modeling and direct to fabrication), and as such: A fair amount of shop drawing production is still simplified two dimensional linework, of varying degrees of accuracy. In addition, access to the “leveraging the workflow” of the models, has largely been left only in the hands of the authoring parties making the models.

But in the last few years, General Contractors have been undertaking creating models of their own. At Parallax Team, we’ve worked with several General Contractors, to take contract documents (Paper and PDF) and to “recreate” a model from scratch: Not relying on models from the design team, or the subcontractors, but using the contractor’s own model to validate what the contract documents show. After all, if you can’t put it together in a computer with the information at hand, the workers can’t put it together on site.

And once you have a functional model of your own, there are so many things in the simplified task-list above, that visual programming can do, to expedite or automate tasks on a jobsite.

Dynamo is typically thought of as a tool to run inside Revit, and is often assumed to be used for making wild NURB-esque geometry, random facades, intricate panelized exteriors, and so on. What is sometimes overlooked, is that it is a data processing machine.

• Where architects and engineers used a typical detail to call out thickened slabs at interior CMU walls, Dynamo built a model with those thickened slabs, underneath thousands of CMU walls, in a matter of minutes • Where wall heights were depicted by partition types, and referred to ceiling conditions in adjacent rooms, Dynamo tagged a series of “working plans” with each partitions track height (throughout 750k square feet) in minutes.

• Instead of highlighting doors in different wall types in plan, to identify the different door frame conditions (metal dtud partition versus oncrete versus CMU), Dynamo drove the

ABOVE: THE PARALLAX TEAM DIGITALLY BUILT DICKIES ARENA IN FT. WORTH FROM THE ORIGINAL CONSTRUCTION DOCUMENTS TO HELP THE DESIGNERS AND CONTRACTOR STAY IN FRONT OF CONSTRUCTION ISSUES. THIS DIRECTLY HELPED THE FIELD ENGINEERS CORRECTLY LOCATE THOUSANDS OF COLUMN PILES- Courtesy of Parallax

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information in to a Pivot Table, in minutes.

• When it came time to separate quantities from the concrete model in to pour sequences, Dynamo broke the thousands of beams and slabs in the model apart, at Pour Break boundaries, in minutes.

• And- after all of the shop drawings were reviewed, and the masonry enveloped was QA/QC’d, and the embeds in the perimeter of the slab were confirmed: Dynamo exported thousands of field layout/set Out points, for each edge of the concrete slab, for the field team to load directly in to a layout station.

The thing is, data isn’t always seen as having “glam” or “appeal.”

But visual programming tools like Dynamo and Grasshopper have made is to that data isn’t JUST available to someone who can program professionally. Our model authoring tools may give us a great amount of data, and a great number of ways to consume that data. Often, though, they leave out an efficient way to consume, reorganize, recompile, and leverage that data. Tools like Dynamo close that gap. To be fair, Dynamo has been around a number of years. Tools like Dynamo have been around even longer. I can’t even say that was one of the early adopters: I was not, and I wouldn’t have myself taking credit from the REAL early adopters.

I was most certainly in the “late second wave.” But pushing those benefits downstream to the physical jobsite, where the equipment is literally hitting the ground, bring miles of gains, for the project teams willing to dive in.

ABOVE: A SECTION CUT THROUGH THE BIM MODEL OF THE DICKIES ARENA IN FT. WORTH - Courtesy of Parallax

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And once you have a functional model of your own, there are so many things in the simplified tasklist, that visual programming can do to expedite or automate tasks on a jobsite.

Brian Filkins (BF): Definitely the use of technology – lots of different technologies serving lots of different processes! This has impacted not only in the job office, but has especially advanced out on the job site for our field team. This all started with digital plan tables and the elimination (for the most part) of paper drawings, then rapidly moved into mobile devices with the advent of the iPhone and iPad. Today, we have virtually everyone out in the field connected to the job office through their mobile devices and digital applications – changes are automatically relayed out to the field users, and construction issues are instantly relayed back to the job office for correction. It seems that almost everyone is connected to all project information at all times! Additionally, field users have also advanced the use of model based layout through use of the model and robotic total stations. Laser scanners are being used to as-built field conditions and verify construction tolerances for

adjacent work. Aerial drones are being used not only for progress documentation, but also to create 3D photogrammetric models of the job. So, it’s been a very exciting past 5 years seeing technology advance on the job site and make people more efficient at their jobs, and the pace of this advancement only seems to be quickening!

James Norris (JN): I would say there has also been a large focus on productivity and HOW we produce work. I remember tracking labor by walking the job and taking a foreman’s word that they had 10 people working that day. But, did they really and if so, how long were they really onsite? Today, the onset of Iow tech devices has allowed jobsites to track labor and efficiency of production, giving us much more insight into enhancing productivity of our projects.

ABOVE LEFT: THE STONE NUMBERS AND DETAILS PROVIDED FROM THE BIM MODEL TO THE SUBCONTRACTOR - Courtesy of Parallax ABOVE RIGHT: AN ISOMETRIC VIEW OF THE STONE COMPONENTS Courtesy of Parallax

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Akash Gaur (AG): I would say it’s the advances in scanning/scan to BIM. Especially, since in the last few years (since the last recession) there has been a lot of work in rehab/renovation vs. fresh greenfield construction (given the high cost of construction/replacement). Even in new builds, the ability to document the progress and compare it with the virtual/BIM model (aka construction documents) has, in my opinion, been revolutionary and is something that will continue to advance. This has also enabled other areas of the real estate industry to develop more sophisticated (visual) databases for asset management and CMMS. SM: How has technology changed the construction site?

AM: It’s been about fifteen years, since the first time I walked out on a jobsite. Compared to fifteen years ago, there are a lot more computers on the jobsite now. With a lot more computers has also meant a lot more electronic documentation, and a lot more digital updates. That’s not one of the more recent changes, mind you, but it makes me wonder about what its done to the industry: Issuing updates used to be a much bigger deal. Paper copies needing to

be made. Drawing sets sitting on stands in the middle of Concrete Slabs, waiting for framers to get to those areas, that needed to be updated. Subcontractors files that had to get updated to follow suit.

Now, I have worked on projects (recently) where multiple packages of changes are happening at the same time, and (sometimes) are issued on the same day. At the risk of sounding old, consider this: With the advent and proliferation of electronic documents (think PDF, nothing fancy), maintaining “current sets” of documents should have become easier than ever. Yet, an entire Sub-industry of service providers dedicated to nothing-but-maintaining your current set of documents, now exists. Have we stopped to ask ourselves why or how we got there, and if that is even a good thing?

Sometimes technology is the answer. And sometimes… it’s the problem.

Yes, there are more computers now. But that’s also because more things are tested and documented electronically. That means (in many cases) more precision, more accuracy, and (hopefully) less surprises. I mean, that should always be our goal. My first

ABOVE: A BIM ROADMAP ILLUSTRATING THE DIFFERENT LEVELS OF MODELS THROUGH THE DESIGN AND CONSTRUCTION PROCESS - Courtesy of BecK

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Using more technology isn't the goal. Using more technology to eliminate PROBLEMS, is the goal. large Architecture Project was a shopping mall, and as we were issuing paper documents, demise walls were moving day to day, and hour to hour, like a game of Tetris (I know, I am dating myself).

Still, even with ink on paper, we made sure a logical system was in place, so there were no surprises, when a demise wall moved.

Shouldn’t- then- all of our new processes keep us from having “oh wow” moments on jobsites? Instant feedback, is a recent thing on jobsites. And that part, I find intriguing. There are some software platforms on the market that will take Laser Scans of recently built or assembled components, and test their deviation from design. I think that is an interesting step, as we can then predict or analyze how far reaching the implication of those deviations will be. I do wonder- though- long term, if those applications will be around?

(The same way I wonder if the car insurance industry will survive the move to autonomous vehicles… I hope not).

But I also think technology on the jobsites has (sometimes) focused on the wrong things: If you go on YouTube, you can find countless time-lapse videos, touting the “fastest record breaking project erections.” 40 story buildings, erected in days or weeks.

But have we stopped to ask: “Who said that was the goal we should be trying to achieve?” I have worked on projects that had prefabrication components, and a few of the projects were tripped up, when I asked them: “What are the goals of prefabricating these items, on this job?” If they (correctly) answer: We want higher quality, consistent assembly, less time on site, and less issues during compilation,” then great. But when they say the “goal is to do prefabrication,” I worry. I have seen it be lesser quality, more money, more time, and more confusion. USING more technology isn’t the goal. Using more technology to eliminate PROBLEMS that we have, is the goal. But in short? Tasks in data translation, and data transmission (layout, staking, finding things in drawings, measuring, back-checking, counting items arriving on site, comparing counts to items that should be on site, and (in general) keeping-track-of-things, should all be becoming more automated, these days.

BF: Aside from the points made above, technology has made communication and the sharing of information among the construction site more efficient – almost instantaneous. The efficiency of this allows for issues to be resolved quicker, meaning less downtime and more productivity. Mobile devices and applications allows access to all project information, including the model – it’s pretty amazing seeing superintendents reviewing construction activities with their crews through viewing a 3D model on their iPad!

JN: I would say that even 5 years ago, technology both helped and hindered our projects. Why? When new collaborative tools were coming out for the AEC space, many of them did not “speak” to one another so a Project Manager or Superintendent would have to have 5-10 applications open just to do their job. That was not efficient. But, the trend now is that new technology should all be able to communicate with one another, allowing our people in the field not only to be more efficient, but also allow them to so what they do best and that is design and build.

AG: Yes. Again, I think the changes are more in communication, coordination, monitoring and quality control through mobile/

ABOVE TOP: DRONES ARE BEING USED TO COLLECT POINT CLOUD DATA OF CITIES AND CONSTRUCTION SITES. THIS INFORMATION HAS BEEN USED TO LOCATE UNDERGROUND UTILITIES BEFORE THEY ARE COVERED - Courtesy of Beck ABOVE BOTTOM: THE BUILDINGS AND TOPOGRAPHY IS MODELED FROM THE POINT CLOUD DATA - Courtesy of Beck

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tablet enabled, cloud-based data sharing technology. This has helped reduce the errors and delays by making the field-to-office communication efficient as well as the sharing of data between various personnel seamless and real-time. We also have better documentation of the construction progress through drones and scanners.

SM: How can the design and construction industry become more efficient with the process of building?

AM: Honestly? Throw out ALL of the antiquated contracts the industry has right now, and write real “honorable agreements.”

Look: If one of my teams was going to work on an architectural project tomorrow, I have confidence we could deliver a great set of documents (and a model) that the construction team could rely on, and trust, and we could work together with the design consultants, the general contractor, the subcontractors, and the Project Owners, to all deliver a quality project where everyone gets paid fairly, and the owner gets quality work at a fair price. So what is holding us back? Contracts, intentionally meant to put everyone at odds.

• General Contractors are getting asked to GUARANTEE a price for a building, earlier and earlier in the design process, with earlier and earlier sets of ambiguous and unfinished drawings.

• Design teams are resisting turning over incomplete documents, lest they get peppered with questions while they are trying to finish under right fees and deadlines.

• When the team does finish, the drawings these days (if we are all being honest) have a litany of CYA notes and references, scattered all over the drawings meant to say “we don’t have to fully note these drawings, and its someone else’s responsibilities to verify everything, and we cannot be held responsible.”

• Because of the bind they got to in item 1, the GC’s are looking for ways to try to get back down to the number, and -even though it shouldn’t- it all ends up with animosity.

• Subcontractors don’t “always” get the full story. They get partial sets of drawings to bid off of, at the GC’s discretion, and they take their best guess based on that.

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It’s a bit silly, if you ask me. As a BIM Consultant, I get asked (often) to do quality reviews, on design deliverables. Contrary to people’s opinions, that doesn’t mean I am there to beat up Architects and Engineers. It means I am there to check quality. Unlike a lot of consultants that “immediately dive in to the model,” I go to the back of the paper documents, where all the “typical details” are: The “UNO” details, the “TYP” conditions. Where not all walls or ceilings are tagged, I go check: DO they match the “UNO” condition, or don’t they? If they don’t, it doesn’t mean there is a quality issue…

But it means something is different on the plan, than it should be.

And that’s a conversation. I see concrete framing plans that don’t have all members dimensioned, Architectural plans that don’t tag all walls or ceilings. Where this gets interesting, is all of the animosity and infighting has- historically- been about each party trying to prove their case, and- more often than not- its been related to building scope, quantities, and cost. All finite items, all measurable in data. This is a solvable problem. If the design started out as a 10.25’x10.25’ room, and the original estimator thought it was 10x10, the answer isn’t that we need to put the screws to the estimator and make them eat the extra scope: The answer is: We have data.

Advise them that it is 10.25x10.25, automatically. And when scope creep makes it jump to 10.75x10.75, there isn’t a reason for this to surprise the estimator or the Contractor, nor should the owner be surprised at the price going up. Resistance to these changes is based on a long history of getting “taken,” but we have enough data to make this not the case, anymore.

What can we do to be more efficient at the process of Building?

Be realistic in our contracts, so we are asking people to perform realistic tasks on a project. And then we can be more consistent in our process of documenting our designs, so when the process of “Building” starts, they are building the design we want to see them build. Some people say IPD is the answer; others point to multiparty agreements with shared savings, and the like. I don’t pretend to know what the exact answer is, but the contracts we have now are woefully inadequate.

BF: Scrapping paper drawings and relying on more detailed models!

A correctly built Building Information Model contains a tremendous amount of parametric information, all of which is lost when model views are printed to static 2D pdf’s, and architects spend countless hours annotating model views just so that some of this parametric data (wall or door type, dimensions, etc.) are able to be printed onto the same pdf’s. Construction uses the 2D pdf’s to generate (duplicate information) their own shop drawings. All of this would

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More efficient building process: Scrapping paper drawings and relying on more detailed models. be much more efficient if everything was digitized, especially if it was digitized in a 3D model format – eliminate the time needed to duplicate information in annotated views and instead focus more time on generating and coordinating more accurate and detailed model content. Construction could in turn leverage, and build upon, this model content to generate their own production information dramatically streamlining the information sharing and consumption process.

JN: Contracts: I think it all starts with the Owner/Client pushing the requirement of collaboration and technology to be enforced during design and construction in order to enhance how we collaborate and communicate issues that come up early in the process of designing or constructing. So many times the CONTRACTS we sign legally keep us from being able to properly collaborate with the client, designer, contractor etc…this in many ways keeps the AEC space from truly evolving.

Prefabrication: This will play an enormous role for future projects. This already happens on a small scale in the commercial construction space. We are building bathroom pods, medical headwalls, cabinetry all indoors. This saves us time, money and increases quality since we can build everything in a controlled environment. But, we need to take things to the next level and look at owning the entire supply chain. Look at Katerra? They have started out in the residential space by owning the entire supply chain. It’s like buying a car. You just pick your house model, add some options and “poof”, your home goes directly into production indoors and just pops up on the site you want. We need to look hard at this model and apply what we can from the Katerra workflow to our commercial side of things or else we will all be left in the dust.

Artificial Intelligence: We need to leverage AI for us in the modeling and scheduling world. Imagine being able to create millions of iterations of a construction schedule in just minutes and choosing the best option for the project? These tools already exist and we are already testing them out.

AG: I feel the first thing is good data sharing between all the entities involved right from the time of conceptualization/ feasibility analysis. The project should start with an AEC team and the owner/ financier rather than just the designer or the contractor. Secondly, I feel accurate construction cost data is critical. This is still a challenge. I do not think there are good, reliable databases for construction costs. And lastly, I think the modularization of building

components will make the construction process efficient, safe and more environment friendly.

SM: What are the biggest areas of failure during construction?

AM: Communication, pure and simple.

Design Teams communicating what the intent is of a particular detail.

General Contractors communicating to subcontractors what has been updated and what hasn’t, in a set of drawings. Subcontractors communicating to the Field Team which set of Shops is current for forming. All parties communicating what is included in a particular change order or invoice, and what isn’t. Simply put: It’s amazing how many different avenues of communication there are, and with all the fancy technology we have now, we still mess these things up… All the time. Running in technology circles, I sort of roll my eyes at how new technology terms get thrown around the ecosystem, as if to say your knowledge-prowess is demonstrated by effective use of industry buzzwords. And so- while I don’t believe Blockchain is the end-all-be-all answer to AEC’s problems (and if anyone tells you it is, kindly ask them to explain what blockchain is, in 60 seconds or less), but there are things to be gleaned from all new ventures, be they good solutions or not. Blockchain and similar technology HAS demonstrated that complex pieces of data can be distributed and held or maintained, not as a single resource in a single location that flows only in one direction, but as synchronized evolving sets of information simultaneously. If nothing else, ALL we need to take away from that is that the issue of “not all parties have the correct information at the correct time” is a problem that canand should already- be resolved on all of our jobsites. If you make a critical change to something on a project, and it takes less than 15 minutes to reach every relevant party after you “issued” your change, we haven’t succeeded.

But, I have another “biggest area of failure” I’d like to discuss: Saving lives.

Now, I am not an inventor. Nor a software developer, nor a product manufacturing expert. In fact, I like to think that I take other peoples processes and workflows, and push them to excel as far as I can.

My colleague John Pierson showed me all the things he could do with Dynamo, and I said “Oh wow, what if we apply it to this, this, and this…” and here we are. So- in the realm of Worker Safety on jobsites, I have to ask: Hoverboards and Segways vs Construction Equipment: We have commercialized TOYS in the world, that can

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automatically sense when they are in danger of tipping over and/or losing an occupant, and they can auto correct. Why- then- do we still have videos on YouTube of Construction Cranes tipping over?

Earth Movers tipping over on loose ground? Trucks falling in to excavated areas? My car vs Jobsite equipment: My car (like most these days) has a fob, that is fiendishly sensitive. If I even open the door while the car isn’t in Park (to reach out and move my garbage can, for instance) the car automatically puts the parking brake on, to protect me. And if I get out of the car while its running, with the fob in my pocket? The car gets very, very, vocal. Never mind the fact that if I try to ram the car in to my garage door, it actuallyphysically- stops me. (I swear, I thought the door was opened….)

Between this, and eye-tracking/motion-sensing cameras, why is it still a thing, that jobsites have to worry about workers operating tools without PPE? Why is it still a thing that workers get hit by equipment? A small amount of redirected technology, and my bet is a table saw can be made to never start up, unless it senses gloves, and eye protection, and ear protection. And a jobsite truck, or earth mover, shouldn’t be ABLE to come in to contact with a worker. We have technology that senses and corrects these issues. But I digress, those are just a dream.

ABOVE LEFT: A CONSTRUCTION SUPERINTENDENT REVIEWING THE MECHANICAL DUCT INSTALL IN COMPARISON TO A NAVIS WORK MODEL - Courtesy of Beck ABOVE RIGHT: A MODERN WAY TO TRACK FIELD LABOR FOR SUPERINTENDENTS - Courtesy of Beck

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BF: Effective communication. Construction can be an inherently chaotic process, and effective communication is an absolute necessity to ensure project success – communication down to the people in the field, as well as up to the Architect and Owner.

Architects need to be able to communicate down to the contractor what potential design changes may be coming that will affect them so that they can plan around them without creating disruption.

Contractors need to be able to communicate up to the architects what additional information they need and when to prevent work stoppage. Subcontractors need to be able to communicate up to the contractor when they need more information, to coordinate material deliveries, etc. All of this is like a large orchestra and when one member fails to communicate, or communicates in an ineffective manner, it negatively affects the entire team which can lead to work stoppages, preventable errors, or even worse safety incidents.

Technology certainly facilitates and expedites communication, but is not a replacement for common sense effective communication between all parties. Maintaining positive working relationships between all parties is probably a more important factor at fostering effective communication.

JN: I completely agree with Brian. Communication is key. The ability to “know” what is going on with your project in real time is truly key. However, similarily to what I stated prior, many softwares used in our industry do not talk to one another. One great example is email. It is still the main project management tool, even though we hate to admit it. But, how many times do you forget to follow up on an email or just don’t get to reading them in time? Our industry has to get away from tools like this for communication or at least sync data with it better so we are not dropping the ball on a design or construction change/issue.

AG: I feel the biggest failures occur due to inadequate construction documents (or the failure to follow a good set of documents.) Note that this is also due to a shortage of technical expertise, both on the design and construction side (partly because of the last economic downturn). The other big problem is continuing changes to design/ scope once construction is underway. There is no “really small change”, any change is disruptive to some extent and so a great amount of discipline should be exercised to (a) be thorough in terms of defining the scope and including it in the documents and (b) refrain from making changes once the construction starts.

SM: What is one best practice you would advise any architects during construction administration?

AM: Back to productive thoughts! I would encourage architects to ASK QUESTIONS. Look, every time someone explains something to me that I didn’t know prior, I become that much more powerful. I’ve gained a new piece of knowledge, it has gone in to the toolbelt for the next project. I get it: On jobsites, the construction team likes to tease and jab at the design team, and vice-versa. If something drawn in the project doesn’t work (or isn’t optimal), and there is an opportunity to learn from the experience, it means that next time we can deliver something better. Does that mean EVERY piece of feedback we may get on the jobsite is value adding? Absolutely not. But its easy for design teams and construction teams to see it as “us versus them.” And- as someone formerly working in- and supporting- design, to someone that has worked with- and supportconstruction, to someone who now “works with and supports both,” I can tell you that more humility is needed on BOTH sides.

BF: Spend as much time as possible with your construction team, especially the superintendents and subcontractors – they’ve spent their entire careers building and know what works, and more importantly what doesn’t work. Subcontractors are specialists in their field and know their trade details intimately. Not only is this a tremendous learning opportunity, but it also helps foster and build positive working relationships that benefits the entire project.

JN: I would take it a step further and work in the jobsite office. colocation is so important and removes the need for unnecessary emails or calls back and forth between offices.

AG: My advice would be to do good documentation of the construction progress during site visits. Regardless of how small the project is, one should get into the habit of creating thorough reports with a lot of photographic documentation. There are several apps that are available that can format your photos and related notes into a formal report. Avoid communicating site observations via texts, phone calls or one-off emails.

SM: What is the future role of the architect during construction administration?

AM: I hedge on this question, because I have great concern for the current state of our industry. The question assumes there IS a guaranteed role that exists for the architect, during construction administration.

First, as you find yourself reacting to what I just wrote, let me say:

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Anytime someone reacts with “That’s insane, there has ALWAYS been ‘this thing,’ there will ALWAYS be ‘this thing,’” it’s a cause for questioning. Reference: cassettes, Blockbuster Video, arcade games, and soon to be Toys-R-Us.” Things don’t survive if they don’t evolve.

I think Architects add TREMENDOUS value to Construction, and in performing Construction Administration. But I also think there are many different types of architects out there. The ones that like the collaboration with the teams in the field, that recognize they are the authors and the keepers of crucial and important data, and that there is a place for sharing BOTH risk AND reward, in the sharing of that data for the PROJECTS benefit: I think there is a huge role for them, in being present on the jobsite even more than the industry has previously entertained (for more money, of course). For the architects who see CA as a burden, only to be handled by doing the bare minimum that the current arcane contracts stipulate, and that will not share any additional work product or data without sixteen

different indemnifications signed: I question if that position exists, ten years from now.

BF: As project schedules continue to get more and more compacted, architects are left with less time to fully design a project and contractors are left with less time to build the project. I see the future construction administration role of the architect being embedded closely with the project team to not only complete the design models, but also fast track certain pieces of information to the construction team as well as extract as-build field information.

This coupled with the continued advance and use of technology on the job site will only amplify the importance of the architect during construction administration.

JN: The word says it all…architect.

Derived from “arkhitekton” which means master builder, I believe architects will get back to being true” master builders”, acting as both the designer and hopefully the project manager or even

ABOVE: THE DRONE MAPPING SOFTWARE AND PROCESS Courtesy of Beck

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I believe architects will get back to being true "master builders", acting as both the designer and hopefully the project manager or even superintendent.

superintendent. As Brian mentioned, projects are just being built faster. In my opinion, the only way to truly design a buildable building in the small amount of time we have is to work on both ends of the Design+Build spectrum.

AG: I think with the continuing proliferation of BIM and smart models for construction drawings/documentations we will see a lot of automation in traditional CA tasks like shop drawings and submittals checking. The role of the architect would focus on construction QA/QC; monitoring the compliance of construction in field to the construction documents. As I mentioned before, the evolution of scan to BIM technologies will enable real-time checking of construction-in-progress to the BIM model, thus alerting us to potential deviation from the design before it gets built. Fluency in building information modelling will be a critical expertise for all architects.â–

ABOVE: 3D COORDINATION SHOWING A TIMELAPSE OF THE CONSTRUCTION PROCESS - Courtesy of Beck

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CREATING CONNECTION

COMPUTATION AND CONSTRUCTION

BY SHELBY ELIZABETH DOYLE

Shelby Elizabeth Doyle, AIA

is an assistant professor of architecture and Daniel J. Huberty faculty fellow at the Iowa State University College of Design. Doyle was hired under the ISU president's High Impact Hires Initiative to combine digital fabrication and design/build at Iowa State. This led to the founding of the ISU Computation + Construction Lab with Nick Senske and Leslie Forehand. She holds a MArch from the Harvard Graduate School of Design and a bachelor of science in architecture from the University of Virginia.

The ISU Computation + Construction Lab (CCL) is an initiative of the Department of Architecture at Iowa State University that works to connect developments in computation to the challenges of construction through teaching, research, and outreach. Central to this agenda is the principle that technology and architecture are cultural undertakings. Therefore, the CCL pursues not only the ‘how’ (skills and techniques) of computational design, but also the ‘why’ (processes and impacts). These methods are a unique form of knowledge and powerful tools of cultural diplomacy. They position architecture and educational exchange as fundamental to designing and then building a world with a “little more knowledge, a little more reason, and a little more compassion” .

Computational design is an object-based strategy of abstracting information into relationships that encode values and actions. This algorithmic approach is enabled by the expression of parameters, or rules, that define, encode, and clarify the relationship between design intent and design response. Computational design methodologies produce outcomes ranging in scale and application from nanoparticles to façade systems, architectural forms, environmental processes, and urban flows.

Computational or ‘parametric’ design is often presented as an internal mechanism of architectural production, viability, and justification. The scholarship and teaching of the CCL argue that the parametric need not be reduced to a formal or representational project and that it can and should function as the foundation for a contemporary social project. Rather than rely on resuscitating the modes and frameworks of the modernist social project, the efforts of the CCL are a search for new characterizations of what it means to be “social” in the 21st century. Ultimately, this work pursues the establishment of a theoretical position on technology’s role in defining and enacting a contemporary social project in architecture.

Through built work, the CCL shares knowledge beyond campus

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borders by leveraging design and construction as tools of public engagement with nonprofits and small towns in Iowa. Fundamental to this effort are numerous collaborations to fund, procure, and install new equipment and software in parallel with running workshops, hosting visitors, working with sponsors, and developing the coursework and culture necessary to support this type of work.

The CCL’s primary outreach occurs through the combination of digital fabrication with design-build. Design-build is a unique architectural educational model of project-based learning that enables students to construct their designs in collaboration with local communities. Digital fabrication leverages computer-aided design with manufacturing tools and integrates technologies from the aerospace, automotive, and shipbuilding industries. This application of manufacturing technologies into digital fabrication has altered the way buildings are conceived and constructed. The combination of digital fabrication and design-build disciplines, therefore, allows for hands-on engagement with technology and challenges students to explore the development of design methodologies that are poised to have disruptive effects on future work in the field. By combining these approaches, the CCL aims to shape a more resonant, more consequential approach to technologies, which gives both students and the discipline an immediate and vibrant grasp of architecture’s contemporary technological exigencies and potentials.

Exigencies are urgent needs or demands and, in this case, refer to pressing and intractable challenges that architecture might seek to overcome through technological advances: whether social, environmental, or both. Potentials are latent qualities or abilities that may be developed and lead to future success or usefulness. In this case, the untapped capacities of fabrication technologies to engage in present-day exigencies resulted in a pedagogy that is organized around the notion of Fabricating Potentials. A primary tenet of this work is the democratization of access to and knowledge about technology in architecture, specifically creating opportunities for design students to create and build with technology. The following

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projects demonstrate the results of this pedagogy and reflect the mission of ISU as a land-grant institution, in the very first state to adopt the Morrill Act: the 80/35 Pavilion for the 80/35 Music Festival (Des Moines, 2016), IM_RU for the Flyover Fashion Festival (Iowa City, 2017), Penumbra for the Des Moines Social Club (Des Moines, 2017), and Bluestem for the Iowa Arboretum (Madrid, 2018).

The work of the CCL is made possible by the support of many people, institutions, and sponsors. Located in Ames, Iowa, the lab was founded in 2016 by Shelby Doyle, Leslie Forehand, and Nick Senske. Full attribution for each project can be found at ccl.design. iastate.edu. For ongoing work, follow on Instagram @ISU_CCL.

80/35 Music Festival: 80/35 Pavilion (2016) The 80/35 Festival Pavilion is a student-designed and -constructed installation for the 80/35 Festival in Des Moines, Iowa, and is a light-reactive structure that glows in response to surrounding music, augmenting the festival’s atmosphere. As part of a fourmonth interdisciplinary spring option studio, 16 students majoring in architecture, industrial design, and interior design developed and fabricated the 3-by-6-by-3-meter pavilion, visually engaging the crowd and providing shade, seating, and a sensory experience that blends design, music, light, and color.

To achieve the design goals and address the festival’s construction ABOVE: 80/35 MUSIC FESTIVAL: 80/35 PAVILION courtesy of Shelby Elizabeth Doyle

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guidelines, the project required sophisticated modeling and structural analysis. Consequently, the design team overcame significant limitations: low-cost materials, an inexperienced construction team, and restricted fabrication modes. A unique modular system addressed these constraints while simultaneously benefitting construction sequencing, disassembly, and future reuse. This project is an example of what can be described as “lean digital,� a premise that leverages cutting-edge technologies and workflows to produce architectural designs with minimum cost, limited space, and reduced material use. The primary challenge of this work thus arises in reconciling the unpredictability of low-tech materials and fabrication modes with the sophisticated and strict

requirements that complex and interactive installations require.

Made from panelized plywood constructed into modular boxes and enclosed with flash-spun high-density polyethylene (Tyvek) membranes, the pavilion utilizes scripting and coding platforms to coordinate 6,500 unique CNC-routed parts for hand assembly.

Light emitting diode (LED) strips installed within the modules are programmed by microcontrollers set to respond to the sounds of the festival. Each module is geometrically unique but represents a unified tectonic idea. The module serves as both a structural unit and a light pixel, embodying both an architectural idea and a digital interactive response.

ABOVE: FLYOVER FASHION FESTIVAL: IM_RU PAVILION courtesy of Shelby Elizabeth Doyle

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Plywood is a traditional, low-tech material that is manufactured with a high variability in tolerances, dimensional stability, mechanical properties, and durability. This makes its behavior difficult to standardize and predict. In contrast, the NURBS-based geometry of the pavilion adheres to minimal tolerances; small local deviations can have significant implications to the form as well as the structural integrity of the cantilevered serpentine wall. These two realities – clearly in opposition – required the development of digital fabrication modes and processes that were extremely flexible and adaptable. A desktop CNC (600 mm by 1,200 mm) was used to fabricate the large-scale construction – a task well beyond the intended specifications of the machine. Thus, the modules – whose constraints already included structural sizing and the resolution of the pixelated display – had to be further constrained by this dimensional limitation and the corresponding ability to nest multiple parts on a single sheet. However, the smaller scale of the module allowed for an inexperienced design team to fully engage in a sequenced construction process. After the festival, the pavilion was disassembled, and selected modules are to be distributed to local high school students, along with microprocessors, thereby transferring the knowledge embedded in this project to a larger audience.

Flyover Fashion Festival: IM_RU Pavilion (2017) Pavilions simultaneously create tools for transformative action and develop visions of new social realities. Festivals as sites and pavilions as fragments of possible architectural futures serve as a method for advancing and expanding the possibilities of public engagement, critique, and speculation. The IM_RU pavilion is evidence of this claim. By blurring light, color, and a cloud of fragmented reflections, the pavilion created a space to confront the identity politics and activist undercurrents of the Flyover Fashion Festival in Iowa City, Iowa.

IM_RU was designed and built by 15 students majoring in architecture, landscape architecture, and interior design as part of an interdisciplinary undergraduate studio at Iowa State University.

Constructed from low-cost 3D-printed joints, mirrored acrylic, wires, and LEDs, the pavilion was designed using computational methods to be structurally flexible, simple to assemble, and lightweight for transport. The project was constructed in the ISU studios, deconstructed, and then transported 130 miles (210 km) and reassembled at the festival. IM_RU was a project of the CCL, a research group established to connect developments in computation to the challenges of construction and to leverage these tools for public engagement with nonprofits and cities. Through transparency,

form, and light, IM_RU challenges users with reflections of their incomplete selves and considers the role of the individual in the summation of societal identity. The project, sited at the Flyover Fashion Festival in Iowa City, is an inhabited passageway of 500 mirrored surfaces arranged in a dissolving voxel grid. The IM_RU Pavilion’s name is shorthand for the dialogue users unconsciously encounter between their perception of reality and others’ reality: “I am ... are you?” An individual’s reality is inescapably subjective and is therefore embedded with “I am” statements. In this way, we utilize ourselves as reference points. In our increasingly digital world, humans perceive and engage with the environment through a selectively fabricated lens. Our perceptions of ourselves and our perceptions of the world, although perhaps convincingly accurate, are subjective and therefore certainly include counterfeit realities.

Ultimately, the IM_RU Pavilion presents architecture and public space where an individual is simultaneously confronted with a multiplicity of individual and collective perceptions. By exploding and scattering what is seen, IM_RU prevents passersby from using themselves as reference points. All reflections become deconstructed units of the collective, and each fragment becomes lost in the nonhierarchical sea of other fragments. In a seamless mirror’s reflection, one perceives one’s self as the foreground and the key reference point by which everything else in the reflection is understood. With IM_RU, individual perceptions of reality are realized among one another as amalgamated and equally subjective fragments of the collective.

A student team proposed the design and manufactured the tools to enable its construction. The project relied upon a parametric model that allowed the interdisciplinary group of 15 students to collaboratively design and then fabricate and build the project directly from the digital model, without producing orthographic drawings. Manufacturing relied almost entirely upon 3,200 low-cost ($0.18 each) 3D-printed PLA joints fabricated with four Dremel 3D20 Printers ($800). By focusing on low-cost technologies, the design team was able to introduce to a public audience a fabrication method (3D-printed plastic) that is often relegated to representational models rather than full-scale construction. In doing so, this project also challenges the expected costs of built computational projects, a parameter that often keeps these technologies cloistered in specific institutions and communities.

Des Moines Social Club: Penumbra (2017) A penumbra is the partially shaded outer region of the shadow cast by an opaque object, and Penumbra is the name given to an 850 SF structure designed and constructed by 12 Iowa State University

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students on the roof of the Des Moines Social Club (DMSC) Kum & Go Theater. The project leveraged architectural design as a tool for community engagement and succeeded in expanding the usability of the rooftop – thus allowing the DMSC to enhance its potential for outdoor community activities and rentals, which raise money for the organization. The DMSC is a nonprofit that aims “to use the arts as a catalyst to create unprecedented community engagement” in Des Moines. The organization welcomes 25,000 visitors each month, with yearly revenue of $1.5 million for events ranging from gallery openings to rooftop theater performances and concerts.

In 2013, the organization worked with Slingshot Architecture to renovate the historic art deco Des Moines Firehouse Number One, creating a campus of 30,000 square feet for performances and events within the urban fabric of downtown Des Moines. Among such spaces is the 1,800-square-foot Kum & Go Rooftop, which provided desirable outdoor space but lacked shade during its time of most frequent use: April-October. The DMSC received a grant to provide a shade structure in collaboration with the ISU Computation & Construction Lab. Twelve ISU Department of Architecture students worked to design and build a structure that would allow the organization to further its mission.

The students had only eight weeks to take their design from idea to construction. This process encountered all of the constraints and conversations necessary to bring any architectural project to fruition. The class met with the Des Moines Plan and Zoning Commission to seek approval for a non-permitted ‘pergola’ designation. Then, because the site is listed on the National Registry of Historic Places, the project was reviewed, adapted, and approved by the State Historic Preservation Office. Finally, local firm Raker Rhodes provided structural engineering calculations to help ensure structural integrity.

Each step required quick, iterative reworking of the design. While the design went through nearly 50 iterations, the final design and build conveys the intent of the design team: to use the sun as a design tool, to create an open and flexible design, and to reflect the goals of the DMSC. The project relied upon an underlying grid of 42” drawn from the railing of the existing deck. This allowed the project to be easily constructed and maintained and provided flexibility.

Constructed of wood and exterior-grade shade cloth, the project combines solidity and softness of the fabric to create a layered shadow, or penumbra. After assembling the necessary parts in Ames, the pieces were relocated to Des Moines for installation. The project shades over half of the 1,800 square feet of the rooftop and provides the DMSC with a space that can be comfortably occupied

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and used to its fullest potential. Penumbra simultaneously enriches and enlivens the space of the rooftop by providing the organization the opportunity to expand its client base and offer more enjoyable events during the spring, fall, and summer, and the panels are designed and constructed to be easily removed and stored in the winter.

By becoming a part of the urban fabric of downtown Des Moines, Penumbra is an adaptable and functional structure for the organization and community as a whole. As the organization continues to grow and impact Des Moines, Penumbra will offer an enjoyable and welcoming space that catalyzes and magnifies the impact of the DMSC’s mission: providing usable space for the arts to bring together the community of Des Moines.

Iowa Arboretum: Bluestem (2018) Bluestem is named after a native Iowan tallgrass and pays homage to the prairie that once covered nearly 80 percent of Iowa. Located

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in the Iowa Arboretum, Bluestem situates itself at the threshold between the walking path and the windbreak in the southwestern corner of the main campus. Two-hundred tall, thin poles occupy a base of mulch and a path of pea gravel. These poles meet the ground at varying angles and orientations, creating a moirĂŠ effect and a feeling of movement reminiscent of tallgrasses swaying in the wind. Colors similar to native fields were used to emphasize wayfinding and to define internal spaces and clusters of seating.

Shades of magenta and aqua define the lengths of the poles, while a lighter pink marks the top face, signifying the seed heads of the grasses. Bluestem is an implementation of a new tallgrass. The eight-foot poles invert the scalar relationship between humans and their environment, thus reminding occupants that they are part of the ecosystems that surround us.

this project was supported by two interdisciplinary workshops. The first workshop was with Proving Ground, a digital design agency, which allowed students to explore the possibilities of computational design in the pursuit of a collective design-build project. The final project used Cocoon, a definition written by Dave Stasiuk, to create 3D circulation paths and gathering spaces that removed, or culled, poles from the field. The second workshop was on concrete, and the 14 design students were paired with 30 construction engineering students to design, develop, and refine their use of concrete in the project.â– 1

J. William Fulbright http://us.fulbrightonline.org/

The project was designed and constructed by a team of 14 graduate and undergraduate students majoring in architecture, landscape architecture, and interior design. The development of

ABOVE: IOWA ARBORETUM: BLUESTEM - courtesy of Shelby Elizabeth Doyle OPPOSITE: DES MOINES SOCIAL CLUB: PENUMBRA - courtesy of Shelby Elizabeth Doyle

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CROUCHING ARCHITECT, HIDDEN DATA

BY JASON R. ADAMS

In the design profession of the past, being an architect meant redefining style and living on the cutting edge of what the masses desired. This used to be the only thing that a young architect needed to worry about. Do it well, and people will adore you and memorialize the structures you leave behind. Do it poorly, and you don’t last long in the design world. Architecture is still not a profession for the faint of heart, and the young architect faces an even larger challenge these days surviving in a climate where super firms seem to rule the land, scooping up contracts, awards, and accolades while squeezing smaller boutique offices of talented designers and their teams into hard-to-predict boom and bust cycles. What is out there that can help the little guys compete, scale, and strengthen their very existence in this new age? Data. And lots of it. If design is the yin, then data is officially the yang.

I cannot say that architects weren’t early adopters of technology.

We wrapped ourselves into complex digital drafting software under our own volition. This new age of on-screen goodness sparked a revolution of new design styles as a byproduct of its primary function of giving us the ability to do more with less. But the path to an architect’s survival is multi-pronged, and I am writing this article to push all practitioners wishing to insulate their livelihood to invest in software that does everything but design that next stunning structure the world has never seen before. The primary function of this software is the same as its byproduct. Consider it a tropical island: If you don’t bring it there, you’re not going to find it there. So plan on devoting meaningful hours of your week to playing the data wonk, and get this process started. I know there is nothing easy about taking hours out of your day and weeks out of your year to figure out something other than the design struggles you encounter during the normal course of business, but you are already doing that when you write a contract, compare consulting engineer proposals, and contemplate salary raises against local market conditions. No one tells you about all of the number crunching you are going to do for something other than that cantilevered slab you swear can support itself before sending it to your structural engineer. Unless you already use software to analyze your business and make sound decisions from it, this is your official wake-up call to collect that data rushing past your eyeballs and start spinning it into a useful product.

So let’s say you think this is a good idea and you’re committed to trying it. Now what? Well, the short answer is to find a datamanagement product online and immerse yourself into video demonstrations and 30-day trials to see whether it’s the right fit for you. Data is all around us in general, and it can be wildly boring to look at, no matter what your field of study is. Compounding this

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point is that as an architect, you are a visual creature and require a product that keeps your eyeballs happy. If you were looking for something beautiful to display your data and didn’t find it a few years ago, now is the time to try again. The product market has exploded in recent years, and there has been a beautiful marriage of design and collection ease. All are browser-enabled with phone apps, so you can take your company on the go and have those useful stats at your fingertips. Here is the point where I must mention that the best programs will charge you a monthly fee (some will have discounts for annual purchases), but you have to consider this the cost of doing business in our data-driven world. So, in the immortal words of the Templar Knight in “Indiana Jones and the Last Crusade,” “choose, but choose wisely.” Continuing the essence of that quote in the context of this story: If you choose wisely, the right software will bring you eternal happiness; the wrong one will take it from you.

The next step, now that you’ve chosen your platform, is to begin developing it. Consider it the design-development phase of this project. Give yourself a long lead time so you can tackle it in manageable bites. Just as we have all bought into the dashboard interfaces of Netflix, if you made the right choice from trials and videos, your data will eventually start to bare visual fruit as you enter your company information.

So what are you hunting for, and why is it important? Let’s unravel that in detail. Take, for example, the last contract you received, executed by a client. What was the second thing you did after popping the champagne? Was it recording the per-square-foot fee rate and comparing it to the previous four contracts received?

Probably not. Good chance is, you fired up the creative engine and got to work. But not taking time to plot your fees and determine whether you are either incrementally making more money per project or less means you are captaining a ship that has no course.

My tip is to start extracting the fee and final square footage for each project and then go for the archives. Be sure to account for the original fee and the final fee; they each tell their own stories. As I mentioned earlier, another important data mine is your consultant contracts, regardless of whether their fees were paid by you or your client. If you happen to have them, there is no harm in entering them for visualization. I know this can sound crazy, but data mining is about knowing your past to help you see your future.

This exercise for your fees and consultants’ fees will most definitely inspire you to extract some other kernel of information you believe is useful and record it. Perhaps final build costs (if typically made available to you) provide a good data set. Time is also important:

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How long did your services take from start to close? It will be different for everyone because our profession has deep and diverse categories of practice.

Analysis is the second crucial step of this project. It is the construction-documents phase. Now that your dashboard lights up with meaningful, accurate information you’ve only guessed about in past conversations, it’s time to start taking action base on it. If you are using a platform where the data can be accessed by others in your company, consider making this available to the decisionmakers on your staff and having new conversations with them about the information. What was your projects’ average overall fee per square foot? Do a cross-check with industry standards, and develop your data from it. Moving forward, target your bargaining with clients; maybe start higher (and hopefully end higher) from where your running average is if it is lower than industry norms. If you don’t have that industry-standard data set to sink your teeth into, put your numbers into the smell test. Is it lower than what you thought it was? This could explain why ends aren’t meeting at the end of the year. If it is as you thought (and you have a beautiful mind that somehow extrapolates numbers from thin air, John Nash style) then this exercise is still not a waste. Raise the bar, set your goal, and go get that higher fee the next contract. You are already showing ninja skills in your trade.

All of this also applies to consultant contract information. Because this is a big data set, break it apart by trade, and figure out how balanced you’ve been with your consultants compared to industry norms. Depending on what it reveals, you could either be paying them too much or too little. Whether you negotiate for your client’s pocketbook or your own, out of your project fee, knowledge is power, and it will come across in your interactions with your consultants.

tells a story about your evolution, not just as an architect, but as a business professional, carrying the weight of the world on your shoulders. These stories of your journey should not be based on old-fashioned guessing because this is a new world, where real is very real and fake is extremely transparent.

The evolution of your architecture, I hope, will be profound, and the obvious goal is to propel you ever further into financial comfort for yourself, your employees, and those who consult on your work. Hopefully, this increase in comfort happens as a profession nationwide, but that is for another article.

You may never fully lift the weight from your shoulders, and you will always have to contend with bigger, more powerful firms, but if you can someday analyze your business in this way and make course corrections, you will be stronger for it and more confident.

You will be wise and awake to the ever-changing landscape of our profession and rope-swing over that future market lull. It will be you the big-boy firms have to watch out for. They’ll be wondering how you can do so much with so little when they find out it was you who won that big-fish client. And you can give them a stress-free smile with a wink because you have your freshly signed contract in hand, up 6 percent per square foot from your last. Employee bonuses are easy this holiday. Consultants get a little extra for turning in their sets early (maybe). And yes, there’s even a little extra for that musthave VR headset everyone is saying will catapult us into the future.

You know you want it, too. “Data,” you say under your breath. It was there all along. Go find yours.■

Everything else you have collected will serve its purpose at some point in time, even if not in the short term. It could be just for what is referred to as legacy data, the same thing as maintaining those old dusty sets in flat files. One never knows when you will want or need it, but if you thought it could be important when you were collecting it, then it will be eventually. Maybe it’s within your own organization that someone points out a way to improve your income or modify your marketing based on a dominant demographic of clientele.

You may be pleasantly surprised at what you find, or you may need a stiff drink. As fun as architecture is, if you are not making a profit, then it is a hobby. The sort of data that you will be looking for (i.e., what you took as a project fee compared to some common metric, like what you would pay your engineers or staff) tells a story. It

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INNOVATING FOR SUSTAINABILITY

REPORTING FROM FAÇADE TECTONICS WORLD CONGRESS 2018

BY VIKKI LEW

On two recent early spring days, Façade Tectonic Institute hosted its second World Façade Congress at the University of Southern California. March was chosen as the conference month because the sunny Los Angeles weather provided a great reason to attend a phenomenal conference while it’s still cold in most other places.

Led by Douglas Noble, FAIA, and other façade industry leaders, the Façade Tectonics Institute is an international member organization based at the University of Southern California School of Architecture. Its unique mission is to carry out progressive and broad-based research in building façade technology. The intent is to catalyze and foster a deep dialogue of collaborative research activity that bridges the fragmented market of the building industry, pairing industry, government, academia, the profession, and ownership. Integral to the mission is the dissemination of historical,

theoretical, and practical information derived from this research to the building marketplace, thereby acting as a conduit and facilitator for learning and further collaborative research.

Alternatively known as envelope, skin, enclosure, curtain wall, or cladding, façade is one of the most complex systems in buildings.

The emergence of numerous technologies, from digital design tools to fabrication, makes façade one of the most progressive areas in architecture. Other façade-focused organizations include the Society of Façade Engineering, which is a subsidiary of the UK engineering organization CIBSE; Façade+, a seminar and conference; and Glass Performance Day (GPD), a Europe-based conference focusing on glass. While these organizations vary slightly in focus, together they reflect the significance and intricacies of façade as an expertise.

ABOVE: FACADE TECTONICS WORLD CONGRESS 2018 - courtesy of Douglas Noble

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Façade is the most impactful building system, after HVAC, on energy use. It has a long-term impact on the whole building’s energy use, affecting the indoor environment and the well-being of occupants via daylighting and views. The U.S. Department of Energy reported that buildings consume 40 percent of total primary energy in the United States, of which 22 percent comes from residential buildings and the remaining 18 percent from commercial buildings. Nevertheless, the building sector is widely regarded as having great potential to reduce carbon emissions. The IPCC Working Group III report Mitigating Climate Change (2007) states that the building industry already possesses proven commercially viable technologies to cost-effectively reduce 29 percent of carbon emissions. And architects are undeniably in the position to influence design and decisions on building performance.

The proliferation of evolving technologies in the architectural profession enables architects to design and execute ever more complex buildings. More than ever, the success of these projects often requires the integrated skill sets of both experienced and emerging architects. Initiatives to advance high-performance designs are evident in the design subjects in the conference. One presentation demonstrated a data-driven process to design a shading system and make the envelope an expression of energy.

Another presentation discussed integrated energy analysis, an effort to make energy modeling in the design process more than an afterthought.

The effective use of materials is also integral to sustainability. And the presentations on emerging materials included architectural ceramic precast as structural and architectural enclosure, thermal electric materials, structural laminated glass, and structural cast glass. Besides materials, the programmable building system is a technological advance that has only recently become feasible.

Digital control and programming allow buildings to respond to environmental conditions, evident in the presentations on adaptive façades that are thermally responsive. Although double-skinned façades are not new, their applications have been limited. But new insights were provided in numerous presentations, including on parametric shading systems, kinetic structural glass, and the taxonomy of kinetics in climate-responsive façades.

curtain walls have been standardized for economic reasons, but parametric tools and digital fabrication now allow wide variation, with reasonable investment, to achieve different aesthetics.

As is often the case with complex projects, cross-disciplinary collaboration is necessary to bring together expertise and deliver innovation. Numerous panelists highlighted architecturalengineering collaboration, such as the project by Perkins+Will and Buro Happold. Scientists from Sage Glass also presented thermalcomfort research on electrochromic windows.

Among the wide-ranging topics, perhaps the education series most succinctly captures the importance of the next generation of architects, engineers, and designers. Emerging architects also bring intangible value to the façade expertise. This younger generation grew up with technology, and young architects learn fast on the computational and simulation tools that are integral to the design of complex façades. At a time when the word “innovation” has become ubiquitous, the expertise in the conference demonstrated what it means to be truly innovative in practice. ■

1

Facade Tectonics Institute. “Façade Tectonics 2018 World Congress: Skins on Campus.” University of Southern California, Los Angeles, March 12-13, 2018 2

Facade Tectonics Institute. Proceedings of 2018 Annual Conference & World Congress, Los Angeles, 2018, https:// facadetectonics.org/publications/

Façade is also the system most representative of a building’s aesthetics. Numerous presentations focused on how processes and technologies influence aesthetics. One focused on using textile techniques to influence building form. Another discussed origami as an inspiration on form and structure, and yet another highlighted nature’s structural randomness. Conventionally, unitized

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TECHNOLOIES, TECHNIQUES, TECHNE ALVIN HUANG'S LECTURE IN SHANGHAI

BY VIKKI LEW

Alvin Huang, AIA

is founder and design principal of Synthesis Design + Architecture and an Assistant Professor at the USC School of Architecture. His work has been published and exhibited widely and has gained international recognition with over thirty distinctions at local, national, and international levels, including being honored as the Presidential Emerging Practice of the Year by the AIA-LA in 2016, being selected of as one of 50 global innovators under the age of 50 by Images Publishing in 2015, being featured as a "Next Progressive" by Architect Magazine in 2014, and being named one of Time Magazine's “20 Best Inventors” of 2013. He has been an invited critic, guest lecturer, and keynote speaker at various institutions in the US, Canada, Mexico, Chile, UK, Germany, Italy, Spain, Sweden, Switzerland, Israel, Japan and China.

Huang received a Master of Architecture and Urbanism from the Architectural Association Design Research Laboratory (2004) in London and a Bachelor of Architecture from USC (1998).

YAF CONNECTIONS readers won’t be strangers to Alvin Huang, AIA, Design Principal and Founding Principal of Synthesis Design + Architecture. Widely recognized as a leading emerging architect, his firm Synthesis Design + Architecture (SDA) is the winner of the Presidential Emerging Firm of the Year at AIA Los Angeles (2016), Next Progressive by Architectural Magazine, and is one of 50 global innovators under the age of 50 by TIME Magazine1-2. Last month, Huang generously made a detour to Shanghai to share with AIA members his lecture titled Technologies, Techniques, Techne. A rainy Friday night did not deter members from attending.

Form + Sustainability + Technology Huang’s Pure Tension Pavilion won Volvo Car Italia’s competition to design a portable installation that will charge the hybrid car’s batteries and showcase the sustainable automobile V60. Much like the three-mode sustainable mobile that can run on hybrid, diesel, and electric, the pavilion can recharge the car and fit into the storage at the back of the car. The SDA team used Grasshopper plug-in Kangaroo to analyze how materials respond to forces.

The initial idea of using carbon fiber rods was too costly, and the material choice was refined to use pre-bent aluminum pipes as tension members that follow the seams. The design process combined digital modeling and hand-stitching and creating.5-6 The form is optimized into five arcs, forming an elegant design that in the architect’s own words, “is a hybrid between parabolic parabloid and minimal surface.”6 The Pure Tension Pavilion went on to win South by Southwest (SXSW) Eco award for Data + Technology and Architect Magazine’s R+D Award.5 Parallel to practice, Huang is also a highly prolific educator and lecturer. At the University of Southern California, his latest classes include parametric design and digital fabrication. He is the winner of ACSA/AIAS New Faculty Teaching Award 20132014.6 Besides the latest lecture at AIA Shanghai, his various

ABOVE TOP AND BOTTOM: PURE TENSION - VOLVO V60 PAVILION courtesy of SDA

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AIA lectures at local, national, and international levels include the Now Next Future Conference of the AIA California Council (2016), AIA Wisconsin 2017 Conference on Architecture, the Monterey Design Conference (2015), and the Alaska Design Forum Future Tense series (2015). Huang is adamant in making design a form of research to bridge the chasm between practice and academics.

The rigorous development processes are documented in his prolific research publications. To name just a few, his peer-reviewed publications include ACSA conference on elevating parametrics from object design to architectural applications (2016). In his 2016 USC research studio, Huang collaborated with Ma Yansong of MAD Architects on challenging the next generation of architects to design supertalls that are both local and global.4 Practice + Innovation On receiving the Presidential award from AIA LA, Huang shared that the award is in recognition of emerging firms consistently pushing the technology front “outside of establishment.�1 It is in particularly important that amid the emphasis on corporations and status quo, the architectural profession values and recognizes new voices.1 Based in Los Angeles, his experience, practice, and academic involvements span across continents. Huang credited his combined experience at the Architectural Association and Zaha Hadid Architects as his formative years. It was a time being surrounded by design talents and learning from the people and the atmosphere.5 While forward thinking, he also cites major influences from master architect-engineers Frei Otto and Pier Luigi Nervi. It was impossible to separate forms and performance. At the Design Research Lab at the Architectural Association in London, Huang focused on technology and the approach has been a central theme in his contemporary architecture.5 On starting his own practice, Synthesis Design + Architecture, Huang shared that the confidence of being not only able to do the

ABOVE BOTTOM: DUROTAXIS CHAIR courtesy of SDA

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ABOVE TOP: HAKKA PERFORMANCE CENTER courtesy of SDA

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work but also to sell the work. While the profession has recovered from the recession a decade ago, there has been a question what makes the architects also good business people. Since then, austerity had to be more relevant. Although the downturn in no way diluted his interest in technology, there was a need to justify it.5 Social media, for instance, offers a way to participate as both a viewer and contributor. It is a platform designers demonstrate how they see the world. Being able to demonstrate the value of design is important in practicing innovation. 5 Design + Bravery Being forward-thinking is not limited to small-scaled projects.

Huang’s Hakka Performance Cultural Center is currently under construction in his ancestral town of Yongding, a UNESCO heritage site in the Fujian Province of Southern China. The region is known for his Tulou architecture, literally translated as earth buildings.

The Tulous are closed, inward-looking round buildings historically from an ethnic minority being self-protective.2-3 Huang reinterpreted the form of the Tulou with the mathematical models of the mobius strip, making the inward configuration into a contemporary form integrated with the landscape. The roof forms a continuous surface that is also the façade and plaza. The free-form geometry of the building is actually defined by a series of rational arcs, all of which are developed through associative geometric models.3-4 For Huang, the project connects to the native culture of his ancestral home while injecting something new into something old. Handcraft and digital fabrication can produce something iconic and interpret Chinese culture in an international aspect.3

1

“Alvin Huang, AIA, the Presidential Honoree Interview,” AIA Los Angeles, accessed May 31, 2018 at http://www.aialosangeles.org/ 2

Huang, Alvin. “Technology, Techniques, Techne.” Lecture at AIA Shanghai, May 25, 2018.

3

Jin Ma Media group. (2013). Hakka Performance Centre, posted

by Synthesis Design + Architecture, accessed June 1, 2018 https:// vimeo.com/78119922 4

Ma, Yansong, and Alvin Huang (ed.), (2012). Supertall: Twin Cities in the Sky, NYC vs. SZX. USC Architecture Pamphlet Series. Accessed at http://arch.usc.edu/publicaitons 5

Projects,” Synthesis Design + Architecture, accessed May 2018 at http://synthesis-dna.com 6

Taylor-Hochberg, Amelia, (2016), Grounded Research: Alvin Huang of Synthesis Design + Architecture on bringing computational design to life.” Archinect Sessions #82, Sept 25, 2016, https:// archinect.com 7

Spotlight: Alvin Huang,” USC School of Architecture, published Nov 7, 2016, https://arch.usc.edu/news/spotlight-alvin-huang 8

“Faculty: Alvin Huang.” USC School of Architecture. Nov 7, 2016,

https://arch.usc.edu/news/spotlight-alvin-huang

As he consistently demonstrated through practice and research, Huang regards technology as both the question and answers.6-7 There are two categories of technologies. First, there are architect-led, design-driven parametric applications. Then there are structure-oriented technologies.2 He compared the difference between a whistle and a saxophone – the former is a tool and later is an instrument. With the abundant opportunities that technologies offer, Huang has an advise for students: Be brave.1,7.■

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2018 AIA YOUNG ARCHITECTS AWARD WINNER PROFILE AN INTERVIEW WITH STEPHEN PARKER

BY YU-NGOK LO

Stephen Parker, AIA

is an architect and planner with SmithGroupJJR in Washington, DC, working primarily in the health studio. Beyond his current role as the National Advocacy Director for AIA’s Young Architects Forum (YAF), Stephen’s long term focus is advocacy for the National Design Services Act as co-founder of the AIA’s NDSA Coalition. In 2018, Stephen was awarded the AIA’s Young Architects Award for his mentorship efforts, advocacy initiatives and design work.

In March 2018, the AIA announced the 18 recipients of its annual Young Architects Awards. The winners met the criteria of being “practicing architects licensed for no more than 10 years and who have made significant strides in the profession, both in terms of leadership and contributions.”

those opportunities to advocate for themselves. When you come to that realization, stepping up becomes second nature.

I know Stephen through our involvement with the AIA YAF Advisory Committee. His contributions to the profession and his work advocating for other emerging professionals, from his involvement with the local AIA chapters to co-founding the NSDA Coalition, is without question exemplary. I was curious to know what drives his rigorous commitment to the profession, so I sat down with him for a few questions.

SP: When I was AIAS chapter president at Clemson, I had the opportunity to serve the AIA Greenville Executive Committee, as well as the AIA South Carolina board. That role afforded me the opportunity to collaborate with some great leaders – reigniting the statewide architecture career fair, city-wide firm crawls, funding for student conference attendance, bidding for AIAS Forum, kickstarting the AIAS Freedom by Design Program, and yes, founding the ARCHLaMP program (Leadership and Mentoring Program).

This program brought together students, interns, and emerging professionals in a year-long program of interactive events hosted at a different firm each month. Themed around relevant topics that crossed generational divides, each event included a dinner, workshop (round robins, speed mentoring, presentations, etc.) and ended with an open, Socratic discussion session. With the intent of cross-pollinating mentorship opportunities between different age groups, we hoped to have more experienced practitioners mentor the next generation while learning about the issues relevant to emerging architects. This in turn helped shape future leaders in the profession, with many alumni evolving into leadership roles in school or in practice. It was a great bridge between the professional community and the school, and I’m extremely proud of the program’s impact on everyone involved, from student to EP to mentor.

Yu-Ngok Lo (YL): You have been a longtime advocate in the profession for your fellow students and emerging professionals.

Why are you so passionate about it? Tell us how you started your journey of exemplary service, being a champion of others.

Stephen Parker (SP): Looking back at my journey up to this point, I'd have to say it's a confluence of individuals investing their time with me. My father, Clark, was politically active (an erstwhile congressional candidate) and served a number of organizations.

From starting a free medical clinic to championing students at his alma mater as trustee chairman to leading the state's tax council to serving nationally and internationally with the Gideons, he served with a very humble heart. My friends and I, especially those in my church, went on many mission trips, built or rebuilt homes and communities for those in need. As well, my mentor, Greg McFarland, AIA, was an active AIA member when I started apprenticing at his firm in high school. When I studied architecture at Clemson, I jumped into the AIAS chapter. I grew the chapter in response to the needs of the students since I was accustomed to leading through service. In that manner, I recognize that I'm extremely blessed by the options afforded me and acknowledge that not everyone has

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YL: Tell us about your work on the AIA Greenville execute committee and the ARCHLaMP program.

YL: Tell us about your work and involvement with the National Design Services Act. What motivated you to spend all of the time and effort this took? What’s the latest effort of the NDSA Coalition?

SP: I love design. I love designing with purpose. Community design, to me at least, derives purpose from serving those in need, especially those lacking agency or opportunity to participate in

REDEFINING PURPOSE

the built environment that affects them in so many ways. In that regard, I began rebuilding homes through my church, then Habitat for Humanity in school, later on through the AIAS Freedom by Design program we started at Clemson, and more recently through the D.C. Building Industry Association. The AIAS developed the NDSA along with the AIA, and I was asked to serve as chair of the National Advocacy Committee, championing this legislation. It has been a slow and deliberate path.. After graduating, my friends and I continued to advocate for the bill and, after a couple of long years campaigning, convinced the AIA to let us organize as a Coalition, the first of its kind within the Institute. As to why the NDSA is worth it, the answer is both profoundly simple and simply profound: To pay off one's student debt by exercising our design skills in the service of others. Simple. What is profound is how it could change the nature of practice, creating opportunities where there were none previously. To catalyze the burden of student debt into a funding mechanism for community-design efforts is powerful.

It will elevate the role of the profession in the eyes of society by placing our best and brightest in service to those most in need.

By giving communities the opportunity to be equal participants in shaping the spaces that define their lives, we can create lasting and meaningful impact. Lately, the Coalition has been organizing internally, analyzing the survey we beta-tested last year, recruiting advocates across the nation, and refining the bill’s language to better reflect the profession and create equitable opportunities to participate in the proposed program, in whatever form that evolves into.

YL: As the AIA 2017-2018 National YAF advocacy director, what do you hope to accomplish during your term?

SP: What attracted me to this role was its latitude to advocate on multiple fronts, voice the concerns of young architects in the wider profession, and take the lead on issues of impact in society.

Championing community design, equity, and legislative action become pillars to build upon. In that manner, I hope to cultivate a culture of advocacy and action within the institute, channeling our passion on a range of issues into meaningful progress. Here are a few goals so far.

1. Create opportunities for young architects to impact their communities, recruiting firms and EPs for the six communitydesign projects during the A’18 Day of Service in NYC. 2. Develop more resources for advocates, helping the Hunter Douglas Corporation establish and fund their own Young Architects Advocacy Board.

ABOVE: AIA ADVOCACY - SPEAK UP COMPETITION WIN Courtesy of Stephen Parker

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FEATURE PHILANTHROPIC DESIGN

3. Champion the NDSA, and advocate for more AIA resources to this cause and advocacy efforts in general while achieving full YAF participation in ArchiPAC. 4. Advocate for the EP voice in the equity discussion and supporting emerging groups within the AIA tackling this issue.

YL: You worked on a lots of VA healthcare facilities at SmithGroupJJR’s. Why are you interested in this sector? Is it something personal?

SP: This is part strategic and part happenstance. I have a long family tradition of service in the armed forces and was negotiating to serve in the Navy as an officer finishing my undergraduate studies.

My future wife Carrie, said at the time, “I’m not going to be a Navy wife,” dropping the proverbial anchor as it were. Without that outlet to serve, I focused my thesis on wounded warrior polytrauma care, designing spaces for humanity at its most vulnerable. That led me to SmithGroupJJR’s research and development of the National Intrepid Center of Excellence (NICoE), a new building typology that treats service members with TBI and PTSD. It inspired much of my graduate thesis and helped me introduce myself to the firm in a meaningful way. Health care supports design research, as well, providing an additional outlet to develop thought leadership and innovate practice at scale. Designing the best care environments possible for our veterans, who deserve far more than they expect, is rewarding in its own right.

ABOVE: YOUNG ARCHITECT INTERVIEW PODCAST WITH MICHAEL RISCICA - Courtesy of Stephen Parker

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REDEFINING PURPOSE

Designing the best care environments possible for our veterans, who deserve far more than they expect, is rewarding in its own right.

YL: Anything else you would like to add?

SP: I hope that we, collectively speaking, see purpose in our work and that we strive for our highest and best selves as designers, no matter where we find ourselves in the spectrum of practice. It helps to cultivate an attritional attitude towards opportunity, especially when it comes to advocacy efforts. I have tried to recognize how profoundly blessed I am with the opportunities afforded me and endeavor to create opportunities for others. If it’s worthwhile, you’ll stick it out and realize your passion project, from concept to completion. Most of all, I hope that rising generations in the industry (as well as “emerged” professionals) will embrace the role of architect as advocate, championing those unable to do so, and hopefully reflect the society we hope to serve.■

ABOVE: AWARDING OUR NDSA CONGRESSIONAL SPONSOR, REP. PERLMUTER (D-COLORADO) WITH AIAS AND AIA MEMBERS Courtesy of Stephen Parker

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CREATING CONNECTIONS BETWEEN STUDENTS, FIRMS AND THE COMMUNITY AIA CENTRAL STATES REGION STUDENT DESIGN COMPETITION

BY KATE THUESEN

Kayla Berkson, AIA

Allison Méndez, AIA

is an architect at BNIM in Des Moines, Iowa. She is actively involved in the AIA at the local and regional levels, currently serving as AIA Central States Regional associate director and co-chair of the AIA Central States Emerging Professionals Committee. Berkson earned her bachelor of architecture from Iowa State University.

When I stepped into my position as the Central States Region Young Architects Forum’s regional director in 2017, I was unaware of the many programs and initiatives our region promoted to connect and develop architects at all stages of their careers. I was quickly introduced to our Emerging Professionals Committee’s co-chairs in 2017, Allison Méndez and Kayla Berkson. These two worked tirelessly in their volunteer positions to develop, coordinate, and delegate our EP Committee to assist them and execute the competition successfully.

I chatted with Allison and Kayla about the competition, and our conversation is below. But first, some background on the event: On Wednesday, Oct. 4, and Thursday, Oct. 5, seven teams of architecture students from universities throughout the Central States Region gathered in Omaha, Neb., to compete in the annual AIA CSR Student Design Competition. This was the sixth competition in the region, held each year in conjunction with the AIA Central States Design Awards. The host city for the awards and competition rotates around our five-state region (Iowa, Nebraska, Missouri, Kansas, and Oklahoma), and the competition program is modified each year to relate directly to its host city. Each university in the region is invited to send a team of four students plus one faculty adviser. This year, Drury University, Iowa State University, the University of Kansas, Kansas State University, the University of Nebraska at Lincoln, Oklahoma State University, and Washington University at St. Louis all sent teams. The students typically participate in a site visit and a day-long charrette and then present their work to a jury of architects, designers, and community representatives.

Kate Thuesen (KT): Can you tell me more about the competition – the program, the site, and the logistics of the event?

is a project designer at CannonDesign in St. Louis.

She has an MArch from Washington University in St. Louis, and a BS in design from Arizona State University.

Méndez currently serves as the regional associate director for the Central States Region.

Kayla Berkson (KB): The competition program this year was to design the first block of the new Omaha Makers District, just north of downtown. Projects were to provide conceptual-level urbandesign solutions and schematic-level architectural design for a renovation and/or addition of the existing three-story warehouse building on site. Urban design could extend into the full arts district, but teams were encouraged to focus on the project-site block. The program included maker-type spaces, such as: •

Communal metal shop

•

Wood shop

•

Technology lab

•

Demonstration space

•

Co-working space

•

Restaurant

•

Gallery

•

Exterior sculpture park

The students and faculty gathered on Wednesday morning at Hot Shops Art Center, a unique artist collaborative that contains over 50 artist studios and several gallery spaces. Hot Shops is one of the major anchors in this emerging makers neighborhood. The planning team from the CSR EP Committee presented the program to the students and outlined the schedule for the next two days.

The competition program and site was kept confidential up until this point, adding to the challenge of the charrette. A short walk over to the site allowed students to begin to document existing conditions.

They each took photos, made notes, and explored the site and surrounding neighborhood.

OPPOSITE: COMPETITION POSTER - Courtesy of AIA Central States Region

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REDEFINING PURPOSE

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After the site visit, each team headed to their own host firm for the remainder of the day. These firms generously volunteered a space in their office for the students to work for 11 hours. This provided a chance for the students to get a feel for what it is like to work in a professional environment, as well as interact with architects and designers who live and work in the city they are studying.

At 8 p.m., students were required to submit their final digital presentation online. They were urged to spend a little time rehearsing their presentations but ultimately encouraged to get some rest before the jury on Thursday morning.

The next morning, the students met back at Hot Shops, ready to present to the jury. Each team was assigned a random order and were given 15 minutes with the jury to present and interact in dialogue. Our jury this year was John Carney, FAIA, who served as the AIA Nebraska Awards jury chair; Lyn Ziegenbein, director emerita at the Peter Kiewit Foundation and representative from Future Foward; and Jed Mouton, manager of urban design and preservation for the city of Omaha. The jury based their decisions on strength of concept, integration into the urban context, quality and clarity of visual and verbal communication, and strength of

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architectural and/or adaptive reuse approach.

KT: As co-chairs of the Central States Emerging Professionals Committee, what is your role in planning and executing this event?

KB: We are responsible for coordinating with a handful of key players. The universities receive RSVP letters in the spring semester before the competition, and then we continue to coordinate logistics and team registration with them as the fall semester begins. The local AIA chapter is a critical partner throughout the planning process, helping with logistics, identifying jurors, and highlighting local issues that could be addressed with the competition program.

We coordinate with host firms, making sure that students have everything they need while they are working. Many regional firms are generous contributors during our fundraising process, which helps us provide monetary prizes to the top three teams. And finally, there are numerous day-of tasks that we coordinate, including the presentation of awards.

KT: What is the value to the universities, design firms, and students for participating in this one-day charrette?

REDEFINING PURPOSE

After the jury presentations, there was a community engagement session where members of the community and the local media could see the student work and engage with the teams directly.

Allison Méndez (AM): We have eight fantastic architecture programs in our region, but because of how dispersed they are, it’s difficult to engage with one another in a meaningful way. A one-day charrette followed by presentations and awards gives our students a chance, albeit brief, to interact with one another and see what exciting work their peers are doing. It can be a little difficult to get them to engage with one another – since, ultimately, they are in competition with one another – but we think it’s really beneficial for them to see how the other teams approach the project and how they communicate that.

We also have a great setup where students spend the day-long charrette at host firms. Through that, they get to know what firms are out there, get a taste of the firm’s culture, and network.

Because the competition rotates through the region, it gives students the opportunity to explore neighboring communities that they might not otherwise engage with through the regular course of their education. It also aligns with our Central States design awards, which gives increased credibility to the competition – we love having the students come up on stage in front of a bunch of

architects to accept their (really big) trophy! Design awards also help expose our students to the great work happening in the region and give them yet another chance to connect with architects.

Ultimately, that was the goal of the competition, originally conceived of the late OSU dean, Charles Graham: to connect our students to each other and to the profession and to connect the profession back to the community.

KT: How does this support the mission of the AIA and the goals of emerging professionals?

KB: The competition helps to connect students with the profession and provides exposure of the profession to the community. In Omaha, after the jury presentations, there was a communityengagement session where members of the community and the local media could see the student work and engage with the teams directly. The local news published and aired stories about the competition, which provided great exposure to the general public and highlighted the roles of young architects and design in the growth and development of our communities.

OPPOSITE AND ABOVE: TEAM PRESENTATION - Courtesy of AIA Central States Region

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FEATURE PHILANTHROPIC DESIGN Makers Exchange

O: m.d

Food

Planning

Wood

Metal

People

Entry

Trades

Arts

Demo Space

Gallery

Views

Context

Building

Outward Connection

Context

Exterior Gallery

Studio

Exterior Gallery Gallery

Metal Shop

Metal Shop

Tech Lab

Tech Lab

Gallery Studio

Wood Shop

Stage

Sequence

Studio

Studio

Wood Shop

Inward Connection

Studio

Studio

Stage

Restaurant/Cooking Restaurant/Cooking School School

Food Truck Servicing

Food Truck Servicing

Ground Floor

Upper Floors

Urban Canvas

NEDO ARTS AND TRADE DISTRICT

Omaha is a tapestry of history melded throughout the ages into the city that it has become today. It has endured without any professional teams or large markets. It has its pockets of intricacy that have helped to develop the contextuality. One of these such pockets is the art industry.

Art can either be a hobby or a lifestyle depending on the person. Art is also a way of showing your individuality through an idea and form.

People can have issues with expressing themselves through words, but a piece of art starts to show how a person thinks and acts on the spot, and sometimes the errors become the beauty within.

EXISTING SITE CONTEXT

1 3 2

DURABLE BASE

MASONRY

UNION PACIFIC

4 5

FOOD TRUCK 1. Wood Working 2. Mount & Griffin (coal & kindling wood yard) 3. L.M. Greer & Co. Planing Mill

Plan

DRAINAGE

4. Duffy Trowbridge Stove Manufacturing Co.

NEDO Development

5. M.A. Disrow & Company (doors, windows & moldings)

Building Sites

GHOST SIGNS

Sculpture Park Gallery

COLLEGE WORLD SERIES

Co-Working

�emonstra�on

Mechanical/Restrooms

Co-Working

SITE PROPOSAL

NICHOLAS STREET SECTION 1. Proposed New Structures 2. Central Plaza

3

To create revenue in the area that can be allocated to the

3. Indiana St. Plaza

arts district, we propose drawing from the existing Omaha

4. UPRR Park

University of Arkansas, Community Design Center

attraction...

Metal, Wood, and Technology lab �ndoor/�utdoor �rt Connec�on

Par�

2

1

Restaurant

4

12’-0”

10’-0”

10’-0”

9’-0”

6’-0”

SITE PLAN

2. Addition

11TH ST.

1. Co-working space (renovated warehouse) �rchard and Wilhelm Warehouse Sec�on

NICHOLAS ST.

3. Restaurant

9

3

4. Communal Metal Shop

4

12TH ST.

5. Wood Shop 6. Food Truck Park

5

1

2

7

8

7. Gallery Space 6

8. Sculpture Park

Melding the work of artists with the fabric of the city is what inspired the progressive design idea. As an artist you begin with the idea of what you can create and what can become from nothing. This process of conception comes in the design studios and creation labs. As you progress, the idea becomes more of a reality. This is done through the production and creation in shops or studios that are open to allow a connectivity to the alley where people can walk by to gain ideas and bring in natural light or ventilation. Some of the art is displayed along the journey as well to display the nature of the activities and ideas within. The final step in the process is the demonstration. Art is as much about the journey as it is about the end product. The Orchard and Wilhelm Building, which is the oldest building in the district, is at the pinnacle of the project and holds most of the finished work by the artists. The final area is a culmination of art. This includes culinary, music, dance, and sculpture which can be either shown within their respective buildings or brought out onto the showcase stage. This area holds such importance not only because it is at the end of the district, but it allows for the events during the Union Pacific train showing which is at the southern edge of the site and the college world series.

9. Sports Training Facility

THE MAKER SPACE

1

THE FUTURE FORWARD TRAINING FACILITY

1

1

CRYOTHERAPY LABS

4 ENVIRONMENTAL & ATMOSPHERIC CHAMBER COLD WATER THERAPY NICHOLAS STREET ACCESS

3 HIT TRAX

2

RECOVERY ROOM

1 VIRTUAL REALITY GAMES

1. Workshops

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2. Gallery

3. Restaurant

4. Technology Lab

OUTDOOR BATTING CAGES HITIINGGURU

Tech

REDEFINING PURPOSE MAKERS MARKET

RENOVATION PROPOSAL

CONCEPT

MAKE

SHARE LETS PUSH THIS FURTHER. LETS REFINE THIS.

SHARE

LET ME SHARE MY IDEAS WITH YOU.

FUTURE EXPANSION

POCKET

OBSERVE

MAKE 3.0

BASEMENT

WITH RESIDENTIAL LIVING ABOVE

BASEMENT MAKE

S FURTHER.

WITH RESIDENTIAL LIVING ABOVE

REFINE TELL

CO-WORK SPACE LAB

POCKET SHOP

FLOOR 01

POCKET STUDIOS POCKET STUDIOS POCKET SHOP POCKET SHOP

FLOOR 02

FLOOR 01

FLOOR 03

FLOOR 02

FLOOR 03

VE

SER

HIS. MY IDEAS WITH YOU.

OBSERVE

SHARE

WITH RESIDENTIAL LIVING ABOVE

MAKE 2.0

SMALL POCKET STUDIOS ALONG SPINE FOR PEOPLE TO OBSERVE TECHNIQUE AND PROCESS. SMALL POCKET SHOPS FOR PEOPLE TO SHARE THEIR PRODUCTS AND COLLABORATE WITH EXTERNAL VISITING CREATIVES.

POCKET

WITH RESIDENTIAL SHOP LIVING ABOVE

SHARE

OBSERVE

WITH RESIDENTIAL STUDIOS LIVING ABOVE

MAKE 4.0

PROPOSAL

REFINE

POCKET STUDIOS

LOOK AT THIS.

REFINE

RR

CO-WORK SPACE

MAKE

MAKE 5.0

MAKE

RR

SMALL POCKET STUDIOS ALONG SPINE FOR PEOPLE TO OBSERVE TECHNIQUE AND PROCESS. SMALL POCKET SHOPS FOR PEOPLE TO SHARE THEIR PRODUCTS AND COLLABORATE WITH EXTERNAL VISITING CREATIVES. RESTAURANT

OBSERVE

OBSERVE

GALLERY

MAKE

MAKE REFINE

RR

MECH

REFINE

DISPLAY BOX

OBSERVE

PROPOSAL

A DESIGN THAT EXPLORES THE SYMMETRY WITHIN THE PROCESS OF THE MAKER AND THE PROGRESS THAT OCCURS THROUGH TIME.

OB

FUTURE EXPANSION

.

MAKE 5.0

WITH RESIDENTIAL LIVING ABOVE

MAKE 4.0

WITH RESIDENTIAL LIVING ABOVE

MAKE 3.0

MAKE

WITH RESIDENTIAL LIVING ABOVE

OBSERVE

MAKE 2.0

WITH RESIDENTIAL LIVING ABOVE WITH RESIDENTIAL LIVING ABOVE

REFINE TELL

VE

SER

OB

TECH LAB

HOUSING HOUSING RETAIL

CO-WORK RESTAURANT

METRO COMMUNITY COLLEGE FORT OMAHA CAMPUS

METAL SHOP

EPPLEY AIRPORT- CREATING A CENTRAL SPINE FOR VISITORS OF THE CITY TO GET A GLIMPSE AT THE MAKING AND TAKE PART IN SOME SPACES.

GALLERY

MAKE 5.0 MAKE 4.0

REFLECT

MAKE

OBSERVE

MAKE 3.0 MAKE 2.0

REFINE

SHARE

VE

OBSER

CWS CROWD

TECH LAB

CO-WORK CO-WORK

RESTAURANT

CLOSE PROXIMITITY FOR PEOPLE IN COUNCIL BLUFFS

WOOD SHOP

PLAZA

1

METAL SHOP

GALLERY

MECH.

KT: What do you have planned for next year’s competition in Tulsa?

OVERALL SITE

KB: At this time, we are in the early phases of the planning process, but we have a great team identified in AIA Eastern Oklahoma and are looking forward to kicking things off with them soon.■

Food Trucks

NURTURING AN IDENTITY Parking Arts’ districts around the nation share the same characteristics: they are found in former warehouse or industrial areas, occupy brick buildings, are in proximities of downtown, and have acted as catalyst to rejuvenate distressed areas of cities. None of them, however, have provided for a unique identity. Our proposal for the Omaha Arts and Trades District originates from these observations and flourishes by creating vibrant image for this slice of Omaha.

We propose that the whole district be identify by an urban landscape of strong graphic language which navigates around the area not only horizontally, but also vertically engaging and covering existing buildings. As an example of the graphic strategy, parking is not between the two traditional lines, but rather on top of two colored dots. Within this new urban landscape we propose a variety of functions able to engage a multigenerational public (playgrounds, sensorial courses, etc.). We also propose that the district be charged with temporal identity, where the experiences between day and night are different, but complementary.

Sculpture

Playground

Acting within the boundaries of the (design) site, we opted to demolish the two metal buildings currently present on site and maintain the both brick buildings. A new mainly transparent structure engages and connect the two existing building forming a dialogue between the historical framework and the projected future. It then penetrates the large warehouse and comes out to the east. The communal spaces (metal shop, wood shop, technology lab, and demonstration space) are located in the aerial glass box, allowing for the passersby to view into the making spaces from a distance. Within the base of the new structure anchoring the corner of N 12th St and Nicholas St we are accommodating dining establishments inclusive of outdoor dining. The gallery space is to find home in the south existing one story brick building, while the multi-story former warehouse is to accommodate the co-working spaces envisioned as pods within the existing shell. To enhance visual connectivity between the pods and hence the floors, we have curved out part of each floor slab of the existing building as well as the roof to further bring natural light into the existing structure.

2 3 4

We have not limited the boundaries of the sculpture park within the site, but rather propose that it engages the entire district, including the buildings, further encouraging, therefore, visitors to wander about.

CHARACTER VIGNETTE OF THE SITE

BUILDING SITE

proposed addition existing buildings

5

BUILDING DIAGRAM

co-working

BUILDING SCHEMATIC FLOOR PLANS

technology lab and demonstrartion sapce restaurant

mechnical

gallery restaurant

removal of parts of existing buildings

insertion of new structure

co-working spaces

gallery

communual wood and metal shops

+2

6 BUILDING SCHEMATIC SECTIONS

7

8 9 10

co-working spaces

metal shop, wood shop, t

+1

zoning

cechnology lab, demonstration space

+3

We also have a great setup where students spend the daylong charrette at host firms.

Through that, they get to know what firms are out there, get a taste of the firms culture, and network.

SCHEMATIC RENDERINGS

OPPOSITE: PRESENTATION BOARDS (FROM LEFT TO RIGHT AND TOP TO BOTTOM) WASHINGTON UNIVERSITY, DRUY UNIVERSITY, KANSAS STATE UNIVERSITY, AND UNIVERSITY OF KANSAS - Courtesy of AIA Central States Region ABOVE: PRESENTATION BOARDS (FROM LEFT TO RIGHT AND TOP TO BOTTOM) UNIVERSITY OF NEBRASKA, IOWA STATE UNIVERSITY AND OKLAHOMA STATE UNIVERSITY - Courtesy of AIA Central States Region Q1/Q2 -2018

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MENTORSHIP MASH-UP

A LOOK AT INDUSTRY LEADING INITIATIVES

BY MATT TODDY

Timarie T. Trarbach, Assoc. AIA

Jennifer Rittler, AIA

Ryan McEnroe, AIA

Katelyn Chapin, AIA

Yanel de Angel, AIA

Heather Murtagh Miller, AIA

Jess Garnitz, AIA

Emily Paparella, AIA

Kris Lucius, AIA

Emily Hall

is an architectural designer at Populous. She is serving as an at-large director to the AIA National Associates Committee. Trarbach graduated from the University of Kansas in 2012 with an MArch, and she is a 2018 AIA Associates Award recipient.

is the co-founder and past-chair of the AIA DC Christopher Kelley Leadership Development Program. He serves as the AIA YAF knowledge director. In 2014 he was given the AIA DC Emerging Architect Award. This year, he received the ENR MidAtlantic Top Professionals Award and an AIA Young Architects Award.

was a founding member of Perkins+Will’s Project Delivery Board, and is a member of its Diversity Council. She has taught at many universities including, Harvard University, and Northeastern University. She co-chairs the WiD Excellence in Design Awards, cofounded the WiD Mid-Career Mentoring Program, and is part of CREW’s Housing Committee.

has taught at Wentworth University. She has a bachelor of arts in architecture from Washington University in St. Louis and an MArch degree from Syracuse University, where she was awarded the Henry Adams AIA Award for Academic Excellence.

is adept at creating multiple options through handand computer-rendered models, providing diverse opportunities for expressing a client’s vision. Lucius is continually striving to create solutions within challenging parameters that bring an iconic and memorable sense of place to the community as a whole.

Brian M. Johnson, AIA

is a licensed architect and registered contractor in Montana. He has a bachelor and master of Architecture from Montana State University in Bozeman, Mont. Architecture is Johnson's art, and his desire to have complete control over his built work is what led to the birth of ARCH406.

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is a licensed Architect and extends her active leadership beyond design. She is a senior associate with the nationally recognized firm of Moody•Nolan Inc., known for tesponsive srchitecture.

won the AIA Connecticut Emerging Architect of the Year Award in 2014, and has remained diligently immersed in many facets of the AIA ever since. Chapin serves as the Young Architects regional director of New England and holds a BS of architecture and an MArch degree from Roger Williams University.

is a member of Perkins+Will’s Women in Design Group, the Boston Society of Architects Membership Committee and Syracuse University's Generation Orange Leadership Council. She received her bachelor of architecture from Syracuse.

has previously instructed courses for the Boston Architectural College’s design computing department.

She is a founding co-chair of CREW’s Development Project Management Group. Paparella holds an MArch degree from MIT and a bachelor of architecture from the University of Florida.

brings over 17 years of architectural marketing experience to Charrette Venture Group. She received a master of business administration from the University of Rhode Island, a master of industrial design from the Rhode Island School of Design, and a bachelor of arts from Colorado College with a double major in art history and studio art.

REDEFINING PURPOSE

A young architect’s career path is often littered with obstacles, challenging situations (and clients), and exciting opportunities.

Navigating that path comes with excitement and challenges of its own. An opportunity to learn from someone one, five, or 10 steps ahead on that path can have a positive impact on a young architect’s career trajectory.

What follows is an effort to understand how architects experience mentorship across the country by taking a closer look at a few industry-focused programs and opening a dialogue with the experts who provide leadership for them. But mentorship isn’t limited to the profession. Interdisciplinary mentorship initiatives and other innovative programs are equally important in developing young talent. Below, you’ll find conversations exploring mentorship trends as researched by the AIA National Associates Committee, an introduction to starting a new mentorship program from the ground up, as well as insight on how a local mentorship program can transition into a national household name. Also highlighted is a grassroots mid-career mentorship program that has seen promising success. The conversation also explores what mentorship at the organizational level can look like in the context of a large, international firm and how mentorship can scale up from being primarily interpersonal to being primarily oriented toward growing a small business.

Whether at the individual, organization, or industry level, mentorship is a critical part of any young architect’s career development. The path has many twists and turns. The right mentorship opportunity can help identify the next step.

Mentorship Trends As a member of the AIA National Associates Committee (NAC), Timarie Trarbach, associate AIA, has been working hard with the NAC Mentorship Workgroup to compile information about the mentorship programs offered within the AIA across the country. Her position as a three-time alumna of the PIERS mentorship program at AIA Kansas City has her uniquely situated to lead this discovery and dissemination effort.

Matt Toddy (MT): What trends are you seeing as a result of your research with the NAC? Timarie Trarbach (TT): The mission of the Mentorship Workgroup within the NAC is to advance the conversation and experience of mentorship in the profession towards a more inclusive and robust workforce. The group is gathering examples of successful exchanges of mentorship from mentors and mentees in order to elevate the conversation, increase awareness, and share knowledge with AIA membership about mentorship.

Over the past year, we have conducted interviews with AIA members ranging from Hawaii to Washington, D.C. Similarities are present throughout the interviews. We found that people prefer different types of mentorship based on what they are looking for in a mentor and their personality. A formal program can be incredibly successful in connecting people who are initially quite or shy. This

type of introduction provides the platform for connecting people and allows each person to meet several people while learning what they are truly looking for in a mentor. Others prefer one-onone coaching. It is important to note that these programs are only laying the foundation for the initial contact between persons. A strong and successful mentorship relationship requires generosity, guidance, patience, and work. A strong relationship builds over time. Mentorship encourages confidence, both personally and professionally, for the mentor and the mentee.

MT: We’re hearing a lot about group mentoring and reverse mentoring. What have you learned about these different mentorship formats?

TT: There are different ways that mentorship can happen. The most common and historical format is an informal and organic relationship that develops over time. AIA components have developed formal mentorship programs across the country, and with their success, they continue to grow. Many of the programs are designed for small groups. Within these groups, reverse mentorship is encouraged.

It is reverse mentorship when all members of the group are mentoring each other, regardless of years of experience. This is beneficial because all members are responsible for contributing to the conversation and the sharing of knowledge. Through this exchange, members gain confidence and improve leadership skills.

MT: Can you tell us a little more about your personal mentorship experience?

TT: The AIA Kansas City Chapter has strong membership and programs available to its members. In 2016, I participated in the pilot year of AIA KC PIERS. PIERS connects five to seven members at different career stages and from different firms in the Kansas City metro area to learn from one another. The formal program promotes career development through reverse mentorship across generations and levels of experience for all members of the group. Each group meets on a regular basis throughout the year for open discussions on firm business plans, marketing and branding strategies, office culture, and licensure, among other relevant topics. I am certain that mentorship is most successful when a person is a mentor and mentee – AIA KC PIERS is an excellent example of that in action.

I enjoyed the first year so much that I signed up for year two, and then I learned so much that I thought, “I should sign up for year three!” The program is flexible, meaning that it is what individuals and the group make of the experience. Through involvement in the program, I was able to meet 16 new people and have been able to reconnect with one of my mentors and role models that I met while in college. It is a forum where I can talk openly about topics that are relevant and meaningful in my professional development.

I was able to learn from others and their experiences, and others were able to learn from me. Mentorship is essential for personal and professional growth, and it can only happen between people that are honest and can trust each other.

MT: Where should someone looking to start a new mentorship program look?

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TT: Local AIA components are a valuable resource and a great place to start if you are interested in seeking a mentor or getting involved with a formal mentorship program. If a formal program is not in place yet, work with the component president and staff.

The next step would be to reach out to component members, representatives of your region, and components who have already created and implemented programs. In addition, the NAC Mentorship Workgroup will be publishing “Best Practices: Guide to Mentorship” in late 2018. Together, we can elevate the conversation of mentorship within the profession and shape a more inclusive and robust workforce for the future.

Start-up Mentorship: ARCHway Mentorship Program In late 2017, AIA Columbus held a local-level grassroots session to identify opportunities to strengthen the component’s programming.

One of the initiatives born out of that session was ARCHway – a hybrid mentorship/leadership-development program that debuted in early 2018. The initiative connects young architects with firm leaders in the Columbus architectural community. It is a comprehensive approach to mentorship that also focuses on developing networking and communication skills for emerging talent and seasoned professionals. The program structures multiple modes of active interaction, including group mentoring, reverse mentoring, and peer mentoring, through six organized sessions. Participants are also encouraged to spend time together beyond these sessions to foster relationships that extend beyond the program’s duration.

MT: You’ve been busy developing ARCHway, AIA Columbus’ new mentorship program. Walk us through the process of starting a mentorship initiative. Where do you begin?

Jenn Rittler (JR): There has been a longtime need for AIA Columbus to foster development for our emerging professionals. In January 2018, I volunteered to be the champion for a new initiative.

Mentorship is something that I am passionate about, and I have personally received the professional benefits of being part of formal programs such as AIA Chicago Bridge and AIA Illinois Leadership Institute. I felt I was a good leader for the programming initiative but was lacking in the connection to the chapter since I have been a Columbus resident for under three years. Finding strategic partners was an initial goal at the beginning of the process. Fortunately, I did not have to search long to connect with other chapter leadership to bring the initiative to life. It is important to listen to feedback of the

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Local AIA components are a valuable resource and a great place to start if you are interested in seeking a mentor or getting involved with a formal mentorship program.

ABOVE: ARCHWAY GROUP PHOTO Courtesy of AIA Columbus

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strategic partners to start off a new program geared for long-term success.

MT: Once you had your team in place, how did you come to decisions about logistics like content, duration, and cost?

JR: Research was a critical component to determining content, duration, and a budget for the program. We modeled ARCHway from other successful programs around the nation. We also held multiple focus groups to tailor the program to the needs of the chapter, as there is no sense in creating a program that the chapter members will not support. For program cost, we balanced the expenses with program fees, firm sponsorships, and chapter investment to arrive at an operating budget. As a director on the AIA Columbus Board, I am aware of the chapter finances, so I worked with our executive director and leadership team to determine a budget to cover the inaugural-year costs. Our financial model is a sustainable one, in that the program only needs funding for the first year. The excess proceeds from our annual golf outing and program fees will cover the cost of ARCHway for future years. Communication was critical to start up the program in that multiple committees and the board would need to support this initiative.

MT: How important are different mentorship styles (i.e. group, micro, or reverse) to the success of a program?

JR: Our chapter values equity, diversity, and inclusion and follows our policy adopted in 2016. The different mentorship types allow for program participants to exercise multiple leadership styles. It is important for advisers to learn from advisees, and vice-versa, so we structured multiple modes of interaction. For instance, one session focuses on the adviser point of view and another on the advisee perspective. Since the program duration is approximately five months, it is a form of micro-mentoring, a trial period of a possible longer-term relationship. We hope to increase the odds of long-term mentorship, due to the ARCHway groupings of five to six people, as opposed to one-on-one pairings. Due to different generations being in the same room, these methods can aid in facilitating new relationships. This is a pilot program, so we hope to gain valuable feedback from participants.

MT: What makes ARCHway unique?

JR: The chapter membership makes the program unique. It is really about the relationships that form and the bonds that are built through

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the program. Unlike other formal mentorship programs, ARCHway is a hybrid program, combining mentorship and leadership. The program kicks off with an introductory session that identifies individual leadership traits of the advisees through completion of the StrengthsFinder exercise. ARCHway also focuses each session on building leadership skills, by cultivating social and emotional intelligence and practicing the critical nature of communications.

Discussion topics are centered on using our unique training as architects to define leadership styles and practice techniques with peers and advisers. Another program highlight is improvisational training. This half-day interactive workshop is focused on understanding generational difference in diverse motivations to learn how to leverage those needs. Not only do the participants engage in mentorship, but also they grow together through the development of their skills. When people share an experience, it creates a bond, which we hope that participants will continue to grow beyond the program’s completion.

MT: What aspect of the new program are you most excited about?

JR: I am excited to see how the new leaders will exercise the skills they develop through the programs. I’m also looking forward to how seasoned professionals will be inspired by the aspiring young architects. I believe the long-term benefits of this initiative will have great impacts on the chapter and we will see many leaders rise in our community. Columbus has great talent, and I hope that our membership and programs are recognized at the national level.

Sustainable Leadership Development: Christopher Kelley Leadership Development Program In 2013, AIA DC set out to create a program that would identify, train, and cultivate its emerging professional leaders. Named in honor of Christopher Kelley, a respected local leader who served on the Young Architects Forum and was awarded a 2010 AIA Young Architects Award before passing away suddenly in 2012, the program focuses on developing entrepreneurial, firmmanagement, collaboration, negotiation, and client-relationship skills. Participants are expected to attend each of the nine half-day sessions over a nine-month period. In the years since its inception, the Christopher Kelley Leadership Development Program (CKLDP) has seen several chapters across the country adopt the program’s curriculum, turning it into one of the industry’s preeminent leadership-development programs.

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Our chapter values equity, diversity, and inclusion.....The different mentorship types allow for program participants to exercise multiple leadership styles.

MT: You were involved in developing the Christopher Kelley Leadership Development Program at AIA DC. Did you ever expect the program would reach such lofty status in the AIA? Ryan McEnroe (RM): I honestly hadn't expected the program to grow outside of D.C. the way it has. However, my counterpart and co-founder of the program, Sean Stadler, AIA, had larger goals for the program from the beginning. He and Christopher served on the YAF together in 2009 and 2010. The two of them had a vision to create a national leadership program. In turn, we developed a local leadership program that expanded to take on a national presence through more of a grassroots initiative.

MT: The CKLDP has grown beyond AIA DC and has been adopted by chapters in Colorado, Detroit, Miami, Indiana, Houston, and Georgia. Can you walk us through how you transitioned the program from the local component level into a national brand?

RM: The program has really grown organically. Following the completion of our second cohort, an alumna of the program in D.C., Rachael Johnson, AIA, moved back to her home state of Colorado and became involved with her local AIA chapter. She felt the emerging professionals in Colorado could benefit from such an experience and asked how she could implement the program in Denver. In 2016, Sean and I worked with her to gain AIA board support, identify an executive committee for the program, and begin to secure sponsorship. Once the AIA chapter agreed to retain the name of the program, we handed over all of our background files (budget, templates, marketing, session booklets, etc.) and began working with the executive committee on a month-by-month basis to make sure the program got off the ground well. Since then, the word has gotten out through various AIA channels, and we have worked with each of the above-mentioned programs in correctly establishing the CKLDP. MT: Where have you seen innovation work its way into the CKLDP program? How has it evolved since its first edition?

RM: The CKLDP is intentionally structured in such a way that innovation is inherent. The chairs of the program serve a threeyear term (similar to YAF, with a vice-chair, chair, and past chair position). Thus, Sean and I, who served as co-chairs the first two years, are no longer actively involved in the programming of the AIA DC CKLDP. This works well because, as humans, we are creatures

of habit, and it would take an honest effort to redirect the focus of the program each year. Instead, alumni of the program serve first in an advisory role and then on the executive committee. As alumni, they are familiar with the makeup of the program and their own experience, but they are also able to keep the content relevant to the profession at that time. This fresh approach each year allows for innovation (within an already established structure).

MT: Funding is key to sustainability. Can you provide any insight into the CKLDP funding structure? What changes have you had to make as the program has grown?

RM: Funding of the program is key, and we owe a deep gratitude of thanks to our founding benefactor sponsors (HKS, Gensler, and WDG Architecture). The benefactor sponsors really help to establish a strong backbone to the program and allow funding to bring in key speakers to kick off the program during our "Bootcamp" session.

The benefactor sponsors are on an annual renewal process and are critical to a successful program. Furthermore, sponsorship is integral to the program as part of the leadership exposure.

The scholars are paired up, and each plan a session. They are responsible for securing a venue, identifying the correct speakers for the topic, developing the session booklet, documenting the session, and securing sponsorship to keep a positive budget. So, as with many good initiatives, the notion of "divide and concur" is in full swing here. Rather than a single person being responsible for program funding, everyone involved pitches in.

MT: What about the future of the CKLDP most excites you?

RM: I am most excited about the magnitude of the CKLDP. The multiplication of a singular idea has rippled across the country. It's exciting to see just how many people are truly inspired by their experience in the program. Since its inception in 2013, through the four already established CKLDPs, we have had 152 alumni.

Following the 2018-19 year, we will add an additional 112 scholars to the mix. The impact is exponential. The overall impact on individuals is certainly exciting, when you think about how one idea can really start to make a big impact. But I'm probably most excited about what the alumni are doing with their newfound leadership skills. More than 80 percent of our alumni have been promoted within firm leadership (and more than 55 percent of our scholars are female); nearly 67 percent of our alumni are serving in professional leadership roles within the AIA; and more than 33 percent of our

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alumni are serving in community leadership positions, advocating for architecture with their neighbors and making an impact on the communities in which they live.

Special Interest Mentorship: Mid-Career Mentorship The Boston Society of Architect’s (BSA) Women in Design (WID) recognized a void in the programming offered to one of its critical demographics: the mid-career architect. The opportunity to bring women of different experiences and different backgrounds together by providing support and networking for those in the middle stages of their careers is a unique solution to the mentorship gap. The BSA formed a planning committee composed of five female architects − Jess Garnitz, Yanel de Angel, Emily Paparella, Sindu Meier, and Heather Murtagh Miller, together with Women Principals Group advisers Caroline Fitzgerald, Carrie Hawley, and Felice Silverman − that focused on crafting a bespoke mentorship program centered on matching mentees’ objectives with mentors of similar experiences.

Katelyn Chapin (KC): Tell me more about the collaboration between the BSA and WID, the mentorship program’s goals, and how you realized your vision.

Yanel de Angel (YdA): The leadership of WID saw a gap in transfer of lessons learned and mentorship from the more senior women in the industry and the emerging and mid-career professionals.

The Women Principals Group meets quarterly and shares openly about issues they are dealing with. Similarly, WID committees were

sharing among themselves. We needed a platform for mentorship where both groups could meet in an intentional and personal way.

The program was modeled after CREW (Commercial Real Estate Women) Boston’s mentorship program. Emily Paparella and I had experienced the CREW program, and we borrowed a lot of the same ideas, including program format and a mentor-matching system that runs independent of the program’s scheduled touchpoints, providing the flexibility that professionals need. A small committee of dedicated women took the task of organizing the program schedule, processing and prioritizing submissions, and matching mentees with compatible mentors. The committee was guided by a group of senior principals.

Heather Murtagh Miller (HMM): It was interesting to see many trends in what the applicants were looking for in mentorship.

Many women were looking for guidance on work-life balance, developing leadership skills, firm ownership, career direction, and also alternate career paths. In pairing the mentees with mentors, we looked carefully for experienced mentors who may have asked themselves similar questions at one time. In doing so, we hoped to create matches that could learn from one another and give the mentee personalized advice for her career.

KC: What were some key factors that made you realize there is a lack of mentorship of mid-career architects?

YdA: In the design industry, we see a generational gap of women who end up staying home to raise their families or change professions TOP RIGHT: CKLDP RECEPTION TOP LEFT: BRAINSTORMING SESSION AT CKLDP Courtesy of Abigail R. Brown

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because there is lacking support in their offices to balance life and a career. For those wanting to stay or who are not sure, we want to create a network of support, education, and advocacy for each other. We want to impact the emerging leadership who are the future of the profession in a few years. Our ultimate goal is to see more balanced leadership tables across firms and help fill the generational gap with young talent that can offer critical skills and thought leadership.

Jess Garnitz (JG): I personally felt the lack of mid-career mentorship and programming. After being a co-chair of the Emerging Professionals Network at the BSA for four years, I struggled to find programming and support for the issues I was facing as I entered mid-career. I felt like after eight years of hard work in the profession, I had passed the “emerging” stage, and many of the programs offered were not as relevant as they used to be. Then I was introduced to Caroline Fitzgerald. We had a great conversation about the mid-career gap, and she introduced me to Kelly and Barbara, the WID chairs, who were having similar conversations. After a lot more conversations and a few planning meetings with a great group of passionate women, the WID MidCareer Mentor Program was launched. It was truly a group effort!

KC: What has been the most rewarding takeaway from this program? How do you see this program positively impacting its participants?

YdA: We are about to complete our beta year. As a testament to the overwhelming need, we received over 60 applications and could only match and manage 30 pairs. Furthermore, we are already seeing the benefits of the mentee-mentor and peer-to-peer matches. I am coaching my mentee to become a project manager so she can have a voice at the table with clients. The success of the matches is thanks to the committee’s commitment to find the right pairings. It takes empathy and knowing your industry leaders.

Emily Paparella (EP): The demand that we thought was out there has really been proven to us by the number of participants. So it’s rewarding to know that the effort is really having an impact. I think that as women approach the 10-year mark in their careers, they may not have had the opportunity of mentorship from another woman.

In many cases, women aren’t represented in the leadership of our organizations, so women at this career stage may not know how to seek out a mentor. This program offers the opportunity to build a relationship with a senior woman in a low-risk way because we are

providing the matchmaking. These mentor-mentee relationships are an opportunity for mentees to get perspective and career insight that they may otherwise never get.

KC: What advice do you have for other chapters to implement a similar program in their state?

YdA: They should identify any similar gaps, analyze their programming needs, and come up with a program that is tailored to their context. We are happy to share our methodology so others can adopt it. With a strong committee and a lot of passion, you can make a difference.

JG: Start early! We had an amazing response to the program in its first year. It took a lot of time, effort, dedication, compassion, and most importantly trust to create the best match possible. Trust was a huge topic that was discussed during the creation of the application, so we created a confidentiality agreement for everyone involved in the matching process to sign. We wanted all of the applicants to be open and honest in the application to get the best match, but we didn’t want the applicants to worry that anything would be shared with their peers or current employer. I would suggest creating a structured application process that will reveal the applicant’s specific interests and struggles in the industry.

We understand the demands of a full schedule, so we borrowed the idea of a “contract” between the mentor and mentee to hold each other accountable. At the kickoff, the pair sat together and set realistic expectations of each other for the program. We urged participants to recognize that the relationship will work the best if the mentee sets an agenda and comes prepared for each session.

The mentee drive the bus and the mentor is along for the ride! My best advice for another state that wants to create a program like this is to create a strong structure and kickoff, and then the program will basically run by itself.

Intra-Firm Mentorship: Emerging Leaders Program So far, the conversation has included several AIA-focused mentorship programs. But mentorship can exist beyond the bounds of the professional organization. One such program, the Emerging Leaders Program, is international firm SmithGroupJJR’s solution to the mentorship dilemma faced by its young talent. SmithGroup brings 15 applicants from across its 12 offices together for three sessions per year over its multi-year duration. Year one focuses on business acumen, understanding project profitability, and financial

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decision-making. Year two shifts the focus to strategic leadership development, emotional intelligence, and developing client relationships. The program culminates with a “100-Day Challenge,” which features candidates presenting a strategic initiative to the company’s Board of Directors.

MT: Tell us a little about the Emerging Leaders Program (ELP).

What’s it about? How did you get involved?

Kris Lucius (KL): Each year, the ELP forms a class of 15 up-andcomers from throughout the firm – across geography, discipline, and practice – and together they start a two-plus-year journey to equip and position themselves to further grow into leadership roles.

The class meets three times a year for day-long intensive seminars that focus on a range of leadership topics, such as financial decision-making, coaching, interpersonal dynamics, and emotional intelligence. At the end of the two years, the class takes on a 100Day Challenge, in which three-person teams study an assigned corporate issue for roughly three months before presenting findings and recommendations to the firm’s Board of Directors. These topics are real issues under consideration by the managing partners, and historically the 100-Day Challenge projects have directly influenced firm strategies and policies to follow. In my class (Class of 2018) we looked at how to integrate research into our design practice, expansion into emerging project typologies/markets, and defining roles and titles as a career path for design leadership.

In previous years, the members were nominated and selected by local office leadership. As part of the continuing effort to strip away unconscious bias in our decision-making, my class was the first to self-nominate via an anonymous application/essay process. I chose to apply because some of my mentors in the firm had gone through the program, and I aspired to their leadership abilities.

MT: What are the advantages of working through an intra-office mentorship program? How has this helped you better lead teams and mentor your colleagues, especially younger professionals?

KL: Being extended workmates (different offices, but one firm) meant that there was a base layer of shared values and mission we could build upon, and that made for quick rapport. We became a “class” almost instantly, and that bonded relationship has continued beyond graduation. I now have a buddy in every one of our offices, and it has helped to grow my professional network within our 1,300-person firm. My particular discipline and focus aren’t

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represented in every office, so this has even led to my involvement on projects that I would not have before.

That sense of shared mission and values has clarified for me what it means to me to work here, and I’ve become a more effective agent for that to my project teams.

MT: The Emerging Leaders Program is an intensive, two-year commitment that focuses on everything from project profitability to emotional intelligence to developing a leadership culture. How does innovation make its way into such a dense curriculum?

KL: As designers and creative professionals, I think it is in our wiring to constantly rethink what we know, to never do it the same way twice. Likewise, we are trained to understand more than the project brief, to find the hidden problems, and that increased complexity breeds innovative responses. So I would push back on the inference of the question: How could innovation be the result of anything but a dense and diverse curriculum? Innovative solutions are driven by specific but novel needs – what has worked elsewhere won’t necessarily work here, so how do we make it work? A leader with broad but deep understanding can better reconcile financial sense with empathic understanding of individuals and larger culture and can draw from richer specifics when making a decision.

MT: Since this program is labeled the "Emerging Leaders Program," how have you evolved as a leader, both within the firm and beyond?

KL: I sought out the ELP program because I wanted to grow into more of a leader, but still at times I questioned what kind of a leader I could be. Some of the traits I associated with a business leader – uber-organized, money-driven, instantly decisive, and outwardly confident – are not necessarily my core strengths. Through the program, though, I understood my leadership superpower is empathy, and a greater understanding of its capability and relevance to leadership empowers me.

I evolved from junior design staff to associate at a smaller firm, where essentially every project was all hands on deck all the time, and the design process just kind of happened organically along the contours of the team’s individual abilities. For all I learned about design there, I never really learned how to delegate tasks. ELP’s particular brew of empathic but directional leadership helps me to make synergistic decisions that benefit the project, my teammates, and me.

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We often meet small-firm principals who are overwhelmed because their work-life balance is thrown off: They are putting in long hours managing clients and producing drawings.

MT: How has the Emerging Leaders Program equipped you as an architect to advance the profession?

KL: One way to frame effective leadership is as advocacy for ideas in a way that benefits the people within the process of growing those ideas – not just among the designers, but with our clients and within the community.

A lot of my work is in the public realm, where community engagement is not just publicly vetting plans, but sharing in the vision process, often among people with different cultural goals and background to mine. The understanding I’ve gained through ELP has allowed me to more significantly connect to and collaborate with the broad cast of voices in the communities I work in.

Small Business Mentorship: Charrette Venture Group & ARCH406 Scaling the basic tenets of interpersonal mentorship to the smallbusiness level can be a unique and challenging opportunity.

Charrette Venture Group (CVG) has realized the potential of offering support, mentorship, and business advice to small, architecturefocused businesses as an investment that pays dividends both to the small business and to itself. Noticing a trend of great designers lacking in business acumen, Matt Ostanik, AIA, founded the CVG to help bolster small-business plans, assist with marketing and other business-development tasks, and ultimately strengthen the financial well-being of small firms across the country.

MT: Tell us a little about the Charrette Venture Group. How did it start? How does it function?

Emily Hall (EH): CVG is one of the world’s only investment companies focused on growing small to mid-sized architecture firms. Investments can be in the form of mentoring and business advice, marketing and business-development support, technology, or other expertise and resources to help architectural firms be more successful. Our agreement with our investment partners is a shared-risk five-year contract, where CVG offers our full suite of services in exchange for a percentage of our partners’ net operating revenue. If our partners grow, we grow.

There are other companies who do management consulting, but CVG goes beyond that – we are focused on being a long-term partner who takes a stake in both the risk and the reward of our

partners’ success.

MT: Typically, mentorship is viewed through the lens of personal relationships. What does it look like to shift the focus to the corporate scale?

EH: The mentee-mentor relationship is based on the transfer of knowledge and experience with personalized professional guidance. At the corporate scale, CVG is working with firm leaders to help them define and reach their goals, both individually and as sustainable businesses.

We often meet small-firm principals who are overwhelmed because their work-life balance is thrown off: They are putting in long hours managing clients and producing drawings. They struggle with delegation for multiple reasons. Staffing and pipeline fluctuations cause frequent disruptions. CVG addresses this by “mentoring” firms holistically. We’ll work with principals to strengthen leadership skills. We’ll work with emerging leaders to leverage their strengths to build management skills. We’ll work with junior staff members to ensure they have the tools (and environment) needed to learn and perform at their best. And we’ll perform operational charrettes with the whole firm to talk through issues and solutions together.

CVG’s five-year partnership model enables us to really get to know the firms with whom we’re working because we’re in the trenches with them on a day-to-day basis. Our work as corporate mentors is most effective because we’re personal mentors as well.

MT: Where do you see innovation at work in the context of your investment partners? How do you harness that innovation and grow it into something sustainable?

EH: Our partners all practice with different levels of technological and/or design innovation. The commonality with all of CVG’s partners is that, from a business point of view, they were innovative enough to invite us to work with their firms. It takes a very entrepreneurial mindset to make the five- year commitment to a shared- risk model with a new “partner.” And CVG is very selective about the firms we partner with. We need to believe that the relationship will be successful for both parties.

All firms that CVG works with have committed to us because

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they wanted to grow, and they trusted that they’d perform better with our services than without. To us, this indicates a willingness to do things differently than they did before. This type of calculated risk is required to innovate. CVG uses this opportunity to help firms discard bad business habits and develop new, more effective systems.

MT: What’s your advice to a young architect looking to develop their own business model?

EH: First: Be specific. The devil is in the details! A desire to start a firm that is different from the last place you worked is a great inspiration, but it is not a new business model in itself. Be realistic about the numbers. Understand cash flow. Ask for help and advice when you need it – find a good entrepreneurial mentor.

Second: Challenge assumptions. Architecture is a traditional profession with a conservative business history. Architects can get stuck in an identity crisis. Are we a professional service?

Tradesmen? Artists? When you feel yourself getting put in a box, question if that is the box you want to be in. Hybrid design practices are some of the most innovative things happening in the business right now.

Third: Do your research. Who is out there doing what you want to do? What did they learn?

What are the micro- and macro-economic factors to be considered?

Where would the best city/region/country be to realize this opportunity? Is there a creative way to finance your idea?

Most of all, put it on paper! Make it real for yourself. Call an adviser

ABOVE: NAC MENTORSHIP WORKGROUP Courtesy of Timarie Trarbach

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(like CVG) to offer feedback on your idea. We help young architects think through these questions every day.

The Charrette Venture Group holds an annual competition for business plans focused on the architecture industry. The juried competition recognizes small businesses that best articulate the “what, why, and how of their path to growth.” CVG CEO Todd Reding notes that successful business plans exhibit “innovative missions and execution strategies, clarity of purpose, and specific goals to be achieved.” Brian Johnson, AIA, and his innovative design-build firm ARCH406 won the CVG grand prize in 2016.

MT: Tell us a little about Arch406. What’s it about?

Brian Johnson (BJ): ARCH406 is an architect-led design-build firm in Billings, Mont., that was created in April of 2015. The company was started by three principals of Collaborative Design Architects, a traditional service-based architectural firm. We created ARCH406 from a shared desire to gain more design freedom by taking control of the construction process. Each owner of the company is a licensed architect, AIA member, and a registered contractor with the state of Montana.

Design-build is a method of project delivery in which one entity, one contract, one unified flow of work from initial concept through completion work to re-integrate the roles of designer and contractor.

Our idea for ARCH406 was based around providing an alternative level of service to the traditional design-bid-build project-delivery method that is normally found in our area.

MT: We’re talking about innovation in the context of mentorship.

How did Arch406 benefit from the experience of working through a business incubator like CVG? BJ: Our team has been to multiple seminars hosted by Todd and CVG. Their company has been able to offer us tremendous insight into the architectural business simply because they speak the language and understand the “ins and outs” of what typical small and medium firms go through on a day-to-day/year-to-year basis.

CVG’s ability to understand the hierarchy of a design firm and effectively communicate how a firm can get stronger fiscally has been the greatest asset to our small practice.

MT: What advice would you have for young architects interested in learning more about developing a new business model of their own?

BJ: Understanding how to write an executive summary and business plan is essential for starting any business that has a hope of being successful. Successful practices don’t just happen by accident. Like any structure, they start with a vision, are developed with a plan, and CONSTANTLY managed and massaged to ensure proper performance. A good plan will provide a road map that you can use to navigate your firm to find a route that brings you success. ■ Related article: Architecture Business Plan Competition by Yu-Ngok Lo

MT: The Charrette Venture Group is one of the world’s only business incubators focusing on growing small to mid-sized architecture firms. Tell us a little about your experience with the CVG. BJ: Todd and the CVG team were a tremendous help to the startup and progression of ARCH406. The CVG business planning competition really forced us to think about our company from more of a business and development perspective as opposed to just the creative side. The idea of putting together an executive summary and business plan is not something that architects generally do.

Usually, we are so focused on design and deadlines that we suffer on the business end of the practice. CVG really helped organize our thoughts to develop a road map for our business.

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MAKING A SOCIAL AND PROFESSIONAL IMPACT

AN INTERVIEW WITH EMERGING PROFESSIONAL SARA LOY

BY JESSICA N. DEAVER

Sara Loy, Assoc. AIA

has her M.Arch degree from Southern California Institute of Architecture and her BA in Business Administration from Chapman University. She currently works for Pfeiffer Partners Architects in Downtown Los Angeles.

Loy is also the Marketing and Outreach Director for the LA chapter of the non-profit, Open Architecture Collaborative.

The path to becoming an architect is as broad as it is long, and for some, it is a road best navigated alongside their passions. Emerging professional Sara Loy knew she wanted to work in architecture and set about pursuing her career with an internship that later turned into employment at the Los Angles office of architecture firm Pfeiffer.

Loy’s dedication to her work complemented her passion for design, eventually leading her to seek out opportunities to share her skills beyond the firm. Similar to a design problem, she started with what she knew. During her time at Pfeiffer, she got to know colleague Jim Sarratori, RA, and learned about his nonprofit work as operations director for the Los Angeles chapter of the Open Architecture Collaborative (OACLA).

OACLA is a chapter of the nonprofit formerly known as Architecture for Humanity. All chapters across the globe work to positively effect change in their communities and cities, focusing on issues relevant to their specific needs. As Loy describes the goals of OACLA, excitement spills from her voice. “We offer pro bono design and architecture services for community good. The intention is not to take work away from professional architects, but to bring architecture to nonprofits and individuals who need it for a project that is serving the community that they wouldn’t otherwise have access to.”

Access to professionals with design and planning skills is a fundamental component in many not-for-profit projects, but it isn’t their only goal.

OAC (National) Mission Statement: We develop educational programming for designers and architects to grow as leaders and changemakers while simultaneously producing placemaking programs with community developers and associations to inspire ownership and civic engagement in traditionally marginalized communities.

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Loy agrees. “We work to empower emerging professionals to have a platform where they can act as a project manager at an early stage of their professional life. I met Jim (at Pfeiffer), and because he got to know me in a professional capacity at work, he knew that I had strong ethics and would be dedicated to the cause.” These types of experiences are critical to the development of emerging professionals. When Loy first wanted to work with OACLA, she began as a volunteer, assisting with the planning of a joint fundraising event. Her success led her to become an event coordinator for the group. She soon began to take on larger responsibilities, and within six months, she became their marketing outreach director.

The types of soft skills required for these roles are hard to teach, and most new professionals don’t get the opportunity to learn them within their first few years. Many emerging professionals find that after graduation, even voicing their opinions can be challenging, especially if they don’t know what those opinions are yet. Kevin J. Singh, an associate professor of architecture in the School of Design at Louisiana Tech University, expressed this key piece of advice in his ebook, “Beginning Your Career in Architecture: Candid Advice for Emerging Professionals.” “As an emerging professional recently thrown into the mix of seasoned veterans in the field, it is hard to find your voice and share your opinions. For the first couple of years, it will seem like you should already know the answer to the questions you ask. Everyone was once in your shoes and continuing to ask questions will propel your knowledge and skills forward.”1 The rewards from doing things outside of a job can be two-fold.

Loy asserts that “by not allowing money to be a motivator, the personal reason (to get involved) could be to help the community or to gain experience in high levels of the profession.” Participation is important for emerging professionals, and roles such as the one taken on by Loy entail tangible skills she can put on a résumé.

“It gives future employers and your current employer confidence

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in your skills. There are huge benefits to your professional career by doing work outside your daily job. It also gives you the ability to interact with other emerging professionals and higher-up professionals to act as mentors. They can help you on that next step in your career.”

One OACLA project exemplifies the ways these outside volunteer opportunities can reward an emerging professional. Each chapter is focused on its community’s needs, and the L.A. chapter has taken on homelessness. The world of transitional housing and shelters is challenging to navigate, especially when it involves “a maze of interested parties,”2 as Architect Hannah Wood describes in her article “Architects of Social Responsibility: Views of Humanitarian Architecture in Practice,” published in 2017 by Nonprofit Quarterly.

OACLA worked with Home At Last, an organization that finds shelters and long-term housing and immediate-need shelters as part of a larger initiative. Loy explains: “We worked with Home At Last on a project at the Avalon Carver Community Center in South L.A. They had unused space and wanted to open a homeless shelter within it. In the interim of working on a larger project for them, we did a bed-and-bathroom layout so that within the course of a month, we were able to get 100 beds into their center. Now, it’s at almost full capacity. We teach our processes as well, to help the community members to be able to move forward.”

These interactions with nonprofits not only allow individuals engaged in the field of architecture to give back, but they also provide a reciprocal learning process. Loy recalls a challenge early in the planning of the shelter. “We went to the city and did code research. We found out the zoning of that area. We took this information and gave them advice on whether they should even try to build homeless housing space in certain centers that they operate.”

The community center is part of a very important narrative to the people in the area. Founded in the 1950s by Mary B. Henry, it nearly closed down before it was reinvigorated by the new executive director, Jamico Elder. He approached Open Architecture Collaborative after an Internet search. Elder has a strong vision for the center, as a place that can spread positive growth for the people of that community. It is because of OACLA that Loy is a direct part of that expanding vision.

Working for a nonprofit can involve hours of time and commitment in addition to workloads and studying for exams. Loy makes the time. On the influence of her work at OACLA, she says, “of course my work at Pfeiffer helped a lot with me being able to function in my role at OACLA, so now, becoming a director, I’m learning a lot of skills that are helping me. I spoke at Dwell on Design recently and have also met with Deputy Mayor Brenda Shockley to discuss the Avalon Carver Community Center. It is helping me to use my new skills in public speaking and building my confidence in my

ABOVE LEFT: AVALON-CARVER COMMUNITY CENTER - courtesy of Open Architecture Collaborative Los Angeles ABOVE RIGHT: AVALON-CARVER COMMUNITY CENTER TEAM MEMBERS- courtesy of Open Arcitecture Collaborative Los Angeles

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1

Kevin J Singh. “Beginning Your Career in Architecture: 3 Candid Pieces of Advice for Emerging Professionals” Dec. 4 2015.

ArchDaily. Accessed April 5 2018. See https://www.archdaily. com/778295/beginning-your-career-in-architecture-3-candidpieces-of-advice-for-emerging-professionals 2

Hannah Wood. “Architects of Social Responsibility: Views of Humanitarian Architecture in Practice” June. 6 2017. Nonprofit Quarterly. Accessed April 5 2018. See https://nonprofitquarterly. org/2017/06/06/1517002/ 3

ability to lead. So, for instance, I went to a conference for Pfeiffer recently, and now I’m much more confidant networking with other professionals. It is pushing me to ask at work to participate more in leadership roles, such as going on interviews and interacting more with the client and taking a larger project-management role.”

Open Architecture Collaborative (February 7, 2018). Open Architecture Collaborative to Receive $20,000 from the National Endowment of the Arts [Press release]. Retrieved from https:// medium.com/@openarchcollab/open-architecture-collaborativeto-receive-20-000-from-the-national-endowment-of-the-arts117b5831aff2

In addition to the many benefits of participating in outside communitybased work, Open Architecture Collaborative is committed to making it a key foundation in an emerging professional’s career. Its recent $20,000 Art Works grant from the National Endowment for the Arts will launch a pilot program called Pathways to Equity: a leadership development program for community-design practitioners. The program description is to “support the planning and implementation of a hybrid platform of in-person engagement and online education for the growth of emerging leaders in the Community Design field.

A partnership between the Open Architecture Collaborative (OAC) and the Association for Community Design (ACD) will compile and organize knowledge and expertise in the community design fields into online courses and in person guided engagements for participants to apply acquired tactics and build leadership skills under the mentorship of long-standing practitioners and communitybased partners.”3 Whether emerging professionals can spare a few hours to help plan an event or dedicate several hours a week as a director, the truth is that it helps to curate a career and amplify their voices. This is a way to stretch into new and challenging endeavors while making an impact that can last for generations. ■

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RECONNECTING SCIENCE TO THE HUMANITIES

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A BOOK REVIEW OF "THE ORIGINS OF CREATIVITY"

BY JESSICA N. DEAVER

The field of architecture is often simplified into creativity an individual is born with and skills learned through practice. What role could science play in broadening this perspective to make us more holistic designers with a deeper sense of purpose about the enduring aspects of our work?

Preeminent biologist, Pulitzer Prize winning author and professor emeritus at Harvard University, Edward O. Wilson’s recent book “The Origins of Creativity” addresses questions on how the humanities became divorced from science and what that means for the collective culture of people. He states early on, “the ancestor of our species developed the brain power to connect with other minds and to conceive unlimited time, distance, and potential outcomes.

This infinite reach of imagination, put quite simply, is what made us great.”

Anyone engaged in practicing architecture is uniquely focused on the factors of time, distance and potential outcomes. Wilson continues his discussion with an analysis of language and its relationship to storytelling as a means of expressing creativity.

Language is necessary as both a written and oral medium in creating narratives and for architects, the stories we tell are of the users of buildings. Design is a combination of drawings, documents and conversations that shape our communities. Everything from the specs and drawings to the photographs and post-occupancy reports define our moment in history. Wilson notes, in his accessible writing, that the importance of language is akin to the vital organs of our bodies, implying that the ability to function is both separate but intrinsically linked to the foundation of society. “By any measures of liberation and empowerment, language is not just a creation of humanity, it is humanity.” The book supports its assertions through vignettes from his illustrious career allowing himself as an author and scientist to play a significant role in how the reader understands the subject.

To bring this back to architecture, books such as “The Origins of Creativity” offer insight into how we can approach design. By moving beyond the usual debate over style, trend and their love affair with technology the field of architecture can embrace scientific history, methodology and understanding to tell more innovative stories through the built environment. In his chapter entitled, Bedrock, Wilson plainly states, “Science (with technology) tells us whatever is needed in order to go wherever we choose, and the humanities tell us where to go with whatever is produced by science.” If architecture blindly embraces the immediate needs of both client (ie: society) and environment (ie: current technologies) are we not simply reactionary actors? Creativity, separate from innovation,

allows the former to be balanced with our goals for the future.

Who could forget the abandoned apartments described in Philip K. Dick’s Do Androids Dream of Electric Sheep? or the sprawling space resort of Villa Straylight in William Gibson’s Neuromancer?

Science fiction has a profound influence on architecture precisely because of its ability to imagine design, unencumbered by the rules of available science. It is this marriage that Wilson identifies as the heart of what can make art lasting. “Overall, technical knowledge and fictive genius combined can provide unlimited enduring material for a blend of science and the creative arts.”

This book successfully ponders the place of the humanities alongside science and their stunted growth beside technology.

More specifically for architects straddling the line between both, it brings a fresh perspective to the subject of how we can reconnect our work to the larger goals of science and the broader dreams of artists.■

ABOVE: COVER OF THE BOOK "ORIGINS OF CREATIVITY courtesy of Jessica N. Deaver

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CODE OF ETHICS AND PRACTICE INNOVATION IN GLOBAL CONTEXT

BY VIKKI LEW

AIA members, regardless of membership categories, are required to adhere to the highest ethical standards. The institute’s Code of Ethics is laid out in three levels of commitment: Canons are broad principles. Ethical Standards state the specific goals AIA members should aspire to in professional performance and behavior. Rules of Conduct are mandatory, and violations are grounds for disciplinary action.2 The Code of Ethics differs from policy or regulation in that it counts on the professional’s self-regulation. Sociologist Andrew Abott (1983) identified five attributes of a professional ethics code.1 First, it leaves out the daily practice and the mundane.

Second, it concerns the individuals rather than the corporation.

Third, professionals are regarded as colleagues with higher “intraprofessional status.” Fourth, the breach of professional ethics is prosecuted in visible ways. Fifth is the obligation to colleagues, such as not getting into nasty price wars or stealing clients.

In practice, individuals make ethical decisions in context, which entails different levels of moral intensity, urgency, and magnitude of consequence (Jones, 1991). Empirical research has indicated that a person’s perception of whether an act is ethical or unethical is affected by social consensus (Jones, 1990, p. 371). Laboratory research by Hegarty and Sims (1978, 1979) suggested that in an organization setting, the frequency of unethical behavior increases when that behavior is rewarded. That begs the question: As our profession grows increasingly global, how relevant is the code for U.S. architects practicing abroad?

Competence and Practice In "Architecture as Profession", sociologist Dana Cuff suggested that although practical experience is valued in the professions, there are distinctions between the professional as achieved via “higher learning” via education as distinguished from vocational schools.6 The actual practice of professionals is full of complexity, uncertainty, instability, uniqueness, and value-conflict.5 As pointed out by psychologist Mihaly Csikszentmihalyi, what constitute a person as “professional” is a “social contract” of who meet the criteria to provide certain services to a community.5 What does it mean, however, when we work in a different professional context? Some assumptions that form the basis of practicing in the U.S. may not apply when architects go abroad. In such conditions, the architects need to be innovative in practice to maintain the high standards of both our works and how we work. For instance, the project delivery models in the U.S. is unique that the architects fully in charge of a set of fully-coordinated construction documents with construction drawings, specification, addenda, and change order.

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The design-bid-built model that U.S. architects are familiar with, however, is not as prevalent in most part of the world. In a foriegn country, it is not uncommon that construction drawings might be produced by draftsmen and not by architects.

To maintain one's competence, professionals are unique in their cconstant updates of knowledge.9 To ensure that architects maintain skills and knowledge compatible within the ever-evolving industry context, the Continuing Education System (CES) mandates that AIA members maintain 18 learning units, of which 12 must be Health, Safety, and Welfare (HSW), in addition to state requirements for license renewal. This ensures that AIA architects are updating their skills and knowledge along with evolving technologies and societies. At the time of this article, the International Region is mandating that international associate members – AIA members who are licensed in jurisdictions outside the United States – fulfill a minimum of 6 HSW learning units every year.8 Crediting and Innovation Design is conceivably the most valuable skill of an architect.

At a time when technological advances allow for new ways to collaborate and to outsource or automate repetitive tasks, the core competency of architects is more relevant than ever. Intellectual property, labeled “Instruments of Service” in AIA documents, is the proof of the professionals’ worth.4 Project delivery by nature is a collaborative process. The increasingly complex and sophisticated design and construction of architectural projects demand collaboration within and across organizations and require more advanced skills and knowledge to resolve problems. As projects become more complex, teams may consist of sub-teams beyond the basic structural, mechanical, and electrical consultants. They may include specialty consultants and contractors. As a result, more individuals may claim credit for parts of the work traditionally undertaken by architects.

According to the National Ethics Council, failure to give credit is the most violated rule of the code.4 In the code, Ethical Standard 5.3 Professional Recognition explicitly states that members should build their professional reputations on the merits of their service and performance and should recognize and give credit to others for the professional work they have performed.2 To address this issue, the council’s instruction for crediting explains that the descriptions need to be specific about services and contributions. While it is not necessary to provide an exhaustive list, key members should be noted for their roles. In fact, the entity, be it in an individual or a

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company, claiming credit other than the architects of record must clearly state its involvement.4 The delivery of international projects often is split between design architects and local architects, variably called executive architect or architect of record. Regardless of the terminology, local architects often undertake the responsibilities of code compliance and permit submissions. Projects are often split into separate packages for bidding and construction in the design-build delivery method, and it is not uncommon that additional parties involved in the project fail to credit the original architects or distort their contributions.

As a general rule, the credit attribution assumes the architect of record as the legal entity. The entity could be a corporation, partnership, or individual. The same applies regardless of the applications, whether it is the company website, AIA award submission, public relationship, publications, résumés, or any kind of presentations. The guidelines do say it is not necessary to provide an exhaustive list of participants, but key contributors should be credited. The same standard applies to both built and unbuilt projects. It should be noted that for unbuilt projects, their development still requires the unique skill set and direction that can be provided only by an architect.

Global Leader As globalization creates new opportunities, U.S. architects are practicing in ever more diverse contexts, geographically, culturally, and professionally. Evidenced by their prolific output − from iconic high rises to infrastructure to urban planning − architects are not just practicing, but also leading innovation in design and construction.3 For emerging architects to become global leaders in the profession, the code provides value guidelines, consistently holding us to the highest standard, wherever we are in the world.■

4

AIA National Ethics Council. Attribution of Credit. Accessed April 2018 at AIA website at https://www.aia.org/pages/3311-guidelinesfor-the-attribution-of-credit 5

Csikszentmihalyi, Mihaly. Writings on a Coffee–Mug: My Experiences of the Good Work Project, in Gardner, H. (ed.), GoodWork: Theory and Practice, accessed June 5, 2018 at http:// thegoodproject.org/pdf/GoodWork-Theory_and_Practice-with_ covers.pdf 6

Cuff, D. (2007). Architecture as a Profession. In The Architect’s Handbook of Professional Practice, Student Edition, the American Institute of Architects, pp. ix-xxiii.

7

Jones, Thomas. Ethical decision making by individuals in organizations: An issue-contingent model. The Academy of Management Review (1991): 16(2), 366-395.

8

Lo, Yu-Ngok., & Lew, Vikki,(2017). International practice: An interview with Steven Miller, in YAF Connection Q2 2017, https:// issuu.com/youngarchitectsforum/docs/2017q2_1502_jetset_ final/24 9

Quinn, James Brian, Philip Anderson, and Sydney Finkelstein, (1996), Managing Professional Intellect: Making the Most of the Best, Harvard Business Review, March-April 1996. Boston: Harvard Business School Press.

1

Abott, Andrew. The system of professions: An essay on the division of expert labor. Chicago: The University of Chicago Press, 1988.

2

American Institute of Architects. Code of professional conduct.

Washington, D.C.: American Institute of Architects, 2017.

Accessed at https://www.aia.org/pages/3296-code-of-ethics-andprofessional-conduct 3

American Institute of Architects, 2016-2020 Strategic Plan: Advancing Member Experience & Value, accessed April 15, 2018 at http://aiad8.prod.acquia-sites.com/sites/default/files/201607/2016-2020-Strategic-plan.pdf`

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2018 AIA YOUNG ARCHITECTS AWARD WINNER PROFILE AN INTERVIEW WITH NICOLE MARTINEAU, AIA

BY VIKKI LEW

Nicole Martineau, AIA is a project manager and senior associate with Arrowstreet in Boston, Mass. She specializes in historic preservation, hospitality, and mixed-use developments. She served on the Young Architect’s Forum from 2011 to 2017 and is a committee member for the Construction Contract Administration Knowledge Community.

In March 2018, the AIA announced the 18 recipients of its annual Young Architects Awards. The winners met the criteria of being “practicing architects licensed for no more than 10 years and who have made significant strides in the profession, both in terms of leadership and contributions.”

design in a more realistic way than a flat rendering. The use of 3D models, virtual and augmented reality, and architectural programs that can be shared between the architect’s design team and the development and construction team have allowed us to collaborate in real time with more accuracy.

Nicole Martineau has been involved with the AIA and Young Architects Forum since achieving licensure in New Hamsphire. She was the YAF regional director for New England from 2011 to 2014.

She then served as YAF Advisory Committee knowledge director, planning and curating programs for Grassroots and National Convention sessions, pushing forward the YAF’s agenda. In the 2016 AIA Convention in Philadelphia, Martineau organized nine sessions, including the Mini-MBA, which introduced the audience to the business thinking of the profession. At the YAF Summit 25 in 2017, she documented ideas to redefine practice for innovation.

I have worked within my firm to streamline processes and evolve practices to deliver even higher-quality service in this new environment. On a typical project, I have three to 20 Arrowstreet team members and 10 to 20 consultants that I need to communicate with regularly. It is a challenge for anyone to maintain an elevated level of attention and energy required; so how do we keep communication active without being on the phone or emailing constantly? Through conversations with colleagues, I learned about Agile.

Vikki Lew (VL): You have been a leader in your firm and helped develop new project-delivery standards. Tell us about it. How did you help your firm push its business and practice model?

Nicole Martineau (NM): In the two decades I have been in the architecture profession, the industry has seen dramatic changes, largely due to technology. Technology has infused an instantaneous expectation in our business, but the way we practice architecture has not altered significantly. The process of architecture revolves around communication: how we collaborate within the architecture practice, how we communicate creative expression to the team, and how projects are delivered to the client and the contractor.

As much as drawings and specifications can be a work of art, ultimately, they are communication tools about intent and how a building is to be constructed. All of this takes time and sometimes creates challenges in an environment where technology lets us have many things with the click of a mouse. Technology has helped in enabling our design teams and our clients to visualize

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Agile is a project-management methodology that uses short development cycles called “sprints” to focus on continuous improvement in the development of a product. The goal is to streamline and improve the development process to identify and adjust for issues referred to as “impediments.” Historically, Agile techniques were created for software development. However, there are parallels between the iterative process that software designers use and those that architects undertake.

Arrowstreet saw the value in testing the Agile project-management technique through the Scrum approach with an outside consultant on a few of my projects, and I was persuaded by the positive outcomes these projects delivered. Our time was used more efficiently, we leveraged our internal resources better, and the communication among stakeholders was active and consistent. As a result, I became certified as a Scrum Master and now implement Agile techniques on all of my projects. As an overview of our process, I utilize a Trello board for a visual indication of what is being worked on and by whom so everyone knows the responsibilities of each team member. If a member of the team encounters impediments,

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I prioritize resolving the issue so we can all get back on track. The practicality of the Trello board has become a firm-wide tool for architecture, marketing, and administration.

employee at our firms should be acting as a steward, and we need to understand the impact a decision can have on how our business operates in order to be successful in that role.

VL: You organized numerous education programs at AIA conferences/conventions. The most notable and well-received program is the MBA session. What does the session talk about?

Why is it important for architects to think about the business side of architecture?

For me, the Mini MBA: Mastering the Business of Architecture started as a “where have you been my entire career” moment at ABX in Boston, when Jim Kimball, AIA, of Phase Zero Design presented the 90-Minute MBA. I was overwhelmed with the value of knowledge presented, and I knew through colleagues that I was not the only one missing out on the business of architecture. At the time the ABX session changed my world, I was the New England regional director at the Young Architects Forum and presented the idea to the group of doing something similar.

NM: Architects are respected for their creativity, consulted for their knowledge across a diverse base of issues, and valued as problem solvers. But rarely are we taught the business skills that are increasingly necessary for personal and professional advancement in our industry. These business-management skills are often acquired in a “trial by fire” method, which is not sustainable for the development of the profession.

The business of architecture is necessary for us to follow our desire to practice architecture successfully. It is important to understand the mechanics of running a firm: risk management, financial management, business development, marketing, etc. Each

The Mini MBA: Mastering the Business of Architecture is entering its fifth year at the National AIA Conference. Offered on Wednesday as a four-hour pre-conference workshop, the topics covered from year to year change. The focus for the New York City conference is on business development, pre-design project planning, and project controls. The YAF collaborates with the Large Firm Roundtable and taps into the leadership knowledge of established firms. Each year, the session has sold out, attracting between 75 and 100 attendees.

ABOVE: MUSIC HALL LOFT - Courtesy of Blind Dog Photo Associates

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VL: You were a participant in the AIA YAF Practice Innovation lab.

Tell us about your experience. How did the event inspire you as a leader?

NM: Before attending the Practice Innovation Lab in October 2017, I wanted to understand the meaning of innovation. “Innovation” for me was an intimidating concept in that it needed to be radical.

But once I did the reading assignments and discussed it within my network, I understood innovation should be part of the everyday for our discipline. Innovation is turning an idea into a valuable solution.

The idea does not have to be a new app or technology; it can simply be instituting a new method to save time.

The Practice Innovation Lab brought together 150-plus+ collaborators to collectively develop new practice models to advance the future of the profession. A wide range of information was discussed, including topics that were not on my radar and repeats of ones I am passionate about. We covered subjects such as data- driven design, creating new business models, expanding

ABOVE: A'17 MINI MBA - Courtesy of Nicole Martineau

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into new markets, and inevitably growing an architect’s skill -set.

I learned that innovation is about staying relevant; what architects have been doing successfully to date can cause our failure in the future. Architects need to adapt and evolve to meet the everchanging needs of our clients.

I am committed to making a long-term investment in creating an innovative culture, a culture of communication and collaboration and a safety net for productive failure. I have witnessed firsthand how this model works at Arrowstreet as we invest resources for research and development at the Autodesk BUILD Space or during the trial-and-error development of mixed reality.

VL: You have a remarkable amount of experience in historic preservation and have been involved in the Historic District Commission of your hometown, Exeter, N.H. What makes you passionate about historic preservation, and what are some of the challenges you face?

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Technology is changing at an exponential rate. And even though architects may not have all the answers, we are problem solvers at the core.

NM: Growing up in New England, I was surrounded by historic buildings. After enrolling in the architecture program at Roger Williams University, I took several classes in historic preservation and realized that understanding historic construction types and details guides modern building practices.

When I began working at a firm that specialized in historic preservation, restoration, and renovation, I thrived on the challenge a historic building provided. An example of one project of significance is the Music Hall in Portsmouth, N.H.: a 900-seat Victorian theater dating back to 1878. Initial focus for the renovation was on restoring the theater’s proscenium arch and auditorium. Gilding was added to the railings, and murals were discovered painted on the theater's domed ceiling and restored. The first impression patrons received when they entered the undersized lobby was cracked flooring tiles, antiquated bathrooms, and an outdated box office. The lobby was enlarged by excavating 700 cubic yards of ledge underneath the auditorium above, doubling the size of the original lobby. Part of the challenge was that the theater remained open during the majority of the construction.

My passion for historic preservation also led me to complete a sabbatical in Washington, D.C., in 2009 for the National Park Service Heritage Documentation Program. This program administers the Historic American Buildings Survey (HABS), the federal government’s oldest preservation program, which constitutes the nation’s largest archive of historic architectural documentation, housed at the Library of Congress. During my time there, I learned how to observe, take field measurements, and create field notes and a short-form report about historic structures to HABS standards.

I applied my experience to become the vice chair of my hometown’s Historic District Commission. I was driven to advance the economic accountability of town officials and the community. Benefits to historic preservation include stimulated tourism, increased property values, enhanced quality of life, and an increased sense of neighborhood and community pride. Together, our committee rewrote the town historic guidelines and applications to be current with the present economy and federal standards.

One of my pet peeves is that most applicants want to design additions or new buildings in historic districts to look “old” like the buildings they are surrounded by. However, the National Park Service secretary of the interior’s Standards for Rehabilitation states, “New additions, exterior alterations, or related new construction shall not destroy historic materials that characterize the property. The new

work shall be differentiated from the old and shall be compatible with the massing, size, scale, and architectural features to protect the historic integrity of the property and its environment.” In other words, complement but not mimic what is already there! I personally look to European cities where modern buildings exist within historic neighborhoods. There are also several great examples here in the U.S., such as the Kogod Courtyard designed by Norman Foster at the Portrait Gallery in Washington, D.C. VL: Anything you would like to add?

NM: Hope for young architects and the future of the industry: I believe the future of architecture is limitless. Technology is changing at an exponential rate. And even though architects may not have all the answers, we are problem solvers at the core. Architects need to be receptive to new ideas and curious about the unknown. I once read that curiosity is the desire to explore even the things you think you already know. The urge to explore will help us remain relevant and gain knowledge about the constantly changing environment.

Volunteering: I believe that the power of volunteering is understated and underestimated. After I achieved my goal of an architectural license, I asked the question many recently licensed architects in the same position do: Now what? With the guidance of my mentor, I started volunteering for AIA Young Architects Forum in 2011 at a national and regional level. Volunteering has had a significant positive effect on my career. Besides the feel-good factor, volunteering has provided me with opportunities to gain new skills, experience, and has expanded my network to include people I would have never met. And the people I have met are genuine, and the conversations are engaging since my colleagues share my interests. I have made more meaningful connections volunteering than around the appetizer table at a networking event.

Volunteering has also been a great way to gather information and learn more about what I want to do with regard to my career. For example, the Mini MBA is a reflection of my interest in business, and I was able to explore my curiosity in a non-threatening environment.

Following my information gathering for each year’s conference, I implement information gained into my daily responsibilities. My increased confidence and business awareness has not gone unnoticed by colleagues. Volunteering for me has been central to my professional development.■

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BUILDING A SUSTAINABLE MODEL FOR HOUSING IN THE U.S. DESIGN STARTUP "MODULE"

BY BRIAN GAUDIO

Brian Gaudio, Assoc. AIA

is co-founder and CEO of Module, a Pittsburgh-based design and technology company. Trained as an architect, Brian worked in the Blue Sky Department at Walt Disney Imagineering, developing new ride concepts for the Disney Parks. Brian was also a Fulbright Scholar, leading an urban design research initiative in the Dominican Republic. In 2016, Brian co-directed “Within Formal Cities,” a feature-length documentary about the global housing crisis, which has since screened in over 20 cities across the globe.

Architecture firms, planners, and universities have spent decades working on the question, “How do we make good design and quality housing attainable for all?” It’s a question that touches on construction costs, equitable development, and sustainability. For years, Module CEO Brian Gaudio worked on trying to answer the question in the nonprofit sector, at universities, and through a Fulbright Scholarship. His conclusion: The housing crisis is not going away anytime soon.

Module is a design and technology start-up built to address this problem. Having worked at community-design centers addressing the problem on a small scale, Brian was always daunted by the international scale of the housing crisis, affecting communities around the world. He chose to build a start-up company with the goal of growing to a national footprint faster than by starting an architecture practice or a community-design center.

Module is now two years old, four employees strong (and hiring its fifth). The company is redesigning homeownership to be more sustainable and accessible in the 21st century. Instead of overbuilding and overbuying (like many large homebuilders have done for the past 70 years), Module offers a “pay-as-you-go” entry point to homeownership. Give people a right-size starter home that prioritizes design and sustainability instead of square footage.

Brian co-founded the company after directing a documentary on housing in five South American cities, called “Within Formal Cities.”

During that time, he encountered a number of innovative ideas, including that of “incremental housing,” wherein homebuyers built their homes up room by room, depending on their financial means and immediate needs. Similarly, Module’s homes are specifically designed to receive updates over time. This means that customers can purchase a starter unit (ranging from 640 to 1,280 square feet) and add on either vertically or in the back, as needed.

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Module’s design platform simplifies the process and overcomes the bureaucratic and operational hurdles that usually make such customized housing difficult for homebuyers to procure.

How does the process work? Here’s a step-by-step explanation: • Homebuyer On-boarding: Through the on-boarding portal on its website, Module understands prospective customer’s needs. Do they have land that they want to build on? If not, in what neighborhood do they want to live? What kind of home do they need, by when, and for how much? Taking these constraints into consideration, Module builds a customer profile that can be compared to existing customer profiles, analyzed, and used to draw insights. This data helps Module make intelligent recommendations for the size of a starter unit and for potential additions or upgrades.

• Reservation Deposit: Borrowing from Tesla’s pre-order strategy, all it takes is $1000 to start the process of becoming a Module homeowner! The money goes toward the initial steps of building the home, such as searching for land, permitting, etc.

• Finding Land: If a customer owns the land that they wish to build on, this significantly speeds up the process. If they don’t, the Module team works with them to find a suitable plot within the Pittsburgh metro area and initiate the purchasing process from an individual, the city, or the Urban Redevelopment Authority. This summer, Module is beginning to source land from existing property owners so it can play “match-maker” between homebuyer and landowner.

• Permits: Once land has been purchased, Module helps customers obtain the relevant zoning approval and building permits.

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• Build the Starter Unit: Module has four starter units to choose from. Once a buyer selects a starter unit, Module works with local contractors to build the home.

• Add On: Customers can request additions to their homes at any time. Also, remember that customer profile? Module will use data analytics to determine when best to check in with customers about updating their homes.

For more information on the units, check out Module’s website at www.modulehousing.com. If you find yourself in Pittsburgh, stop by for a tour of the demo unit, located in Uptown. ■

ABOVE TOP: FLAT TOP INTERIOR (RENDERING OF KITCHEN AND LIVING SPACE FOR MODULE FLAT TOP) - courtesy of Module ABOVE: MODULE EXPLAINER (3D FLOOR PLAN AND EXTERIOR RENDERING, MODULE FLAT TOP PLUS ADDITION) - courtesy of Module

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A PRACTICE OF WORK-LIFE BALANCE THE WAY OF THE MILLENIALS

BY YU-NGOK LO

Jason Winters, AIA

is a founding principal of the architectural design firm Kezlo Group and an adjunct faculty member at the University of Maryland School of Architecture Planning and Preservation. He started at the local level in 2002 as a board member of the AIA Chesapeake Bay chapter and served as chapter president in 2008. Engagement with the state component as a director followed, leading up to his service as president of AIA Maryland in 2014. In 2015, Winters began his role as Mid-Atlantic Regional representative to the Strategic Council where he served as moderator in 2017.

“Why can’t millennials be bought?” I’ve heard this question a lot recently. One of the answers that really resonated with me is the idea of “flexibility and work-life balance.” As a father of two kids, I understand how important it is to be able to spend time with your family. One of the reasons I gave up my old job with a steady income and started my own firm was to be able to have flexibility with my work schedule.

Architects are traditionally trained to work long hours, but how can we break away from this cycle? Jason Winters, AIA, and James Hirt, RA, took a crack at it and co-founded the Kezlo Group, which tackles this issue. They were two health care/health science design professionals who recognized an emerging need to transcend this specialized expertise to all aspects of life. As such, the Kezlo Group believes that healthy environments can positively influence the way people learn, live, work, and play every single day. Their experience serves as a catalyst to deliver transformational solutions for a wide variety of projects. They strive to capture the healing art of architecture in all their work, and they believe design can contribute to the emotional, social, and physical well-being of everyday life in consideration of the built environment.

Yu-Ngok Lo (YL): Tell us about your practice, motivation for going out on your own, and the people you work with? What type of work do you do?

Jason Winters (JW): We founded Kezlo Group approximately five years ago in the early part of 2013. My primary motivation was to achieve work-life balance and adjust my own personal workflow to meet the current demands of architectural practice. I believe that working models employing a traditional five-day workweek can no longer satisfy the pace and expectations of project delivery without significant personal sacrifice. This deadline-driven environment that our services work in requires flexibility and fluctuation in time commitment. In response, we work on schedules set by project

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teams to accommodate client expectations and peak project demands. While this expands the potential working sphere beyond normal business hours, it permits maximum flexibility for family and social life during traditional business hours otherwise lost to the isolated office environment.

As principals of the firm, my partner assumes the role of business manager, and I take on the role of practice manager. We currently have six full-time employees and two additional employees on a part-time basis. We have specialized expertise, with backgrounds in health science and health care, but have since branched out into many additional project types and design services in the AEC industry. We try to maintain a diverse range of project experience, project delivery methods, and professional services. This affords our practice ultimate flexibility in the marketplace, maximum capability to our clients, and the highest value to our projects.

YL: Did you start the firm when you were still employed full time?

How did you get your first client?

JW: When we started the firm, I had already taken a position as an adjunct faculty member at the University of Maryland School of Architecture, Planning, and Preservation. This part-time position in academia helped me offset some costs of starting a business.

I managed to teach for several years while starting the firm and developing the practice. Our first wave of clients came primarily from colleague referrals who we knew in the industry. This core group of contacts ranged from engineers and contractors to interior designers and even other architects in some instances.

YL: As an entrepreneur and a firm owner, why do you think strategic planning is important for a small firm?

JW: Strategic planning provides a road map and can help direct decisions in the early infancy of a business. This is important for a small firm because decisions related to growth and prosperity are

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not always intuitive, especially when faced with economic stress and typical growing pains. The strategic plan acts as a reminder to the core values and inception of the business. It helps inform all aspects of the practice, including business development, workforce, and firm culture. Small firms can survive without strategic planning, but I have seen those businesses acting entirely on intuition and more often than not in a reactionary posture. When a firm is put in this position, it seems difficult to advance the mission of the practice with any real directed intent. In other words, the aspirations of a small firm become hopes based on viable economic conditions and similar variables outside of their control. For me, strategic planning is important in part because it offers a chance for a small firm to deliberately control decisions within the practice that systematically advance the vision in a proactive way.

YL: Your practice is highly mobile and encourages work flexibility and work-life balance. Why is this important to you? How do you address issues like firm culture and client engagement?

JW: We developed a result-oriented work schedule for employees.

This approach allows all of us to work remotely and set a schedule that accommodates our particular lifestyle and family needs. This was an important reason for starting the practice for me, so that I could have more control over business decisions and how to plan my workday. Shortly after my son was born, I discovered that the traditional work environment in an architecture firm would not allow me to play the kind of role that I wanted in the life of my family. Not having actual office space turned out to be beneficial for clients, our business, and employees. We always travel to the clients, which I believe provides better customer service and client engagement. Moreover, the additional overhead expenses in leasing and maintaining physical space were eliminated. Ultimately for us, it comes back to better work-life balance and flexibility in the weekly work schedule. To assure that we are all still connected in a collaborative culture, we keep in touch daily − in most cases, multiple times − and we also rent out flex office space for all staff to meet in regularly in person.

ABOVE: PROGRAM DIAGRAMS OF THE BOZEMAN HOUSE - courtesy of Kezlo Group

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YL: Architects are being trained to work long hours, even from the day we first start our journey in school. As an adjunct teacher at the University of Maryland School of Architecture, Planning, and Preservation, do you think it is necessary to change the way students are taught in school?

JW: I have always combined professional practice with a connection to architectural education. I believe this combination allows me to understand the preoccupations of soon-to-be emerging professionals and keep up with the latest pedagogy, technologies, and trends. Now, while practicing full time, I am an adjunct faculty member at the University of Maryland School of Architecture, Planning, and Preservation. There, the approach to teaching students has shifted dramatically to balance the pressure and time commitment of the design studio with other classes and the social life of the student. I believe this is a necessary shift that will ultimately benefit all of us working in the profession, as firm cultures start to change to match this growing trend in academia.

YL: You are one of the AIA YAF Practice Innovation Lab participants.

What do you think about the experience? Did the event inspire you in any way?

JW: As a participant of the AIA YAF Practice Innovation Lab, I found the experience to be profound and invigorating. The keynote speakers were inspirational, and I especially enjoyed the atmosphere of collaboration and attitude towards innovation. As a small practitioner, I constantly see our design services affected by other services in the AEC industry, threatened by political action,

and shaken by economic distress. Our profession requires constant innovation in how we think about delivering our services and what those services are. The AIA YAF Practice Innovation Lab incubated a mindset that was both strategic and innovative. While rooted in the challenges that face architecture and our profession in the present, the discussions were forward thinking and aspirational in consideration of our future.

YL: How do you see the business model of your firm potentially changing in five to 10 years?

JW: We anticipate a continual erosion of what could be considered our core design services in the professional practice of architecture.

If you look closely at how the word “design� has been redeployed in academia under numerous new types of degree programs, like user-experience design, social design, interactive design, design management, just to name a few ... all of these emerging specialized areas of study have the potential to inhabit some part of our current design process in many possible ways. As such, we are constantly looking for additional ways to provide value to our clients and to our projects. Areas of design thinking, advanced technologies, professional education, and original research are some of the alternatives we have begun to advance in consideration as a potential future revenue stream. Given this condition, we continue to focus on developing a business model in the present that is flexible, innovative, and prepared for change. That way, at any time moving forward, we are prepared to make critical shifts in our work to remain relevant to client and project needs.

ABOVE: SUN DIAGRAM OF HARNESS CREEK RESIDENCE - courtesy of Kezlo Group

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YL: What advice do you have for your young architect readers who want to start their own firms?

JW: The advice I would give to young architects thinking about starting a firm is to gain as much varied experience in project types, project services, and project management as possible early on in their career. I believe there is still a place for the general practitioner in our profession, and becoming well-rounded in the practice of architecture as a whole puts you on the right trajectory to have the necessary experience to start a successful firm. While specialization can bring the added value of subject-matter expertise, it is often at the expense of gaining a broad understanding of the practice,

business, and the overall AEC industry. Another aspect to consider is who will conduct all the various day-to-day tasks required to own and operate a firm? For me, there was assurance in finding a partner that could primarily manage the business while I focus on completing the work itself. Finding that right fit in leadership is critical to firm success as it sets up roles where individuals can utilize their strengths instead of weaknesses, and it allows them to develop mastery in a component of owning and operating the firm.â–

ABOVE: EXTERIOR VIEW OF HARNESS CREEK RESIDENCE - courtesy of Kezlo Group

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ARCHITECTURE BUSINESS PLAN COMPETITION AN INTERVIEW WITH CHARRETTE VENTURE GROUP

BY YU-NGOK LO

Todd L. Reding

is the president and CEO of Charrette Venture Group. He earned an MBA from Northwestern University’s Kellogg School of Management. Reding is an Adjunct Lecturer on Entrepreneurialism at the University of Iowa and chair of the board of trustees of Grinnell Regional Medical Center.

Christian Jordan, AIA

is a principal of PJA Architecture in Philadelphia, PA and a co-founder of JAMB Collective. He has been an adjunct professor at Jefferson University's College of Architecture + the Built Environment since 2006 and, for the last three years, has been the AIA YAF Regional Director for Pennsylvania.

I recently received an email in my junk-mail folder titled “Enter the architecture business plan competition.” It immediately got me interested because it was the first time I heard about a competition of this nature. What is this competition all about? I asked myself. My curious nature told me I have to know more about it. So I decided to reach out to the Charrette Venture Group, the company that operates the Architecture Business Plan Competition, and spent some time with its president and CEO, Todd L. Reding, to find out more about the competition.

Yu-Ngok Lo (YL): Tell us about Charrette Venture Group. How does the company work? What is the mission of your company?

Todd L. Reding (TR): Architects have a tendency to measure success in terms of design quality and visibility. They often miss the opportunity to “design” their businesses to be profitable. Our mission is to help small architecture firms learn how to operate as strong, sustainable, thriving businesses. We provide a full array of services such as marketing, recruiting, branding, businessdevelopment coaching, financial management, etc. to investment partners who want to improve their performance but are too small to realistically bring these services in-house. Our commitment to our partners is in the form of a shared-risk five-year contract where CVG takes a percentage of our partners’ net operating revenue in exchange for full access to our suite of services. If our partners grow, we grow.

YL: What prompted the establishment of CVG? TR: We have architectural roots with an entrepreneurial drive. Our founder, Matt Ostanik, AIA, founded two successful technology companies born from his experience working in architectural firms.

He observed architects struggling with business priorities, noticing that they might be excellent at design but have difficulty dedicating time to marketing, business development, and staff nurturing.

ABOVE: THE INTERVIEW PROCESS OF THE COMPETITION JUDGING - courtesy of Charrette Venture Group

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When our clients want to strengthen their business acumen, CVG executes a plan for change and growth. Our impact is not only on the firm and its financial picture, but also on the lives of firm owners and employees.

YL: Why do you think architects struggle with marketing and the business side of owning a firm? If I am a sole practitioner who just started my firm, how would I find business services like the ones your firm offers valuable?

TR: Architects struggle with business fundamentals because it was never really a part of their training. In many cases, the educational culture was almost "anti-business.” There is an interesting history in the practice of architecture that is worthy of another article.

Because architecture was traditionally considered a “gentleman’s profession,” overt self-promotion was culturally frowned upon.

In fact, the AIA prohibited paid advertising in their “Standards of Professional Practice” in the 1950s and 60s. Added to this cultural stigma was an antitrust lawsuit against the AIA in the 1970s, which prohibited architect members from discussing fee structures together when they gathered. A cultural precedent has been set from a few angles for architects to avoid self-promotion and detailed financial conversations. The business side of architecture is not prioritized in the traditional architectural education curricula, so unless they had a great mentor or sought outside business training, most architects haven't been exposed to training, coaching, or advising on business topics. There are many resources out there.

Emerging professionals who are interested in starting their own firm should look into places such as www.EntreArchitect.com and join a network of people focused on common challenges. One does not have to get an MBA to run a profitable business, but attention should be paid to skill-building opportunities such as programming from the Goldman Sachs 10,000 Small Businesses Program, Society for Marketing Professional Services, and the Small Business Administration. CVG’s VP of Investment Partnerships,

Rena Klein, FAIA, authored a very helpful book for the AIA entitled “The Architect’s Guide to Small Firm Management” that is worth reading.

YL: Traditional architectural firms typically have limited resources.

What should they allocate resources to plan their businesses?

TR: Basic planning, and consistent assessment of the business, is really important to being successful. If you aren’t disciplined about “designing” your business, you will likely experience pitfalls that could have been avoided, such as work overload, work shortages, staffing challenges, fee overages, etc. It’s not that these issues don’t happen in well-run firms; it’s just that they aren’t as disruptive when they do. See above for additional resources.

YL: Tell us about the structure of the Architecture Business Plan Competition. Why do you think it is important for emerging professionals to think about the business of architecture?

TR: The competition recognizes those firms that have invested time in crafting a thoughtful, innovative, and realistic plan. Four independent jurors selected semi-finalists based on an in-depth registration form. Then, we conducted interviews with each to learn more detailed information about strategy, implementation, and success metrics. The firms who had given thought to specifics while maintaining their strategic vision emerged as finalists. Take this year as an example, five finalists presented their full plan to the jurors. From this group, one winner was selected and announced the week of May 21st. They will receive cash and prizes valued at approximately $5,000, including travel and lodging for at least one member of the winning entry, or team, to be in New York City during the 2018 AIA National Convention.

The competition is a great way for CVG to learn about emerging firms and to incentivize business planning for architects.

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YL: Architectural schools don’t typically “teach” the business side of architecture. (Do you think it is necessary?) How do you think the education system can change to adapt to the gig economy and the entrepreneurship future of the profession?

TR: The business side of architecture has been neglected for many years, and it should be rebuilt into the curriculum of the architecture degree. Every school should be encouraging fundamental business courses such as Accounting 101, Strategic Business Planning, and Marketing Communications. These type of classes not only provide the skills to be successful in the profession, but also equip students with a mindset that allows them to think critically in developing his or her career. They are important topics regardless of what field you choose. Even if you struggle through a basic business curriculum, it is important to “know what you don’t know” because this will inform how you DO supplement your practice with critical business knowledge.

YL: Anything else you would like to add?

TR: We visit with firms almost every day with no obligation or commitment. We are passionate in helping architects succeed, and the Architecture Business Plan Competition is part of our mission to improve the architecture profession. We're always looking for those who are a good fit with our mission.

We also reached out to Christian Jordan, a member of the 2018 Architecture Business Plan Competition winner, JAMB to share his experience of the competition.

YL: What does JAMB stand for? How did you hear about the Architecture Business Plan Competition?

Christian Jordan (CJ): JAMB is the acronym of our last names (Jordan, Johnson, Johnson, Anglin, McKnight and Brown). We dropped the two extra J's.

I've had my eye on the CVG competition since it started 3 years ago, but never felt as if I had anything of value. The experience at the Practice Innovation Lab changed that.

ABOVE: THE 2016 WINNING TEAM ARCH 406 - courtesy of Charrette Venture Group

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CJ: It was something the team felt strongly about. We've continued our conversation since the Innovation Lab, and thought this competition would give us a chance to put our business plan, in theory, to the test.

us that we had made the finals. We prepared a series of slides, and Mike Anglin and I represented JAMB on the video presentation with the jury. After I presented the slides, the jurors had a chance to ask us several questions. A few of the questions reminded us about how far we've come, but many reinforced how far we still have to go.

YL: Walk us through the jury presentation process. What was your experience?

YL: Do you think your participation will have an effect on how you think about your firm’s practice model?

CJ: We submitted our business plan online and after about a week, we were notified that we made the semi-finals. In preparation for the semi-finals video interview, we had to expound upon our previously submitted business plan using an outline provided by the CVG as a template.

CJ: Without a doubt. We took the feedback gleaned from the final's interview and let them inform and help further shape our practice model. When we found out we had won the competition, we knew we didn't have a lot of time before we needed to bring the concept of JAMB online. That's where we are - actively planning for the future, which is now. â–

YL: Why did you decide to participate?

For the semi-finals, I was interviewed by Todd Reding, CEO of CVG. He asked some difficult questions and we had a good conversation.

He submitted his notes to the jury to aid in their selection of 5 finalists. I received a call from Todd about a week later informing

ABOVE: THE 2018 WINNING TEAM JAMB - courtesy of AIA

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INNOVATION IN ARCHITECTURAL PRACTICE

BY BRUCE D. TURNER

Bruce D. Turner, AIA

is a sole practitioner architect in Vineland, N.J. He is a graduate of the University of Notre Dame. Turner is the 2017-2019 AIA New Jersey regional representative to the national AIA Strategic Council. He was president of AIA South Jersey from 2000 to 2016, and is the long-time and current co-chair of the AIA New Jersey Public Awareness Committee. In 2005, he was president of AIA New Jersey. He was the 1998 recipient of the AIA New Jersey Young Architect of the Year Award, and the 2009 recipient of the AIA New Jersey Distinguished Service Award.

Since its inception, the Strategic Council has examined, in one form or another, the concept of innovation in architectural practice.

In 2015, the Business Model Innovation Study Group posed this question: “As client, technology, and building types change, what kinds of business models work best for flexibility, and how can the AIA encourage innovation?” They examined research, they sought out experts, they explored a variety of thinking and information on the topic, and they established a prototype for a program on the subject. An AIA Research Summit was held in Oakland in August 2015. The goals of this summit were: 1) Increase research literacy in the profession. 2) Enable and support research within the profession. 3) Illustrate and celebrate research. Based on this summit, there was a recommendation to establish an AIA Research Advisory Group.

The work continued in 2016 with the idea that innovation in our business practice is crucial to our relevance and viability as a profession. They then asked: What could be done to bolster firms’ efforts to innovate in productive ways? During the course of the year, the group examined how we might harvest examples of exemplary business practices and how we might award and recognize this work. Further, they sought to understand how we might communicate best practices to the academy and AIA members and how that might influence life-long education. Finally, they considered how the innovation of architects and the architectural profession benchmark with innovations in other professions.

With this as a backdrop, the work of the council started anew in 2017. We expanded this conversation to explore the notion of the architectural business model and its impact on architects’ practices and their ability to innovate. A business model is “a design for the successful operation of a business, identifying revenue sources, customer base, products, and details of financing.” Put another way, the business model represents how the business will make money and serve its customers. It is self-evident that without

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financial resources and without customers, architects don’t have a business. Whether our pursuits are capitalistic, academic, or philanthropic, they all require a business model to support the work.

Furthermore, we sought to explore the notion of innovative business models through the lens of prosperity – however architects may define prosperity for themselves. This is essential because it is through prosperity that we will be able to release the creative potential of the architect, and that will allow architects to achieve the objects of the institute and to be of ever-increasing service to society. That is why this issue is not just crucial. In fact, it is foundational to the success of the profession and each architect’s practice.

Given this expanded understanding of the importance of this issue, we then sought to review what research, knowledge, and intelligence exists – both inside and outside the AIA – that can inform all three aspects of this issue – innovation, business models, and prosperity.

As we explored all of these themes, we quickly realized the depth and breadth of knowledge and exploration of this issue, within and outside the AIA. This realization made us ask why, with all of this knowledge, expertise, and effort, does this question persist for both the leaders and members of the institute? Quite simply, it appears to be a communications problem. Therefore, this issue requires a strategic communications initiative to complement all the excellent work that is being done throughout the institute. And, as with any communications problem, the solution must address the audience, the message, and the medium. Furthermore, this message must begin at the earliest stages of one’s architectural education and persist through the years when one is emerging, into whenever the entrepreneurial bug may strike, and then be reinforced throughout one’s career. We must strive to impact, in a meaningful way, not just the few who attend a conference, convention, or seminar or those

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who read and explore something on the website, in social media, or in a publication. Rather, we must find a way to touch all 90,000 members of the institute in a relevant, meaningful, and lasting way with this knowledge.

So what does innovation look like in architectural practice? The simple fact of the matter is, innovation will look like different things to different people. Practice is not homogenous. Therefore, what is innovative thinking to one may be commonplace to another, or vice versa. Research-based practice, nanotechnology, integrated project delivery, remote collaboration, design-build, architect as developer, building information modeling, big data, the internet of things – these might be old hat to some or the next wave to others. Given that, instead of trying to define what is innovative and what true innovation looks like today, should we instead be asking ourselves what it means to create a culture of innovation within the profession? And should we ask what the AIA can do to help accomplish that? What are the barriers to innovation in your individual practice? Are there obstacles holding you back from trying things that could propel you to the next level? What are the progressive and disruptive forces that most affect your practice?

These questions form the basis of where the work of the Innovative Business Models Work Group stands in 2018. Innovation is a thoughtful and deliberative process. It is not a fortuitous stroke of luck. Therefore, each architect and each firm must take it upon themselves to embark on a regular and routine process to explore and implement what he or she believes to be appropriate and meaningful innovations. As described in the book “Ten Types of Innovation,” they need to explore whether they will innovate through the configuration of the profit model, their network, their structure, or their process. They also need to consider whether they will change their offerings through product performance or product systems. And they need to examine whether they can affect the client experience through the services they offer, the channels they use to deliver their offerings, the presentation of their brands to the market, or their engagement with customers.

forces and a sound business model to react to that market. This is where the stereotype of the architect who doesn’t have a strong foundation in business principles must be changed. If we cannot master the basics of the business world of which we are a part and which we try to serve, we run the risk of being relegated to a commodity of the construction industry, as opposed to an everincreasing service to society.

Therefore, not only do we suggest innovative thinking and developing a culture of innovation in practice, but we also strongly recommend identifying and taking advantage of the wealth of resources available from the institute, such as AIAU, and the Knowledge Communities, such as Practice Management KC, Project Management KC, Small Project Practitioners, and Technology in Architectural Practice, to name a few. One can also turn toward the Small Firm Exchange, the Large Firm Roundtable, the Handbook of Professional Practice, and many other tools.

Furthermore, we look forward to the launching of the Center for Practice, which has the potential to be an indispensable resource to guide members in their quests to optimize their practices.

Our colleagues in the advocacy arena like to say, “If you are not at the table, then you are on the menu.” Well, the same can be said for the business side of practice – if you are not at the table when the business decisions are being made, you will certainly be on the menu as the project moves forward.■ Feel free to contact Bruce D. Turner, AIA at bdtaia@aol.com for any questions and comments.

Furthermore, we must remember that innovation for innovation’s sake is not necessarily productive. In fact, some would argue that it could be counterproductive. This is where the notion of innovative “business models” becomes key. As we explore the business model and how we can best serve our clients and improve our own productivity and profitability, this is where we find the best opportunities for innovation. In fact, as we look outside our own profession, we see many examples of industries where the perceived innovation is successful only because of a profound understanding of the way that innovation reflects a keen comprehension of market

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EVOLVING SPECIFICATIONS

BY DAVID STUTZMAN

David Stutzman, AIA

is a registered architect, certified construction specifier, and founding principal of the largest independent specifications consulting firm in the United States servicing clients and projects worldwide. He has over 40 years of experience in specifications, preliminary project descriptions, and quality assurance reviews.

Stutzman is one of the authors of CSI's original PPDFormat, the thought leader for CSI's Specifying Practice Group, and a regular speaker at CSI and AIA conferences and conventions.

Construction contract documents consist of four main items: the agreement, the conditions of contract, the drawings, and the specifications. Each serves a distinct purpose. The agreement identifies the parties (owner and contractor), the scope, the time, and the cost. The conditions of contract set out the broad rights and responsibilities of the owner, architect, and contactor. The drawings identify the relationships and quantitative aspects of the project − everything that can be counted and measured. The specifications include administrative procedures and the qualitative aspects of the project − what products are required, how the products are installed, generally where the products are installed, and what performance must result. Two more items simply modify the others: the addenda before the contract is signed and the modifications afterward.

Today's CSI 3 Part Format1 construction specifications are organized with six digit section numbers and titles in 50 divisions according to MasterFormat2. The specifications describe work results − what the contractor must build to satisfy the contract. MasterFormat was introduced in the 1960s as a five digit, 16 division organization, and it was a radical idea. About 40 years later, in 2004, it morphed to the current document. The change moved the content in the division order and expanded the available section numbers and titles for site work and mechanical, electrical, plumbing, and fire-protection engineering subjects. Plus, the format added numbers and titles for process engineering subjects.

Industry acceptance took about 10 years, then commercial master specification systems stopped offering specifications in both numbering schemes. Change happens quickly − new formats, new standards, and new codes drive change. New ideas must evolve.

Adoption of any change can lag until the incentive is obvious, especially if adoption is voluntary.

What comprises specifications today evolved from prior thinking about specifications and attempts to effectively organize data

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for construction contracts. And so, too, today's specifications will evolve to better suit the industry’s needs. This paper will explore the idea of applying existing concepts and documents in a new way to produce a better result for the owners − those who bear all the risk of design and construction.

ASTM E1557 UNIFORMAT II3 , an organizational structure for building elements, was created by economists and estimators to describe buildings by systems and assemblies. This organization allowed estimators to prepare costs of complete elements for analysis and comparisons of alternative elements early during the design process. The advantage was to enable informed decisions about building elements to remain within the owner's budget.

Shortly afterward, CSI introduced the concept of preliminary project description (PPD)4, relying on UNIFORMAT II organization, to describe a project during the concept and schematic-design phases, as the design was developed. CSI introduced its own version of UniFormat5 that included an introduction to collect information that applies to a project as whole, such as program data, code requirements, and design criteria. For the remainder of this paper, the term “Uniformat” will be used to represent both the ASTM and CSI documents, collectively.

The notion of preliminary project description persisted and was formalized in PPDFormat6, which showed how to organize project data in a consistently structured way to describe elements by performance, design criteria, and individual components. The ASTM E06.81 Building Economics Subcommittee7 responsible for ASTM E1557 praised the PPD concept from the beginning and continuously recommended its use in conjunction with preliminary cost estimates. Today, estimators use Uniformat organization for early project estimates8. Design teams rarely use a PPD, favoring design narratives without any industry-recognized data structure.

Meanwhile, at the turn of this century, USGBC introduced LEED and

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ABOVE: PPDFORMAT GRAPHIC - courtesy of David Stutzman

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building commissioning9. Commissioning necessitated developing owner project requirements (OPR) as the basis for building commissioning. OPR is a formalization of a project program to document design criteria and building performance.

documentation in a structured way, following the Uniformat and PPD organizations, so information can be found quickly and in a consistent location.

The next evolution in specifications leverages all the existing organizational formats and resulting documents, including OPR, PPD, Uniformat, and MasterFormat, but uses them in a new way.

Let's begin with Uniformat specifications to describe the building elements, overlay MasterFormat construction specifications to buy and install the components comprising the elements, and name both sets of specifications as contract documents to incorporate the complete project’s qualitative requirements.

Before design begins, the major elements for every project can be identified. Typically, projects will require foundations, superstructure, exterior walls, and roofs. The well designed solution may not be known, but performance can be established to inform the design.

Wind load, thermal, acoustic, and fire resistance are but a few performance characteristics that can be decided and documented without a design solution. Moreover, the resulting design can be measured against the documented criteria to ensure compliance and meet the owner's requirements.

Estimators recognized Uniformat's usefulness during early design phases10. CSI recognized its usefulness as the structure for PPDs to collect and document design criteria and OPR before the design is actually started. On day one, when the owner decides a building is needed, start the data collection: What is the program? What spaces are required? What occupants and processes must be accommodated? There is a place for all of this in Uniformat. Say what you know, when you know it. Use short, concise statements that owners, lenders, and insurers will understand. Build the

Identify each building element. Develop the content to a level consistent with the building model. Consider developing distinct elements within the building model, matching the elements described in the Uniformat specifications, and vice versa. Allow the specifications to describe the element components to minimize drawing notations. Coordinate the drawing keynote names with specification component names. Link the building-model elements to the Uniformat specifications via the Uniformat element number or title, or both. The relationship is one-to-one and easily

ABOVE: APPROACH GRAPHIC - courtesy of David Stutzman

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connected because both are organized by elements. Leverage the specifications references to minimize the need for internal buildingmodel data.

Develop the MasterFormat construction specifications to identify component technical requirements, allowing the contractor to purchase and install the correct products as part of the Uniformatspecified element. For instance, Uniformat specs will describe the interior partition as a whole with all its components, including the studs, gypsum board, acoustic insulation, and acoustic sealant making up the partition. The MasterFormat specs will include the reference standards setting the gypsum board product quality, the submittal requirements to confirm the products meet the specifications, the installation requirements, and any technical requirements not included in the Uniformat specifications.

Maintain the Uniformat specifications throughout the design process. Update and augment the data as more is learned about the design and the project requirements. Record the design process − include decisions affecting the design and their rationale.

Document design and performance criteria the owner will require to commission and ultimately operate the building successfully to achieve the predicted performance.

Make the entire process transparent and collaborative. Allow the owner, lender, contractor, subcontractor, material supplier, and any other stakeholder to actively participate, in real time, in the specifications development within bounds set by permissions.

Stakeholders, given the opportunity, will make the project better by protecting their own interests. Contractors want effective sequencing to simplify logistics. Subcontractors need easily buildable designs. Material suppliers want their products to be used correctly. Given the opportunity to participate, many if not all requests for information and change orders may be eliminated, saving the architect's valuable construction administration time.

Deliver both the Uniformat and MasterFormat specifications as record documents for the owner's use. Because MasterFormat specifications do not represent what was actually installed, they will be of little value. Because Uniformat specifications contain design and performance criteria, they will be invaluable to the facility operations, maintenance, and future modification.

1

"Article 1 The Contract Documents," in Standard Form of Agreement between Owner and Contractor where the basis of payment is a stipulated sum. (American Institute of Architects: AIA Document A101, 2017) Article 1 enumerates each of the contract documents.

2 "SectionFormat Structure," in SectionFormat™ / PageFormat™ The Recommended Format for Construction Specifications Sections (The Construction Specifications Institute Construction Specifications Canada, 2008) This format prescribes the standard arrangement known as the 3-Part format using Part 1 - General, Part 2 - Products, and Part 3 - Execution. The format also includes standard article titles within each part for a consistent order of information within each specification.

MasterFormat® 2016 Update- Master List of Numbers and Titles for the Construction Industry (The Construction Specifications Institute Construction Specifications Canada, 2016). This standard includes nearly 9,000 numbers and titles used for construction specifications, detailed estimating, relating drawing notations to the specifications, and data filing. See http://www.masterformant.com.

CSI membership or a recent purchase of MasterFormat is required for access.

3 Standard Classification for Building Elements and Related Sitework—UNIFORMAT II (ASTM International, ASTM E1557, 2009 Reapproved 2015). The original UNIFORMAT was developed jointly by the General Services Administration (GSA) and AIA in 1972 for estimating and design cost analysis. UNIFORMAT II was first published in 1993 and enhanced the original, especially for the mechanical, electrical, plumbing, and fire protection elements. See http://www.uniformat.com for document background and application discussion.

4 "Fundamentals and Formats Chapter FF/180 Preliminary Project Description (PPD)," in CSI Manual of Practice (The Construction Specifications Institute, 1996) PPDs are prepared to to describe the scope and relationships of major project elements and are organized in terms of building elements and components.

5 UniFormat™ A Uniform Classification of Construction Systems and Assemblies (The Construction Specifications Institute Construction Specifications Canada, 2010). This is a system for arrangement of construction information based on physical parts of a facility called functional elements, otherwise known as systems and assemblies.

6 PPDFormat™ A Guide for Developing Preliminary Project Descriptions (The Construction Specifications Institute, 2010). This is a guideline document for preparing and using Preliminary Project Descriptions (PPD). PPDFormat provides detailed information on preparing written documents to accompany Schematic Design phase drawings as contract deliverables and suggestions for other uses during early phases of the design of a facility. This author was responsible, in part, for developing PPDFormat.

7 ASTM E06.81 Building Economics Subcommittee previously chaired by Harold E. Marshall economist with National Institute of Science and Technology (NIST) and with the staunch UNIFORMAT II proponent and estimator Robert P. Charette, PE, CVS, PQS. This subcommittee developed standards to help evaluate building projects and reduce costs throughout the life cycle. This author acted as the CSI liaison to the ASTM committee relative to developments involving UNIFORMAT II and UniFormat.

8 Use of Uniformat estimates is evidenced by current project estimates for notable projects such as the Obama Presidential Library where three separate estimators furnished Uniformat estimates at the end of Schematic Design.

9 "EA Prerequisite: Fundamental Commissioning and Verification," in LEED v4 for Building Design and Construction (U.S. Green Building Council, 2016) When LEED was first introduced required fundamental commissioning as a prerequisite. This commissioning initially required a Basis of Design document to establish the criteria by which the building energy systems were commissioned.

Today LEED requires Owner Project Requirements in addition to the Basis of Design as documentation to support commissioning.

10 Harold E. Marshall, Harold E, and Charette, Robert P. UNIFORMAT II Elemental Classification for Building Specifications, Cost Estimating, and Cost Analysis (National Institute of Science and Technology, NISTIR 6389, 1999). This paper was written to ensure consistency in the economic evaluation of building projects over time and from project to project, and it enhances project management and reporting at all stages of the building life cycle. See http://portal.ct.gov/-/media/DAS/Office-ofSchool-Construction-Grants/Task-188---Required-Forms-Regarding-Plan-Review-and-Approval/ FORM-SCG-2020-UNIFORMAT-II-classification-for-building-cost-estimating-4-24-17-KD.pdf

The owner will thank you.■

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NOURISHING THE SENSES BENTEL & BENTEL

BY VIKKI LEW

Dr. Carol R. Bentel, FAIA

received her undergraduate degree in architecture at Washington University and her graduate degree in architecture at North Carolina State University.

Prior to receiving her PhD in the history and theory of modern architecture at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, she was a Fulbright Scholar at the University of Venice. She has delivered lectures at Harvard, MIT, Yale, the Architectural Association in London, and at the Centro Palladio in Vicenza . Bentel has published numerous articles on Italian Modernism and has also been the national chair of the AIA committee on design.

“Food has become an integral part of our culture and chefs are being worshipped right now. Restaurants that anchor commercially are also institutions. Eating in a beautifully designed restaurant creates unique relationship to the space.” 1-3 It is with this ethos that New York-based Bentel & Bentel has been specializing in restaurant architecture for almost half a century. On her visit to Asia last year, Carol Bentel, FAIA, shared the stories with AIA International Region in Beijing and AIA Hong Kong about Nourishing the Senses: Restaurant Architecture of Bentel & Bentel.

Chefs & Architects Bentel & Bentel was founded in 1957 and is now in its third generation of architects. The firm has specialized in restaurant architecture and collaborated with celebrity chefs over the years. Bentel shared that the architect’s role is to create unique relationship between the space and the chefs, and those workers, and the patrons. The firm has won a series of design awards including AIA honor awards across the tiers of Institute, States, and Components. In addition, the firm has twice won the James Beard Award for Outstanding Restaurant Design. The high-profile awards give exposure to not only architects but also professional chefs. 3,4 The prestigious culinary award was first awarded for Gramercy Tavern in 2006. Drawing on its locale inside a former industrial building that has aged gracefully, design of the tavern explores the duality of “the refined and the rustic, the urbane and the bucolic, the cultured and the provincial.” 1 Progressing through the spaces through a uniform column grid of the building. Just like the building, the interior palette emphasizes authentic materials aging gracefully and do not rely on synthetic materials. Natural colors of wide oak floor are highlighted in warm light. 1,3,6 The firm won the James Beard Award again in 2016 for Le Bernardin in New York City. The Chef’s vision of the redesign was

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to create a space that is simultaneously convivial and serene.

The vision was achieved by retaining the iconic teak ceiling in the dining and making everything beneath it anew. The entrance was reconfigured to provide a window looking into the lounge. The lighting was adjusted to highlight individual tables. A curved back emphasizes the Chef. As architects, the firm is winning along side restaurant owners, celebrity chefs in the most celebrated award in the culinary industry. 1,3,6-8 Restaurants & Community A question central to Bentel’s restaurant architecture is that “What is the difference between eating at home and eating at a beautifully designed restaurant?” 1,4 The sense of community built around a restaurant is not limited to urban neighborhood. The Ground Café at Yale University is located in the Marcel Bauer-designed Becton Center that houses the School of Engineering. In respect of the original architecture, the restaurant design overlays wood plant and perforated aluminum in front of the concrete walls. The original concrete remains visible while there is a touch of newness to it. The material palette uses wood in front of concrete. A media surface made of 450 programmable LEDs spans from the east interior wall to the ceiling, creating a canvas for scientific and engineering display. As a hub for scientist and humanists, the café facilitates encounters and collaboration across disciplines in this academic community. 1,3 Craft & Materials The attention to materials and details manifest through Bentel & Bentel’s works. In Rouge Tomate in Chelsea, the architect converted a carriage house into a bar and restaurant while maintaining the bucolic characteristics. The façade of the 1864 landmark was maintained to speak to a time in the past, a community without closed doors. The original openings were infill with low-glare glass

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ABOVE: GROUND CAFE, YALE UNIVERSITY - courtesy of Bentel & Bentel

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to make it hospitable. Carriage doors are reused in interior. There are no more than three tables in a row. The white-painted brick walls are painted white. End-grain block wood and oak floor add texture to the interior. The custom-designed wine bar with leather seats and wine vault are art that emphasize the process of winemaking. A new garden gate and granite paver walk makes the neighborhood better. The restaurant consists of two long spaces.

After the redesign, there are ore casual dining and the kitchen more opened. Back of the house came forward. It is both an occasional restaurant and everyday community restaurant. 1,3 Art & Modern Opened in 2005, the Modern and Cafe 2 drew on MoMA’s status as an art institution. Drawing inspiration from Bauhaus movement, the design emphasize the aesthetics of light, elegance, and openness.

Art is the wall. Signature elements of The Modern include a luminescent glass wall that sweeps diners into the restaurant and a 46-foot marble bar floating above a lighted glass base, with a stunning glass wine wall holding 2200 bottles. Its dining room looks onto 31 sculptures in the Rockefeller Sculpture Garden. 1,3,5 While majority of the firm’s restaurant architecture projects are in the U.S., The appreciation and joy of eating in beautiful restaurants resonate with the international audience. The conviction about designing for health, both physical and spiritual, is universal.■

1

Bentel & Bentel, "Projects | Restaurants & Clubs," accessed May 2018, www.bentelandbentel.com/ 2

Bentel, Carol R., Nourishing the Senses: Restaurant Architecture of Bentel & Bentel. New York: Visual Profile Books, 2017.

3

Bentel, Carol R. Nourishing the Senses: Restaurant Architecture of Bentel & Bentel. Lecture at AIA Hong Kong. Dec 2018.

4

The New School (2014). Dining + Design: Bentel & Bentel Architecture, Katie Grieco and Marco Canora. Dining + Design series. Accessed April 2018 at https://www.youtube.com/ watch?v=wCGGSNf2BUw 5

MoMA. (2005). The Modern. http://press.moma.org/wp-content/ press-archives/PRESS_RELEASE_ARCHIVE/restaurant_modern. pdf 6

James Beard Foundation. (2018). Restaurant design award winner archive. Accessed April 2018 at https://www.jamesbeard. org/restaurant-design-award-winner-archive 7

Fabricant, Florence. (Sept 6, 2011). Le Bernardin reopens after makeover. The New York Times, Sept 7, 2011. Accessed at http:// www.nytimes.com/2011/09/07/dinning/le-bernardin-reopens 8

Block, Annie. (Jan 1, 2012). A Sea Change: Paul and Carol Bentel Reinvent New York's Le Bernardin for Eric Ripert. Interior Design, accessed online at http://www.interiordesign.net/projects/9646a-sea-change-paul-and-carol-bentel-reinvent-new-york-s-lebernardin-for-eric-ripert/

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TOP RIGHT AND LEFT: LE BERNARDIN- courtesy of Bentel & Bentel ABOVE BOTTOM: ROUGE TOMATE - courtesy of Bentel & Bentel

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#YAFchat @AIAYAF

Moderated by the 2018-2019 AIA YAF Public Relations Director, AJ Sustaita and hosted by the AIA Young Architects Forum (YAF). The yafchat for the month of September focused on #FirmCulture

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A.J. Sustaita @ajsustaita Architect and LEED AP | Director, Board of Directors, AIA Houston | Young Architect Forum Public Relations Director|

4,713 Twitter Followers AIA YAF Monthly Tweet-up March 21, 2-3:00pm Eastern Time Theme: #FirmCulture Hashtag: #YAFChat

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4,713 Twitter Followers AIA YAF Monthly Tweet-up March 21, 2-3:00pm Eastern Time Theme: #FirmCulture Hashtag: #YAFChat

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@aiayaf is kicking off a new series spotlighting Young Architects from around the country. Meet Stacey Keller, the Young Architect Regional Director for the North Central States Region, and Matt Toddy, the Young Architect Regional Director for the Ohio Valley Region.

831 Instagram Followers Young Archtiects Spotlight Hashtag: #YAspotlight

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EXECUTIVE DIRECTOR SPOTLIGHT AN INTERVIEW WITH MILAN JORDAN

BY YU-NGOK LO Milan Jordan, Assoc. AIA is a director at the American Institute of Architects. With a background in architecture and a passion for non-profit management and development, her career is the intersection of mission-driven work for the built environment.

Yu-Ngok Lo (YL): Why did you decide to pursue an alternate career and work for the AIA? Milan Jordan (MJ): I would say an alternate career definitely chose me. I value my architecture training, and I often think about “career trajectory and scale.” In architecture, I designed at the scale of buildings. In urban design and real estate development, the work was more city and policy scope, and now at the AIA, the scope is the architectural profession.

Helping emerging professionals and architects is a unique way to utilize my background, skill set and interests to help a really broad scope of people.

YL: You are a big part of the success of the Practice Innovation Lab. Can you tell us some of the challenges of the events?

How did the experience inspired you?

MJ: The Practice Innovation Lab was really great to work on.

It was unlike any other event myself or my colleagues had seen out of the institute, so kudos to Evelyn for her unique and inspiring brainchild. Of course, logistically, planning an event that had little precedent required us to figure out a lot of things out on our own. There were some trials and certainly some errors, but the end result was very rewarding. One of the biggest challenges was having to eliminate some great ideas because of time limitations and committee bandwidth.

It was very inspiring to see the event catch the interest of colleagues who are looking to infuse ideas and portions of the lab into their events.

YL: As the director of the AIA’s Center for Emerging Professionals, how does the AIA continue the effort in keeping the conversation going?

MJ: I still get regular inquiries about the event that allow us to disseminate findings from the event, as well as allow platforms for attendees to continue the conversation. We were able to

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include attendees as speakers at other leadership events (both within and external to the AIA). We’ve offered support to regions looking to host their own Practice Labs, as well as connecting resources in the building to attendees who are actually continuing to work on their practice models from the event.

YL: Anything else you would like to add?

MJ: I look forward to seeing how the YAF uses practice model innovation to inspire and move the committee into a position of leadership in the industry. There is clearly an appetite for this topic, and I can’t think of anyone more uniquely suited to lead this topic and serve the profession in its next big paradigm shift.■

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2018 EDITORIAL CALENDAR

CALL FOR QUARTERLY SUBMISSIONS

JUNE

REDEFINING PURPOSE This issue focuses on innovative practice models. We will report on the Practice Innovation Lab hosted by the YAF in 2017 and follow the conversations sparked by that event. We will also bring stories of how emerging professionals are innovating in the practice of architecture.

CONNECTION welcomes the submission of ARTICLES, PROJECTS, PHOTOGRAPHY and other design content. Submitted materials are subject to editorial review and selected for publication in eMagazine format based on relevance to the theme of a particular issue.

CONNECTION content will also appear on AIA.org and submissions will be considered on a rolling basis.

CONTENT DUE 5/01 PUBLICATION Q1 / Q2 2018

SEPTEMBER

DECEMBER

This issue addresses topics related to the UN Habitat II New Urban Agenda. We will share how architects and emerging professionals are leading conversations across the country, creating better urban and rural communities.

This issue focuses on the future of the profession. We will look at some of the things architects are doing to push the boundaries of practice. We will also follow up on ways that the Practice Innovation Lab has made an impact on emerging professionals.

CONTENT DUE 8/01 PUBLICATION Q3 2018

CONTENT DUE 11/01 PUBLICATION Q4 2018

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If you are interested in contributing to CONNECTION, please contact the EditorIn-Chief at yungoklo@hotmail.com

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SUBMISSION REQUIREMENTS All submissions are required to have the attachments noted below.

Text Submit the body of your text in a single, separate Word document with a total word count between1000 - 2000 words.

Format the file name as such: [yourlastname_article title.doc] Images Submit all images in JPEG format at a minimum resolution of 300 dpi RGB mode. Include captions to all images in the body of your e-mail transmittal.

All images must be authentic to the person submitting. Do not submit images with which you do not hold the rights.

Format the file name(s), sequentially, as such: [yourlastname_image1.jpg] Author Bio Submit a brief, two-sentence bio in the following format: [ yourlastname ] [ AIA or Associate AIA or RA ] is a [ your title ] at [ your company ] in [ city, state ]. [ yourlastname ] is also [ one sentence describing primary credentials or recent accomplishments].

Format the file name as such: [yourlastname_article title.doc] Author Photo Submit a recent headshot in JPEG format at a minimum resolution of 300 dpi grayscale in RGB mode.

Format the file name as such: [yourlastname_portrait.doc]

WHAT IS THE YOUNG ARCHITECTS FORUM? The Young Architects Forum is the voice of architects in the early stages of their career and the catalyst for change within the profession and our communities. Working closely with the AIA College of Fellows and the American Institute of Architects as a whole, the YAF is leading the future of the profession with a focus on architects licensed less than 10 years. The national YAF Advisory Committee is charged with encouraging the development of national and regional programs of interest to young architects and supporting the creation of YAF groups within local chapters. Approximately 23,000 AIA members are represented by the YAF. YAF programs, activities, and resources serve young architects by providing information and leadership; promoting excellence through fellowship with other professionals; and encouraging mentoring to enhance individual, community, and professional development.

GOALS OF THE YOUNG ARCHITECTS FORUM To encourage professional growth and leadership development among recently licensed architects through interaction and collaboration within the AIA and allied groups.

To build a national network and serve as a collective voice for young architects by working to ensure that issues of particular relevance to young architects are appropriately addressed by the Institute.

To make AIA membership valuable to young architects and to develop the future leadership of the profession.

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A vibrant community AIA is a vibrant community of architecture and industry professionals that are transforming our profession. Members enjoy access to industry-best benefits, products and services that support practice and professional development.

Visit aia.org to learn more about how you can leverage all that we have to offer and become a member.

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CELEBRATING 27 YEARS OF ADVANCING THE CAREERS OF YOUNG ARCHITECTS