Kindergarten Charts - essay 6

Letter to the Editor

Dear Al:

I enjoyed reading your article written from the floor of the AIA National Convention in San Francisco; optimism is a precious commodity these days, and one that can freely shared without loss. But to characterize the current death-throes of the old economy as a "dip" is something that, for me, transcends the pollyanna.

Three years ago, among others, I had two projects, each over $30,000,000 construction cost, under construction. I currently have a master bathroom under renovation, and a gazebo waiting for regulatory approval, and those other projects are essentially unoccupied. Things have changed out here, and will continue to change. Adjusting to this fact may be difficult, but acknowledging it shouldn't be.

The only viable clientelle I can identify these days is the government. Other than government work, only repair and maintenance continue as they were; the other sectors haven't slowed down, they have evaporated. Commercial real estate is on a down escalator and the escalator is accelerating. If you have evidence to the contrary, please share it. According to the AIA Nevada Chapter, the unemployment rate for Architects in that state is 65%. The housing market is gone, and will not come back soon, we are overbuilt by ten years or more nationally, perhaps three years here around Washington DC, upon which a feasting government squats. There has been a mis-allocation of housing types that will need correction, certainly, but if architects can not recognize a paradigm shift of the magnitude of this one, how can we proclaim our insight at finding solutions to problems of greater complexity than this, such as the sharpening of a pencil?

To build a custom home these days requires an extraordinary commitment on the part of a client to the value of place-making. Those clients who count value as amenities on spreadsheets can purchase an "equivalent" property for half the cost or less, in a fraction of the time. The same is true for commercial projects now. In my view this situation is more likely to continue for ten years than not.
Our profession is in a silent revolution, and I am puzzled that it is not being discussed anywhere. When I first got my spurs, thirty years ago, every office had young professionals who were chafing at the bit to take their place on the firing line. We wanted to get licensed, do projects, and strut our stuff. Today, it is different, and those of us who want to become architects -- Architects -- must hack our way through bureaucracies and rules and forms that are absurd, that serve only as obstacles rather than as ladders, and getting the attention of our supervisors to talk about the important things, the really important things, is next to impossible. How much time elapsed between your graduation and the day you got your license, Al? Do you know that the average today is over seven years, and I think the mean is over ten? Why has this changed?

Increasingly, Design is seen as a commodity, an obstacle, and a necessary evil. You will agree that Design-Build is swallowing more and more of the market, and that Architects are not leading this change but following it, will you not? Let me quote for you the header that precedes every MasterSpec spec section -- published, not just endorsed -- by the AIA). It says this:

"Copyright by The American Institute of Architects (AIA)
Exclusively published and distributed by Architectural Computer Services, Inc. (ARCOM) for the AIA
This Section uses the term "Architect." Change this term to match that used to identify the design professional as defined in the General and Supplementary Conditions."

Can you see what is going on there? I can.

The education system that produces potential architects is focusing more and more on parallel missions -- research, education, community service -- worthy goals in themselves, but nothing in these goals is essentially architectural, the ratio of architects/graduates the schools seek to create is shrinking, steadily. The schools are responding, I must assume, to the change in the market, but this is nowhere explained, nowhere questioned, and the consequences are assessed nowhere.

The regulations architects must comply with are proliferating like rabbits in New Zealand; the Americans with Disabilities Act was passed in 1990. It is almost 20 years later, and yet handicapped accessibility requirements continue to be "perfected". Who is asking when this will stop? The ICC recently announced that it will be developing a Green Building Code. I assume this code will also be subject to a triennial review, modification, and update cycle that will keep thousands of bureaucrats employed and serve as a deliciously impervious-to-public-scrutiny method to increase the regulatory burden. They conduct seminars for Fire Marshalls on how to lobby for a code change, and our government pays for it’s employees to attend. Where are the architects in this process? We could at least contribute some literacy to the code language, if nothing else.

The thieves in the banking system have made the conditions we work in so irrational that language abolutely fails me when attempting to describe it. Congress distorts the housing market more every day – they actually think we’re suffering from not enough distortion. And architects don’t contribute enough to the typical congressional campaign to buy pizza and beer for the candidates staff a single time.

The “BIM revolution” continues to marginalize us, turning us into technocrats, amplifying responsibilities we have no qualifications to fulfill, offering liabilities our lawyers tell us to run from; at the same time our fees are not adjusted for this perceived increase in value. We sit at the nexus of the development of our civilization, and as a group, we make less than Mr. Goodwrench.

In the midst of this, our credibility on the job site is at an all-time low, at least in my career. I wish I were wrong about this.

We are entering a time when the objectives of the interests that control the government dictate. Architects, who in my view have the responsibility for forming our built environment, are silent as this wave crashes over us. The last email I got from National AIA was urging me to support the proposals for nationalized health care. I wish I knew how this was an architectural issue. It may be a great idea, but in my capacity as an architect, it's not an issue. The insanity of government procurement and waste, that might be an issue for me; anyone who has personal professional experience with it can certainly provide more than a handful examples at a cocktail party. Are we so co-opted by our pocketbooks that our voices are silent in the public square?

This downturn is more than a dip. When the next boom times arrive our profession will be significantly different. As designers, we owe it to ourselves to participate in the shaping of what it will be. America voted for change, let's participate in it. Al, it is a privilege to share your optimism, and I would be delighted to learn if it has, not just a mouth, but feet and shoulders, and maybe, now and then, a couple of fists.