Architecture Controlled by Architects

Posts tagged Visionary

Response to Jeanne Gangs New York Times Op/Ed

Feb12
2012 Leave a Comment Written by dave pollard

Several people have sent me this very interesting op/ed article from the New York Times, titled Designing a Fix for Housing. I have the highest regard for Jeanne Gang, however, there is much that disappoints me about this piece.

Gang and Greg Lindsay say, “Too often during the bubble, banks and builders shunned thoughtful architecture and urban design in favor of cookie-cutter houses that could be easily repackaged as derivatives to be flipped, while architects snubbed housing to pursue more prestigious projects.” This is a tremendous understatement in my opinion. Subsequently, I do not believe that the rest of the article addresses the ‘architect’s snubbing’ of housing with any significant solution.

Architects to Solve the World’s Problems?

The article is written from a typical outsider architect’s perspective – Everyone else screwed up housing, and if the world would just listen to us houses would be beautifully designed…

I do not disagree with the argument that municipal restrictions limit the creativity and even financial feasibility of good design, but these regulations came about through architectural lobbying and community democracy. Additionally, most municipalities allow Planned Developments or PUD’s that allow a new master plan to have variances or even circumvent the existing zoning code.

The book The Politics of Place: A History of Chicago Zoning, cites the evolution of the “four-plus-ones” in the early 1970’s Chicago. These efficiently designed, dense housing blocks were a developer response to solving the cheapest most economical equation for apartment buildings. Once these popped up all over the lakefront, residents protested and the zoning ordinance was rightly changed to dictate more sensitive residential design.

1970's Four-Plus-One in Chicago

 

Houston Texas is the best (or worst) example of an American city with no municipal zoning ordinance, and the result is a unconnected and poorly planned mega city. In Houston’s case, the result was not a beautiful city designed by architects, it was a horribly planned urban landscape created by developers who had only economic rules to follow.

It seems to me that Gang and Lindsay are proposing that municipalities give the power to the architects to fix the housing landscape. This sounds great, but the reality is that not all architects are Jeanne Gang, in fact 99.9% are not. Chicago’s Cabrini Green housing project is an example of the architects’ naivety giving way to a poor planning solution. The designers said that by turning the buildings inward towards central courtyards, the low-income residents would have a utopian community space of their own to share and make wonderful. Consequently the reality was the designed planning solution moved the low income community away from the street where it was unable to be patrolled or controlled, and massive crime ensued. These designed solutions have since been razed.

The Education of the Consumer

The inconvenient truth is that municipal regulation is what keeps most architects in business. Chicago requires an architect’s stamp to be on construction drawings. Also most developers would much rather pay an architect to navigate the Illinois Accessibility Code, Chicago Zoning Ordinance, the UL assembly databases, Chicago Building Code, etc. than do it themselves. If these regulations did not exist I would be willing to bet that most developers would not hire architects and would just hire a General Contractor to build a combination of what they sketch in their proforma combined with some images of other projects.

Similarly I believe many CPA’s would tell you that a confusing tax code is good for business. I do not think that this is an ethical or productive business model for the design community, but it is a reality. Therefore before preaching to change the zoning code and give all the power to the design community, I believe architects need to put a system in place that convinces the consumer (not necessarily the developer) of our value, allows affordable access to this value, and engages the architect economically at the homebuyer level.

If You Can’t Beat ‘Em Join ‘Em

As a child I went to a sailing camp as a camper for several summers. I had a fantastic time, and later worked as a counselor there in College. As a Senior Counselor, we used to say “You don’t know what it’s like to be a camper until you are a trainee; you don’t know what it’s like to be a trainee until you are a junior counselor; and you don’t know what it’s like to be a junior counselor until you are a senior counselor. We were always referring to the control that each hierarchical figure has on its subordinates in terms of the activity structure and individual freedoms.  Of course when you are a camper you do not realize the structure and limitations behind your daily activities because you are so busy having fun.

Similarly, as I now work as the design director for a developer that hires outside architecture firms, I feel that I now know much better what it’s like to be an architect than I did working for design-only service firms. The reality is the developer is in control of the ship, and at the end of the day the developer just wants the architect to do what he says. There is no time or system built-in for a real round-table design process, and the architect burns all of his time thinking outside-the-box pro-bono.

The end-user, or homebuyer in the housing case, really isn’t the client, because the developer typically just builds what worked the last time. So when an architect proposes something in the design that he may consider better design for the homebuyer, more times than not, the idea will be shot down if it is not something that the developer has done before.

In my opinion the simplest and most direct solution for architects to engage the future of housing and “Design the Fix for Housing” is to MAKE HOUSES.

The old system of an architect selling his services to a developer just doesn’t work. Just look at the 1.6 million cookie-cutter houses that were built in 2006. If architects really want to fix housing through design, I do not believe it is time well spent to lobby municipalities and work out new financial models for funding homebuyers.

Steve Jobs did not spend his time lobbying to give technology companies control of the music industry. Over a long period of time he simply developed great products that consumers did not even know they needed until they had them. He then saw opportunity in the music industry and integrated his great products with great interfaces to deliver incredible experiences to the end-user. Steve Jobs did not work for the music companies or some other large industry – he worked for us, the consumer.

Similarly architects who want to fix housing design need to just make houses. This could be a number of scenarios from creating a fund to buy foreclosures and rent them, to working with manufacturers to make and sell an affordable vanity that isn’t terrible. I simply wish that architects would just take all of the pieces and parts that go into a typical production home and re-arrange them into something better. There are so many small scale applications of architectural talent that can make housing better if we just focus some of our energy away from the AIA’s Architectural Record magazine, and turn it towards the NAHB’s Builder magazine.

Whatever the scenario is, it involves architects who want to fix housing rethink what exactly it is that their firm provides. There is certainly a place for architects in housing but it will first take a retooling of the architectural industry before we can even think about restructuring the municipal codes and financial systems. To use the Apple example, architects need to find a way to affordably deliver well designed homes that homebuyers do not know they can’t live with out until they have them.

Architects need to stop judging the failures of housing design from the outside, fix our own internal issues, and get our hands dirty on the inside.

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Financial Downturn = Great Opportunity for Architects in Homebuilding

Nov07
2011 Leave a Comment Written by dave pollard

Continued downturns in the real estate market have led to a large number of foreclosed, short-sold, and bank owned development properties. The large bank-owned properties have now been dubbed Redfields. Similar to Environmentally tainted properties being called ‘Brownfields’, and park/forest preserves defined as “Greenfields”, Redfields are financially damaged properties that will need creative planning, financing, and design to bring them back to financial stability.

Most of these properties were originally slated for Alpha Type developments. Alpha Type meaning the old slam-dunk, previously low-risk, model of mass homebuilding. Just five years ago, developers merely had to plan, finance, and build homes the way they had for the previous twenty years, and the buyers would show up, no question. These properties are now Redfields because the previous model does not work. The collapse of the housing market has essentially removed the Alpha Type, and given an opportunity for the Beta Type. Beta housing concepts involve rethinking the housing financing, planning, design, and delivery process. The SchoolStreet project in Libertyville is a prime example of Beta housing on a Redfield. The bank-owned property was obtained at a discounted price and re-planned to a new working housing model.

So what is the Beta housing model? It begins by thinking about what homebuyers’ lifestyles really want and need, not just what was previously delivered in the Alpha model. At the macro level of SchoolStreet is the planning concept of “urban infill”. Downtown Libertyville is already a thriving urban center featuring historic buildings, dozens of bars, restaurants, shops, a farmers market, music, and an outgoing, energetic population. The community sells itself, and is where a shifting homebuyer demographic can see themselves living for a longer term, not just a two-year condo-flip. Additionally it is a walkable community, with public transportation access to surrounding areas and even downtown Chicago.

At the semi-macro level, the Beta housing model rethinks the community planning of the development. More in tune with an energetic, urban community; out is the big front lawn, and in are sidewalks, front porches, roof decks, and narrow lots. By moving garages to the rear, accessed through an alley, the life of the homes moves to the street. Some of the SchoolStreet homes even break the mold so far as to plan kitchens at the front of the house. Homebuyers and the community appreciate the new streetscape oriented planning concepts; it is something they have not seen in suburban developments, and it is easy to picture themselves living such a community-oriented lifestyle.

Lastly at the micro level, the Beta housing model addresses innovation, specific homebuyer needs, productivity, construction quality, and quality of design. To achieve this, it is necessary to work in holistic approach in which every team member is working for the good of ‘the project’. SchoolStreet’s developer, StreetScape Development, has a diverse team of in-house experts ranging from developers, to production housing builders, to architects. In addition StreetScape, partners with subcontractors, architects, and industry-leading consultants to deliver the best home possible. For the SchoolStreet project, architect, Sarah Susanka’s involvement in the Not So Big Showhouse developed a better Beta housing model. Working with the carpentry subcontractors, the SchoolStreet project developed a manufacturing area for framing the walls of future houses off-site. This innovative approach increases productivity, limits worker fatigue, and helps to keep construction ahead of schedule.

The Beta housing model also realizes that information is the key to limiting risk, delivering a quality product, and keeping the customer happy. StreetScape has been implementing a Building Information Modeling approach to design, which creates a building simulation prior to construction. Efficiencies are gained through early construction conflict detection, and accurate costs can be placed on design decisions. The building simulation also has the potential to offer visualization for the design team and customer. StreetScape also plans to unveil a new web-based customer portal, giving the customer open access to project documents, drawings, and feedback.

Through the sale of 21 of 26 homes in one year, the SchoolStreet development has demonstrated that in this difficult housing climate, it is still possible to build homes, by rethinking the development and delivery process. A dormant redfield site can become a successful development by contributing to the community and offering a the homebuyer a new end-product more tailored to their long-term needs and lifestyle.

The success of the SchoolStreet project also demonstrates that by focusing on innovation, quality, and taking design directly to the consumer, houses will sell. Sarah Susanka says in her MarketWatch interview, “People have money to spend if it is on something that is in line with their values.” Believe it or not, people value good design; and if architects can rethink the process, we can deliver it efficiently and affordably.  With the alpha homebuilders out of the way, now is as good a time as any in history to deliver this.

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Article on IIT’s Entrepreneurship Blog

Aug31
2011 Leave a Comment Written by dave pollard

This is an article/story I wrote last month  for Nik Rokop, Director of IIT’s Knapp Institute for Entrepreneurship. It’s all about my adventures in blogging:

Blog Power by dp (opens in a new window)

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Gang v. Gehry

Aug30
2011 1 Comment Written by dave pollard

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

This is my first foray into ‘architectural criticism’ on my blog. I have had plenty of critical architectural discussions over the years with classmates, colleagues, friends and family… back in 2001, I remember telling Chestnut/Niess Architects in Berlin, right to their face, that “I didn’t see what the big deal was” about Mies van der Rohe’s National Gallery. That same year, I also told my professors that I did not “buy into the technology architects”, referring specifically to Renzo Piano and Richard Rogers. Of course, after spending more time in Europe, visiting Piano’s Beyeler Museum, and spending some more time in Mies spaces, I now own a dozen Renzo Piano books and one of our cats is named Ludwig Mies van der Kitty.

I soon realize  that I had no idea what I was talking about. I then decided that any project I approach to critique begins first as “a good project” in my eyes. By ignoring the negative impressions and looking closely at the story of the building, to me, the critique then seems more objective and pure to what I think architecture is all about.

So I decided to write this after reading Blair Kamin’s article on Frank Gehry’s 8 Spruce Tower in NYC. What struck me, is Kamin’s comparison of 8 Spruce, to Studio Gang’s Aqua Tower. If undulation is the new metric for architectural accomplishment, then maybe.. yes they are similar. But otherwise I could not see these two projects being at all comparable.

I have yet to really figure out what the true story of Gehry’s designs is. Do not get me wrong; I spend a lot of time at Gehry’s Prtizker Pavillion, which is a spatial materpiece, but much of it is actually more formal, than “weird for the sake of weird.” Gehry can be a genius in many ways, but a very different genius than Jeanne Gang.

Gang focuses on deep research; research which informs a core concept, which informs a building, which tells a story. I appreciate this process, as it is really more in tune with Ideo and Thomas Jefferson – the great problem solvers. The story behind Aqua tower is one that grew out of a study of park views and daylighting.

Intertwined in that, is a study of the economy of a square, glass box. The building envelope and floorplan layout, is a very simple rectilinear form – a rational form that most architects have had trouble making good ever since Mies died.

Also implicit in the design, is an innovative understanding of traditional construction processes – the curved slab edges were formed from shaped steel plates that were re-used and reshaped at each floor. This process also allows each slab edge a large tolerance, as no two need to be the same.

There is a tremendous pragmatic, Chicago-style approach to Aqua Tower, really more in tune with Bertrand Goldberg, Fazlur Kahn, and Mies. In Kamin’s article, he compares Gehry’s project to the Chrysler Building, citing their comparable “visual flourishes”. This seems a much more reasonable comparison than to Aqua.

Kamin continues and says, “Yet if the Chrysler Building symbolizes the machine age, this skyscraper exemplifies the digital age. Here, aided by the computer, Gehry endows the tall residential building with the same emphasis on movement and feeling that characterizes his great cultural commissions.”

Kamin’s statement does not really excite me. I like to think that the skyscraper typology, as a whole, symbolizes the machine age. Innovative systems such as the elevator, allowed us to completely reinvent buildings. I hope that the architectural result of the digital age is not just severely undulating buildings. Instead I hope that it brings about a new process , building typology and delivery process.

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Am I Selling Out?

Aug11
2011 1 Comment Written by dave pollard

I must admit that my blogging has been a bit lax lately… about two weeks since my last post. Although I plan to continue a minimum of one post per week (and hopefully 2 or 3 per week), I blame my aloofness on my re-entry into the real world.

After wrapping up my thesis three weeks ago, I immediately began working full time for an design/develop/build company about an hour outside of Chicago. Although this has kept me physically detached from my blog, I think about what to write next on every train ride to and from Libertyville… so I have a mental backlog of writings.

I have struggled with how to write about this endeavor, because I do not want to use this blog as a platform for just promoting or talking about our projects. So it took some time for me to figure out how to breach the subject that I am essentially working for a “developer”.

A month or so, I was having lunch with my old friend/architect/colleague/nerd Brad. When I told him about this new adventure out in Libertyville, he laughed and put a dagger right in my heart by saying that I was selling out. I was taken back a bit, because at no point had that thought ever crossed my mind; although I am really good at always telling myself what I want to hear.

I quickly retorted by saying, “no… going back to a Chicago architecture firm would be selling out.” He did not disagree, but needed further clarification on how building houses out in the suburbs was not selling my soul to the devil.

There are two important books that helped to justify my decision and explain my position to Brad. First, The Art of Innovation, by Ideo’s Tom Kelley; and second, Built to Last by Jim Collins. In The Art of Innovation, Tom Kelley writes a fantastic chapter on the importance of building “Hot Teams”. Hot Teams are the heart of Ideo and critical to innovation.

I have been indirectly working with the developer John McLinden since last year. Once he read my thesis proposal and my blog, six or so months ago, we started having some very dynamic conversations about the future of housing, and what architectural design can, and should play in it.This conversations led into a real proposal about what I can bring to Streetscape development and what they can bring to the world of affordable design.

After starting working with John and his crew full time, three weeks ago, I realize now that he has been building that Hot Team. At the core, there are four of us. We all have very different backgrounds, expertise in different fields, and differing personalities. We are all driven by a common core ideology, a passion to succeed, and an ambition to do things better. We all have specific expertise, all while our roles overlap. At the same time we all highly respect each other and are not afraid of conflict. John has, and continues to build our Hot Team, and I think we can do great things.

With regards to Built to Last, this book really supported my decision through its insistence of the importance of a company’s core ideology. I have defined my professional ideology as “to allow everyone affordable access to good design.” After the last few weeks, I believe it is fair to define Streetscape’s ideology as “it shouldn’t be so g-d difficult to build good homes for good people”. This completely parallels my thoughts and passions; meanwhile I have had trouble finding an ideology anywhere close to this in most architecture firms.

Lastly the real reason this move makes sense for me is that I believe, to truly make a difference in housing, you need control. As John says, “you have to own the shop.” Most architects make websites and monographs only for other architects. They are rarely taking their genius, intuition, and expertise to the end-user. As the developer, however, we are taking the design and delivery directly to the consumer and we can control the process the whole way. IT’s the old WWDHD. (What Would David Hovey Do)

I would not say that I am selling out. I would not even say that I am doing the “if you can’t beat them join them.” I think that to truly engage architecture in mass housing, we need to step out of our homebuilder/developer/architect/engineer/contractor/client labels, and create a new entity and image for home delivery.

Housing2.0 is not about selling architectural homes on the internet, its about redefining the process so that the end-user has a say and affordable access to good design. And that is exactly what we are doing at Streetscape.

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Is the Architectural Profession a “Visionary Company”?

Jul27
2011 Leave a Comment Written by dave pollard

After I read Tom Fisher’s, In the Scheme of Things: Alternative Thinking on the Practice of Architecture, I read what I thought was an unrelated book; Jim Collins’, Built to Last: Successful Habits of Visionary Companies.

I read Built to Last after a recommendation from an entrepreneurial colleague. The author, Jim Collins,  studied 18 visionary companies that have consistently outperformed the market for decades, and compared them to similar companies that have not performed as well. He then outlines the findings, many of which seem to be contrary to conventional perception about cut-throat business.

The book is inspirational in that Collins’ defines one of the most important characteristics of visionary companies is the implicit definition of a core ideology. Alongside maintaining this core, visionary companies should always change their methods to support the core ideology. Collins defines this as the ying and the yang: “Preserve the Core/Stimulate Progress”. So while the pursuit for change is necessary for a company to be visionary, the one thing that cannot change is the core ideology.

This is only one aspect of visionary companies out of 12 that Collin’s defines through his research. While I was reading, I could not help but to think about how every chapter applies to architecture firms as a whole. According to Collins’ definition of visionary, the entire architectural profession would be considered unsustainable.

Honestly, it is difficult for me to define what the core ideologies were at some of firms that I worked for…. to design great buildings? to provide great service? to be architecty? to provide good solutions? I am not completely sure. The closest I can come to a core ideology would be from my tenure at Optima. I believe that we were “providing provocative, well-designed, and kind of affordable housing solutions”. Keep in mind though, Optima is not a traditional architectural firm. They are architect-led design/develop/build. Although I did not always feel that our methods always supported this core, I did have a sense of this core existing, and a personal interest in participating in the mission.

I brought Tom Fisher into this post because I believe he defines the architectural profession’s core ideology as “to provide the good life”. I think that deep down this ideology is why we stay in the architectural profession, if you have not yet left for law school, finance, or to make more money as realtor. (Although the argument that realtors’ core ideology is “to provide the good life” may be a bit clearer – and I don’t think they work nearly as hard or spend as much on education as architects)

The problem though, and Fisher argues this as well, is that the methods architects use to reinforce the core are so far from the good life, that it is detrimental to the profession as a whole. Architects compete with each other, pay low-wages, work their employees to the bone, micro-manage, and can be real assholes to their own people. Young architects continue to accept it, because the culture says that is just the way it is.

I urge all architects, young and old, to read both of these books and ponder if our profession, as a whole, is still visionary and at all sustainable without change.

 

 

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