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Three PNC Plaza.
Architect: Doug Gensler,
Principal, Gensler
Close on time with Oldcastle BuildingEnvelope
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According to a study by the U.S. Department of Commerce, the
construction industry has suffered significant productivity declines
since the 1960s, while all other non-farm industries have seen large boosts
in productivity. Why? Fear of change? At Oldcastle BuildingEnvelope
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Whats next for the architects oS ce? In this challenging economic climate, theres no
better time to rethink how your rm practices. LWI OR, OCT HBN, LWBLRC HLIM,
LKZHLCT LACCR VIMBRB, ZLD TXC, ZBV YLJJWLX LL
Nurture: Morale Will Improve As the profession faces a looming talent shortage,
some rms are attracting new employees with happy hours and Flamenco. Can a
friendlier culture help their bottom line?
Meet: Face to Facebook Some architects have embraced social media and
telecommunications, but others struggle to discern the actual benets. Can your rm
tweet its way to success?
Research: Design by Numbers Many rms have already realized researchs
importance in wooing clients and securing projects. Heres how they made research
an integral part of their practices.
Focus: Architect, Design Thyself As rms encourage more collaboration between
architects and launch new research initiatives, oS ce-space design will also change.
Welcome to a world of incubator spaces.
Nourish: A Natural Manifesto The 2011 AIA National Architecture Firm Award
winner, BNIM, oFers eight ways to create a healthy oS ce. Because connecting with
nature will become a strategic goal.
Grow: Finding Your Balance Smartphones and ever-growing workloads have broken
down the walls between home and oS ce. Fortunately, architects are nding creative
new ways to manage their time.
123
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ONLINE
Theres more online at
architectmagazine.com:
Weekly videos about the
future of practice.
More case studies about how
rms are using social media.
Read more stories from
architects about how they
handle their work/life balance.
Blaine Brownells Mind &
Matter blog looks at products
and materials in development
and on the market.
Aaron Betskys Beyond
Buildings blog comments on
the impact of design on our
society and culture.
And there are constant
updates: breaking news,
new products, slide shows,
extra images of the projects
in the issue, and more
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Allied Works Architecture
Clyord Still Museum
Denver
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San Francisco
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MADE IN
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Circle no. 515 or http://architect.hotims.com
POST FRAME AN ENGINEERED WOOD BUILDING SYSTEM
Earn AIA Credits at Free Post-Frame Advantage Webinars
Architects and designers are encouraged to attend monthly educational webinars on post-frame building sponsored by Post-Frame
Advantage. Sessions include Introduction to Post-Frame Building Systems and Structural Design of Post-Frame Building Systems
for Architects.
To learn more, visit postframeadvantage.com/webinars.
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Architects Workshop at the 2012 Frame Building Expo
The Application, Design, and Specication of Post-Frame Buildings
Wednesday, February 29, 8 amnoon, at Americas Center, St. Louis, MO
Identify the unique attributes of post-frame building systems.
Learn about post-frame applications from prominent building and design lecturers and panelists.
Earn 4 American Institute of Architects (AIA) credits.
Network with building, design, and code professionals at the nations premier post-frame industry
event hosted by the National Frame Building Association.
Visit postframeadvantage.com/workshop or e-mail info@postframeadvantage.com.
WWW.POSTFRAMEADVANTAGE.COM
Circle no. 525 or http://architect.hotims.com
Circle no. 406 or http://architect.hotims.com
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Dialogue Happy Place plus Letters
and Contributors
News plus Numbers and On the Boards
Contact Us
AIARCHI TECT
Voices Keeping the Flame Alive
Voices Leading the Charge
Now Across the Institute
Practice Keeping Tabs
Feature Accentuate the Positive
Perspective Looking Ahead to the
New Normal
BUSINESS
Best Practices Always Be Upgrading
Staying competitive means pursuing the
tech frontier and keeping pace with constant
change. SIBSRT VSP
Typology Family Sized
Developers are targeting recession-minded
renters with multifamily housing projects
that emphasize amenities and community.
SLWDNVSTM SXWTTR AWPWBREB
Entrepreneur Building Connections
Honest Buildings aims to harness the power
of social media to speed innovation and
foster transparency in commercial buildings.
KSISY LSS
Local Market Atlanta
TECHNOLOGY
Products Ceramic Tile
IT Fab Four
Four designers who think digital fabrication
could aJect the way we make everything,
and the tools and challenges shaping the
printed environment. VIWNB LWVVY
Continuing Education An Olympic Feat
The new venues for Londons 2012 Games
combine structural innovation and
sustainability to create a positive legacy
after the torch moves on. NNIEB RSONIA
Products Editors Choice
Mind & Matter Running Dry
Finding fresh water in new waysand in
new placesare strategies to ght water
scarcity. VLNWBS VIEOBSLL
CULTURE
Books, Objects, Exhibits &
Internet
Crit Roman Candle
Examining the life and works of William
MacDonald reveals as much about
contemporary architecture as it does about
ancient Rome. AWNBN S. S. PLSWBSI
Studio Visit Bing Thom
The Canadian architect discussses his studio
and the features of Vancouver that inspire
him. PIWRTEB NHHR NBA KNREB ZLEIA
Beyond Buildings Beyond Bilbao
Modest gestures, better spaces, and local
culture: These are what the Bilbao EJect
didnt deliver. NNIEB VSTRPY
PAST PROGRESSIVES
1980 Public Spaces Prized
A jury with diverse inclinations agreed
on a First Award for Machado and Silvetti
Associates reshaping of an urban campus.
KEMB CEIIWR AWFEB
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2012 BOARD OF DIRECTORS
OFFICERS: Jeery Potter, FAIA, President; Mickey
Jacob, FAIA, First Vice President; Dennis A. Andrejko,
FAIA, Vice President; Russell A. Davidson, FAIA, Vice
President; Debra S. Kunce, FAIA, Vice President;
John A. Padilla, AIA, Vice President; Helene Combs
Dreiling, FAIA, Secretary; Gabriel Durand-Hollis, FAIA,
Treasurer; William R. Turner Jr., Assoc. AIA, Senior
Associate Director; Michael Waldinger, CACE
Representative to the Executive Committee;
Robert A. Ivy, FAIA, EVP/Chief Executive O cer.
DIRECTORS: T. Gregory Ames Jr., AIA; William J. Bates,
AIA; William J. Carpenter, PhD, FAIA; Susan Chin, FAIA;
Ashley W. Clark, Assoc. AIA, LEED AP; Stuart L.
Coppedge, AIA; Mary P. Cox, FAIA, LEED AP; Thomas
R. Cox, AIA, LEED AP; Nicholas Docous, AIA, LEED AP;
Jerome L. Eben, AIA; Mohamad Farzan, AIA, RIBA;
Kevin J. Flynn, FAIA, IES; John P. Grounds, AIA, LEED AP;
Steve Jernigan, FAIA, LEED AP BD+C; Thad R. Kelly
III, AIA; Gregory A. Kessler, AIA; Glen S. LeRoy, FAIA;
Vivien Li; Vicki Long, CAE; Michael Malinowski, AIA;
Nick Mancusi, Assoc. AIA; Christopher Morrison, AIA,
LEED AP; John V. Nyfeler, FAIA, LEED AP; Wendy
Ornelas, FAIA; Francis Murdock Pitts, FAIA, FACHA,
OAA; Beverly J. Prior, FAIA, LEED AP; Larry C. Quenette,
AIA; James Easton Rains, Jr., AIA; Elizabeth Chu
Richter, FAIA; Anthony P. Schirripa, FAIA, IIDA; Charles
L. Schreckenberger, AIA; William D. Seider, AIA;
Steven Spurlock, AIA, LEED AP; J. Cyril Stewart, AIA;
Walter D. Street III, AIA; Mark G. Swenson, FAIA, LEED
AP; Martha R. Tarrant, AIA, LEED AP BD+C; Edward A.
Vance, AIA; Thomas V. Vonier, FAIA; Bill T. Wilson II,
FAIA; Donald T. Yoshino, FAIA; David Zach.
NATIONAL STAFF
EXECUTIVE TEAM: Robert A. Ivy, FAIA, EVP/
Chief Executive O cer; Richard James, Chief
Operating O cer; Susan McDaid, Hon. AIA, Vice
President, Member & Component Resources; Paul
T. Mendelsohn, Vice President, Government and
Community Relations; Kevin Novak, Vice President,
Integrated Web Strategy and Technology; Ken L. Ross
Jr., FAIA, Vice President, Design and Practice; Jay A.
Stephens, Esq., Vice President and General Counsel.
MANAGEMENT TEAM: Paula Clements, Hon. TSA,
CAE, Managing Director, Component Resources and
Collaboration; Kenneth Cobleigh, Esq., Managing
Director & Counsel, Contract Documents Content;
Pam Day, Hon. AIA, Corporate Secretary & Managing
Director, Governance Administration; Andrew
Goldberg, Assoc. AIA, Managing Director, Government
Relations & Outreach; Lisa Green, Managing Director,
Finance and Accounting; Christopher Gribbs,
Assoc. AIA, Managing Director, Convention; Maan
Hashem, PMP, CAE, Managing Director, Software &
Products Services; Jessyca Henderson, AIA, Managing
Director, Policy & Community Relations; Suzanna
Wight Kelley, AIA, LEED AP BD+C, Managing Director,
Organizational Strategy & Alliances; Molly Lindblom,
Managing Director, Contract Documents Operations;
Kyle McAdams, AIA, Managing Director, Marketing
& Business Development; Philip ONeal, Managing
Director, Information Technology; Jerey Raymond,
Managing Director, Web/Governance & Partnerships;
Cedric Rush, Managing Director, Member Resources;
Phil Simon, Managing Director, Communications
and Publishing; Carolyn Snowbarger, Managing
Director, Professional Development & Resources;
Terri Stewart, CAE, Managing Director, Practice &
Knowledge Resources.
PRESIDENT,
MARKET INTELLIGENCE/
E-MEDIA
Andrew Reid
PRESIDENT, EXHIBITIONS
Rick McConnell
VICE PRESIDENT, CIRCULATION
AND DATABASE DEVELOPMENT
Nick Cavnar
VICE PRESIDENT, PRODUCTION
Nick Elsener
VICE PRESIDENT, MARKETING
Sheila Harris
VICE PRESIDENT OF NETWORK
ACCOUNTS
Jennifer Pearce
GENERAL MANAGER, ONLINE
Kim Heneghan
CHIEF DESIGNER
Thomas C. Scala
SENIOR DIRECTOR,
HUMAN RESOURCES
Curtis Hine
DIRECTOR OF EVENT MARKETING
Mike Bendickson
DIRECTOR, INSIDE SALES
Janet Allen
DIRECTOR OF PRODUCTION AND
PRODUCTION TECHNOLOGIES
Cathy Underwood
PREPRESS MANAGER
Fred Weisskopf
PREPRESS COORDINATOR
Betty Kerwin
HANLEY WOOD BUSINESS MEDIA
CHIEF FINANCIAL OFFICER
Matthew Flynn
SENIOR VICE PRESIDENT,
CORPORATE SALES
Paul Tourbaf
VICE PRESIDENT,
CORPORATE DEVELOPMENT &
BUSINESS MANAGEMENT
Joe Carroll
VICE PRESIDENT, FINANCE
Shawn Edwards
VICE PRESIDENT, FINANCIAL
PLANNING & ANALYSIS
Ron Kraft
VICE PRESIDENT,
GENERAL COUNSEL
Mike Bender
HANLEY WOOD
CHIEF EXECUTIVE OFFICER
Frank Anton
Performance and Weather Resistance at 8,000 feet
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LETTERS
LESS IS MORE?, November 2011
Thanks to you and writers Brad Grimes and Vernon
Mays for the 2011 Solar Decathlon coverage. As the
estimators and jurists for the aordability competition,
as well as practicing architects and designers, we think
that veriable-cost and energy-use data are the tools to
open home buyers minds to sustainable architecture.
Thanks to Richard King and the DOE for their foresight
and commitment, and to getting the message out that
sustainability is good for the environment and our
bottom line. Matt Hansen, Assoc. AIA; Ric Licata, FAIA,
Reno, Nev.
Thank you for putting us on the cover. We wanted to
inspire the American people to think that solar living
is possible today. With a grand opening for early 2012,
the team is excited to have a deserving family in the
INhome in West Lafayette soon. Sarah E. Miller, INhome
Purdue Solar Decathlon Team, West Lafayette, Ind.
DISSECTING DIAGRID, October 2011
Note that the rst of the contemporary generation of
diagrid high-rise structures was the IBM Building in
Pittsburgh (now the United Steelworkers Building)
[below]. It opened in 1963 and was designed by architects
Nathaniel Buster Curtis Jr. and Arthur Davis of Curtis
& Davis in New Orleans and structural engineer John
Skilling of Worthington Skilling Helle & Jackson in
Seattle (now Magnusson Klemencic Associates and
Leslie E. Robertson Associates). Not only was this the
rst major diagrid building, it was the rst to use three
dierent grades of structural steel in the exterior to
allow seamless integration of the architecture and
structure. The red-painted steel members were the
rst to be 100,000-psi in a major building. This was
also the rst exterior tube building with 100 percent
of the wind forces resisted by the diagrid. It represented
a breakthrough on many fronts. Jon D. Magnusson,
Hon. AIA, Seattle
ARCHITECTURE TO THE RESCUE, September 2011
I was disappointed to see that LEPOWRSPR didnt mention
the AIA for Haiti eorts in the disaster-assistance
issue. The eort was spearheaded by Stacy Bourne, AIA,
Florida/Caribbean regional director under the aegis of
George Miller, 2010 AIA president. Many AIA members
are still involved. It produced two face-to-face meetings
with Haitian architects in Puerto Rico and New Orleans,
speaking engagements at the 2010 NOMA Convention,
and an exhibition at the 2010 AIA Convention. The
AIAs own publication shouldnt turn its back on its
own eort. Benjamin Vargas, FAIA, Puerto Rico, Cuba
Below are comments from our website:
SINGAPORES URA: TOO MUCH PLANNING?, from our
Beyond Buildings blog by Aaron Betsky
Dec. 6, 20111:54 a.m.
Looming like a sinister presence, absurd in scale,
the Marina Bay Sands development cuts the city o
completely from the sea, and hence from its history.
Now the former waterfront is a tra c-dominated hell.
Dec. 6, 20112:55 a.m.
Singapore isnt the only place where large-scale planning
has taken place. Give Marina Bay time to take on its
identity. I doubt anyone really fancies urban messiness.
Dec. 16, 20119:00 a.m
As a Singaporean architect (who trained in the States),
I think you hit the point spot on. The citys natural,
ground-up, urban fabric has been systematically
removed and not replaced. P
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Circle no. 173 or http://architect.hotims.com
The face of h ope.
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Aubrey Altmann
Aubrey Altmann is the senior art director for LEPOWREW. Her career with Hanley Wood precedes the publication: Altmann
joined the company as a graphic designer eight years ago, rising to the title of senior designer while working on other
publications. From the May 2007 issue forward, she has worked to realize the graphic character of LEPOWREW, establishing it
as a leading brand in the eld. In the magazines ve-year publication history, Altmanns leadership has earned the magazine
numerous awards for excellence in design, including accolades from the American Society of Magazine Editors, the Society
of Publication Designers, the Trade Association Business Publications International, and the American Society of Business
Publication Editors, among others. She is also the senior art director for Architectural Lighting and Eco-Structure.
Originally from Cleveland, Altmann graduated from Virginia Polytechnic Institute and State University with a degree in
industrial design. Prior to joining Hanley Wood, she worked as a designer for Black & Decker. An unapologetic Justin Bieber
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Contributors
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NATIONAL BUILDING MUSEUM
See the capital city that could have been.
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through May 28, 2012
WASHINGTON
Original photo by Scott D. Spagnoli Proposal for the Lincoln Memorial by John Russell Pope, 1912. National Archives and Records Administration, Washington, DC
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The worlds leading trade fair
for Architecture and Technology
Top themes:
Digitalisation of light and buildings.
Buildings as power stations.
Circle no. 559 or http://architect.hotims.com
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EDITED BY KRISTON CAPPS
NEWSWIRE
Top Stories For these stories and more, see architectmagazine.com.
THE NEW YORK TIMES
Presidents announce energy initiative
President Barack Obama was joined by former
President Bill Clinton to announce $4 billion
in publicprivate commitments for building
renovations targeting energy e ciency.
PORTLAND TRIBUNE
Portland Building added to National Register
The 1982 building by Michael Graves &
Associates, acknowledged as a pioneering
Postmodernist structure, was added to the
National Register of Historic Places in November.
SAN FRANCISCO CHRONICLE
Snhetta expansion clips Botta staircase
The biggest change to the Mario Bottadesigned
SFMOMA building in Snhettas recently
released expansion design plans is the removal
of the museums three-story granite staircase.
AIA Names New
President, Awards
Interior Design
Billings Index
L R OD OE DRLIOT has
announced two of its biggest awards of
the year. Steven Holl, FAIA, was honored as
the 68th recipient of the AIAs Gold Medal,
which recognizes an architect whose body
of work has had an enduring inuence on
architectural theory and practice. The 2012
AIA Architecture Firm Award was awarded
to VJAA, the Minneapolis-based practice led
by principals Vincent James, FAIA, Jennifer
Yoos, AIA, and Nathan Knutson, AIA. And
this month, JeXery Potter, FAIA, succeeded
Clark D. Manus, FAIA, as the AIAs president.
Founded in 1995, VJAA has won
praise for its innovative designs, such
as the integration of structure and
skin at the University of Cincinnatis
Clifton Arc Gatehouse. Its pioneering
use of energy modeling and sustainable
design garnered the practice AIA/COTE
Top Ten Green Projects awards in 2008
and 2009. Recent projects include the
Central Campus Master Plan for Tulane
University in New Orleans and the
Charles Hostler Student Center at the
American University of Beirut.
AIA 2012 Gold Medal winner Holl
founded Steven Holl Architects, a design
rm of 40 employees with oY ces in
New York and Beijing, in 1976. In
Helsinki, the rms Kiasma Museum of
Contemporary Art, with its swooping
curves that mimic the surrounding
landscape, plays on chiasma, described
by The New York Times as the crossing
point of optic nerves. His recent projects
include Beijings Linked Hybrid, a ring
of mixed-use towers connected by a
20th-oor skywalk, and Shenzens Vanke
Center, a horizontal skyscraper.
JeXery Potter, FAIA, was inaugurated as
the 88th president of the AIA on Dec. 9 at
the Library of Congress. The vice president
of Dallas-based Potter Architecture,
Landscape Architecture, Planning, he has
been an AIA leader since 1998. (See page 54
for Potters rst Perspective column as AIA
president.) MLJ OHP
The American Society of Interior Designers Interior Design Billings
& Inquiries Index witnessed a third quarter in which tight credit
and weak consumer condence hampered business conditions for
the interior design industry.
The ASID Interior Design Billings Index fell to its lowest point
in July, recovering slightly in subsequent months. The Billings
Index was 45.1 in July and increased to 48.6 in August before
declining again to 48.2 in September, never rising into positive
territory (50.0 or more).
The Inquiries Index, on the other hand, performed slightly
better, rising from 45.8 in July to a positive score of 55.1 in August.
Interior designers in the Northeast and West outperformed
their counterparts in the Midwest and South, where Regional
Indexes showed declines. With indexes of 54 and 53, respectively,
the Northeasts and Wests outlook was positive, despite the overall
national downturn in the third quarter.
The Commercial Sector Index Means continued to show decline
in the third quarter. And the Institutional Sector Index Means
constituting interior design services for government, education,
and healthcare organizationsalso fell in the third quarter.
At 50, the Residential Sector Index Means was positive,
following single-family and multifamily housing increases in
Septembera month that also saw increased billings for all
rm sizes except those with between two and nine employees.
FWRTPOB IMT
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Payroll
*Based on the Hoovers Report as of October 13, 2011.
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Get a 30-day FREE trial of Intuit Online Payroll at payroll.com
Start running payroll Start running payroll
Finish running payroll Finish running payroll
Circle no. 554 or http://architect.hotims.com
rzozaAt azszavz cuAtamAN szN szaNANxz, during testimony to Congress earlier in the year, said, Its normal for
housing and construction to be an important part of the recovery. In that case, were in for a long economic winter.
Between December 2007 and February 2010, the economy shed some 2 million construction jobs22 percent
of total jobs lost, according to a report by the Motley Fool. Another 1.6 million jobs followed as a knock-on eMect of
curtailed spending by those workers who had lost their jobs. That adds up to 40 percent of all jobs lost.
The last year has not shown appreciable improvement for construction, according to a new report released by the
Associated General Contractors of America. Between October 2010 and October 2011, the majority of U.S. metro areas
either lost jobs or reported no new jobs in construction.
A stalled Congress that has yet to pass new infrastructure legislation is partially to blame: A failure to move
federal bills on transit, highways, and water has led to slower infrastructure planning at the state and local levels.
Some metro areas will end 2011 in the black. Those that added jobs include Houston; Columbus, Ohio; and
BuMaloNiagara Falls, N.Y. The worst-hit metro areas were hit hard: Wilmington, N.C., for example, saw a 21 percent
decline in construction employment. Even when the national appetite for construction returns, it may take time
before orders can be lled, given the sheer number of jobs that have disappeared. K
sourcr. =ssoci=tro crnrr=i
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LARGEST PERCENTAGE
OF JOBS LOST, IN
LOGAN, UTAH
sourcr. =ssoci=tro crnrr=i
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sourcr. =ssoci=tro crnrr=i
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LARGEST NUMBER
OF JOBS GAINED, IN
HOUSTON
LARGEST PERCENTAGE
OF JOBS GAINED, IN
LAKE COUNTY, ILL.
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sourcr. =ssoci=tro crnrr=i
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LARGEST NUMBER OF JOBS
LOST, IN ATLANTA
5,100
28
24
7,700
TOTAL METRO AREAS
MEASURED BETWEEN
OCT. 2010 AND OCT. 2011
70
65
60
55
50
45
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35
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53.9
52.6
65.0
Inquiries
Billings
BILLINGS AND INQUIRIES INDEXES
sourcr . =i=
NOVEMBER 2011
ARCHITECTURE
BILLINGS INDEX
52.0
53.9 commercial
48.9 institutional
41.6 mixed practice
55.8 multifamily residential
AREAS THAT LOST
CONSTRUCTION JOBS
AREAS WHERE CONSTRUCTION
EMPLOYMENT INCREASED
337
AREAS WHERE CONSTRUCTION
EMPLOYMENT DID NOT CHANGE
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NUMBERS
Construction
Dysfunction
IF THERE CANT BE A RECOVERY WITHOUT NEW CONSTRUCTION,
THEN THE LAST YEAR SHOWS THAT RECOVERY IS STILL A WAYS OFF.
2012 Simpson Strong-Tie Company Inc. 2SF11
Here's to the new two-story Strong Frame
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Ohio State University East
Regional Chiller Plant
LLLs vLNzrrLL ssocfLs cufLcfs
The 23,163-square-foot East Regional
Chiller Plant at the Ohio State University
in Columbus, Ohiodesigned by Boston-
based Leers Weinzapfel Associates
Architectswill provide cool water to
surrounding university buildings. The
structure comprises two slipped volumes:
a glass-encased rectangle at the ground
plane that houses six chillers and a
perforated metal screen that extends
up from the mezzanine level to serve as
a cooling-tower enclosure. We worked
very hard to keep this building smallin
footprint and in overall impact, says
principal Jane Weinzapfel, FAIA. The
glazing incorporates a translucent frit,
and, at night, the interior is lit to give a
diuse glow through the glass and slits
in the metal screen. The purpose is to
enhance the pedestrian experience and
be able to see something lively both day
and evening, Weinzapfel says. Several
materials are currently undergoing
testing for the screen, including copper
and coated- or anodized-aluminum.
Cincinnati-based GBBN Architects is
serving as executive architect on the
project, and the team is targeting a
completion date in 2014.
North Bethesda Market II
sfuoos cufLcfuL
Located on Rockville Pike, just outside of Washington, D.C.,
North Bethesda Market II (NOBE II) is a 970,000-square-
foot mixed-use development with retail, o ce, and nearly
350 residential units. Designed by Studios Architecture
for developer the JBG Cos., NOBE II is anchored at the
northwest corner by a residential tower; the southern and
eastern edges of the site are lined by lower retail and o ce
volumes. A central plaza can play host to farmers markets,
musical performances, and other entertainment. I think
theres the desire to really engage in more than just a
retail experience, says David Burns, a principal in Studios
New York o ce, and instead be a real center to the
community. The stepped southern face of the residential
tower takes the building and tips it back, so that from the
plaza, the sky really opens up, Burns says. The curtainwall,
which is composed of several modules of varying depths,
allows for deep balconies and exposure to natural light for
each unit. The complex should open in 2014.
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800-4WENGER ( 493-6437) www. wengercorp. com/ soundl ok
Wenger SoundLok
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Tracking rm nances can be a full
time job, but it doesnt have to be .
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Being involved in these committees and the AIA has given me
some discipline, and [has] given me some structure, Fichtel says.
In other words, Ive been more mindful of what Ive been doing with
my business, and what some of the issues are that I need to continue
to pay attention to. By Jennifer Pullinger
n To learn more, visit aia.org/practicing/business .
Keeping tabs on your resources
Small Business Software:
QuickBooks (quickbooks.intuit.com)
BillQuick (bqe.com)
Quicken (quicken.intuit.com)
ArchiO ce (bqe.com/default_ao.asp)
Mobile Apps:
Expensify (expensify.com): Keep track of receipts, spending, hours, and
mileage, and create expense reports.
InDinero (indinero.com): Get a snapshot of the nancial health of your
rm from the palm of your hand with this small-business accounting app.
2Do (2doapp.com): Create to-do lists, set priorities, get reminders,
organize calendars, and more.
Drawvis (dotsystems.pl/products/drawvis): View technical drawings in
AutoCAD DXF textual format and add sticky, voice, and image notes.
Quicko ce (quicko ce.com): Create, edit, and share Word documents,
Excel spreadsheets, and PowerPoint presentations on the go.
Books:
e Architects Guide to Small Firm Management by Rena Klein
(John Wiley & Sons, 2010)
Time Management for Architects and Designers by orbjoern Mann
(W.W. Norton, 2004)
Architects Essentials of Starting, Assessing and Transitioning a Design
Firm by Peter Piven and Bradford Perkins (Wiley & Sons, 2008)
Talent Is Not Enough: Business Secrets For Designers by Shel Perkins
(New Riders, 2010)
Websites:
U.S. Small Business Administration (sba.gov)
aecKnowledge (aecknowledge.com)
Score (score.org)
Without the help of a full-time accountant,
director of nance, or business manager on staff,
principals such as Lenchek and Freeman have
instead created processes that allow them to
continually examine, on a regular basis, nancial-
performance measures including payroll, gross
billings per month, gross income, and net income.
I track a few key indicators that give me an
indication of where were heading, how we did last
month, where we are probably headed next month, and
I just track those every month, Lenchek says. Over a
number of years, I can get a feel for where things are at.
Another resource that Freeman turns to for help is an
outside business-management consultant, who comes in once
a month to review how the rm is doing. Like Lenchek, he has
learned how important it is to monitor closely the nancial health
of different projects and the history of the rm overall. I was taught
very early on by this consultant that the numbers you dont quantify
and look at regularly are never going to
improve, Freeman says.
Leaders of small rms should also take
advantage of the everyday resources available
to them, the way that Steven Fichtel , AIA, a
sole practitioner in Minneapolis, does. I try
to look at business publicationsmagazines
and newspaper articles that have to do with
business in generaland always think about
how this applies to my small architectural
practice, he says.
Fichtel is also active in his state AIAs Small
Firms Practice Committee , which he looks to as
a source of support and face-to-face exchanges. e national AIA has a
similarly organized Small Firm Round Table, and there are comparable
groups at AIA chapters nationwide. Fichtel, who serves as committee
co-chair, says that his group meets once a month to discuss a range of
design and business topics unique to small architecture rms.
AIAPRACTICE
e big challenge is to get all that stuff
done, but then also still have some time
to do at least some architecture, so I just
dont end up being a manager.
alan di lani has taen er li hts thi s ear.
As director general of the International Academy for Design and
Health (IADH), hes a globetrotter, a lecturer, and a consultant
in constant demand from Cape Town, South Africa, to Brisbane,
Australia, to Trondheim, Norway. Considering the airborne pathogens,
circadian-rhythm derangements, and relentless hassles of frequent
ying, he by all rights ought to be chronically exhausted or worse. Yet
he never takes medications. He sees physicians, but not as a patient.
And, according to him, he never gets sick.
His secret is salutogenesis , which is to say a belief that, in order to
be healthy, you have to address the root of unhealthiness rather than
merely treat the illness.
Dilani is among the global leaders in the movement to incorporate
salutogenic strategies into design on multiple levels. Single buildings
can accomplish this with natural light, viewsheds, ventilation,
nontoxic materials, prominent and welcoming staircases rather than
elevators, serene colors, and clear waynding signals. Neighborhoods
can relieve food deserts, include safe and well-lit sidewalks, and
accommodate bicycle paths to make physical activity an easy choice,
rather than an out-of-the-way recreational option. Cities can make
room for town plazas, unfold according to a simple street grid, and
replace congested arterial roadways.
Architects, planners, and public health o cials have known
about these strategies for a while. But what makes an idea such as
salutogenesis useful is that it unies the elements of smart cities,
green communities, and eco-districts. Salutogenesis renes the
principles of Smart Growth and New Urbanism; it also contributes
to other initiatives, such as the Active Design Guidelines (ADG)
developed by ve municipal agenciesthe New York City
departments of Design and Construction, Health and Mental Hygiene,
Transportation, City Planning, and the O ce of Management and
Budgetand AIA New York. For Dilani, salutogenic strategies go
beyond hospital healing spaces or community tness programs to nd
the foundations of somatic health and disease. And if hes right, these
strategies will revolutionize how architects practice.
Salutogenic design, grounded in
biomedicine and psychology, may
be the key to turning sustainability
into more than a buzzword.
Accentuate the Positive
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could be, the architects who arent doing it wont stay around,
he says.
Biology, behavior, and built spaces
e underlying biology of stress and relaxation is well understood,
says Dr. Esther Sternberg , a medical researcher and author of Healing
Spaces: e Science of Place and Well-being (Belknap, 2009). Any kind of
stress triggers the hypothalamus (the brains stress center), pituitary
gland, and adrenal glands to produce a cascade of hormones that aid
in short-term ght-or-ight survival reactions. ose hormones also
dampen inammatory immune mechanisms. Stress responses dont
directly make us sick, she reports, but they can weaken our resistance
to ever-present pathogens, particularly if they recur enough to
become a chronic state.
Relaxation, conversely, triggers the brains reward and anti-
pain pathways by releasing endorphins and dopamine. Since these
responses developed over our long evolutionary history, during most
of which our ancestors spent immersed in nature, its no accident
that most of us nd natural environments and biomimetic patterns
(such as those found in fractal geometry) regenerative. e brains
functional centers even include what Sternberg calls a beautiful-
view spot, which University of Southern California neuroscientist
Irving Biederman has discovered is rich in endorphin receptors.
at looking at certain spaces and forms might be giving yourself
a shot of endorphins remains just a hypothesis, Sternberg says, but
it is congruent with popular aesthetic experience. e brain also has
a site for recognizing buildings, she says, which some evolutionary
biologists believe involves our response to mountains and other large
navigational cues. And as for the question: Why did such brain areas
evolve? I suppose God is an architect, she speculates.
Dilani and Pentecost hold that salutogenic design connects these
areas of physiological knowledge with the insights of American-
Israeli sociologist Aaron Antonovsky, who originally coined the
terman awkward hybrid of Greek and Latin. In his research,
Antonovsky identied certain generalized resistance resources that
foster physical vigor and mental composure by studying the human
response to extraordinarily bad conditions, such as concentration
camps. People who nd their environments manageable, even if those
settings are rife with stressors, develop a personal sense of coherence
and are better able to sustain health as the World Health Organization
denes it: a state of optimal physical, mental, and social well-being;
not only the absence of disease and disability.
Antonovsky surmises that because everyone is surrounded by
opportunities to be sick, stress is what determines why some people
get sick and others never do. Health is a process, Dilani says,
composed of psychosocial factors, lifestyle, and experience.
The rediscovery of agency
For all of biomedical sciences impressive achievements in treating
illness, it has not been as successful in promoting wellness. Industrial
societies have built some of the most toxic and disturbing environments
in human history. And though the United States outspends all other na-
tions on medical care, its obesity, infant mortality, and life-expectancy
rates are not excellent. Traditional public-health doctrine views disease
as a triangle represented by an agent, a host, and an environment. If
you block any point in the triangle (for instance, keeping people away
from infectious organisms or out of toxic environments), you can
In some respects, salutogenesis applies simple common sense to
the relationship of environments, bodies, and minds. What makes
it a coherent school of thought is its reliance on interdisciplinary
research, connecting biomedical knowledge with an explicit mission
to place human well-beingnot financial imperativesat the center
of creative strategies. But its a far cry from feel-good crunchiness
or hair-shirt asceticism. Since the benets it generates include
measurable gains in productivity and reductions in expenditures, it
also offers clients a persuasive business case. Its now embedded in
national AIA policy through the new Americas Design and Health
Initiative, currently producing a body of evidence, a research
agenda, and recommendations for architects and o cials that are
promoted via articles, podcasts, and a recent workshop.
Ray Pentecost , FAIA, president of IADH and vice president
and director of healthcare architecture at Clark Nexsen, draws
parallels between high-performance, energy-conserving design
and design for health. Now that sustainability has expanded from
a small subspecialty to what is essentially a professionwide norm,
he believes that its time for salutogenic design to become the next
great wave of theory and practice. e projects that dont have it
[salutogenic strategies] are going to fall out of favor in the same
way that construction for re safety became more than an option,
he says. When clients understand how much healthier their world
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prevent disease from spreading. Dr. Lester Breslow, dean emeritus of
the UCLA School of Public Health, has identied three eras in world
public-health history: rst, from ancient times to the early 20th cen-
tury, emphasizing communicable diseases such as small pox or malaria;
second, the beginning of the 20th century, emphasizing chronic or
non-communicable diseases such as obesity or Type II diabetes; and
third, more recently, accepting personal responsibility for health.
A pathogen-control approach succeeded spectacularly in the rst
of Breslows phases of public health, when acute infectious conditions
were the chief concerns. But the subsequent focus on the pathogenesis
of chronic disease has perpetuated the mind-set that we often get
sick because an agent gets to us or something happens to us; that its
somehow not our fault, says the IADHs Pentecost. is masks the
central role that each of us plays in our own health, and that design
can play. Public health should enable us to do what it is that we want
to do. at means taking personal responsibility, and thats where
salutogenesis can have a great impact. Its where we say were no
longer going to settle for design that is simply protable, or e cient,
or sustainable, or programmatically compliant, or any of a dozen other
measures of design success; we are going to look for design standards
that address and respect public health.
In 1984, while teaching at Texas A&M University, the evidence-
based design expert Roger Ulrich observed that good design could
have a quantiable impact on wellness. Faster post-surgical recovery
rates, lower pain-medication requirements, and even better staff
inter actions with patients could be tied directly to building and inte-
rior design decisions. Since then, just as evidence-based medicine has
revised traditional practices in healthcare, evidence-based design in
medical facilities has led to improvements in patient outcomes, lower
rates of iatrogenic injury (or medical error), higher rates of staff satis-
faction, and other measures of how environments support healing.
Although some improvements derived from evidence-based design
map onto familiar green-design strategies, Pentecost cautions against
a general presumption that the validity of these ideas translates auto-
matically across domains. Evidence-based design is a young eld with
a developing research base, initially derived
largely from the hospital sector; its advo-
cates recognize the risk of overpromising,
and it has its skeptics. Dilani, for one, views
it guardedly, noting that evidence-based
design is often used merely for marketing,
especially in the U.S. Design is not sci-
ence; design is creativity, he comments,
noting that the diversity of design solutions
in different cultures contrasts with the clear
conclusions and implications of evidence-
based medicine.
At its most useful, though, the ground-
ing of design in quantiable results can
guide cost-effective architectural and op-
erational decisions. It can also help take the
passivity out of the patient role, fostering
conditions where patients healing capa-
bilities have a better chance to operate.
The human factor and the business case
In his forthcoming book, Sprawling
Cities and Our Endangered Public Health
(Routledge, 2012), Clemson University architecture professor Stephen
F. Verderber , Assoc. AIA, identies an economic and political sprawl
machine that has replaced natural ecologies. He argues that it has
also replaced vernacular building traditions with cookie-cutter
typologies. Architects have aided and abetted this horizontal growth
pattern for 50 years without really thinking very carefully about the
health consequences of what theyre doing from a community-health
standpoint, Verderber says. Architects were developing new building
types for suburbia and designing buildings on individual sites without
thinking of the systemic implications of what they were doing.
Verderbers book offers design guidelines, which he describes as
a synthesis of landscape urbanism and the best principles of New
Urbanism [in] a both/and proposition to marshal those contending
philosophies in the interests of promoting health and reviving
traditional communities.
Clemsons Architecture and Health concentration has made it a
leader in healthcare facility design, but its students also look more
broadly at public health concerns. In the evolution of healthcare
architecture in the U.S. in mid 20th century, says program director
David Allison, FAIA, we migrated towards a line of thinking of an
absolute belief in technology. Hospitals became driven by functional
e ciency, he says. We made very e cient technological factories
for delivering healthcare, but up until the last decade or two we left
out the human aspect. Allison often looks to European and Japanese
facilities for better examples of investment in designs that bring long-
range benets for an up-front premium. Part of the problem we have
in the U.S. is a separation from understanding the value of capital
investment versus long-term operating costs.
Since the average tenure of upper-level healthcare executives is
often shorter than the time it takes to realize many healthcare facility
projects, Allison says, their interest in saving money during their
tenure trumps an interest in the long-term investment in a 50-year
building. Its a false economy, he explains, because capital expenses
account for a relatively small proportion of overall life-cycle human
functional costs in buildings that operate on a 24-hour, 365-day
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prescriptivism a risky proposition. e moment that architecture
is considered a cure, she says, we might discover there is another
kind of health urgency that becomes more important, and buildings
will start to become obsolete. Borasi, an architect, acknowledges that
design can counteract problems such as obesity. But design is a tool
that can be wielded in several waysnot all of them benecial. One of
the things that contributed to midcentury sprawl, for instance, was a
public desire to move away from urban congestion, communicable-
disease hazards, and poor air quality.
Socially purposeful modern architecture and planning addressed
some pressing public issues, but the critical backlash against it in
the 1970s and 1980s halted a lot of progressive thinking. Architects
just withdrew, except for the energy-crisis questions, says Kate
Schwennsen , FAIA, chair of Clemsons School of Architecture. ere
were some who just thought, We dont know how to do this, so were
just going to give up. Schwennsen supports the development of
salutogenic knowledge and practice, but she cautions against making
the same mistakes twice.
Salutogenic-design advocates argue that quantiable data and
research can be corrective mechanisms to avoid past mistakes or
structures that might become prematurely obsolete. An emphasis
on promoting health (rather than merely treating disease), mitigates
social segregation, quarantine, and paranoia that recur throughout
the CCA exhibitions darkly fascinating case studies. ink about how
many lms have appeared in the last 10 years dealing with some kind
of outbreak or medical mass-hysteria.
But evidence-based design does not have to be overly prescriptive
or hamper an architects creative freedom. I dont believe evidence-
based design means you have to design unimaginative boxes with
uninteresting spaces, Pentecost says. Early skeptics claimed, is
is going to kill creative design. Nothing could be further from the
truth. Pentecost adds, Salutogenic strategies can make a complex
design more clear, more useful, more workable, and healthier. ey
are freeing to the designer in many ways.
n To learn more visit network.aia.org/centerforvalueofdesign.
basis and inherently place their staff, patients, and families in high-
stress circumstances. A so-called salutogenic premium, akin to
familiar green premiums, is hard to estimate until more cases come
to attention, Verderber says.
Allison calls attention to the detailed costbenet calculations
for a hypothetical Fable Hospital published by an all-star group
of architects and analysts led by Blair L. Sadler of the Institute for
Healthcare Improvement and University of California at San Diego.
Salutogenic additions to Fable Hospitals design, which represent
$29 million of an overall construction cost of $350 million (roughly
an 8 percent premium), bring $10 million in annual savings through
lower mortality rates, injury reductions, and shorter lengths of stay.
With pay-for-performance Medicare reforms ending reimbursement
for care delivered after avoidable adverse events, Allison adds,
incentives for improving safety become even higher.
Markku Allison, AIA, (no relation), a resource architect at the
AIA Center for the Value of Design and staff lead for Americas Design
and Health Initiative, adds that intangibles such as natural light in
workplaces yield tangible benets when their effect on productivity
is assessed indirectly through absenteeism rates or test scores.
Dj vu?
For some architects, modeling a broad architectural philosophy on
public health may ring certain historical bells; for others, it may raise
alarms. Imperfect Health: e Medicalization of Architecture, an
exhibition currently on view at the Canadian Centre for Architecture
(CCA) in Montreal, suggests that attempts to solve social and
health problems through design have often brought unforeseen
consequences. In many cases, tightly sealed windows in 1970s
commercial towers conserved energy but contributed to sick
building syndrome. In other cases, planting trees to give industrial
cities Olmsted-style lungs also lled the air with allergy-inducing
pollen. In the most well-known instance, asbestos was regarded by
builders as a exible, strong, and reproof magic mineral until its
association with mesothelioma became apparent in the 1960s.
e shows curator, Giovanna Borasi, nds architectural
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this issue of the magazine lifts a curtain on whats in store
for the profession in the years ahead. Based on what Ive heard from
you and seen in my own practice, this much is clear: Dont expect
a return to the heady days of boom times past. Im not saying that
irrational exuberance is dead, but I believe that our economy, and the
public behavior that generally follows, will assume a more tempered
character. What were experiencing is not a momentary blip; its the
new normal.
Firms that embrace this evolution have changed their business
plans. What follows are a few common themes:
Global practice. As the novelty is starting to wear off, more and
more rms have some connection to practice beyond our borders.
eres work in China, India, and other emerging economiesthe
outcome of the pent-up demand of billions of people who have been
underserved by 20th-century development. From my engagement
with architects at the UIA Congress in Tokyo this past September,
I know that our model of practice and abilities are highly admired
around the world. What is of concern is our sensitivity to regional
cultures while sharing best practices. If you think your practice is too
small to be part of a global profession, talk to some of the architects
waiting in airport lounges for international ights.
Respecting our practice. roughout 2012, Ill be working to speak
for practice in AIA communications to various publics that admire us
but dont quite know what we do. We all seek a business environment
where our process-inspired service trumps any perception of com-
modity, and our investment in lifelong learning gives us an advantage
in contract negotiations.
Institutional work. Colleges and health facilities are growing.
Firms engaged in master planning, designing new buildings, and
retrots will continue to have access to some of the few bright
areas in this economy. ese will stay bright as demands for an
educated workforce increase and we grapple with the needs of
aging baby boomers.
Engagement in the community. Increasingly, public service will
not be something architects squeeze in during off hours; it will be
an integral part of what we do. We have
much to give, whether its on the school
board or helping neighbors clean up a
nearby park or stream. A slow economy
is the right time to be out and about.
When a project does come along, people
will know you by your rst name; more
importantly, theyll know you care about
the community. Once your o ce is busy,
dont slack off on your commitment.
After all, you and your neighbors have
a shared goal in shaping a more livable,
healthy, and sustainable community.
Quantiable data. Firms able to
demonstrate to their clients that the
impact of what they design can be
objectively measured will have a leg up
on the competition. e prospect of the
adoption this year of the International
Green Construction Code (IGCC) will
drive this outcome. No architect wants
another codebook on the shelf. But
establishing measurable standards for
performance that are coincident with
construction permitting reinforces architects as master collaborators
in sustainable communities. Not to mention the rmer footing we will
enjoy in advocating for practice in state and federal settings.
Disaster mitigation. As we grow to understand the ripple effects of
catastrophic natural disasters, in terms of economic, social, and envi-
ronmental impacts, we learn that there are more of us in harms way.
Be it putting back together a community or preventing harm by de-
signing resiliency into the built environment, this is a task for which
our profession must take a leadership role. While in Tokyo, I had the
privilege of seeing rsthand the work of teams of architects and stu-
dents leading the efforts to heal the northeast coast of Japan that was
devastated by last years earthquake and tsunami. We may not be rst
responders, but o cials in countries both developed and undeveloped
are realizing that the planning process must begin right away.
Architecture and health. In discussions with the public, decision
makers, and, unfortunately, the medical profession, the role of
architects and architecture seldom comes upunless the talk is
about hospitals and health facilities. In future conversations about
the nations health, I predict that the role played by the built environ-
ment will increasingly be raised. Now, as never before, we have such
an opportunity to make the case that health is a design issue.
Health, disaster mitigation, sustainability, community service
these are some of the most obvious ways in which architects and
architecture can change lives. Yet theres no broad public under-
standing of the power inherent in architecture. Weve got to change
that, and Ill be writing about these and other issues in the months
ahead. When I ran for AIA President, my proposition was to tell
your stories and to speak for practice. I plan on lifting the bar to a
new normal in the way that the public and our clients appreciate
architecture and architects. In the months ahead, I will advocate for
nothing moreand be satised with nothing less.
Jeff Potter, FAIA, 2012 President
n To join the conversation, visit aia.org
ling ahead t the ne nral
AIAPERSPECTIVE
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BEST PRACTICES
INTERVIEW BY ERNEST BECK
PHOTO BY ALEX FRADKIN
TYPOLOGY 60 ENTREPRENEUR 70 LOCAL MARKET 74
Always Be
Upgrading
BUSINESS
STAYING COMPETITIVE MEANS
PURSUING THE TECH FRONTIER, SAYS
CONSULTANT MARTY DOSCHER, WHO
SHARES HIS STRATEGIES FOR KEEPING
PACE WITH CONSTANT CHANGE.
57
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LELO R SL IC OLT that technology
has changed the way architects design buildings,
develop new business, and manage their rms. Yet
for a variety of reasonsranging from simple fear to
nancial concernsmany rms have not made the
leap to BIM and beyond. Dont be afraid, says Marty
Doscher, Assoc. AIA. He is the founder and director of
Synthesis Technology Integration, a Venice, Calif.based
consulting rm that helps design and construction
companies implement and integrate technology into all
areas of their business. A self-confessed geek, Doscher,
43, is also an architect and a former technology director
at the Los Angeles rm Morphosis Architects. He feels
equally at ease in hanging out with tech people as he
does with designers. Doscher spoke to HBNCSWBS about
the transition to high tech.
You snooze, you lose.
If you look at the big picture, its change or perish.
That might sound alarmist, but its true. The times are
diMerent and so is the context of how we work. To be
competitive, a rm must be up to speed with technology
and come to grips with what it means to use tech to
design projects. You have to say, I want to be more
competitive and provide better service and design
better buildings, Doscher says. The fact is, the market
demands that we change our ways.
Spend the money.
In general, new technology doesnt have to cost an
arm and a leg. Its best to always keep a budget for
technology. Regardless of the size of the rm, estimate
that 5 percent of annual fees will go to software and
hardware, Doscher suggests. To stay current, plan on
replacing or upgrading your hardware and software
every three to ve years (and dont even think about
pirating the software). Its important to always refresh
the technology. And remember to think big, especially
when it comes to processor speed and screen size. There
is a correlation between bigger screens and greater
productivity. Its all worth the investment, and with
depreciation, the upgrade will pay for itself over time,
he says.
Go virtual.
Make your rm a contemporary, global, and virtual
practice, Doscher says. That means that you should be
able to walk into your clients oK ce and bring your
oK ce with you on your laptop or tablet. Doscher says
that this is a habit of responsive designers: Speed
helps them meet the needs of clients who are not
always there. A rms work must be able to happen
everywhere, be it on a park bench or in a coMee shop.
You can meet your client over a screen, he says.
See the clouds.
To truly work everywhere, migrate to cloud computing.
This not only lets you take your oK ce with you, it lets
everyone you are doing business with have access to
your oK ce, Doscher says. Email is wonderful, but its
not real time. With cloud computing, you can have a
conversation with the structural engineer and the client
simultaneously, and everyone involved can comment on
and edit a document. These new tools allow for a more
collaborative and therefore richer experience.
BIM or bust.
Begin modeling in 3D. Manual isnt as reliable anymore.
Clients and non-architects have a hard time reading
drawings, Doscher says. They just dont get itso
you need 3D for better communication. Architects
who master 3D modeling shouldnt idle: They should
then take the next step to BIM. This software can
be expensive, and it might be diK cult to make the
transition, which is why many small rms dont use
it. Beyond learning how to use the technology, its
necessary to invest in the mind-set, he says.
You are not alone.
Tech can be scary, Doscher says. But not being aware
that a technology exists or how it works should not be
an impediment. You dont need to hire an entire tech
department to make sure things run smoothly. There
are a number of inexpensive remote services that
provide assistance and training with a phone call or a
click, and these are available to everybody. Technical
assistants can coach you through a problem remotely.
Youll waste a lot of time if you think you can solve
the problem by having the local high school kid come
around to help, Doscher says.
Practice makes perfect.
Designers who want to see the benets of technology
advances such as virtualization and BIMand want
happier clientsneed to put in the time with the new
technology through practice. We are always more
comfortable with the old ways of working, Doscher
reckons. Getting out of your skin can feel like putting
on a blindfold and running across the street, he says.
But it will pay oM in the end. Z
BEGIN MODELING IN 3D. MANUAL ISNT
AS RELIABLE ANYMORE. CLIENTS AND
NON-ARCHITECTS HAVE A HARD TIME
READING DRAWINGS, DOSCHER SAYS.
THEY JUST DONT GET ITSO YOU NEED
3D FOR BETTER COMMUNICATION.
ARCHITECTS WHO MASTER 3D MODELING
SHOULDNT IDLE: THEY SHOULD THEN
TAKE THE NEXT STEP TO BIM.
58
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Circle no. 431 or http://architect.hotims.com
LLEO RS IOCIOT of Union Wharf, a project
that broke ground in December in Baltimores historic
Fells Point waterfront community, its diH cult at rst to
decipher who the project serves. The mid-rise structure
could be a resort, with its innity pool and yoga studio
overlooking the citys harbor. It could be a boutique
hotel, with its modest but airy loftlike rooms capping
a podium of amenities, including a movie theater, bar,
lounge, and business center. In truth, Union Wharf is a
new multifamily housing project. Surprisingly, all these
amenities arent meant to attract homeowners. Theyre
to draw renters.
Toby Bozzuto, president of Bozzuto Development Co.
and developer of Union Wharf, says that rentals now rule
the multifamily typology. His company has more than
4,100 rental units in the works or under construction
throughout the Mid-Atlantic and Northeast. This mirrors
what market analysts such as Cushman & Wakeeld
are seeing in the broader multifamily market. Brian
Whitmer of Cushman & Wakeeld recently told The
New York Times that rentals could be on pace to revisit
prerecession conditions in the near term.
Bozzuto attributes the rise in high-end rentals to
the needs of Gen Y. Gen Y is the largest demographic
boom since the baby boomers, Bozzuto says. They are
coming into the market and, assuming they nd jobs,
they are looking for places to live. Eight years ago, they
might have tried to stretch and buy a house, but in this
new world, they are more inclined to rent. We have this
perfect captive audience looking for apartments.
The lifestyle of this audience is changing the oor
plan for multifamily. Gen Y spends the least amount of
Sierra Bonita Aordable
Housing Santa Monica, Calif.
Patrick Tighe Architecture
Developed for the City of
West Hollywood through the
nonprot West Hollywood
Community Housing Corp.,
the ve-story apartment
building features 42 one-
bedroom units organized
around a central courtyard.
DEVELOPERS ARE TARGETING RECESSION-MINDED RENTERS AS WELL
AS INNOVATIVE FUNDING SOURCES WITH MULTIFAMILY HOUSING
PROJECTS THAT EMPHASIZE AMENITIES AND COMMUNITY.
TEXT BY ELIZABETH EVITTS DICKINSON
TYPOLOGY
Family Sized
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their time in their unit, so were spending more money in enlarging the amenity areas,
says Sanford Steinberg, AIA, principal of Steinberg Design Collaborative and past chairman
of the AIAs National Residential Knowledge Community. Pools, courtyards, outdoor
replaces, bars and cafs, tness centers, and high-tech business centers are among the
many benets luring renters to sign leases.
Smaller unit sizes also mean cheaper rents for residents and more density for
developers. Unit sizes have shrunk from an average of 925 square feet to below 700
square feet, according to Bozzuto. A lot of my competition is trying to race to design the
best microunit, he says. People are trying to understand what you can do to make an
excellent small unit without sacricing anything.
Underused spaces, such as the dining room, were the rst to go. Most new apartments
emulate a loft with a small kitchen that opens to a living space. Bozzuto predicts that the
kitchen will be the next room to dramatically shrink as appliance manufacturers recognize
the market demand for space-saving items such as microfridges.
Outside the unit, however, things are only getting bigger. Chris Harvey, a principal and
director of design at Hord Coplan Macht (HCM), says that many of the rms multifamily
LaBrea Aordable Housing West Hollywood, Calif. Patrick Tighe Architecture The 32-unit LaBrea
apartment building (top), when it is completed this year, will feature an edible garden, inltration planters,
and other low-impact elements. The units at the Sierra Bonita apartments (bottom and previous page) have
access to a bamboo garden in the buildings central courtyard.
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BUILDING
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projects are seeing major retail on the rst oor, such as
grocery stores and coee shops, as well as resident amenities.
Take, for example, the pool at Union Wharf, a project designed
by HCM for Bozzuto Development Co. Set in a landscaped
courtyard, the 175-foot innity pool will include a wet deck
where guests may place deck chairs in the water. Nestled
amongst this vast outdoor space will be private areas for
tenants to have a quiet dinner with friends.
Bozzuto says that its this emphasis on design that helps
yield strong rental returns. I believe that architecture and
design make a massive impact as to whether someone will
rent in your project, he says.
What appeals to Gen Y also appeals to other markets,
according to both Harvey and Steinberg. The level of t
and nish is so high in many of these projects that there are
some empty nesters coming into these as well, Harvey says.
While the rental market may be blowing up, and with
it lines of credit for veteran developers to bring projects to
completion, budgets are still tight. The result: High-rises
are being replaced, in many cases, with more-aordable,
podium-based mid-rises to keep construction costs lean.
Were seeing a one-level podium of concrete and four or
ve levels of wood on top all over the Mid-Atlantic, Harvey
says. Its more aordable and you still get density.
The placement of these projects is another interesting
trend: many are located on urban browneld sites.
Developers are focused on transit-oriented development.
Any site that happens to be near a metro stop or a light-rail
or a train line is a very hot property, Harvey says. People
are looking for a place to live where they can wake up, go
downstairs and get a coee, work out, and then jump on the
metro and get to work. Then they can come home and go to
the grocery store in the base of the building.
Market-rate rental isnt the only project type seeking
transit-oriented browneld development packaged in smart
design. The West Hollywood Community Housing Corp.
(WHCHC), a California nonprot development company
focused on aordable housing, selected a busy urban site on
Santa Monica Boulevard for its Sierra Bonita project, which
opened in 2011. Composed of 42 one-bedroom units sized
at about 620 square feet each, the rentals are reserved for
people with disabilities and HIV.
Patrick Tighe, FAIA, of Patrick Tighe Architecture
designed the $14 million project to be a showcase building.
There is a lot of stigma associated with housing low-
income folks, so you have to say that youre going to
do a high-quality design when bringing a project to a
neighborhood, says Rose Olson, AIA, director of housing
and real estate development for WHCHC.
We didnt want the building to look like an aordable-
housing project, Tighe says. We wanted it to have
movement and light and strength.
He achieved this by designing the apartments around
a central courtyard supported by a steel-braced frame. He
used that steel frame as a design element, developing a
ve-story lattice structure in the courtyard and then taking
that motif to other parts of the building, such as a screening
business
Circle no. 165 or http://architect.hotims.com
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ENTREPRENEUR
HONEST BUILDINGS AIMS TO HARNESS THE POWER
OF SOCIAL MEDIA TO SPEED INNOVATION AND
FOSTER TRANSPARENCY IN COMMERCIAL BUILDINGS.
Building Connections
LEO 10 OR honing his commercial real estate
expertise, most recently for ve years at industry titan
Tishman Speyer, Riggs Kubiak, 31, knows how much data
is available on the vast built environment. He served
in both acquisitions and asset management for the
company with one of the most comprehensive real estate
platforms available, and eventually became its global
head of sustainability.
But what still surprises him, in an age when
consumer review sites, Google, and online commerce
start-ups provide endless streams of information, is how
little impact the Internet has on organizing the many
types of information available on buildings.
Ive always been focused on the advancement of the
Internet and watched how the consumer Internet has
changed industries, he says. I was always surprised it
didnt aect real estate more.
Honest Buildings (honestbuildings.com), the website
Kubiak developed this past summer to address the
building-information gap, bears the imprint of its
co-founders, who are Internet start-up veterans. Part
Yelp, part LinkedIn, and cross-bred with a commercial
real estate database, it is an aggregated platform to
connect a bunch of disparate pieces of information in
the built environment, he says.
The site combines aggregated building data with
images, renderings, and information contributed by
owners, service providers, and residents in a platform
built on Google Maps and Microsoft mapping technology.
The built environment has historically been a very
closed book, Kubiak says. We see it [Honest Buildings]
as a resource for everyone who spends time in buildings
about whats happening within their building.
Service providersarchitects, sustainability
consultants, retrot contractorscan get the word out
about their most innovative and successful projects by
Part Yelp, part LinkedIn, Honest Buildings is a social platform
built around commercial real estate. New Yorkbased founder
Riggs Kubiak (pictured), a veteran of Tishman Speyer, believes
the site will foster new connections between architects, service
providers, building owners and managers, and occupants.
35.3
THE PERCENTAGE OF
BUILDINGS REGISTERED
AS OFFICES ON
HONEST BUILDINGS
AS OF DECEMBER,
REPRESENTING 13,641
OF THE 38,631 TOTAL
BUILDINGS.
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TEXT BY JEFFREY LEE
PHOTO BY NOAH KALINA
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creating a portfolio on the site and sharing it through
links, email, and social media. Building owners and
managers, meanwhile, can use the site to market their
buildings, scope out the competition, and nd partners
for their next project.
Owners and managers need to connect with
architects to see their services, Kubiak says. Theres no
outlet out there for them to connect today. We wanted
owners and managers to get information more quickly
and just be a catalyst for this to happen.
The site encourages building occupants to provide
ratings and reviews of the buildings where they work
and spend time. (A mobile app targeted for release
in 2012 will allow users to photograph buildings or
communicate with owners on their smartphones.)
Businesses searching for space can use the sites data
to nd the best building in their neighborhood, but
owners can also use the feedback to enhance their own
oeringsand nd service providers with the most
innovative portfolios to make it happen.
As people are growing more comfortable around
utilizing social media, you can use it in a variety of ways,
whether connecting with people in condos or o ce
buildings, or bringing transparency to the multi-trillion-
dollar built environment, Kubiak says.
Following the beta release of Honest Buildings,
Kubiaks team has focused on seeding the platform with
data and content from pros. The site has worked with
the USGBC and the EPA to index every building with
LEED or Energy Star certication. With 10 billion square
feet of building space already populating the site, users
can log on and nd tight clusters of LEED-registered
buildings in many cities. And Honest Buildings employs
a proprietary and patent-pending data-collection
methodology to collect data through New York Citys
energy benchmarking law and partnerships with other
organizations, including the agencies that run the
equivalent of LEED in Europe and Australiaa feature
that should rapidly grow the building count.
Kubiak says that Honest Buildings could serve as a
driver of innovation. When displayed in a transparent
manner, it [the information] can foster a sense of
competition in the market, he says. Other owners
or managers will say, How can I bring my project to
match the market? Kubiak envisions the website
hosting innovation challenges that spotlight the most
groundbreaking projects in a variety of verticals.
By highlighting best practices and case studies,
Honest Buildings could become a catalyst for swifter and
more productive partnerships. The built environment
will speed up in the future, Kubiak predicts. Transactions
and ideas will be shared more quickly than they are
today, he says. Im hopeful that this creates ideas and
concepts that keep pushing architecture further.
AS PEOPLE ARE
GROWING MORE
COMFORTABLE
AROUND UTILIZING
SOCIAL MEDIA,
YOU CAN USE IT
IN A VARIETY OF
WAYS, WHETHER
CONNECTING
WITH PEOPLE
IN CONDOS OR
OFFICE BUILDINGS,
OR BRINGING
TRANSPARENCY TO
THE MULTI-TRILLION-
DOLLAR BUILT
ENVIRONMENT,
RIGGS KUBIAK SAYS.
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Total Cost: $z.q million
Completion: zoog
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Completion: Spring zo
. TERMINUS PLACE
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Total Cost: $ million
Completion: zoo8
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MARKET STATS
2.17
EXPANSION INDEX
VALUE, ATLANTA
METRO AREA
The Expansion Index from Reed
Construction Data is a 12- to 18-month
look ahead at the construction
marketplace. A value of 1.0 or higher
signifies growth.
sourcr. rrro construction o=t=
5.3 MILLION
METRO AREA
POPULATION, 2010
sourcr. u.s. crnsus surr=u
6.4 MILLION
PROJECTED METRO AREA
POPULATION, 2020
sourcr. =ti=nt= convrntion s
visitors surr=u
9.9%
UNEMPLOYMENT,
OCTOBER 2011
sourcr. crorci= orr=rturnt or i=sor
115.8
MILLION S.F.
CLASS-A OFFICE
INVENTORY
sourcr. =vison \ounc
16.9%
CLASS-A OFFICE
SPACE VACANCY RATE,
JUNE 2011
sourcr. =vision \ounc
$101,000
ESTIMATED MEDIAN
HOME-SALE PRICE,
Q3 2011
sourcr. n=tion=i =ssoci=tion
or rr=itors
74
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CAMBRIDGEARCHITECTURAL.COM
MADE IN THE U.S.A.
Project: National
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Architect: Voorsanger Mathes,
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IT 80 CONTINUING EDUCATION 84 PRODUCTS 96 MIND & MATTER 100
TECHNOLOGY
Ceramic Tile
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PRODUCTS
EDITED BY WANDA LAU
PHOTOS BY NOAH KALINA
Handcrafted in Ann Sackss Portland, Ore.facility, Vicente Wolf Textures is a
collection of ceramic art tiles with repetitive textures carved in relief. Designer
Vincente Wolf created seven patterns: Ra a, Roll-Up, Against the Grain, Slope,
Illusion, Waves (above left), and In & Out (above right). Oered in sizes of 6" by
6" and 4" by 8", the tiles may be used for indoor wall applications and light-duty
oors. In addition to the 142 tile colors currently available, Wolf will introduce a
new color palette for the collection this year. annsacks.com Circle 100
78
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technology
Bluestone porcelain stone tile by
Crossville features fossil-like impressions
and a subtle pearlescent nish inspired
by seashells. The durable tilesuitable
for use on exterior and interior oors,
walls, and countertopscontains at least
20% recycled content. Available with a
natural or honed nish, Bluestone comes
in four colorsColorado bu, Arizona
brown, Pennsylvania blue (shown), and
Vermont blackand in a variety of sizes,
up to 24" square. Mosaic tiles and trim
pieces, including bullnose and cove bases,
are also oered. crossvilleinc.com
Circle 104
Manufactured from large, unglazed
porcelain stoneware slabs, the Pico
collection by Mutina may be used on
interior and exterior oor and wall
surfaces. The matte tile is oered in two
textures with either raised or sunken
dots, and in three base colorswhite,
gray, and sand (shown). Optional accents
include tiny red or blue color spots, in
regular or irregular shapes. The 12mm-
thick tileavailable in 120cm square,
60cm by 120cm, 60cm square, and two
mosaic sizesis VOC-free and contains
20% pre-consumer recycled materials
by weight. mutina.it Circle 103
The technical porcelain tile Evolve by
Atlas Concorde mimics the look of
brushed concrete. The tile collection has
eight color optionsincluding white,
suede, and iron (shown)and three
surface-nish optionsmatte, honed,
and textured. The textured nish oers
slip resistance for use in exterior ooring
applications. The 10mm-thick tile comes
in four sizes: 30mm by 60mm, 60mm
square, 60mm by 120mm, and 75mm
square. The collection also includes
Linea, a 4.8mm-thick tile that is suitable
for use on walls. Decorative brick and
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available. atlasconcorde.it Circle 102
Walker Zanger created the look of end-grain wood in its nature-inspired porcelain
tile Wood Age. Produced with an ink-jet glazing technology, the tile pattern features
the concentric rings, graining, knots, and texture of wood. The low-maintenance tile
can be used both indoors and outdoors. Manufactured in two sizes, 6" by 24" and
9" by 36", Wood Age comes in four colors: marrow, heartwood (shown), ring, and
cortex natural. walkerzanger.com Circle 101
Beyond cost and sustainability benets, better lighting can improve emotional well-
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Circle no. 292 or http://architect.hotims.com
Fab Four
IT
TEXT BY BRIAN LIBBY
ILLUSTRATIONS BY PETER ARKLE
IS DIGITAL FABRICATION MORE THAN A HOBBY? THESE
FOUR DESIGNERS SEE IT AS A PROCESS THAT COULD AFFECT
THE WAY WE MAKE EVERYTHING FROM LIGHTING FIXTURES
TO HEATING SYSTEMS. THEY DISCUSS THE TOOLS AND
CHALLENGES SHAPING THE PRINTED ENVIRONMENT.
Most of the materials used for constructing buildings today are centuries if not millennia
old: from brick and plaster to timber and stone. But a growing number of architects have
seized upon digital fabrication as a chance to shift the paradigm. Although digitally fabricated
products are typically limited in size and scaleand restricted to using cutable, printable
materials such as cardstock, foam, or nylon for interior surfacesthis quartet of architects
is exploring how the future may see printers and computers replace hammers and nails.
Lisa Iwamoto, IwamotoScott Architecture
Although Lisa Iwamoto literally wrote the book on
digital fabrication (Digital Fabrications: Architectural
and Material Techniques, Princeton Architectural Press,
2009), the San Francisco architect says her challenge is
not one of technology so much as human collaboration.
I dont think many architecture rms own the
machinery, says Iwamoto, co-founder of IwamotoScott
Architecture and associate professor at the University
of California at Berkeley. To me, the challenging part
has been working with fabricators who might have
that equipment but are used to still doing the same
thing. Theres a gap between what the instrumentation
can do and what the machinist wants to do.
Iwamoto seeks a simple resource guide for
fabricators willing to collaborate with architects on
digital fabrication. You call 12 people and the rst
11 think youre crazy. Whenever youre trying to do
something outside of the norm for any particular
industry, its di cult, she says. That said, I think
there are some people lling in the gap.
Jeremy Ficca, Ficca Architecture
For Jeremy Ficca, AIA, head of the Pittsburgh rm Ficca
Architecture and a professor at Pittsburghs Carnegie
Melon University, robots are at the frontier of digital
fabrication.
Historically, robots have been quite expensive
and generally conned to large-scale automotive and
aerospace industries, Ficca says. But they are getting
cheaper, and how you control them is becoming more
accessible. It opens the possibility for fabrication to
potentially move beyond the limitations weve seen
with cutting and carving of things.
For one class project, Ficca asked students to use
robots to form rubber castings. Another robot task
involved metal bending. Is digital just skin game and
surfaces? he says. A lot of folks now are trying to look
at ways to get it ingrained into the bones and body of
architecture. Some interesting work has been done with
casting. Were doing some work with dierent ways of
making molds that use less material and can open up
new ways of dealing with precast concrete.
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Andre Caradec, S/U/M
At the Oakland, Calif., rm S/U/M, owner Andre Caradec is
interested not in how digital fabrication can become self-contained
architecture, but how to best use ubiquitous tools to foster ease of
communication between a building teams many parties. Youre
trying to insert a very high-performance vehicle into a non-high-
performance bus, he says and laughs. You come into a very sort
of conventional system where everyones tuned, and you throw a
wrench in it.
Although the process for Caradecs rm begins with 3D
modeling software such as Rhino and its Grasshopper plug-in, his
preferred tool is the common Computer Numeric Control (CNC)
milling machine.
Youre trying to weave analog output with digital input, he
explains. The CNC router is now embedded in the sense that any
cabinets shop or Ikea online, the factories are all using the machine.
Its our job to reinvent it and nd ways to use it. Ours is larger, 5 by
10 [feet], so we can use industry-standard, 4-by-8[-foot] panels and
cut standard construction material. The trick is always designing
with the tools you have. This particular machine can only cut so
thick of a material. You have to take the limitations of the machine
and apply it.
Lawrence Sass, Massachusetts Institute of Technology
Its a huge challenge going from what you see on the screen to
something machines can read and make, and people can put
together, says Lawrence Sass, AIA, an associate professor at MIT.
When you scale an object to 20 times its size, you have to deal with
loads, gravity, wind, earthquakes, and human loads.
An expert in rapid prototyping, Sass has been researching the
idea of integrated digital fabrication: not just using a tool to cut
materials, but also embedding other materials and systems. You can
imagine 3D printing a trailer, like a FEMA trailer, he explains. Or
lighting xtures that are printed in one slab with the ceiling. There
could be ooring systems where instead of having heating and
cooling separate, theyre printed into the oor. Youre talking about
a complex system.
Sass believes that the advances necessary to see these ideas
become reality may ultimately be bridged outside of the profession.
I feel condent these issues will be solved, but not in the eld of
architecture. Our revenue streams not enough, he says. The rst
CAD tools in the 1980s were for people to design circuits. Thats
a multibillion-dollar industry now. And computer graphics were
originally intended for the movie industry.
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Circle no. 400 or http://architect.hotims.com
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Circle no. 27 or http://architect.hotims.com
of world-class sporting venues that rely on structural
ingenuity in a dierent way than their cousins of four
years agoto push the boundaries of not only what
can be built, but also what can be built sustainably
and for the long term. Spurred by ODA, the architects
sought to design large-scale venues that minimize the
use of materials and their footprints, both physical
and carbon.
Olympic Stadium
As the host for the central activities of the Gamesthe
opening and closing ceremonies as well as the track and
eld competitionsthe Olympic Stadium is the largest
new venue to be built. Looking to the post-Games life
of the building, the ODA determined little need for a
facility with a capacity of 80,000 seats; London already
has a number of large stadiums, such as Wembley and
Emirates. So when the ODA handed its brief to the
London o ce of Populous, which worked with structural
engineer Buro Happold, it asked for a structure that could
handily be downsized to 25,000 seats after the Games.
That transformation of going from 80,000 to 25,000
seats had never been done before, says Philip Johnson,
Populouss project leader. We had to gure out how to do
it in a cost-eective and sustainable way.
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Material availability further complicated matters. Steelthe
go-to structural material for a building that would be largely
dismantledwas in short supply when the project was
commissioned. After some research, Populous pinpointed a solution
that would reduce the amount of steel typically required for a
stadium of this magnitude by 75 percent: sink all 25,000 permanent
seats and the lower bowl of the stadium into the ground. As a result,
the earth, bolstered by some 5,000 reinforced concrete piles driven as
deep as 20 meters into the ground, became the structural substrate
for the permanent grandstand.
A lightweight steel structure comprising 112 rakers supports the
55,000 temporary seats in an upper tier around the excavated bowl.
The design specied standard o-the-shelf, wide-ange structural
steel sections, which workers could bolt together easily and, after
the Games, dismantle and return to the market just as easily. These
structural members were painted black to create a calming space
through which visitors will pass before stepping into the excitement
of the events inside the stadium.
The contrasting white steel members of the stadium represent
an independent structural system that supports the venues
450-metric-ton (496-ton) cable-net roof system. The roof system
covers two-thirds of the spectator seating with a 25,500-square-
meter (274,480-square-foot) canopy of white PVC fabric. The canopy
is supported by 3-inch-diameter steel cables drawn tight between
an outer steel compression truss and an inner steel tension ring to
create a rigid structure. The outer compression trusscomposed of
28 steel sections each measuring 15 meters high by 30 meters long
transfers the entire weight of the roof system to concrete footings
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Aquatics Centre, Zaha Hadid Architects
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rene the geometry of the ceiling, which is clad with
30,000 timber panels fabricated from birch plywood
planks laminated with a veneer made from FSC-certied
red louro, a Brazilian hardwood. Solid red louro panels
clad the ceiling where it curves down and meets the
visitor areas. It had to be durable, Moorley explains,
and able to take the odd knock from the odd kid in the
Stratford region.
The Aquatics Centre houses temporary seating
in two inclined volumes that ank the permanent
facility. Bolted, wide-ange steel sections support the
temporary grandstands, which are enclosed within a
translucent PVC envelope. After the Games, this steel
will be disassembled and returned to the market, as will
the temporary seating and temporary toilets. The PVC
envelope will be recycled into a lower grade of PVC.
Velodrome
Of all the Olympic stadia, the ODA considers the
Velodrome to be the most sustainable. Designed by
London-based rm Hopkins Architects with structural
engineer Expedition Engineering, the 6,000-seat,
234,000-square-foot venue for track cycling will be
retained in its entirety after the Games. Among its
sustainable-design features, which include natural
ventilation and ample daylighting, the lightweight cable-
net roof system is perhaps its most impressive both in
terms of energy performance as well as structural design.
Whereas the Olympic Stadiums roof system needed
only to provide partial coverage to spectators and none
to athletes, in line with previous Olympic stadiums,
the Velodromes roof system had to enclose the facility
entirely and span a length of up to 130 meters (427 feet).
We wanted the building to reect the design
ethos of the bike sport itself, paring things down to
the absolute minimum as e ciently as possible, says
Chris Bannister, a partner at Hopkins Architects. One of
the things was to minimize the overall envelope of the
building itself.
A cable-net roof system suited the Velodromes
design and programmatic needs perfectly. The 250-meter
track banks 12 degrees on straightaways and 42 degrees
at the ends, where the track curves. The architects placed
minimal seating at the ends because of the di culty of
establishing sight lines; the U.K. sets the maximum rake
of grandstands at 34 degrees. As a result, the majority
of the seatingand thus the highest points of the
structureexist beside the long portions of the track. The
resulting volume is a bowl with two high points and two
low points, creating a structurally strong, double-curve
roof geometry that a cable-net system could assume.
The system comprises a 3.6-meter-square mesh of
twin steel cables, 36 millimeters in diameter and 62
millimeters apart. At every grid crossing, a steel node
connectora clamp with a plate and four connectors
for the ceiling and roof panelsbolts the two pairs of
perpendicular cables together. After its prefabrication
in Germany, the cable-net system, totaling more than
16 kilometers of cable, was transported to the Velodrome
where workers laid it out on the oor and bolted it
together. The cables were then jacked up into place
and pinned onto a steel ring truss via fork connections.
The ring truss sits at the upper edge of the Velodromes
seating bowl and pulls the cable-net system into tension.
Because we could assemble the cable mesh on the
ground and then jack it up into position, we avoided a
lot of scaolding and temporary works, Bannister says.
Erecting the lightweight system took just 12 weeks
93
Circle no. 293 or http://architect.hotims.com
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CRIT
TEXT BY DIANA E. E. KLEINER
PHOTOS BY MASSIMO MASTRORILLO
EXAMINING THE LIFE AND WORKS
OF ROMAN ARCHITECTURAL
HISTORIAN WILLIAM MACDONALD
REVEALS AS MUCH ABOUT
CONTEMPORARY ARCHITECTURE
AS IT DOES ABOUT ANCIENT ROME.
Roman Candle
Diana E. E. Kleiner is Dunham
Professor of History of Art and
Classics at Yale University. Her
course on Roman architecture
is available online at the Open
Yale Courses website as well as
through iTunes U and YouTube.
The Pantheon
d r i - d e s i g n V M Z I N C
s e r i e s
UNFORGETTABLE TT
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Dri-Design panels are not laminated nor a composite they will
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Dri-Design is economical. Our highly automated manufacturing
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Fully tested to exceed ASTM standards and the latest AAMA
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Dri-Design is a friend of the environment. The fact is, composite
or foam panels cant match dri-design for its environmental
footprint. Dri-Design is made with recycled content and is
100% recyclable.
Circle no. 287 or http://architect.hotims.com
ELEGANTLY
SIMPLE, WITH
BASE, SHAFT,
AND CAPITAL,
THE COLUMN
WAS USED FOR
STRUCTURAL,
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ALTERNATINGLY
AND EVEN
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an architects architectural historian. He was driven by
the qualities that absorb architects, including space,
volume, light, materials, and technical innovation.
Bill wrote about Roman architecture in a way modern
designers could understand, Olin said. MacDonald
himself a rmed in The Architecture of the Roman
Empire that in the study of architecture there can
be no substitute for leaning against ones buildings.
Especially memorable for a discussion within the
architecture eldone that is rapidly transitioning
to digital modelingwas the architects exhortation
to draw. One cant think as an architect without
drawing, Kieran said. Fisher added, I always see
something better when I draw it.
MacDonald also looked and saw. He carried scaled
drawings of major buildings such as the Pantheon in his
pocket and xed the structures he saw in his minds eye
by photographing them. (Three thousand images from
his well-known collection are now housed at Princeton
University.) So thoroughly had the historian embraced
the architects thinking and vision that MacDonald
planned to write (but did not complete) an 11th book to
Vitruviuss 10-volume treatise on architecture.
One objective of the symposium was to assess
new directions in Roman architectural studies; a
perpendicular concern was the impact of ancient
Roman buildings on later architecture. MacDonald
worked at the intersection of those interests. The
conference scholars steered subjects long associated
with MacDonald toward contemporary issues,
demonstrating the innovative tools employed for
research today. In one paper delivered for the session
called Rome Builds, inspired by MacDonalds
The Pantheon, Design, Meaning, and Progeny
(1976), University of Pennsylvania professor Lothar
Haselberger disregarded the interior of the Pantheons
celebrated dome in favor of the columns on the
temples faade. Using those columns to underscore the
wisdom of MacDonalds commitment to close visual
analysis, Haselberger showed that the original granite
column shafts vary in diameter, while the Corinthian
capitals vary in height. Haselberger explained these
disparitiesdocumented through laser scanning by
the Bern Digital Pantheon Projectas the result of the
complexity of the building program, scale of the temple,
reliance on outsourcing, carving of the columns by
hand, and quest for dramatic visual eect.
Northwestern University professor emeritus James
Packerwho, in 2010, launched a digital recreation
of the Roman Forumapplied the urban armature
concept that MacDonald developed in 1986 to the
evolution of the Forum. According to MacDonald, the
streets, plazas, and key public buildings of Roman
metropolitan centers formed urban armatures, whose
components accumulated over time in response to what
he characterized as the universal urban need for an
architecture of connection and passage. MacDonald
dierentiated urban armatures from city plans,
which had a theoretical basis and were laid out all at
once. Packers treatment of the Forums architectural
development, the most comprehensive to date,
associates the Forum with armatures deployed in such
frontier municipalities as Palmyra (Syria).
The opus reticulatum at Hadrians Villa at Tivoli,
Italy, admired by todays designers for its netlike
pattern, was waning as a concrete facing by 120 C.E.,
culture
Hadrians Villa
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To see this brilliant technology in action, visit www.sageglass.com or call 1-877-724-3325
Circle no. 48 or http://architect.hotims.com
Bing Thom Architects is
based in a former factory
that manufactured rubber
diving suits. Even in 1982,
the year that Bing Thom,
AIA, built his studio, he was
looking forward with plans
for growth. I wanted a
space where I could move
into other warehouse spaces
cheaply, he says. And so
he has doneleasing and
expanding into adjacent
warehouse spaces and
houses and increasing his
studio size 400 percent over
three decades.
Today, the rm in Vancouver,
British Columbia, Canada,
employs 30 people.
Thom describes them as
hyphenated: engineer-
architects, interior
designerarchitects,
MBA-architects. The rms
designers hail from 10
countries and speak 12
dierent languages.
My o ce is a hidden oasis in
the middle of the city, Thom,
71, says. Its a sanctuary
space for thinking and
contemplation and keeping
the outside world away,
where we can be on our
own. It has the feeling of a
warehouse, but very serene.
When Thom rst leased the
factory space in 1982, he
didnt wait to add a sunlit
oor for extra space. My
structural engineer told me,
Add the second oor. Either
youre going to make it or
youre going to go broke.
Thom sought out an
industrial space that
reected his personality.
Before his additions, the
studio was a one-story
concrete block located at the
foot of the Burrard Bridge, a
dramatic, Art Deco structure.
Im an edgy guy, he says,
in the sense that I dont
like to be in the middle of
the action. I like to be on the
edge and making my own
conclusion. Thats why Im
in Vancouver and not New
York or Shanghai. I like the
tranquility. I do my best work
when I can be observing.
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TEXT BY KRISTON CAPPS
PHOTOS BY JASON FULFORD
THE CANADIAN ARCHITECTWHOSE NAME IS SYNONYMOUS WITH
VANCOUVERISM IN ARCHITECTURE AND URBAN PLANNINGDISCUSSSES
HIS STUDIO AND THE FEATURES OF THE CITY THAT INSPIRE HIM.
Bing Thom
STUDIO VISIT
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culture
Its more like a school,
Thom says of his studio.
Its really not an o ce. He
isnt exaggerating: The rm
in fact hosts classes from
the University of British
Columbia, which are run
through the studios research
and development division,
BTAworks.
The o ce is now quite
mature, Thom says. Most
of the sta has been here
for over eight years. Were
very quick to decide what
we want.
Its tting that Thom built
his studio so close to False
Creek, a short inlet that
runs through Vancouver,
as water is a key theme in
the rms work. Recently,
BTAworks performed a
study on the consequences
for Vancouver of rising
water levels. The rm is
performing a similar study
for Hong Kongwhere
some of Thoms suggestions
draw blank stares. He would
like to export to Hong Kong
the signature downtown
beaches of Vancouver.
Beaches are very good for
ltering water, he says.
The year that Thom built
his studio, city workers in
Vancouver were on strike. By
the time the strike was over,
Thom was able to apply for
permits to build his studio
but he had in fact already
completed the project.
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At 320,000 square feet, the
Guggenheim Abu Dhabi, which
was designed by Frank Gehry,
FAIA, will be the largest of any
Guggenheim museumif it is
ever completed.
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BEYOND BUILDINGS
Beyond Bilbao
MODEST GESTURES, BETTER SPACES, LOCAL CULTURE:
WHAT THE BILBAO EFFECT DIDNT DELIVER.
TEXT BY AARON BETSKY
ILLUSTRATION BY PETER ARKLE
tTs szzN A sAo sTazTcu for culture buildings. In
October, the Los Angeles County Museum of Art
(LACMA) announced that the Academy of Motion Arts
lm museum is moving into the old May Co. building,
meaning that the May Co. building will not become the
capstone in LACMAs often-reconceived and always-
shrinking planning eorts. The Tate Modern announced
that it will not open a giant new Herzog & de Meuron
addition in time for the Olympics, but will rather occupy
basement spaces with art.
In Abu Dhabi, United Arab Emirates, construction
was recently o cally delayed on the new Guggenheim
there, though a friend who visited said the cranes
have been motionless since spring. The Abu Dhabi
branch of the Louvre will now not open for another few
years. There are the continual delays in the renovations
of the Rijksmuseum and the Stedelijk Museum in
Amsterdam. To cap it all o, the October opening of
the renovated Muse dOrsay in Paris was marred by
strikes and protests.
So I guess we can o cially say that the so-called
big-museum building boom is over. It was never as big a
deal as some thought, as there were a lot more buildings
announced than were ever completed. In the Middle
East, we got the new Arab Museum of Modern Art in
Qatar, period. In Asia, a renovation to a massive existing
museum on Tiananmen Square, period. In this country,
mediocre new wings grace the Art Institute of Chicago,
the Museum of Fine Arts in Boston, and LACMA. None
of them is a signature building.
The Bilbao Eect, in other words, didnt really exist.
In lieu of iconic structures, the place where quality truly
shone was at a much smaller scale. Partially because of
European Union policies and partially because many
European countries actually care about the culture that
brings communities together, that whole continent is
now dotted with little jewels of regional museums and
cultural centers, though even there the nancial crisis
has curtailed operations and construction.
The few bigger museums that do not pretend to be
neutral containers, such as the de Young Museum in
San Francisco, have been successful, both as forms
and as attractors for visitors. It may be the case that
the Bilbao Eect was actually a name for a dierent
phenomenon: cultural attractors.
In an era of instantly consumable images, etherizing
communities, and lack of either social or societal
identity, we actually want places in which to gather, to
contemplate, to be immersed, and to be part of a history.
Sometimes that act needs architecture of a recognizable
sort as a catalyst; other times it needs a great performer
or artist, an event, or just a good place to reoccupy.
Just putting up a big building and importing some
art alone will not do it. It is di cult to predict what will
work, though good spaces seem to be key, even when,
like the High Line in New York, they have no ostensible
function. So lets hear it for the real Bilbao Eect: great
architecture, culture, and place, all coming together at
the right time. Good riddance to the imitators, and to
the big-box style the Bilbao Guggenheim represents.
Read more of Aarons design
observations at ARCHITECTs Beyond
Buildings blog: go.hw.net/betsky. I
N
O
E
K
I
Marianos Fresh Market is committed to bringing its customers
the freshest, high-quality foods. Its also committed to sustainability
and proudly displays its list of green accomplishments for its customers.
Whats rst on the list?
The choice to build with structural steel!
www.aisc.org/sustainability
Fresh
Green
&
Theres always a sustainable solution in steel.
Circle no. 22 or http://architect.hotims.com
Circle no. 380 or http://architect.hotims.com
E RS ever been a moment when architecture
rms would like nothing more than to push a giant
Staples-style reset button, this may well be it. For all
the momentary reverie that comes at the start of a New
Year, its impossible to escape the specter of the ailing
economy. You may have more free time than youd like
as you search for new clients. Or you may nd that your
workload doubled because a colleague got the pink slip.
The Staples button may just be an ad campaign,
but back in the real world, theres no better time than
the present to reinvent your practice. The Empire State
Building rose as the nation plunged into the Great
Depression. John Jakob Raskob, the buildings nancier,
was hardly dissuaded by the economic climate of the
time; indeed, he never wavered from his bold and
ambitious plan, even as the economy grew worse. So,
too, can rms view the current nancial malaise as an
opportunityto rethink, even in small, managable ways,
their approach to o ce culture, social media, or business
development.
In this, our second annual Whats Next issue, we
explore the future of the architectural workplace. The
conversation continues online at architectmagazine.com
in the form of additional case studies and interviews, and
in our new, weekly Whats Next video series, in which
leaders from within and around the profession share
their own ideas, in 60 seconds or less.
The conversation will culminate at the 2012
AIA National Convention and Design Exposition in
Washington, D.C. The 2011 AIA Architecture Firm Award
recipient, BNIM, is designing an exhibit, The Open-
Source O ce, that will serve as the centerpiece of
the expo hall and spark dialogue around the future of
architectural practice and workplaces. In developing
the exhibit content, BNIM has identied six areas of
critical development for the o ce of the futurenurture,
meet, research, focus, nourish, and growwhich serve
as the organizational structure for this issue. BNIM
also contributed a manifesto (page 140) about how the
natural world should inform the design and function of
the architectural workplace.
At rst glance, some of the suggestions in the
following pages may seem absurd. Your rm should
cultivate a vegetable garden. Employees shouldnt
have to work xed hours. Your next client will nd you
via Twitter. Five percent of the bottom line should be
dedicated to research.
Outlandish, you say? In truth, ideas such as these are
already the reality at many rms around the country.
And those rms are seeing the benet.
Return on investment. Youll nd those words often
in this package. Ditto for collaboration, exibility, speed,
and data. As the profession changes and becomes more of
an interdisciplinary pursuit, as client expectations grow
more complex, as technology continues to evolve at warp
speed, rms will need to consider where they want to be
in ve years, in a decade. These are challenging times,
yes, but this is also an era of great opportunity.
TEXT BY ERIC WILLS
Your O ce,
Your Future
?
WHATS NEXT We asked leading architects, critics, designers, and
other thought leaders a simple question: What do you envision when
you think about the future of the architectural workplace and practice?
Find their responses on the coming pages, and in our new weekly
Whats Next video series at architectmagazine.com.
123 ARCHI TECT JANUARY 2012
Nurture Architectures nonstop-charrette, sweatshop-style o ce culture is no longer sustainable. Taskmaster bosses, faced with an
epidemic of sta burnout, declining retention rates, and a shrinking talent pool, will be forced to acknowledge that a business can only succeed
to the extent that its employees ourish. The o ce culture of old, hierarchical to a fault, will be replaced by a new, employee-centered workplace
that caters to sta happiness and encourages collaboration.
A rzw vzAas Aoo, a now-defunct blog called Intern
Architects in Hell inspired a small but dedicated
following. The site posted cartoons depicting the
frequently ba ing, often amusing exchanges between
an overworked, underpaid intern and his bosses.
In one cartoon, a principal holding designs that he
drafted himself chastises a young intern, saying, If you
had drawn those, I would have red you. The series
encapsulated the strenuous, hierarchical environment
that is prevalent at many practicesthe kind of
environment where you say goodbye to a personal life,
keep your mouth shut, and toil away for years in the
hopes of advancing up the food chain.
You wont nd that cutthroat, pay-your-dues
philosophy at Mithun, a design rm founded in 1949
and known for highly sustainable designs and urban
plans. Located in a sunlit studio in a converted industrial
pier on the Seattle waterfront, Mithun (which also has
a second o ce in San Francisco) dees the stereotypical
culture so often associated with architecture. First, theres
the commute. Sta are encouraged to walk or bike, and
those who do receive gift cards from places such as REI as
a reward. Once on site, there is ample bike parking and
showers as well as three hybrid cars for sta to share.
Inside, the principals o ces do not rim the perimeter
hogging the view; instead everyone has a sight line to
Elliot Bay and the Olympic Mountains beyond. People
sit where it makes the most sense for current projects,
so new employees share space with senior partners and
the rms multiple disciplinesarchitecture, interior
design, landscape architecture, and urban design and
planningwork in close proximity. Lunchtime often
nds employees participating in a Mithuniversity class
an award-winning continuing education program that
highlights cutting-edge ideas and products. Employees
also nd inspiration in the rms Threshold Gallery,
an employee-curated space featuring a rotating cast of
emerging designers and artists. Courtney Rosenstein, 43,
a marketing specialist with more than 15 years of
experience at architecture rms, joined Mithun in 2010.
When I started here I was almost overwhelmed by all
the perks, she says.
This list is indeed impressive. Theres an annual
Mithunerfest celebration with employees, family, and
clients, and the biennial Mithun Olympics, where sta
compete in competitions such as relay races. Frequent
crits held by project teams encourage collaborative
insight and inspiration, and a 5 p.m. happy hour on
Fridays caps o the week. Individuals are aorded the
freedom to work when and where they need. Some leave
early to coach soccer, participate on boards, or teach; new
moms work a reduced schedule, and parents volunteer at
their childrens schools. And because creative energy is
so valued here, employees are oered paid scholarships
to attend activities not related to their profession.
The J. Don Bowman Scholarship, named for a former
employee, underwrites lessons in Flamenco, classes in
French pastry, and trips down Highway 101 for a lm
documentary. I got that scholarship and took a jewelry
class and made an engagement ring for my wife, says
Brendan Connolly, AIA, 38, a partner at Mithun. Its
incentive to learn new things, and for me it was great to
take a class that was not about architecture.
The o ce culture holds such appeal that employees
who decamp for other rms often return. It happens
enough that they coined a term for it: Mithunerang.
As the profession faces a coming talent shortage, some
rms are attracting new employees with happy hours and
Flamenco. Can a friendlier culture help the bottom line?
TEXT BY ELIZABETH EVITTS DICKINSON
PHOTOS BY LEE POWERS
Mithuns Seattle o ce (opposite) is
housed in a former industrial pier, a
35,000-square-foot space that was
vacant when the rm began restoring it
in 1998. The structure features an open
oor plan and unobstructed views of
Puget Sound.
Morale Will Improve
125 ARCHI TECT JANUARY 2012
There are so many aspects that drew me back to the
rm, says associate J. Irons, 37, who returned after a stint
at another rm. Continuing education, mentorship, a
commitment to good work and innovation. The car share
at work means we only have one car as a family. Having
those benets sets this rm apart.
These perks benet employees psychologically, but
they arent free. This year, Mithun set aside $40,000 just
to cover Mithuniversity. In a oundering economy, how
can a rm aord to invest so much in human capital?
Whats the return on investment? For starters, it has
helped Mithun retain talented employees. One third of
the sta has been with the rm for more than a decade.
As a design rm, our resource is creative people,
says Dave Goldberg, AIA, 42, president of Mithun. Like
everyone, we have to be strategic about where we invest
time and money. To retain a creative personto convert
that to a monetary valueis di cult, but the return is
huge. It gives us a competitive edge and it attracts the
best clients, clients with shared values who want to work
with people who are smart and happy.
The Impending Talent Shortage
Mithun has seized on an emerging trend, says Ray Kogan,
AIA, president of Kogan & Co., a management-consulting
and strategic-planning company for design rms. He
believes that attracting and retaining talent will become
the top priority for the rm of the future: Architecture
rms will face a skills shortage in the near future and
they have two real challenges ahead of them: quantity
and quality of people.
According to Kogan, population trends warn of
a diminishing talent pool. Thirty-ve percent of the
AE workforce is older than 50, and with the economy
discouraging many from entering the profession,
managing employees is going to require business
acumen. When people get so scarce and the talent is
hard to come by, rms are going to have to turn their
attention to that, he says.
This task, Kogan says, will rival that of business
development. Today, rms that compete for projects get
disappointed when they dont win, Kogan says. Soon, I
think rms are going to be equally disappointed if they
cannot attract or retain people they want. That is going
to be a commodity, and its going to be a very important
aspect of a rms existence.
Mithun isnt the only rm to recognize the value of
an employee-centered o ce environment. At Louisville,
Ky.based Luckett & Farley, Architects, Engineers, and
Construction Managers, nurturing employees is now
a part of the rms strategic plan. Founded in 1853,
Luckett & Farley is one of the oldest architecture and
engineering rms in the country. The rms president
and CEO, Ed Jerdonek, AIA, says that to remain nimble
and competitive, the rm has rejected the traditional
mentality, where you hire a young intern and they work
The Periscope (below), located along
Main Street, the primary walkway
that runs through Mithuns Seattle
o ce, has a Skype connection to
the San Francisco o ce. Employees
walking by often catch up with their
remote colleagues. A set of clocks in
the Seattle o ce (opposite) capture
Mithuns quirky humor and poke fun
at the impersonal nature of major
international rms with outposts in
multiple time zones.
126 THE OFFICE Nurture
a 60-hour week, nose to the grindstone, and they dont
look up.
Thats the environment I grew up in and a lot of
places are still that way, Jerdonek, 50, says, but its
ridiculous. Those days are long gone. The question we ask
our candidates is not what they can do for us, but what
we can do for them to make their job at Luckett & Farley
most meaningful.
In recent years, Luckett & Farley has revamped its
benets packages for employees and explored ways to
cultivate a happy and supportive o ce environment.
Jerdonek says that its hard to quantify how much of the
annual budget supports employee perks and benets,
but, he says, it is a signicant amount of money that
we invest. The benets include paying above-market
salaries and quarterly bonuses based on rm protability,
taking sta on outings and hosting events, contributing
to health and retirement benets, and oering a
competitive paid-time-o policy. Every ve years an
employee earns another week of paid time o, Jerdonek
says. After 15 years of service, we pay that [the equivalent
of another week] in cash as a retention bonus.
Quantifying the exact return on this investment is
di cult, Jerdonek says. You are talking about cultural
change, the essence of the organizational DNA. Still,
he believes that the strategy is eective, as evidenced
by how well the rm has retained quality projects,
clients, and employees. Jerdonek tells the story of one
interior designer, Judy McGrath, 55, who cut her vacation
short when a clienta Fortune 100 companycalled
with a last-minute plea for help in moving its o ce.
Jerdonek knew nothing of McGraths sacrice until
the client called to rave about the results. She took
direct ownership of the problem, and she exceeded
expectations, Jerdonek says. Can I measure that? I
cannot, but let me tell you what I know as a CEO: The
expected value of work we will get from that client will
be in large part due to the reputation of people like Judy.
The ultimate goal, Jerdonek says, is for his rm
which currently has 82 employeesto become the
employer of choice for the AE industry. We believe that
if we have the best culture, we will attract and retain the
best people and the best clients.
Once hired, Jerdonek recognizes that he must mentor
future leaders. Last year, he launched a Leadership
Institute, in which employees apply to participate in
a series of classes aimed at developing personal and
professional skills. Nicole Dorion, 30, is the rms director
of rst impressions, a title that reects her growing role
as more than a receptionist. When she started in 2007,
she was unsure of her career goals or whether she would
stay at an architecture rm. But after participating in the
seven-month Leadership Institute in 2011, she says, Ive
totally bought in to Luckett & Farley.
The fellowship classes feature an intentional
mix of professional disciplines and ages that Dorion
HAPPY WORKPLACE
SARA SKINNER, A HUMAN-
RESOURCES MANAGER AT
MITHUN, SHARES SOME OF THE
CREATIVE WAYS THAT THE FIRM
FOSTERS A HAPPY WORKPLACE:
MITHUN OLYMPICS: Held during
the real Olympics, Mithuns
version includes Barbie High
Jump, Sustainable Relay Race,
Blindfold Soccer, and No-Rules
Tug-o-War.
MEET AND EAT: A bimonthly
gathering brings all sta together
to enjoy good food. One sta
member receives a Starbucks
gift card for his or her
contribution to the potluck.
SHOW AND TELL: Projects are
highlighted on the Glimpse
Board, which is centrally located
in the o ce. Images and text
describe projects and their status.
OUTSIDE IN: Sta participate in
regional university career fairs,
give student tours of the o ce,
and host interns for up to a week
so that they can see rm life.
MITHUNERFEST: Mithuns annual
Oktoberfest draws over 200 sta,
families, clients, and colleagues
to Seattles Pier 56 for an evening
of bratwurst and beer. Mithuns
house band, the Mediocres,
entertains guests.
?
Karen Van Lengen, FAIA University of Virginia professor Youre going to work in a more collaborative way than you did 15 years ago,
when the napkin sketch went down the food chain through all the consultants and became a building. People are really embracing a
more comprehensive and e cient design process. You need to have a space suited to partners and consultants coming and going.
says gave her access to a range of people, and a better
understanding of how the rm operates. And it instilled
greater condence in her future. I have more trust built
up with the business as a whole and the employees,
Dorion says. I know that if there is something I want to
do, that someone in the company is going to back me
to grow, which is huge.
Dorion is also impressed that rm leadership listens
to employees. They have us do surveys on a regular
basis, and Ive seen what the employees ask for put into
eect, she says. From little things like buying soft
drinks so that we dont have to pay for them, to the attire,
which has become more casual.
It is very important for leaders to listen, Kogan
says. Yet this is a skill that can be hard for some in this
profession to master. Architects are very task-oriented
people. It begins when we are in school. You are given
a project, you are given a deadline, and by God, you
keep that deadline. None of that prepares you for the
nurturing of people. But as you grow your career, more
and more, you are involved in people planning, not
technical planning.
An especially di cult management challenge can
be catering to the dierent workplace needs of multiple
generations. Baby boomers, Gen-Xers, and Gen-Yers have
distinct skill sets and philosophies on live/work balance,
and leadership must help navigate those generational
divides eectively. The needs of each generation are very
dierent, Jerdonek says, and the danger is that divergent
perspectives among his rms 87 employees may
eventually lead to irreparable rifts. Thirty-two-point-one
percent of my workforce is Gen Y. They are young, but
they are digital natives. They can work with software.
The baby boomers and Gen-Xers, on the other hand,
have a lot of context. Theyve seen it all, theyve stepped
on just about every land mine possible, and they know
how to do architecture and engineering. But the way we
do architecture and engineering is changing so rapidly.
These Gen-Yers are procient and very comfortable with
the technology. Yet, they lack the context with which to
apply it.
In order for our rm to thrive and grow into the
future, Jerdonek says, we have to really take care of
the people who are going to come behind us and run
this company.
The Generation Gap
Barbara H. Irwin, president of the Washington, D.C.
based HR Advisors Group, has worked in human-resource
management for over 20 years and now serves as an HR
consultant for small and midsized AE rms. She found
communication between the generations to be the
biggest challenge for employee relations and retention.
Irwin conducted a survey a few years back and found
many leaders ummoxed about how to manage younger
employees. Time and time again, we would hear clients
telling us this younger generation is entitled, and they
dont know how to deal with them, Irwin says. They
would tell us that they couldnt seem to recruit people
and keep them happy.
Meanwhile, survey responses from employees with
up to seven years of experience cited communication
Mithun has three company hybrid cars
at the Seattle o ce, including a Honda
Insight nicknamed Buzz (below). A
Toyota Prius is named Ohmr, after the
rms founder, Omer Mithun. The rm
values continued education, spending
$40,000 last year on Mithuniversity
(opposite), a series of classes often held
during lunchtime.
128 THE OFFICE Nurture
?
Lori Gee Director of workplace solutions at Herman Miller Why come to the o ce [in the future]? You wont need to, to accomplish
most individual work. The reasons to come in will be face-to-face problem solving, inspiration, and mentor relationships. Theres more of
a focus on bringing in residential design elements: wood, lighting, and oor materials that make an o ce feel a lot more like our homes.
within the rm as the single biggest issue. They just
wanted to know what was going on in the rm, how they
were doing, how the rm was doing.
Irwins advice is to communicate on a regular basis
with sta, but this message doesnt always get through
to managers. We keep hearing, But we need to keep our
eyes to our desk and we have to focus on our clients,
Irwin says. I tell them that every little thing they do
now will help them in the end, because when we come
crawling out of this recessionand we willthey risk
losing these employees to other opportunities.
Improving employee relations doesnt require
extravagant measures, according to Irwin. It could be as
simple as hosting a lunch where an experienced member
of the rm talks about his or her area of expertise, or
revamping the annual employee review to focus more
on the goals and needs of the employee.
Just last week, I was encouraging a CEO to have a
meeting with younger sta to discuss how he moved up
through the ranks, Irwin says. Storytelling is simple,
but eective. If you tell them a story, they will listen,
they will absorb it. If, on the other hand, you tell them
only, Do this, dont do that, you are going to lose them.
Give them a road map. Show them how to succeed.
Show them respect.
Mithuns Goldberg remembers how the rms
respectful approach to employees immediately won him
over. I am one of only two people in my graduating class
who has stayed at the same rm, says Goldberg, who
has been with Mithun for 16 years. I remember meeting
friends from other rms for lunch and they kept looking
at their watches because they had to be back by 1 p.m. or
there would be repercussions. I couldnt understand it. I
was treated as an adult. There was a free ow of ideas, so
it wasnt a big change from my academic setting.
Creating a culture of respectof listening and
engaging and mentoring one anotheris at the heart of
Mithuns o ce policy. Employees of all levels consistently
repeat a powerful refrain: A good idea can come from
anywhere. We dont have a top-down design hierarchy,
Connolly says. The sta recognizes that there is
opportunity to insert thought and opinions without
fear of repercussion. Anyone can pull up a chair.
Miye Moriguchi, 30, architect intern at Mithun, had
several rms vying for her when she graduated in 2003.
She chose Mithun because of the company ethos. When
I interviewed with a dierent rm, they told me, You
are going to sit in the corner and draw details all day,
she says. Then I came to Mithun for an interview and
the principals didnt talk about architecture with me.
Instead, we talked about who I am as a person, what I like
to do, how I think. It was amazing.
Mentorship is so valued at Mithun that each year
the rm awards one staer with the Mithun Mentor
of the Year Award. Feed the mind and the soul of the
employee, Mithun believes, and you feed innovationan
indispensable part of the rms design approach. We
have a high metric for sustainability, and we expect a
certain level of performance. Every project is to be better
than the last, Connolly says. If the rms culture helps
to achieve that goal, then thats a signicant return on
investment indeed.
HOW TO KEEP YOUR STAFF
BARBARA IRWIN, PRESIDENT OF
HR ADVISORS GROUP, CONSULTS
WITH SMALL AND MID-SIZED AE
FIRMS. HERE ARE HER TIPS FOR
ATTRACTING AND RETAINING
EMPLOYEES.
ORIENTATION: So many studies
say that if you dont grab your
employees within the rst 30 days
and tell them the values that they
are going to bring to the rm, then
youre going to lose them one day,
Irwin says. I would argue that
you need to grab them from day
one. Firms need to beef up the
onboarding process.
PROFESSIONAL DEVELOPMENT:
Its important to keep employees
engaged, Irwin says, from lunch-
and-learn to leadership-training
programs. She also counsels
managers to take annual reviews
seriously and use them as
opportunities to mentor and listen
to employees about what will keep
them fullled in their jobs.
COMMUNICATION: Bringing sta
in the loop on how the rm is
doing was cited as the number
one need in an employee survey
of AE rms. When sta understand
the rms direction and how
decisions are made, it greatly
improves their satisfaction.
KNOWLEDGE: Too often, managers
believe that expertise for training
needs to come from expensive
consultants. Irwin disagrees. Tap
into your own expertise on sta.
If someone has a strength, give
them an opportunity to share
that information.
Meet New technologies are transforming the way we interact at work. Architects will never stop meeting clients in person and securing projects
through old-fashioned, face-to-face networking. But the rise of social media has given rms new tools to market their services and forge industry
connections, while telecommunications technologies are making it easier to connect regularly, across great distances. In the o ce of the future,
architects will need to master new technologies and collaborate with clients in the virtual world.
ozvoTzzs or soctAt mzotA, especially Millennials,
have not been shy in proselytizing about how Facebook
and Twitter will change business forever. Yet many
companiesand architecture rms, especiallystruggle
to justify the investment that social media requires in
sta training and time, and they question its capacity
to improve the bottom line.
We conducted an informal investigation, using
SurveyMonkey, that asked rms how they use social
media and other communications technologies (see
the results on the facing page). The answers supplied
by the 301 respondents indicate that while some rms
have readily embraced blogging and tweeting, and even
in some cases can boast of new clients as a result, just
as many architects either admitted uncertainty about
how these technologies could benet their practice, or
downplayed the signicance. (Wrote one respondent:
Social media has distracted our competition into
wasting enormous amounts of time and has allowed us
to be more productive and e cient than they are.)
Tami Hausman, a New Yorkbased marketing and
communications consultant for designers, thinks that
architecture rms on average have been slower than
other industries to embrace social media. Yet she also
doesnt champion sites such as Facebook and YouTube as
some kind of magical elixir that will increase rm prots
by 20 percent. Rather, Hausman says, social media should
be an integral part of an overall communications and
marketing strategy.
Even though the return on investment remains
di cult to discern, Hausman predicts that architects
will eventually use social media as commonly as they
do email, and rms would be wise to explore how best
to exploit the various platforms: In this economy, she
says, if youre not visible, people will wonder if you
still exist.
Large rms such as HOK naturally have marketing
departments that spearhead social-media use, and
they use such tools in part to attract talented younger
employees who are natural users of the technology. But
small rms have also seen success. Andrew van Leeuwen,
AIA, 39, one of the partners of Build, a Seattle-based
residential rm, helped start a blog with his partner
almost ve years ago. Today, the blog gets about 10,000
estimated views per day and boasts 60,100 subscribers
to its RSS feed.
Van Leeuwen spends about 10 hours a week on
average blogging, time he might have otherwise devoted
to applying for awards for his rms projects. The blogs
a powerful tool to bring jobs into the pipeline, he says,
and it helps potential clients gain condence in the rms
expertise. When potential clients have seen the projects
weve done, someone has referred them to us, and when
theyve seen the blog, we rarely lose the project.
Van Leeuwens blog does more than promote the
rms work. Posts such as Top 10 Things You Should
Know About Drywall use terms someone might Google
if theyre considering doing a home renovation. The best
strategy is putting up valuable and honest information
people will nd useful, rather than employing some sort
of strategy or spin or marketing techniques, he says.
For more case studies about how other rms are nding
success through social media, visit architectmagazine.com.
Some architects have embraced social media and
telecommunications, but others struggle to discern the
actual benets. Can your rm tweet its way to success?
TEXT BY ERIC WILLS
INFOGRAPHICS BY CATALOGTREE
?
Brett Kincaid Director of design
at Steelcase Theres incredible
pressure to manage more-complex
information faster. Today, technology
is often inserted into o ce space. As
technology and space are merged
more over time, therell be a more
seamless transition between the
two. These more intuitive settings
will enable people to take control
of information and integrate into
meetings in a more seamless way.
Face to Facebook
35.4%
43.5%
5.5%
19.4%
12.1%
40.0%
SKYPE,
SURVEY SAYS: ARCHITECTS SEEM UNCERTAIN ABOUT THE VALUE OF SOCIAL MEDIA, BUT
TELECONFERENCING AND OTHER COMMUNICATION TECHNOLOGIES LOOK LIKE WINNERS.
THE MOST POPULAR SITES EMPLOYED BY ARCHITECTURE FIRMS ARE AS FOLLOWS:
STRONGLY DISAGREE. LASTLY WE POSED THE QUESTION: IF YOU
COULD DESIGN THE OFFICE OF THE FUTURE, WHAT COMMUNICATIONS TECHNOLOGIES
WOULD BE MOST IMPORTANT? RESPONSES INCLUDED: SMARTBOARD, TO COMMUNICATE
DRAWINGS SKETCHES AND CONCEPTS BETWEEN OFFICES; FLEXIBLE WORKSTATIONS AND
MODULAR SPACES, FOR GROUP ADAPTATION; SHARED DIGITAL WORKSPACE, ALL FILES IN THE
CLOUD, ACCESSED BY THE ENTIRE TEAM; AND VIDEOCONFERENCING, WITH MULTIPLE COMPUTER
STATIONS BEING ABLE TO ACTIVELY MANIPULATE REVIT MODELS.
69.0% 57.6%
25.3% 20.5%
. 91.3%
10.5%
21.8%
16.8% 9.2% 8.4%
0.4%
53.5%
60.9%
52.7%
49.3%
56.3%
51.4% 38.5%
36.5% 30.2%
35.3% 30.8%
22.9% 5.5%
46.4% 29.8%
2.8% 1.7%
37.9%
8.6% 2.8%
LINKEDIN FACEBOOK
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Research Say goodbye to the traditional, Howard Roark model of the architect as unchallenged creative visionary. The rms that
will succeed will do so in part because they can eectively capture data from their projects and demonstrate the value of design using hard
numbers. Building on an ever-increasing knowledge base will ensure that their architecture remains cutting-edge.
AtomAa mzotcAt czNTza wzsT, a $960 million state-
of-the-art hospital in Escondido, Calif., will open in 2012
boasting a number of innovative healthcare design
features, including patient-healing environments and
daylit surgical areas that provide sta with views of trees
and greenery in courtyards.
Daylighting is unusual for surgical platforms, says
Thomas Chessum, FAIA, a principal of Co Architects, the
Los Angelesbased rm that designed the building, but
it was used in the project after a joint research team of
hospital and design sta analyzed, proposed, and endorsed
the idea. We always advocate daylight but hadnt done
it before, Chessum says. This was a research project in
which the client became an ally and supported us.
Research will continue when the 360-bed,
740,000-square-foot hospital starts admitting patients.
Co Architects will undertake a post-occupancy controlled-
research survey to assess the benets of daylighting
on sta performance and productivity, job satisfaction
and employee retention, and patient outcomes. These
numbers will then be compared to the performance of
the health districts old hospital.
The world out there demands more research,
Chessum says. Clients today are looking for advantages
in buildings and systems, and we have to tell them what
those benets will be, he adds. We cant just wave our
hands and say this or that works. We have to capture
what we know and make it understandable, and that is
dependent on real, hard facts.
Once the mainstay of academic institutions and
the private sector, research today is attracting more
resources and funding at architecture rms than ever
before. The trend will likely continue as advances in
many eldsfrom materials science to energy use
generate new ways to design buildings and to measure
the performance of increasingly complex systems. There
is research now in everything we do, says Leigh Stringer,
director of innovation and research at global design rm
HOK. Clients are demanding more, and so we have to be
innovative at every level, she says. Research is integral
to innovation. Without research, HOK has no business.
How Data Can Sway C!Ients
Exactly how much rms are investing in research is
di cult to discern, because funding sources are often
mixed. But interviews conducted for this story suggest
that both the overall amount of that investment as well
as the number and variety of research projects are on the
rise. The trend will likely continue as rms capitalize on
their research initiatives to drive product and business
development, and to rene how they market their
services to sophisticated clients in specialized elds.
The phenomenon is evident in practices of all sizes.
HOK, over just the past two years, has developed books,
methodologies, and softwarealmost 200 items in
totalthrough rmwide collaboration across practice
elds and the eorts of its dedicated research sta of
three employees. Philadelphia-based KieranTimberlake
also has a dedicated research sta, which currently
includes seven employees (up from four a few years
ago, and including a full-time research director) out of a
sta of 66. And many smaller and newer rms such as
Many rms have already realized researchs importance in
wooing clients and securing projects. Heres how theyve
made research an integral part of their practices.
TEXT BY ERNEST BECK
PHOTOS BY LEE POWERS
GENSLER Gensler dramatically
changed its approach to research
after the rm conducted a survey in
2005 that explored how employees
actually worked. That survey, and a
subsequent one, proved so insightful,
recalls Diane Hoskins (right), a Gensler
executive director, that the rm created
a permanent Workplace Performance
Index, or WPI: a pre- and post-occupancy
diagnostic tool that is now a standard
part of Genslers workplace projects. Of
course you carry knowledge with you
from project to project, but you could
not address the type of issues that come
up in WPI under the time-crunch of a
project, Hoskins says. Now we can go
further and broader into the issues.
A Web-based survey, the WPI takes
about 10 minutes to complete and
includes questions for clients about
workday activities, spaces used, and
the organizations culture. The results
are analyzed, compared to industry
benchmarks, and presented to clients to
see what is working and what isnt.
For Atlanta advertising agency
22squared, which in 2011 wanted to move
its 192-person sta to a new o ce, the
WPI conrmed something managers
already suspected: The company needed
more collaboration and knowledge
sharing. Gensler designers opened up
the workspaces to allow for greater
owwhile also maintaining a sense
of individual privacyand clustered
workers in neighborhoods. And they
added pool and ping-pong tables to bring
people together. The result? Hoskins
says that a post-occupancy WPI survey,
conducted several months after the
move, indicated that collaboration and
knowledge sharing had improved by
more than 20 percent.
Design by Numbers
133 ARCHI TECT JANUARY 2012
134 THE OFFICE Research
UrbanLab in Chicago and Kennedy & Violich Architecture
in Boston, were founded with research as a core value.
Architecture Research O ce, a midsized, middle-
aged practice, was established in New York almost 20
years ago and has developed an integrated approach
to research in which the work is shared between all 23
employees. Research initiatives originate from client
projects and also from what the rm itself is interested in
pursuing. One project, called Paper Wall, started because
we were interested in combining CAD-CAM technology
and craft and working with a prosaic material, principal
Adam Yarinsky, FAIA, says. The project explored how a
humble material such as paper could be transformed
through laser cutting into a material that was 3D,
foldable, opaque, and capable of ltering light. A few
years later, a client read about the Paper Wall research
and was so impressed that he asked ARO to use the
technology in his Central Park West apartment: The
rm, based on the Paper Wall research and other studies
involving laser cutting, developed wall dividers that
resemble latticed screens. Over the years, AROs research
has also tackled broader themes, such as climate change
and its impact on cities, as well as ultralow-energy
building prototypes.
At a giant such as HOK, the expanding scope of
research reects not only the size and reach of the rms
practice areas but also the changing role of the architect
as expert and consultant in specic elds. Research
isnt just about having something clever to say to win
the work, says Clark Davis, vice chairman of HOK. The
expectation of the client and the marketplace is that our
knowledge is more specialized and current and relevant
to an individual clients situation.
Diane Hoskins, FAIA, an executive director at Gensler,
says that her rm uses its research initiativesespecially
its expertise in pre- and post-occupancy workplace
managementto help dierentiate the rm in business
pitches, a critical factor in a brutally competitive
environment. Our clients are looking for a partner to
challenge them and engage them with ideas that are
outside the realm of what they may have thought of
before, she says. If you have the knowledge backed up
with research, they will go to that new place with you.
That dovetails with what Hoskins sees as the changing
role of architects. If there is someone good at only drawing,
theres nothing wrong with that, she says. But that is the
past. You have to come to the table with knowledge and
insight, and research is part of how you do that.
Making Research Pay
Of course, starting a research initiative requires funding.
Many rms rely on grants from private and public
institutions to supplement internal resources. Awards
such as the AIA College of Fellows $100,000 biennial
Latrobe Prize are another source. (The initial research
behind AROs Paper Wall, for example, was funded by a
grant from the New York State Council on the Arts.) Other
rms work directly with sponsor companies to research
and develop products, a tactic favored by Kennedy
& Violich. Licensing agreements for cutting-edge
innovations can also help generate revenue, though rms
have often struggled to secure such agreements or nd
viable commercial partners for their products.
Los Angelesbased Gehry Technologies (GT) oers one
creative business model. Spun o from Gehry Partners
in-house research and development team in 2002, GT
now boasts a sta of 135 employees and eight o ces
worldwide; it functions as an independent rm that
provides project-management technology and consulting
services to other rms. It made sense to be external,
says Dennis Shelden, GTs chief technology o cer. Gehry
Partners still does most of its work with GT, but this
relationship represents only a small fraction of GTs
overall business. This benets everybody, Shelden says.
We keep the Gehry connection. We have an anchor client,
and they have premier relations with us. (Frank Gehry,
FAIA, is co-founder of Gehry Technologies and chairman
of the board, and he and his rm have an equity stake.)
Firms also help fund research by teaming up with
academic institutionsfor example, the Center for
URBANLAB In 2000, when Sarah Dunn, AIA, and Martin Felsen, AIA, (left) founded their Chicago architecture rm, they wanted to pursue a broad range of work, from small,
private residential projects to large-scale urban ones. But soon the husband-and-wife duo realized that big urban projects require vast amounts of time and fund raising, which would
be di cult for a seven-person rm. To remedy this problem, UrbanLab began a series of interrelated research projects exploring Chicagos infrastructure, to learn about the needs of the
city and to use that expertise as leverage to secure large urban projects. Research is about developing data and information metrics, so that when we try to convince city o cials or a
department about starting a project, we have the data to back it up, Felsen says. The ultimate goal is to delve scientically into a subject and come out with a design project.
UrbanLabs research, some in collaboration with Archeworks, an alternative design school in Chicago (Felsen sits on the board of directors), as well as other design professionals,
engineers, ecologists, and economists, recently helped the rm procure an ambitious project for the citys Department of Environment: transforming the Stockyardsthe iconic symbol
of Chicagos meatpacking-industry pastinto a vertical urban farm and biofuel power plant.
UrbanLab secured the Stockyards commission through a research project dating back to 2006. Called Eco-Boulevards, the initiative explored ways to reconceive the Chicago street
grid as a holistic biosystem that captures, cleans, and returns waste and stormwater to Lake Michigan. Currently, Felsen and Dunn found, Chicagoans discard, down their drains, over
1 billion gallons of Great Lakes water every day. A second phase of research led to a Web-based toolkit called NeighborShed that enabled individuals and local governments to calculate
their energy use, water use, and overall carbon footprint. The idea behind NeighborShed, which was funded by a $100,000 AIA Latrobe Prize in 2009, was to create a metric-based
social network platform to help track and tweak community-action plans related to energy, water, and food, and to encourage citizens to get involved in the citys Climate Action Plan.
Interested city o cials, including former Mayor Richard M. Daley, suggested that the rm use aspects of this research to focus on an urban agriculture project.
The Stockyards projectcalled Chicago Metabolismwas born. Now in the conceptual design phase, the project picks up on many of the ideas and research generated over several
years by UrbanLab, including Eco-Boulevards and NeighborShed. The project imagines a new identity for areas within the Stockyards, which have now largely fallen out of use, as an
o-the-grid sustainable center for locally grown produce and bioenergy, and a new generation of food companies.
As the winding path to securing the Chicago Metabolism project suggests, its not always clear where UrbanLabs research will lead. Were not xed on a certain idea, Felsen says,
which can be frustrating for architects, who stereotypically like assignments with well-dened boundaries. By comparison, research is open ended. We work on projects and they turn
into something else and then something else. They can morph into dierent things. Sometimes they never end.
?
Charles Renfro, AIA Principal, Diller Scodio + Renfro Likeminded o ces will team up and form new kinds of consortiums without
losing their identities, through AECOM-type overtakes or mergers, and share resources and employees to ensure themselves against the
vicissitudes of the marketplace. Its a great way to keep rms nimble, fungible, protable, and to keep your sta gainfully employed.
5
The percentage of annual
prots that the global
design giant Gensler
dedicates to research,
according to Diane
Hoskins, an executive
director at the rm
Architecture Science & Ecology, a joint venture between
Skidmore, Owings & Merrill and Rensselaer Polytechnic
Institute, and HOKs partnerships with the Biomimicry
Guild and Washington University in St. Louis.
But what about the potential return on investment?
At KieranTimberlake, which won the rst Latrobe Prize
in 2001, research is not an adjunct activity that waxes
and wanes through economic declines, says James
Timberlake, FAIA, a founding partner of the rm. Rather,
research remains core to the practice even if it may or
may not be directly protable.
Indeed, the rm exhibits a clear commitment to
research, allocating 3 to 5 percent of gross annual prots
to its pursuit and the development of intellectual
property, such as the patent-protected SmartWrap
technologya lightweight, energy-gathering, mass-
customizable building envelope material that has
been employed in rm projects such as the Cellophane
House for a Museum of Modern Art exhibit. Other
current research projects include 35 studies into the
inner and outer building envelopes for the new U.S.
embassy in London, and the monitoring of the post-
occupancy environmental performance and energy
systems, including green roofs, at seven buildings that
the rm designed. The data is shared with clients and
added to the rms knowledge basepart of what
Timberlake calls a cycle of continuous improvement
that research aords.
For his part, Timberlake says that the decision
to pursue research topics is not determined solely
by the potential return on investment. We consider
research at all levels to be useful to us, our clients, and
the profession. If ROI was the only consideration, he
says, we would exclude exploring research or socially
responsible projects on a variety of topics because a
team, or the rm, cannot pre-prove the investment
possibilities. He adds that ROI is measured on a
rmwide basis, on all projects including research, but not
on silos of individual exploration, projects, or initiatives.
We dont place unreasonable or narrow boundaries on
what we do simply based on what we want the prot
outcome to be, Timberlake says.
You Can, Too
Small rms looking to start research projects may not have
the nancial means of a KieranTimberlake. But they can
cut costs by pursuing academic partnerships and sharing
resources such as equipment and space. To secure client-
or project-based funding, AROs Yarinsky advises focusing
on one particular aspect of a project for investigation
that can be framed as having value to the client. Even a
conventional material like brick can be explored in terms
of patterns and sizes, or it can be a quality of light or space,
or something related to energy use for the building, he
says. This way, it is possible to conceive of every project,
no matter what size or type, as a form of research.
Perhaps the most important consideration for small
rms: ensuring that they are generating meaningful
results. James Timberlake worries that research has
become so trendy that some rms are jumping on the
bandwagon without applying the necessary rigor.
They are hopping on and saying, We can do this, and
promoting it to the client, but its on a supercial level,
without proof and the facts, he says. We want everyone
doing it in a serious, peer-oriented way.
Research is becoming more of an interdisciplinary
eort, a reection of how elds such as biology are
inuencing design practice. Research will not be limited
to people with backgrounds in architecture, design, and
planning, says HOKs Davis. The rich mix of challenges
will get more people involved.
Nicholas Holt, AIA, SOMs technical director, believes
that future research will gravitate more to systems than
to components, and to systems integration across multiple
platforms, such as energy: In short, the next frontier in
architectural research is going to be looking at how all of
the information it is now possible to gather in buildings
will be leveraged to enhance performance and experience.
Or, as his colleague, managing director Kenneth Lewis, puts
it, In the future, every building will have an IP address.
KENNEDY & VIOLICH ARCHITECTURE The Soft House, a conceptual design developed by the Boston architecture rm Kennedy & Violich Architecture and its materials
research division KVA MATx, features an energy-harvesting roof with a exible form that responds to sun angles. Translucent movable curtains distribute light and low-voltage energy, and fold
up into a soft luminous chandelierone of the projects many innovations in bendable photovoltaic technology. With its renewable electrical power and exible, photovoltaic nanotechnology
materials, Soft House could become a platform for an entirely dierent form of living, predicts Sheila Kennedy (right), founding principal of KVA, who partners with Juan Frano Violich.
Since it was created in 2000, a decade after KVA was established, KVA MATx has been committed to pursuing this kind of applied research, whether projects arise from in-house ideas or from
design commissions. Projects can also originate when a manufacturer calls us and says there is a technology or a material that is having a crisis or that is outdated or too conventional, Kennedy
says. This has yielded an impressive range of work for companies including Herman Miller, Philips, and North Face, for which KVA MATx devised high-performance sportswear designs that enable
athletes to control their clothes heating and cooling. Working for 3M, it produced a sunlight-delivery prototype that captures sunlight and distributes daylighting deep within a building interior.
Most KVA MATx projects revolve around ideas about materiality and the emerging nexus of materials and energy and information, Kennedy says. Many lead to signicant advances in
technology and materials. For example, parametric design software developed for Soft House allows a homeowner to customize the cladding form and solar orientation and customize the
energy density of the houses textile components according to local needs and regulations. Another project, the 34th Street Ferry Terminal in New York, now under construction, has an intelligent
infrastructure with an interactive LED lighting system built into large oculi in the roof canopy, and integrated radiant heating in the passenger waiting area that is protected from wind and rain by
retractable weather screens. KVA MATx developed the concept as well as all the lighting systems and architectural details.
Research is fully integrated into the rms design process and workplace, with all 16 sta participating. We debated whether to have a separate company but always came back to a symbiotic
relationship in which everyone is involved, one way or the other, Kennedy says. The rms o ce, in the former Blue Bird bottling plant, features a design studio as well as a digital-fabrication
workshop with a lightweight industrial robot and digital prototyping equipment, as well as saws and other tools. This approach, Kennedy believes, allows architects to be intimately involved in
technology innovation while providing their knowledge of building construction and design.
Unlike collaborative arrangements with universities or other institutions, Kennedy argues that the interdisciplinary KVA MATx model is an ideal way to concentrate expertise, provide continuity
on projects, and to move quickly to nd solutions. We are our own self-standing organization, she says. This is not an academic endeavor, or a student endeavor, she adds. This is our research
center. We follow a trajectory of thought that is of interest to us. It gives us great independence.
?
Gregg Pasquarelli, AIA Founding principal, SHoP We are going to go back to drafting boards. Theyre going to be 46-inch iPads. The
new o ce will resemble an investment banks trading desk. There will be a constant exchange of information. By bringing really smart
people together, thats how things are invented. There will be more and more in-o ce fabrication. Youll get to test ideas immediately.
137 ARCHI TECT JANUARY 2012
Focus The nature of architectural practice and workplace behavior is becoming ever more collaborativesomething impossible to
achieve when the boss is sequestered in the corner o ce and team members are scattered every which way. As architects have been telling
clients for years, good o ce design can foster productivity and innovation. Now architects should apply the lesson to themselves.
Tuz AacutTzcTs orrtcz of the future will need to
support an impressive range of collaborative pursuits,
oering spaces where designers can trade creative
new ideas, young employees can learn new skills and
technologies, and team members can interact socially
and professionally. But architects will also need quiet
spaces to pursue solo projects.
The midcentury o ce model, with private o ces
in a ring around the perimeter of the building, served
this need very wellproviding secluded spaces where
workers could focus. In todays o ce, as one architect
might be quietly developing plans for the next great
industry innovation, two colleagues may need space
to work together and perfect a drawing.
Whether theyre designing an o ce for a client or
for their own practice, architects must meet the dierent
needs of every rm employee, says Lisa Bottom, Assoc. AIA,
a workplace designer and principal in Genslers San
Francisco o ce. The big challenge now is understanding
how to support the individual while still allowing the
team to have access to each other for collaboration, she
says. Were starting to look at the o ce in a more holistic
way, and looking at ways we can create lively zones and
quiet zones and spaces in between.
It takes a combination of data and intuition to
design an eective workspace. Scientic measures of
productivity, however, can often be di cult to pin down.
Pre- and post-occupancy surveys, as well as academic
studies measuring the impact of features such as
daylighting or acoustic barriers, generally rely on self-
reported satisfaction measures. Such studies can still be
helpfulif employees like a space, theyre more likely to
spend time there doing their jobs.
But architects also must design spaces that support
the ways that their employees work. To provide for
easier communication and collaboration between team
members, for instance, rms have started to design
workspaces in a more open environment, featuring
benches or workstations with low barriers so that
workers can see their colleagues.
Firms are also focusing more on designing
community space, such as lounges or cafs, where sta
can sit in casual chairs and set up laptops on sidetables
for impromptu meetings. The idea, says Elisa Garcia,
senior project manager and operations director at San
Franciscobased Garcia Architects & Advisors, is to
create tra c routes or spaces where people are forced
to come together to learn or share information.
As the collaborative workplace becomes more
prevalent, the need for spaces where workers can focus
grows more important. Architects say that many o ces
are beginning to incorporate smaller concentration
rooms in areas close to open workspaces, so that workers
can review plans without distractions. Incubator
spacesareas where architects can meet with product
developers, saywill help fuel research initiatives.
The ultimate goal will be to make the o ce into
a compelling space, where the commute to work is
worthwhile because of the opportunity to connect with
colleaguesnot just because thats where your computer
is located. With the workforce of the future becoming
more mobile, able to work from home or the road, the
o ce will become the central hub and gathering place
that helps shape a rms identity. Ultimately, Garcia says,
the o ce space needs to make people feel like theyre a
part of something bigger.
As rms encourage more collaboration between architects
and launch new research initiatives, o ce space design
will also change. Welcome to a world of incubator spaces.
TEXT BY JEFFREY LEE
ILLUSTRATION BY PETER ARKLE
Architect, Design Thyself
THE ARCHITECTS OFFICE
OF THE FUTURE WILL
ALLOW YOU TO WORK
IN REAL TIME WITH
TECHNOLOGY THAT IS
ACCESSIBLE ANYWHERE
EFFORTLESSLY. THE
ABILITY TO WORK WITH
REMOTE TEAMS WITH
TECHNOLOGY WILL BE
UBIQUITOUS.
Lisa Bottom, workplace
designer and principal in
Genslers San Francisco o ce
?
Jamie Pedler, AIA President and CEO of Slaterpaull Architects Not every o ce will be LEED. But every space will have elements of sustainability and energy conservation.
A big chunk of that will be natural lighting. Youre going to see more o ces with private o ces and conference rooms on the inside so you can bring natural light much
deeper into the space.
MEET Architects will collaborate not only
with their colleagues in the o ce, but also with
teams around the globe. Firms cant aord
lengthy waits to establish connectionsface-to-
face communication with remote associates will
be eortless. And while architects will still work
on collaborative projects in the o ce, mobile
technology will make it seamless to work from
home or the road.
RESEARCH Already a trendy addition
to some of the countrys most forward-thinking
architecture rms (Gensler included one in
both its Atlanta and Los Angeles o ces),
incubator spaces encourage innovation by
bringing together thinkers in ways they normally
wouldnt collide. Made available for free to local
entrepreneurs or product developers, these
spaces help rms make new connections that
lead to technology or research breakthroughs.
GROW As the speed of business increases,
the need for rapid collaboration will become
ever-more important. Traditional cubicle panels
that block access to views and to other team
members (and that provide only a false sense of
acoustic separation) are disappearing, replaced
by bench-style workspaces or workstations
with shared spaces. Impromptu meetings can
now take place with a mere swivel of the chair,
allowing partnerships and productivity to grow.
NOURISH Having happy, healthy
employees is good for business. O ces will
feature low-emitting paints and nishes and
ample natural daylight, reducing the reliance on
articial light. Employees will have views and
access to natural green spaces as well as fresh,
healthy air. Firms that practice the sustainability
ethos that they preach will impress both their
sta and their clients.
NURTURE Community space gives
employees a chance to refresh and refuel, but
also helps nurture the accidental learning
and sharing that develops through chance
connections. Located near a building entrance or
a high-traffic route, and sprinkled with lounge
chairs or laptop tables, these spaces encourage
open meetings that allow architects passing by
to join the conversation and share their input.
FOCUS Constant collaboration is great for
productivityuntil youre trying to concentrate
on a set of drawings. How to balance the need
for open space with areas for focus? O ces
will include small concentration rooms, or may
even have designated library-like quiet zones,
where architects can escape from the bustle
and noise as they review plans or make a private
telephone call.
Nourish Amid the relentless hassles of work lifelooming deadlines, dropped calls, ight delaysarchitects need to nd the time to take
care of themselves. A healthy diet, regular exercise, and socializing are key to meeting the creative challenges posed by the practice of the future.
an age oI IransIormaIIon. The om ce cuIIure
oI oId, domInaIed by an absoIuIe subservIence Io Ihe
boIIom IIne, has sIarIed Io vanIsh now IhaI many
companIes have sIarIed IosIerIng a new, more human-
Iocused workpIace. CorporaIIons such as GoogIe and
AppIe have reaIIzed IhaI a producI or servIce may be IheIr
uIIImaIe goaI, buI IhaI IIs IheIr empIoyeesIhe peopIe
who enabIe Ihem Io be nancIaIIy successIuI. As more
archIIecIure rms aIIempI Io creaIe a hoIIsIIc workpIace
cuIIure, Ihey shouId be IookIng Io naIureand IIs never-
endIng pursuII oI baIanceIor some ImporIanI Iessons.
Were IorIunaIe now Io have decades oI mounIIng
research and daIa IhaI prove Ihe beneIs oI naIure-
InspIred desIgn. In her gg) book Biomimicry: Innovation
Inspired by Nature, IanIne Benyus makes a compeIIIng
case Ior derIvIng InspIraIIon Irom naIure Io IackIe human
probIems. As we desIgn our IuIure om ces, we shouId
enhance our connecIIons Io and reIaIIonshIps wIIh
naIure. FIrms shouId expIore usIng onsIIe renewabIe
soIar-power and wInd-energy IechnoIogIes. And Ihey
shouId desIgn InIerIor spaces IhaI have ampIe dayIIghI,
cIean aIr, and sIrong vIsuaI connecIIons Io naIure.
DaIIy exposure Io dayIIghI, ouIsIde vIews, and access
Io green spaces yIeId Improved IearnIng, heaIIh, |ob
saIIsIacIIon, Increased producIIvIIy, and reduced sIress.
Our empIoyees, who enhance our boIIom IInes, need
nourIshmenIIhe IangIbIe and InIangIbIe IhIngs IhaI
sIImuIaIe and empower IhemII Ihey are Io reach IheIr
poIenIIaI. BIophIIIa, a concepI pIoneered by E.O. WIIson,
Ihe noIed evoIuIIonary bIoIogIsI, suggesIs IhaI naIure Is
our uIIImaIe nourIshmenI. Humans who share a dIrecI,
benecIaI reIaIIonshIp wIIh naIure wIII Iake respecIIve
measures Io ensure IIs preservaIIon.
YeI weve severed many oI our IIes wIIh naIure.
ConsIder our connecIIon wIIh Iood. The growIng,
gaIherIng, preparIng, and eaIIng oI Iood remaIns a
IundamenIaI human acIIvIIy IhaI brIngs us IogeIher,
IueIs conversaIIon, and gIves us a creaIIve ouIIeI.
DurIng Ihe IasI cenIury, Ihough, Iood producIIon has
become IncreasIngIy IndusIrIaIIzed and domInaIed
by mass producIIon.
Todays deveIoped gIobaI socIeIIes have IargeIy IosI
Iouch wIIh Ihe orIgIns oI Iood, IIs producIIon, and IIs
preparaIIon. We have IosI ouI on Ihe nourIshmenI IhaI
a deeper reIaIIonshIp wIIh Iood can provIde. The acI oI
eaIIng has become a IargeIy passIve, secondary acIIvIIy
someIhIng we do over a keyboard or In Ihe car, amId so
many oIher dIsIracIIons IhaI we hardIy noIIce Ihe Iood aI
aII, much Iess consIder or apprecIaIe where or how II was
grown, who produced II, or how II came Io us.
SadIy, Ihe modern om ce aII Ioo oIIen reecIs
IhIs modern Iake on Iood as an aIIerIhoughI. In an
unscIenIIc survey conducIed by AcuI1zc1 magazIne,
8q percenI oI respondenIs saId IhaI IheIr rms provIde
onIy a sImpIe kIIcheneIIe wIIh a basIc mIcrowave,
IoasIer, and reIrIgeraIor Ior Iood preparaIIon. Moreover,
whIIe 6o percenI oI rms oered a break room Ior eaIIng,
and percenI had an ouIdoor space or pIcnIc area, |usI
8 percenI oered a desIgnaIed dInIng room. (See more
daIa on Ihe IoIIowIng pages.)
Many rm empIoyees, II Ihey donI eaI aI IheIr desks,
musI nd space In muIIIpurpose or conIerence rooms.
MosI ImporIanIIy, Ihe survey resuIIs suggesIed IhaI mosI
companIes IaII Io Iake IuII advanIage oI Ihe IncredIbIe
nurIurIng power IhaI can come Irom sharIng Iood
experIences as a busIness communIIy.
We can change Ihe IuIureby desIgn. NaIure-
InspIred desIgn Is noI an unpragmaIIc Iuxury buI can
heIp creaIe happIer and more producIIve empIoyees.
FIrms are Indeed sIarIIng Io change IheIr Iocus and
spend InvesImenI doIIars Io Improve IheIr workpIace
cuIIures. They are begInnIng Io see Ihe connecIIon
beIween Ihe beneIs oI green spaces, heaIIhy Iood
cuIIure, producIIvIIy, empIoyee reIenIIon, and |ob
saIIsIacIIon.
PosIIIve change Is comIng. By desIgn, we need
nourIshmenI, buI Ihrough desIgn, we are unIockIng IIs
power. AmId Ihe vesIIges oI Ihe zoIh-cenIury workpIace
InspIred by corporaIe AmerIca, we have sIarIed Io
envIsIon and desIgn a new workpIace. Here Is our
manIIesIo Ior how nourIshmenI wIII make IhaI om ce
oI Ihe IuIure a more InspIred pIace Io be. L
The 2011 Architecture Firm Award winner, BNIM,
oers eight ways to create a healthy o ce. Because
connecting with nature will become a strategic goal.
TEXT BY BNIM
INFOGRAPHICS BY CATALOGTREE
A Natural Manifesto
1
2
3
NATURE
Reconnect to nature. We thrive when we are connected to it, and we need it to
survive. In the workplace, introduce plants and ensure that workers have access
to su cient daylight. Integrate building systems that mimic nature, such as
water-management systems that use waste equals food processes for ltering
and cleansing. Make physical connections to nature by providing access to green
spaces and by supporting company-sponsored gardens.
Humanity
FOOD
How can we design with the
goal of nurturing humanity?
In the workplace, promote
a culture of collaboration,
transparent communication,
and unity. Host annual
companywide gatherings that
give all employees a voice, an
opinion, and opportunities to
contribute to o ce discussions
and projects. Use technology
to connect sta in meaningful
ways, creating venues for
generating and sharing ideas.
Food can connect us with nature and to each other. In the workplace, bring
sta together over food. Provide designated and appropriately equipped
spaces for preparing food and eating as a group. Host informal potluck
or shared-preparation meals. Discourage eating at the desk. Develop
company-supported programs for healthy eating and community farming.
PERCENTAGE OF FIRMS THAT DO
NOT PARTICIPATE IN COMPANY- OR
COMMUNITY-OWNED GARDENS
PERCENTAGE OF FIRMS
THAT DINE TOGETHER
EACH WEEKDAY
PERCENTAGE OF FIRMS
THAT DO NOT HAVE
A PROGRAM FOR OR
COMMITMENT TO
SUPPORTING HEALTHY
FOOD CHOICES
PERCENTAGE OF FIRMS
THAT PARTICIPATE IN
COMPANY-OWNED GARDENS
PERCENTAGE OF FIRMS
THAT PARTICIPATE IN
COMMUNITY-OWNED GARDENS
92.9 5.4
70
1.8
5
141 ARCHI TECT JANUARY 2012
4
HOW DO ARCHITECTS EAT AT THE OFFICE?
We used SurveyMonkey to conduct an unscientic
investigation into rms and food. What kind of
amenities do rms oer? Do they support community
gardens for sta members or local food programs?
Do employees dine together? How often? A total
of 118 architects completed the survey, and their
responses showed that few rms have embraced the
local food movement or support company gardens.
Food Preparation:
Dining Spaces:
Company-Provided Food:
No Space
Provided
Break
Room
In-House
Employee
Expense
Kitchenette
Provided
Designated
Dining Space
In-House
No cost
Full Kitchen
Provided
Green
Space
Multipurpose
Conference Room
During
Meetings
No Food
Provided
COMMUNITY
The African philosophy, Ubuntu,
promotes the belief that we
thrive as individuals when
our community thrives. In the
workplace, join forces with
other local businesses to create
a commitment to using local
restaurants and food producers
for company-provided meals.
Bring your community into
your o ce through an art-in-
the-o ce program featuring
rotating exhibits from local
artists. Encourage and support
community involvement.
82
PERCENTAGE OF FIRMS THAT DO
NOT HAVE A PROGRAM FOR, OR A
COMMITMENT TO, SUPPORTING
LOCAL FOOD PRODUCERS
83.9% 11.6% 4.5%
60% 8.4% 6.3% 44.2%
0.9% 4.5% 64.5% 32.7%
142 THE OFFICE Nourish
?
Julie Eizenberg, AIA Founding principal of Koning Eizenberg Architecture In boutique rms, there are going to be fewer people on site. More review and production work
will be done elsewhere. Youre doing more redlining. All the disciplines that used to be easily managed by generalists have become specialized in the past 10 years. To do hardware
specications in-house is crazy. The changes in source-lightingthe actual lampinghave made it so dierent that you cant keep up with it unless youre a specialist.
6
7
Challenge
CREATIVITY
PLEASURE
5
Creativity is the key to innovation and problem solving. Unlock the power of creativity in the workplace
by bringing sta together for open dialogue. Encourage participation and seek ways to reduce inhibition.
Oer a variety of venues for creative exploration and exchange, both physical and virtual.
Challenges force us to be our most creative and innovative,
and our most focused. Embrace challenge in the workplace
and empower each employee to nd solutions. Seek ways to
enable transparency and involvement. Integrate emerging
concepts such as crowdsourcing to discover and engage
untapped knowledge within your sta and community.
Take time amid the harried pace
of the modern workplace to
appreciate healthy pleasures.
Support initiatives that help
refresh, invigorate, and calm
sta: good food, green spaces,
and opportunities for quiet
meditation and spirited
interaction. Cultivate a culture
of giving and sharing.
8
Design your o ce spaces and business to
incubate curiosity. Seek new ways to gain and
share knowledge. Encourage inquiry, exploration,
and innovation. Invest, however modestly,
in research and development, and enable all
employees to contribute.
CURIOSITY
2.5
Average number of times each
month that rm employees
dine together, according to
survey respondents
BRIAN FUENTES, AIA
Age: 34
Firm: Fuentesdesign
Bio: Semipro mountain biker and solo
practitioner who designs straw-bale houses.
Ive worked in and out of my house during
the last 10 years. In 2004, I bought a 19th-
century stone house just south of Boulder,
Colo. There was a stone garage, and we
put a steel roof on it and straw bales on
the inside. That was my o ce. But there
were rats and it was freezing cold. I ended
up moving back downtown. Now were
in a warehouse with a steel fabricator, a
builder, and a hardwood-ooring guy.
Today Im working on my laptop from
my condo. Tonight Ill be working from a
coee shop. Tomorrow morning Im going
into the o ce to meet my employee.
Were going to do a little charrette action
in the a.m., then go for a ride.
Once I established my business, I
started racing bikes harder. I didnt have
a car, so Id ride my bike to projects.
Commuting is good training. Im denitely
less productive when I cant ride. When I
worked in an o ce, at 2 p.m. Id be drafting
and would not be that productive. Now
I get on the bike for a couple hours and
come back refreshed.
Im going to be married next August.
My ance and I are building a house.
Thats kind of put the kibosh on my racing.
Architecture culture is for workaholics.
Ive made an eort not to do that. Im
only going to work until Im tired and not
productive. Then Im going to ride, or sleep,
and then come back and hit it hard again.
There has to be a healthier way to do
architecture and were trying to discover it.
I dont know if its the right way, but weve
survived so far.
Grow In the face of never-ending work pressure, is it possible to lead a well-rounded life? Architects are rejecting the old-school model of advancement
and nding new paths to a healthy life/work balance. Everyones situation is dierent, so exbility is essential. Smart bosses will start stretching.
oua azouzsT was simple: Tell us about your challenges
with balancing work and life. Clearly architects have
spent some time pondering this issue, because they
responded to our email blast with passionate and
insightful missiveshundreds of them. We heard from
individuals Skyping at all hours with clients in China.
We heard from an intern working nights as an Outback
Steakhouse server to make ends meet. We heard from
single moms juggling child-care pickup with client
meetings. We heard about how the pervasive culture
of long hours at many rms can be traced back to the
all-but-mandated all-nighters in architecture school,
and how the ailing economy and threat of layos only
exacerbate the stress.
But we also received shing-trip photos from
a partner playing hooky, got lectures about how
overcharged striving after the American Dream
precipitates burnout, and heard stories about how exible
working hours and remote o cing make it easier to
spend time with family. In the end, a rather rich cross-
section emerged of day-to-day life in the trenches, at
rms small and big, from semiretired baby boomers to
Gen-Xers eschewing traditional corporate o ce culture.
In theIr own words:
My work is an integral part of my life. The borders between
home, family, o ce, studio, etc. are healthiest when theyre
indistinct. A Portland, Ore.based architect
Work/life balance? Ive blurred the distinction and
usually work 18 hours a day/7 days a week, thanks to the
computer and the di cult economy. A Houston-based
solo practitioner
I try to keep work separate from home as much as possible.
There are times when its necessary to bring work home for
deadlines, but for the most part I disengage once I leave
work. A Scottsdale, Ariz.based architect
Our society, and unfortunately our profession, doesnt
place much value in achieving appropriate life/work
balance. Our relationships (and our children) often pay
the price. Principal of an Olympia, Wash.based rm
Architecture has become much more than a career but a
lifestyle. A Louisville, Ky.based intern
One of the things that makes balance possible in the face
of being on the road four days a week at minimum is the
current state of technology. Without the communication
advantages oered by the smartphone, tablet, and laptop, I
would spend my time at home doing nothing but catching
up. Principal of a Tucson, Ariz.based rm
Indeed, exibility emerged as a recurring theme,
with many respondents saying that being more plugged
in meant they worked more outside the o ce. Thats no
surprise, says Cali Williams Yost, a Fast Company blogger
and CEO of Flex+Strategy Group, a consulting rm that
works with corporate and nonprot clients. A study her
company conducted this year with the Opinion Research
Corp. suggests that full-time employees are increasingly
embracing the idea of exible hours and worrying
less about being perceived as slackers or about losing
their jobs when they take advantage of such policies.
Increased workloads inspired by the recession, however,
have made it harder for workers to take advantage of
ex time, the study showed.
So how should rms and employees introduce
exibility into the workplace, to maximize worker
productivity and happiness? Organizations can give
us exibility, but they cant tell us when to turn on
or turn o, Yost says. In short, workers must gure
out their own best strategy for maintaining their
productivity, happiness, relationships, and outside
pursuits. For some architects, integrating their work
and life may be ideal. For others, the answer may be
starting their own rm or keeping a strict boundary
between home and o ce.
In these pages we feature the stories of three
architects who responded to our query. (You can read
many more such stories online at architectmagazine.com.)
Amid the lingering recession, these individuals are
managing their own practices, which grew and took
shape around their busy lifestyles. In envisioning the
workday of the future, one trend seems clear: The
traditional 9-to-5 will become ever less common.
Smartphones and ever-growing workloads have broken
down the walls between home and o ce. Fortunately,
architects are nding creative ways to manage their time.
TEXT BY ERIC WILLS
INTERVIEWS AS TOLD TO ALEX HOYT
PHOTOS BY LEE POWERS
Finding Your Balance
145 ARCHI TECT JANUARY 2012
DAVID GREUSEL, FAIA
Age: 55
Firm: Convergence Design
Bio: After being laid o in 2010, started own rm in Kansas City, Mo., with a workplace culture that promotes exibility.
Convergence Design was born in adversity. All achitect sta who work here are former Populous
employees, and we all were set aside during the Great Recession. I knew there was basically no chance
I was going to hook on with another rm in early 2010. The architectural market here was as depressed
as anyplace else. Id always talked to myself about starting my own rm, and I thought nows my
chance. Were located in a 100-year-old building in downtown that was the livestock exchange, where
all the cattle brokers used to work.
We dont buy into the notion of work/life balance, because we think it presents a false dichotomy. Were
seeking to integrate work and life in a seamless whole. You dont compartmentalize. If youre working on a
report at midnight you dont feel as guilty, you dont say this is me-time Im giving to the company. It works
the other way, too. We have people at our o ce who have to run out and pick up a kid at daycare, and thats
ne, too. We dont want them to feel guilty either. [Sometimes] they bring their kids back to the o ce, and
the kid just works alongside the parent until its time to go home.
We still dont have o ce hours. My wifeshes my bookkeeperand I usually arrive at the o ce
sometime between 8:30 and 9:00 a.m., sometimes earlier, sometimes later. I like the ow of the day. Its the
opposite of a clock-watching culture. Theres a level of trust involved that people are going to put in a full
days work. Architects tend to work more than eight hours a day anyway, so its not really an issue. People go
home when they feel like its time to go home, and that seems to work well.
Im an empty nester, so I dont have the kinds of commitments I had 10 years ago. Now I have time to
volunteer. Im in a radio comedy troupe that performs weekly on Sirius satellite radio.
I also travel a great deal. Virtually all of our clients are out of townfrom Florida to Canada. When I rst
started Convergence, I thought I was going to be Mr. Local Architect, designing the bank and the school
and the church in Kansas City, but instead Im traveling all over North America doing stadiums, arenas,
convention centersanyplace where large groups of people are likely to gather. So for me, a day at the
airport is as typical as a day at the o ce.
146 THE OFFICE Grow
KATHLEEN LECHLEITER, AIA Age: 52 Firm: K.lechleiter Architect Bio: Former shareholder and vice president at Hord Coplan Macht (HCM) in Baltimore turned solo practitioner.
Were converting a building that Gertrude Stein used to live in into a ve-unit aordable housing unit. Right now I dont have any employees. Ive hired a couple people on
contract to help me with production drawings. But Im the designer and the project-manager, the draftsman and the spec writer, the bookkeeper and the janitor, the
rainmaker and the o ce administrator. At any small rm you do it all. I worked with my husband both at a practice we founded in Minneapolis and at HCM. I realized one
morning I had forgotten a mortgage payment. That same morning, my husband called me out of the conference room and said that the school nurse was on the lineour
kids had head lice. That was when it clicked. One of us had to do something, and I decided to go on my own.
My attitude has gotten better, but its organized chaos. Dierentnot better or worse. Work didnt take a back seat. Id get up early and work from home. Id do the kids
stu, then go to the o ce, pick them up. Then, after they went to bed, Id work late, a lot of times until midnight, one. Youre accessible all the time. Initially it was hardon
both of us. Wed worked together for 13 years. We didnt see each other as much. There were a few projects we competed on, during the recession, when bigger rms were
going after smaller projects. Theres an ego thing involved, Im sure, but it goes both ways. I was missing the opportunities he was getting in the big rm, he missed the
exibility I was getting in the small rm. There was a shift, because all of a sudden I wasnt making as much money. It wasnt what I planned to do, but I wouldnt change
it either. It gave me more time with my kids, and that was a conscious decision. Something I wanted to do.
?
Michael Sorkin Founding principal, Michael Sorkin Studio There is the possibility that every o ce will be more than one o ce. Theres a burgeoning back-o ce culture in Asia.
There probably will be glamorous o ces in New York City and 4,000 Asian employees beavering away in a featureless landscape in China somewhere. The starchitects of this world
will certainainly be designing on their iPads in their Emirates frequent-yer lounges, but the brunt of the CDs will be outsourced.
From concept to completion
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The rst oor of the museum is devoted to open storage,
educational exhibits, conservation and research labs, o ces,
and the lobby. Some works on paper are stored in a research lab
(this image), and canvases are stored on vertical racks (bottom)
in a light-controlled space that is visible to the public. A double-
height corridor (opposite) is lined with glass display cases.
DESIGN ALLIED WORKS
FIRM DESIGN
The Clyord Still Museums concrete is its essence and its signature. Allied Works used poured-in-place
concrete in order to achieve the massiveness and the cellular structure that architect Brad Cloepl
thought was the correct response to program and site. He also wanted that concrete to catch the light
and to reveal the process of its making.
Initially the rm studied ways to manipulate the concrete itself to achieve roughness and variation
of surface, nally settling on the formwork as the source of variety they wanted. Vertical formwork was
constructed out of rough-sawn Hem-Fir planks that were ripped with a bevel or a router to create various
n depths; using boards instead of sheets of plywood allowed the architects to exploit the ssures
between these wood pieces to let concrete ooze out, creating a much more hand-crafted aesthetic. A
sealer was applied to the boards before the concrete was poured.
Though the surface treatment appears to be random, Allied Works carefully determined two patterns
(one for the north and south faades, another for the east and west ones) based on the intersection of
the building faces with the geometry of the perforated ceiling plane. For the north and south faades, 11
unique shapes of Hem-Fir board were used to create a repeat of approximately 7
1
/2 feet. On the east and
west faades, the pattern is much smaller in scale: two board shapes to create a repeat every 8 inches.
The application of three dierent textures lends further complexity to the patterns. On the thickest
walls, the boards were routed to create a 1
1
/2 inch-thick relief. This relief shrinks to
3
/4 inch at inset walls,
and to nothing where ush boards were used to form the interior gallery walls. As a result, the walls
have seven dierent rhythms of vertical concrete ns, portions of which are incomplete by design, the
result of fractures in the ns that occurred with the removal of the formwork. The ridges are deepest and
most tightly spaced where they face the western sun, in order to create a strong pattern along the street.
While the ceilings on the ground oor are also cast concrete, Allied Works created a ush, rough-sawn
board-form pattern there to let the vertical planes appear as rough pillars.
Not only is the structure concrete, but Allied Works, in collaboration with Arup and KPFF, also
developed a poured-in-place concrete screen for the ceilings in the upper-level galleries. This thin plane
sports a pattern of distorted ovals, biased to the north, that run diagonally across its surface, creating
openings for sunlight that enters through from the glass skylights above. This plane is structurally tied
back to the adjacent concrete walls.
We wanted a building that would look made, not constructed, Cloepl says. We wanted
something of the earth. Other art galleries have skylights and white walls that give you a sense of
lightness. Here, we wanted everything to be heavy. We wanted the concrete to create the light, and the
light to have weight.
TOOLBOX: BOARD-FORMED CONCRETE WALLS
Project Credits
Project Clyord Still Museum, Denver
Client Clyord Still Museum
Architect and Interior Designer Allied Works Architecture, Portland, Ore., and
New YorkBrad Cloepl, AIA (design principal); Chris Bixby, AIA (project lead);
Dan Koch, AIA (project architect); Brent Linden, Susan Barnes, Robin Wilcox,
Scott Miller, Chelsea Grassinger, AIA, Emily Kappes (project team)
Mechanical and Electrical Engineer Arup
Structural Engineer KPFF
Construction Manager Romani Group
General Contractor Saunders Construction
Landscape Architect Reed Hilderbrand
Lighting Designer ArupBrian Stacy
Size 28,500 square feet
Cost $15.5 million (construction cost); $29 million (total cost)
Materials and Sources
Architectural Concrete Reginald D. Hough, FAIA
Building Envelope Simpson Gumpertz & Heger sgh.com
Exterior Cladding Stained western red cedar window and terrace screens;
Custom board-formed architectural concrete walls
Flooring Ground and polished concrete; Stained white oak
Furniture Allied Works Architecture (lacquered reception desk and retail
kiosks, wood and glass staircase, wood exhibit casework, steel gallery
benches, and lectern)
Glazing Oldcastle BuildingEnvelope (skylight) oldcastlebe.com
Lighting Litelab Corp. (gallery down lights) litelab.com
Structure Cast-in-place architectural concrete
Walls Stained western red cedar wall cladding
Windows and Doors Dynamic Architectural Windows & Doors
(stained mahogany windows and doors) dynamicwindows.com;
SkyLine Sky-Lites (skylight) skylites.com
Concrete Formwork Diagram
0 1 2
Smooth boards
Concrete mix of 50% white cement,
30% gray cement, 20% yash
1
1
/2" relief
3
/4" relief
DESIGN ALLIED WORKS
158
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design reigns.
The only university ranked No. 1 in the U.S. by DesignIntelligence
for both undergraduate and graduate interior design programs
in the same year.
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Circle no. 577 or http://architect.hotims.com
DRS. JULIAN AND
RAYE RICHARDSON
APARTMENTS
TEXT BY LISA FINDLEY
PHOTOS BY BRUCE DAMONTE
SAN FRANCISCO
DAVID BAKER + PARTNERS
Tuz sotuTtoN To uomztzssNzss is a home, says David Schnur, director of housing development
for the San Franciscobased nonprot Community Housing Partnership (CHP), while sitting in the
courtyard of the new Richardson apartments. This is not transitional housingit is permanent.
As long as someone pays their rent and follows our basic house rules, they can stay here for life.
Designed by local rm David Baker + Partners, the Richardson was developed in collaboration
with another nonprotMercy Housingbut is owned and managed by CHP. It provides 120
300-square-foot studio apartments as well as a medical clinic and psychological counseling
services for the formerly homeless and for those in danger of becoming homeless.
The ve-story, U-shaped building hosts glass-fronted retail spaces at the corner and along
one street edge. Its massing is carefully controlled by shifts in surface and materials on the
faade, moving from zinc cladding with recycled wood insets, to simply detailed white stucco, to
a carefully calibrated chartreuse paint. We expected the zinc piece to get value-engineered out,
says project architect Amit Price Patel, but the slow economy worked in our favor. We got to keep
it along with a lot of other more rened and durable materials and surfaces.
And durability is key. Behind its gracious urban faade, the building houses a community
that can be rough on a building: Many residents have physical or psychological disabilities, while
others have been on the street so long that they have forgotten how to care for a permanent
home. As the owners of our buildings, we prefer to upgrade materials to maximize life-cycle and
maintenance costs, Schnur says. A well-designed and maintained building also adds dignity to
the lives of our residents.
Security is necessary, but is not overbearing. Discreetly placed cameras scan the exterior of the
building. No resident has a key to the front door. Instead, they are buzzed into a secure lobby by
the front deskstaed 24 hours a day by trained personnelbefore being admitted to the rest of
the facility. But nothing about the entry sequence feels institutional: the custom-designed front
desk and mailboxes would not be out of place in a high-end loft building. Generous windows
connect the lobby with an adjacent lounge, fostering community while allowing oversight.
A landscaped central courtyard features custom-designed tables and seating, and allows
residents to gather outside, away from the street. Foldable glass walls in the ground-oor
multipurpose room open onto the courtyard. On the other side, the clinic takes advantage of
the daylight but still maintains privacy with a patterned glass wall. Anchoring one end of the
courtyard is an open-air staircase. I like to put these exterior stairs in, design principal David
Baker, FAIA, says. They foster chance encounters between residents.
On the four apartment oors, what might have been drab, double-loaded corridors instead
are deftly designed with brightly painted light coves carved into the ceiling at the unit doors. The
e ciently laid-out apartments come with durable custom furniture and basic kitchen equipment.
The Richardson sits just two blocks from the gilded dome of San Francisco City Hall. The
project initially provoked a NIMBY response from residents of the rebounding neighborhood,
necessitating extensive work with various community groups to assuage concerns. The city,
however, was a huge advocate for the project from the beginning. The site was granted to the
developers by the Redevelopment Agency, and the city waived parking-space requirements.
The Richardson cost $26.8 million to build, and that price tag seems high with rents set at
just 30 to 50 percent of the income of each resident. Schnur maintains that the quality of the
architecture was eminently important in winning over the neighbors. In addition, he says, Our
tenants feel good living in good architecture. They are motivated to keep their lives together so
they can stay. And the Richardson will save the city money as well. Dr. Joshua Bamberger, medical
director of the San Francisco Department of Public Health ran the numbers using records for the
120 Richardson residents. Last year, they used $2.4 million in city and other services. With the on-
site clinic alone, it is expected that these costs will be drastically reduced. Bamberger looks forward
to doing the math again next year, and in so doing, prove the value of housing the homeless.
Named for local activists Julian and Raye Richardson, the
Richardson Apartments sits on land left vacant after the removal
of a freeway spur. To break up the building massing, the architects
employed several surfaces and materials on the faade (this image).
The building is topped with a partial green roof (opposite top),
planters for resident gardens, and a photovoltaic array and solar
hot-water heaters. A courtyard (opposite bottom) provides another
outdoor gathering space for residents.
DESIGN DAVID BAKER + PARTNERS
Ground-oor communal spaces,
including the resident lounge (this
image), feature board-formed
concrete walls and polished concrete
oors. Extensive glazing allows for
views between many of the lower-
level spaces (opposite middle) but
a pattern applied to the windows
of the clinic and counseling spaces
(opposite top) maintains privacy.
The robust materiality of the public
spaces continues in the units
themselves (opposite bottom),
which incorporate highly durable
cabinetry, quality furniture, tiled
bathrooms, and easy-to-maintain
plumbing. Staggered stud walls
between units mitigate sound.
DESIGN DAVID BAKER + PARTNERS
DESIGN DAVID BAKER + PARTNERS
Project Credits
Project Drs. Julian and Raye Richardson Apartments, San Francisco
Client Community Housing Partnership, Mercy Housing California
Architect and Interior Designer David Baker + Partners, San Francisco
David Baker, FAIA (design principal); Peter MacKenzie, AIA (principal-in-charge);
Amit C. Price Patel, AIA (project architect); Brit Epperson, Amanda Loper, AIA,
Sara Mae Martens, Angela Thomson, John Thompson, AIA
M/P Engineer Tommy Siu and Associates Mechanical Engineers
Electrical Engineer FW Associates
Structural Engineer Structural Design Engineers
Civil Engineer Sandis
General Contractor Cahill Contractors
Landscape Architect Andrea Cochran Landscape Architecture
Lighting Designer Horton Lees Brogden
A liated Government Agency San Francisco Redevelopment Agency
Owners Representative Design Studios Gonzalo Castro
Associate Architect Baker Vilar Architects
Security Systems Teletech Security
Solar Sun, Light and Power
Interiors Furnishings and Equipment Fee Munson Ebert (common spaces);
Market Design (residential units)
Public Art Evelyn Reyes/Creativity Explored
Clinic/Health Services UCSF Citywide Case Management Program; San Francisco
Department of Public Health
Work Training Toolworks
Acoustical Engineer Wilson Ihrig & Associates
Waterproong Consultant Gale Associates
Size 65,419 square feet
Cost $26.86 million (construction)
Materials and Sources
Adhesives, Coatings, and Sealants 3M 3m.com; United States Gypsum Co. usg.com;
Sika sika.com; BASF basf.com; Sherwin-Williams Co. sherwin-williams.com; DuPont
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Concrete U.S. Concrete us-concrete.com; Headwaters Construction Materials
headwaterscm.com; Hanson, part of Heidelberg Cement heidelbergcement.com;
West Coast Aggregates wcagg.com; BASF basf.com
Exterior Wall Systems Fortiber Building Systems Group fortiber.com; Vaproshield
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Fry Reglet fryreglet.com; Stockton Products stocktonproducts.com; Western Metal
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Furniture Ohio Design ohiodesign.com; Mueller Nicholls mnbuild.com; Pacassa
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HVAC FAMCO famcomfg.com; Runtal North America runtalnorthamerica.com;
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unitedenertech.com; Modine Mfg. Co. www.modine.com; Danfoss danfoss.com
Lighting Philips Day-Brite daybrite.com; Birchwood Lighting birchwoodlighting
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Prudential Ltg. prulite.com; HK Lighting Group hklightinggroup.com; Evergreen
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Metal Rheinzink rheinzink.com
Roong American Hydrotech hydrotechusa.com; Johns Manville jm.com
Seating Green Waste Recycle Yard/Custom Metal Manufacturing
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Site Products Concreteworks concreteworks.com; Creative Pipe creativepipe.com;
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Windows, Curtainwalls, and Doors Arcadia Architectural Products arcadiaproducts.
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safti.com; U.S. Aluminum www.usalum.com; Oregon Doors oregondoor.com;
Door Components doorcomponents.com
For a full list of Materials and Sources, visit architectmagazine.com.
First-Floor Plan
Typical Apartment-Level Plan
0 20 40
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O ces
Retail
Counseling
suite
Medical
clinic
Entrance Lobby
Lounge
Laundry
Kitchen
Community room
Courtyard
Elevators Terrace
Apartments
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Designed for experienced professionals, the Academies:
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Circle no. 579 or http://architect.hotims.com
GENEVA
BEHNISCH ARCHITEKTEN
WORLD INTELLECTUAL
PROPERTY HEADQUARTERS,
ADMINISTRATION BUILDING
TEXT BY KATIE GERFEN
PHOTOS BY DAVID MATTHIESSEN
(EXCEPT WHERE NOTED)
iusT orr Tuz tAcz ozs NATtoNs, in the heart
of Genevas international district, lies the new
Administration Building for the World Intellectual
Property Organization (WIPO). A specialized agency of
the United Nations, WIPO is dedicated to creating an
international intellectual-property systemno small feat
in the age of the rapidly produced knocko. Everything
from novels to industrial design falls under its purview.
WIPO has 1,300 employees in Geneva, many of whom
worked until now out of rented o ce space. In 1999, the
organization held an international competition for a new
administration building to sit adjacent to WIPOs existing
headquarters, and Stuttgart, Germanybased Behnisch
Architekten won the commission. Then the project went
on hold.
Every ve years, we have a substantial nancial
crisis somewhere, says partner-in-charge Stefan
Behnisch, Hon. FAIA, and every time, the United Nations
is hit by it. When work resumed in 2006, the architect
updated the design to include new technologies. But
before construction could begin, the scheme had to be
presented twice to the General Assembly for approval, a
process about which Behnisch says, I learned a lot about
complex international diplomacy.
Building for international organizations is very
interesting, Behnisch says. When working for a client
that represents 185 dierent nations, he explains, Its
very hard to get a grip on the cultural background. So
the architects looked to the organizations processes, and
discovered that a common denominator in all of WIPOs
dealings is a very polite behavior to each other, he says.
To create a polite building, the architects relied on
pure geometries and a thoughtful approach to interior
spaces to accommodate the needs of 500 of WIPOs
employees from diverse cultures under one roof. The
Administration Building measures 100 meters (328
feet) by 40 meters (131 feet), and is clad in a subdued
curtainwall system interrupted by fritted vertical
spandrel panels in varying shades of blue. The faade is a
little bit like a business suit, Behnisch says.
The faade creates a sense of transparency, but due
to the high-prole nature of the organization, it also had
to be secure. The lower oors have blast-resistant glazing,
The rst atrium, also known as the entrance hall (previous spread), has full-
sized trees planted into the ground oor and glass-enclosed elevators to ferry
workers to the o ce levels above. The central atrium (this image) is anked by
a 300-seat cafeteria (opposite right), which employees and delegates of the 185
member states use. A shallow pool surrounded by benches (opposite left) runs
through all three of the atria and is used to reect daylight and to help mitigate
sound reverberation in the cavernous and largely glass-enclosed spaces.
INTERIOR DESIGN BEHNISCH
FIRM DESIGN
there are no operable windows, and all entrances are monitored. The
art is not making it [security] visible and obvious, Behnisch says.
The interior of the 47,140-square-meter (507,410-square-foot) building
is dominated by three full-height atria, all connected at the ground oor.
It is around these voids that the public spacesincluding a cafeteria, a
library, and conference roomsand the o ces are organized. In Europe,
Behnisch says, we try to avoid oor plates deeper than 55 feet. If you
have a deep site, what can you do? You punch holes in it. The glazed
roof over each atrium is capped by computer-controlled and -motorized
polished-steel lamellas, which move in response to sun conditions to
direct light into the building while minimizing glare and heat gain.
On the ground oor, a shallow pool that ows through all three atria
helps to maintain desired humidity levels, reect daylight, and dampen
noise. Gardens in open corridors on the upper levels and trees in the
atrium at the main entrance bring nature into the building, and allow
more opportunities for interaction among colleagues, says Isabelle
Boutillon, director of WIPOs premises division.
In this new building, there is more of a sense of people being closer
by, Boutillon says, even though they may have to walk just as far away
as between two separate buildings. Because youre inside and with
these very transparent surroundings, it seems like its just next door.
And though Behnisch Architektens (and, in fact, most of Europes)
portfolio of o ce space is usually characterized by an open plan, the
roughly 500 employees who work in the Administration Building are
nearly all ensconced in private o ces. It was a requirement here, but
we didnt ght it, Behnisch says. Normally we would ght it. But it has
to do with the Eskimo sitting next to the guy from Kenya. They have very
dierent climatic, cultural, and privacy requirements.
To provide temperature control, the building makes use of passive
and alternative strategies to regulate the interior environment, such as
taking advantage of a recent citywide initiative to pipe chilled water
from nearby Lake Geneva for cooling. Our building was one of the
rst one in Geneva to benet fully from this system from the start,
Boutillon says. The infrastructure was built in such a way to cater to the
lake-water system. The use of lake water is combined with a thermally
activated, concrete, ground-oor slab, the use of the stack eect to
naturally draw air through the building and up through the atria,
and operable windows in each o ce that open to the atria, allowing
employees to control their individual environments.
I think [the reaction has been] very positive, but since they are
such a bunch of polite people you never know, Behnisch says jokingly.
But Boutillon notes that what people like most is the transparency. The
fact that from one side of the atrium to the other, across the void, people
can see each other, she says. It is very lively.
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INTERIOR DESIGN BEHNISCH
The third atrium is characterized by brightly colored squares on the oor,
interrupted by light sculptures (opposite), which can be viewed from open hallways
that run the length of the building (top). Each o ce (this image) features operable
windows as part of oor-to-ceiling glazing that looks out into the atria.
Project Credits
Project World Intellectual Property Organization Administration Building, Geneva
Client World Intellectual Property Organization
Architect Behnisch Architekten, StuttgartStefan Behnisch, Hon. FAIA (partner-in-
charge); Stefan Rappold (project leader, project phase); Nicola Wagner, Klaus Schwgerl,
Astrid Kirchner, Alexandra Eichenlaub, Dennis Wirth, Lisa Rezbach (project team)
Collaborating Architect Hofmeister Architekten, Stuttgart, GermanyMalte L.
Hofmeister (project lead, implementation planning phase)
Structural Engineer Schlaich Bergmann und Partner; T-Ingnierie;
Lygdopolous Ingnieur Civil
Electrical Engineer Mab-Ingnierie; Amstein + Walthert
M/E/P RG Riedweg & Gendre; Transsolar Energietechnik; Sorane; Technics Energy
Faade Emmer Pfenninger Partner
Building Physics Horstmann + Berger
Lighting Ingenieurbro Walter Bamberger
Landscape Planungsgruppe ASGN Architekten; Oxalis Architectes paysagistes
Fire Protection Institut Suisse de Promotion de la Scurit
Survey Heimberg & Cie Ingnieurs Gomtres O ciels et Gomaticiens
Geotechnics Gotechnique Applique
Graphic Design Mller-Steeneck Grak-Design
Traffic T-Ingnierie
Size 47,140 square meters (507,410 square feet)
Cost 110 million ($143.5 million)
Materials and Sources
Carpet Fabromont (Kugelgarn) fabromont.ch; Interface interfaceglobal.com
Flooring Mardeco (terrazzo) mardeco.ch; Raymond Stfano (glass oor) vitreries.ch;
Multisol (oak-oiled parquet) multisol.ch
Fire protection DES (re-sprinkler installation)
Furniture Vitra (conference room and cafeteria tables, couches) vitra.com; Interstuhl
(conference room chairs) interstuhl.de; Hay (cafeteria chairs) hay.dk; Oecct (entrance
hall easy chairs) oecct.se; Bior (library bookshelves) mobior.com
Glazing Nowak Glas (Isopane) glas-nowak.de
Lighting Zumtobel Lighting zumtobel.us; Dark dark.be; Viabizzuno viabizzuno.com;
Kundalini kundalini.it; XAL xalusa.com; Louis Poulsen louispoulsen.com
Walls Strhle (partition walls) Raum-Systeme www.straehle.de; Dorma (mobile
partition walls) dorma-usa.com
0 50 100
Section
Ground-Floor Plan
Second-Floor Plan
O ce-Level Plan
0 25 50
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Atria O ces
Entrance Parking
Terrace
Cafeteria
Conference rooms
Library
O ces
O ces Garden
Garden
Conference room
Entrance
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S P E C I A L A D V E R T I S I N G S E C T I O N
Classieds
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Meet just a few of the
super people at Lafarge
www.lafarge-na.com/visitwithme
PERMINATOR
10 and 15 Mil Underslab Vapor barrier
PERMINATOR underslab vapor barrier features low permeance and
high puncture resistance. It is the industry choice for protecting your
investment. PERMINATOR provides a highly effective, economical,
puncture-resistant choice for helping to reduce the penetration of
moisture and water vapor through the slab into the structure, thereby
helping to protect your flooring investment. Specify PERMINATOR
when it has to be tough enough to last.
W. R. MEADOWS, INC.
Hampshire, IL Phone: 847/214-2100 Fax: 847/683-4544 800/342-5976
www.wrmeadows.com
Learn how Lafarge products can
help toward LEED
building
http://certguide.lafarge-na.com
For iPad
For iPhone
One touch proves it: your concrete columns will never
look or feel the same again. Thanks to a Duraglas
coating inside each Sonotube Finish Free concrete
form, columns turn out feeling smooth as marble. They
eliminate the time and expense of manual nishing.
And a patented StripCordTM stripping lament makes
form removal scar-free, faster, easier and safer. You get
a beautiful smooth-column solution thats more cost-
effective all around.
Feel for yourself at the Sonoco
exhibit: booth S11039 at World
of Concrete. See how one contractor recently eliminated
over 2,500 hours of labor using Finish Free forms. Or visit
sonotube.com right now. Add Finish Free forms to your
plans and youll build smarter
and smoother.
Now up to
42" diameter
and 20' tall!
That marble-smooth
feel comes from
Finish Free
forms.
C O N C R E T E F O R M S
888/766-8823 sonotube.com
Sonotube Finish Free forms
MEL-ROL PRECON
Blindside/UnderslaB MeMBrane
MEL-ROL PRECON goes where conventional waterproofing products
are impractical such as positive-side waterproofing where access
is prohibited due to the soil retention system. MEL-ROL PRECON
fabric bonds tenaciously to poured concrete walls to create solid
waterproofing protection. Superior to traditional clay-type products,
MEL-ROL PRECON features a greater seal to stop water in its tracks.
A flexible, rubberized asphalt core also creates stronger protection
than clay-type products currently used.
W. R. MEADOWS, INC.
Hampshire, IL Phone: 847/214-2100 Fax: 847/683-4544 800/342-5976
www.wrmeadows.com
MARKET-READY
RTLED lighting for
general ambient
applications
open spaces,
ofces, classrooms,
halls and more.
Intelligent,
compatible
and adaptable
lighting systems
that outperform,
outlast and outthink
traditional lighting.
www.lithonia.com/RTLED
The McDonough
Iceland Collection
of Shadecloths
Brand new: A series of intriguing shadecloths
developed with architect William McDonough
and directly derived by his photographs of
Iceland. This PVC-free shadecloth is Cradle to
Cradle Certied
CM
and can be reclaimed and
recycled indenitely. Available in four standard
patterns and 16 colorways. Custom colors in
small minimum orders are available.
S P E C I A L A D V E R T I S I N G S E C T I O N
Classieds
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IMAGINE THE POSSIBILITIES!
REFLECTIVE SERIES
ARCHITECTURAL CONCRETE MASONRY
Contact us at 800-234-8970
or visit our website
www.edillon.com
REFLECTIVE SERIES
CHANGING THE WAY YOU THINK
ABOUT ARCHITECTURAL CONCRETE MASONRY
Contact us at 800-234-8970
or visit our website
www.edillon.com
These Pella wood and aluminum-
clad wood double-hung windows
have been redesigned to offer
enhanced aesthetics and improved
energy efficiency. New features
include wood jambs, more historic
sightlines and detailing, total unit
U-Factors as low as 0.25, improved
sash tilt for easier glass cleaning,
reduced operation force and
greater installation ease.
2012 Pella Corporation
PELLA
ARCHITECT SERIES
DOUBLE-HUNG WINDOWS
866-707-3552 pellacommercial.com
Pella Impervia
fiberglass windows
and doors offer installation systems
for a variety of applications.
Along with traditional methods,
new installation systems include
receptor and subsill for interior
installations in multistory buildings;
standard and T-subframes for
replacing wood and metal
windows; and reinforcing mullions,
expansion mullions and subsills
for storefront applications.
2012 Pella Corporation
New Pella
INstallatIoN systems
for fIberglass Products
866-707-3552 pellacommercial.com
Preservenaturalwaterdrainagethrough
apermeablepavementsystem
GenuineClayPavers
Strong Durable Colorfast
claypaver.com 8003348689
DSX1 From Lithonia
Lighting
DSX1 from Lithonia
Lighting distills the benets of the
latest in LED technology into a
high-performance, high-efcacy,
long-life luminaire. Outstanding
photometric performance results in
sites with excellent uniformity, greater
pole spacing and lower power density.
Replaces 100 400W metal halide in
pedestrian and area lighting applications
with typical energy savings up to 65%
and expected service life of more than
100,000 hours.
A new front has been
given to the classiest of
all Poggenpohl kitchens,
the Porsche Design
kitchen P7340.
Poggenpohl is the worlds rst kitchen manufacturer to use
carbon ber for styling the cabinetry fronts. Familiar from
motor racing, the ultra-light yet extremely strong and
temperature-resistant carbon ber composite is widely
used today in aerospace but also increasingly in automotive
engineering. Produced in a complex process, carbon is an
exceptionally high-quality material. For the carbon ber front
of its Porsche Design kitchen, the material is laminated and
applied to a glass front.This additionally underscores the
carbon bers three-dimensional appearance.With its
engineered look, the P7340 developed by Porsche Design &
Poggenpohl has been seen as the modern kitchen for a
primarily male audience ever since it was launched three years
ago. Its handleless design and combination of aluminum and
glass as materials with an industrial feel now provide even
more exclusivity with the addition of carbon ber.
Discover the new Hornet LED line by
Amerlux. Tiny, precise, powerful and
controlled, the Hornet is a designers
dream come true, with crisp, dimmable,
beams of light, offered with an incredible
50,000 hour lifespan, 15w, and a generous
10-year warranty.
An instant classic
For more information
visit amerlux.com
www.PAC-CLAD.com Elk Grove Village, IL: 1 800 PAC CLAD
Annapolis Junction, MD: 1 800 344 1400 Tyler, TX: 1 800 441 8661
Acworth, GA: 1 800 272 4482 Fridley, MN: 877 571 2025
Beach Club Condominiums, Pensacola Beach, FL Bullock Tice Architects Yates Construction General Contractor E. Cornell Malone Corporation Roong SNAP-CLAD panel roong system in Copper Penny
Think Green.
- 30 Cool Colors
- 28% recycled content
(steel)
- 88% recycled content
(aluminum)
- Cool metal roong credits
- Energy Star
Rated
- Meets LEED
Criteria
- Cool Roof Certied
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S P E C I A L A D V E R T I S I N G S E C T I O N
Classieds
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Call 616.355.2970 | www.dri-design.com
Columbia St. Marys Hospital, Milwaukee, WI
Architect: HOK, St. Louis
INNOVATION
Call 616.355.2970 | www.dri-design.com
NPPD Norfolk Operations Center
HDR Omaha, Architect
Featuring:
dri-design panels
made with
VMZINC ANTHRA
SUSTIAN
The Smart-R
TM
Wall Solution
Smart-R is
CENTRIAs newest
integrated wall
system that
combines a 3"-T
Formawall
Dimension
Series wall panel and a Formavue
-600
window with a Formawall IMV insulated
metal vertical joint. It is also available with
the Formawall PE vertical seal plate option
to provide a complete metal wall system
with an unmatched combination of
aesthetics, performance and sustainability.
www.CENTRIA.com/
ReimagineMetal
800.250.7897
the app
Now available on the App Store
SM
imagine your masterpiece
Turn your ceilings into custom artwork or add
a spot of custom color with Ultima
Create!
.
Visit armstrong.com/create to start creating now.
1 877 ARMSTRONG
lets clear the air
AirGuard
R100 solar control, low-e glass is about as far from ordinary as you get thanks to
a Solar Heat Gain Coefcient of .23 and a neutral-reective appearance that lets your building put its
best face forward. And youll really be surprised by the extraordinary energy savings you can expect
with Solarban R100 glass. To get your copy of the white paper, go to ppgideascapes.com/SBr100.
Solarban, IdeaScapes, PPG and the PPG logo are trademarks owned by PPG Industries Ohio, Inc. | Cradle to Cradle Certied
CM
is a certication mark of MBDC.
Circle no. 423 or http://architect.hotims.com