Recently, I attended “KA Connect 2010”, a conference focused on the growing role and importance of knowledge management and information systems in the Architecture/Engineering/Construction (AEC) industries.

Christopher Parsons, founder of Knowledge Architecture, a San Francisco-based knowledge management and information systems consulting group, organized KA Connect 2010. His premise for doing so is clever and impressive. Chris had many questions and ideas with respect to information technology as an influence and driver of architectural and engineering practice and of the construction industry. Rather than pick up the telephone and, sequentially, call everyone he knew in order to exchange ideas and to obtain data one-on-one, he organized a conference and invited everyone he knew that might help inform the current state of IT.

Can you still expect to use old-school tools to design a twisted glass tower like this one?

KA Connect 2010 was the result of his effort: more than 35 speakers participated in the conference, representing the spectrum of AEC professionals: architects, engineers, software developers, client-side construction managers, business development consultants and outsourcing consultants. All were brought together for two days of 360 degree, highly interactive knowledge sharing, structured in an unusual and effective format. Talks were short and numerous, and were divided into two categories: “Blue Sky” talks focused on new trends now in development but that have not yet been integrated into practice. “Pecha Kucha” talks focused instead on issues relevant to current practice. The gap between these two perspectives on information technology and its role in the world of AEC, presented a rare opportunity to speculate on how to transition from present to future practice.

The Benjamin D. Hall Interdisciplinary Research Building designed by M.A. Mortenson Company was a winner in the Third Annual BIM Awards. In this case, the technology wasn't used so much to create a wild shape. Instead, it was used to facilitate the integration of complex MEP systems within tight zoning constraints.

[Note: I found an interesting in-depth discussion of both the BIM projects shown in this article.]

Part 1: How We Build

Volker Mueller of Bentley Systems and Calvin Kam from Stanford University kicked off first group of presentations. These speakers focused on the relationship between theory supporting software development (Parametric Design Knowledge) and the growing prominence of Building Information Modeling (BIM) in practice. These observations were complemented by a testimonial by John Moebes of Crate and Barrel, whose talk, “Design-Build-Bid” emphasized the need to “design the procurement” at the onset of a project. By doing so, project costs can be closely controlled while assuring high-quality output, consistent with the owner’s expectations.

The Loblolly House by Kieran Timberlake Associates used BIM technologies to facilitate simultaneous offsite fabrication to required tolerances, to spot design problems before they caused delays and waste, and to coordinate schedules and construction more efficiently. This project was also an award-winner in the Third Annual BIM Awards.

Subsequent speakers addressed the practical pitfalls characteristic of the current state of design practice. Paul Coates of Salford University in the U.K. compared open and closed models of person-to-person information sharing between architects in the public and private sectors in Britain. His point of view was that, architects employed in the public sector historically had access to knowledge about the client’s ultimate goals with respect to program and budget. In contrast, the private sector architect works in relative isolation, and seldom has access to the client’s high-level, long-term project goals. In the absence of these goals, Coates proposes, the value of the architect as vision facilitator is compromised. In order to derive the greatest benefit from the architect-client relationship, the client should share the goals of the project openly.

Andrew Arnold of Reed Construction Data addressed the challenge inherent in the inefficiency of finding and organizing elements and objects in the use of Revit and other BIM design software.

Taking a different perspective altogether, Justin Quimby of Quimby Heavy Industries compared the BIM model to the design methodology in his field of game design. Rather than rely on repetitive iteration and construction of data, a condition Quimby refers to as “Friction”, Quimby advocates for the development of “middleware”: software expressly designed to reproduce design elements that are used repeatedly. Quimby advocates for saving brain power for high-level creative endeavors, relegating repetitive tasks to software: “If you can do something by hand, build a tool to do it”.

Even our models of what knowledge "looks" like might have to radically change - after all, a linear or sequential hierarchy is only one of the almost infinite ways in which information can be encoded and accessed.

Josh Lobel (The Josh Lobel Initiative, Philadelphia, PA) addressed the leap that designers have to make in order to create coherent data that translate from design to built structure. His recommendation: “Think about how you talk about what you do.” In contrast to Quimby’s point of view, Lobel advocates the philosophy promoted by Richard Sennett, author of the book, “The Craftsman”:  repetition is actually a means of skill-building. Here, we address the need to remain in control of the software and to continue to treat it as a tool for design, rather than risk letting the software design for us.

These points of view were synthesized into the design approach implemented by Gehry Partners LLP. Michael Kilkelly described the Gehry process of translating hand sketches into physical models and subsequently into digitized models. The resulting data serve as the basis of the final design, such as was the case in the Beekman Place tower in New York. Kilkelly advocated for lots of friction in the design process! Only in that way, the use of friction as a “brake”, can we assure ourselves of authentic engagement with the design process.

Freeform shapes can be challenging to build. BIM is useful for generating the detailed technical renderings necessary for actual construction.

Future Installments

The remaining sections of the conference will be addressed subsequently in posts on Practice, Collaboration, and Learning.

About the Conference Sponsor

Knowledge Architecture, the sponsor of the KA-Connect Conference, is a knowledge management and information systems consultancy based in San Francisco focusing particularly on building dynamic, integrated intranets for small and mid-size architecture and engineering firms in order to provide them with the same strategic and technical resources as larger firms.

Speakers’ contact information from the conference can be found here.

Principals of small design firms face at least two challenges with respect to mentorship:

• Finding the time to do it
• Developing a mentorship network

The overriding question is: What will I gain from spending my time to mentor and train young architects?

Emerging professionals and seasoned architects face similarly daunting challenges, but from opposing points on the continuum of practice. Dismal employment prospects in a competitive job market see their counterpart on the practitioner’s side: the increasing marketing efforts required to land contracts.  Interns face ever-longer and more elaborate internship reporting, at the same time that firms are showing a diminishing interest in hiring licensed architects. Evolving technology requires training even in the absence of employment in order to remain relevant and marketable, and often the new software requires an understanding of building systems that entry-level designers simply do not possess. Firm owners are familiar with building systems but lack facility with rapidly evolving digital media. These conditions suggest that the continuity of professional knowledge is at risk.

If you're alone, who's going to anchor the rope when YOU need it?

Given the unpredictable nature of the economic recovery, firm owners face the daily challenge of maintaining a consistent backlog of work. This potential discontinuity at the firm level is similar to the situation confronting recent graduates and others who attempt to create continuity in their architecture careers. The obvious danger is that, faced with the prospect of long-term unemployment in their chosen profession, many individuals will choose to abandon architecture and to pursue careers in other fields.

Young Architects Are Seeking Non-Traditional Careers, Not Architecture

To preserve continuity, architects must pro-actively seek opportunities to mentor emerging professionals. Recently, I spoke to a group of architecture students. We had just concluded a panel discussion on career alternatives to the traditional practice of architecture. The panel was comprised of architects who had left architectural practice to pursue unique and non-traditional careers: jewelry-making, strategic workplace development, and information design.

I asked the students if they intended to pursue careers outside the familiar realm of traditional practice. Out of 30 students, 25 raised their hands. I asked a second question: how many of the students intended to engage in the effort to obtain their architectural license? In response to this question, eight students raised their hands. As I see it, the future of the architectural profession is in the hands of these eight students – and three of those eight are “on the fence” about whether to pursue a career in architecture or to explore other professional options.

Ways to Provide Mentoring to Young Architects

We need to remind ourselves of the value of strategic, pro-active mentoring, as a tool to provide continuity in our profession. But how and where do we find opportunities to be a mentor? How do we encourage young architects to seek a mentor? And what do I (and my firm) get out of all this voluntary good behavior?

It feels great to be at the top, and the glory is yours alone. But, then what?

Teach. Teaching is a very effective way to pro-actively and strategically mentor the next generation of architects. Of course, each of us is a teacher in everyday practice. But there is a critical need for experienced architects in the academic setting. If you do not hold an academic position, ask an academic colleague to integrate you in desk crits, on juries or on review panels. Investigate whether there are opportunities to teach at a local architecture school, university extension, or community college. Devise a topic of interest to young architects and present it at your local AIA chapter. In these settings, use the course(s) you teach as a means of communicating the importance of finding a mentor – and of fostering a mentorship network. The beauty of teaching is that we get to interact with the next generation of architects, learning what is important to them, how they perceive the profession, and hear what their professional goals are likely to be. Ask yourself, in the presence of the young designer, where they (and you) will be in ten years. In some cases, you will be working for them! So take time now to teach them the importance of rigor in design and management. You might find that the lessons you impart will be the platform for your own interaction with them in several years’ time.

Advise. Another strategy is to offer to serve in an advisory role to the groups or organizations in which interns and young architects participate, such as the Young Architects Forum. In California, the AIA California Council has developed the Academy for Emerging Professionals. Such groups offer the opportunity to mix interns and newly-licensed architects with experienced practitioners in a non-work setting. Advice and insights – from both ends of the experience spectrum – can be shared in a supportive and educational manner. The result can help to maintain continuity between generations of architects, both for those who wish to share a life of professional insight, as well as for those who seek insight into the career ahead of them.

Engage. Yet another approach is to organize career strategy roundtables for unemployed architects at your local AIA chapter. In San Francisco, AIASF hosts such roundtables twice a month. At any given meeting, the roundtable offers the opportunity to assess the current job market and to discuss interview strategies with other professionals who represent the spectrum of experience and age, discussing issues of contemporary practice. In a period where the luxury of a familiar work setting is absent, the roundtable has created a venue in which to discuss the profession.

Mentoring: What’s In It For Me?

What’s in it for me? What’s in mentorship for the seasoned architect? One benefit is the opportunity to see the future through interaction with the generation that will eventually take our places in architecture. Consider this a parametric model for mentorship – a two-way stretch that attempts to bridge the technical enthusiasm and savvy of the young with the design and construction experience of the mid-career architect.

The field itself is so vast that sometimes you need a team just to get back to tell the tale.

In your work, create the context for an exchange of ideas among and between different generations of architects. Our technology-driven profession is dynamic, fluid – and recognizably different from ten (or even five) years ago. The future of the profession, whether we discuss BIM, IPD, Revit, or other prominent trends of the moment, is in the hands of today’s interns and young architects. We have the opportunity to be mindful and present and to listen to the concerns of entry-level architects, to learn how they grasp and master digital technology concurrent with absorbing considerable complex building technology – as much as we offer them our own insights into practice. If we fail to do so, we run the risk of losing precious continuity between successive generations.

The profession’s very future relies on this continuity – and upon successful connection with emerging professionals. If we do not connect effectively with them or fail to provide institutional support, they will likely find creative expression in other fields. The loss of the next generation will be tragic, as it will hinder the architectural profession from developing in responsive new directions.

Michael S. Bernard, AIA
Director, AIA California Council
Architect-at-Large, Academy for Emerging Professionals, AIA California Council
Adjunct Professor, California College of the Arts, San Francisco

The Architect’s Take introduces our new special guest columnist, Michael Bernard, AIA, Principal of V-Practice Consulting, a San Francisco-based design practice management firm.

A friend of mine, the director of business development at a national, multi-office AIA Gold Medal firm, recently offered insight into the current protracted economic slump in the design and construction industries. We shared guesses about how much longer the recession would negatively affect our profession. My colleague suggested that we might be facing a situation analogous to “hospital sick” syndrome. In this analogy, a gravely ill person begins, gradually, to feel better. A person who has been gravely ill for a long period of time may, upon feeling the slightest improvement, impatiently exclaim, “Wow, I’m feeling better now!” and begin to engage in activity as full health has returned. However, the convalescent patient is not fully recovered. Instead, the renewed activity taxes the patient’s strength – causing a relapse.

This is not a call to be glum or to moan about gloom and doom. This is a call to develop strategies that look to the future rather than relying on solutions that worked two years ago, or even six months ago. Eventually, the economy will turn around – I truly believe this. I am, and always have been, at the “Pollyanna” end of the optimist continuum. However, chances are that the old economy will not return to the vigor it once exhibited. Our marketing strategies must be “present tense” and adaptable to the idiosyncrasies of short-term economic ups and downs, despite the overall upward direction.

Look to the future for new business strategies.

We have to approach the twelve months ahead of us with thrift and a strong sense of market savvy. We might hear from colleagues about renewed enquiries and auspicious activity suggesting that a contract for design services might be imminent on previously dormant projects. We might see promising indications of a comeback in the residential design/construction industries.

But just because other design firms may appear to be experiencing improved conditions doesn’t mean that the economy will find its way to our doorstep without our persistent personal efforts. Architects who are indefatigable business developers, who have incessantly cultivated their networks, and who are not daunted by the state of the economy, are the scrappy survivors who will benefit from the current gradual increase in residential remodeling. (I put myself in the same philosophical boat. Welcome aboard.)

Clients will have a harder time financing their projects.

Prospective clients who intend to pursue home improvement projects will likely pay for the remodeling – with cash. Those would-be clients who dream of remodeling, and who think they will go to a bank and get a loan – they may well be disappointed to find that they will not be able to obtain financing. This reality thins the client herd substantially. And those who have cash drive hard bargains. (Which is why they have cash)

Clients with cash may bargain more aggressively.

Looking ahead, what does this mean for the small design firm? Here are some thoughts:

• After a two year period of slow (or no) business, we understand all too well that the telephone will not ring if we stare at it.

Countless generations of teenage girls already know that telephones never ring when stared at.

• As a result, you have to market your firm more than ever. Make your value apparent to a prospective client immediately. In fact, remind your entire network of that unique value. If your focus is on residential design, you may never have had to compete with other architects for the one-time residential client. And now you have to do so.
• Devise a business development strategy to reach prospective clients through means other than stating plainly that you want their business. Think of new opportunities to publicize your firm’s work, such as interviews in widely distributed neighborhood newspapers in your market area. Consider mailing or emailing quarterly postcards advertising your work to clients, consultants and contractors. Follow up these valuable communications with links to the firm’s website and telephone calls to prospective clients.
• Think of ways to be the only architect in the room. For example, join boards and organizations that would benefit from your commitment, advice and perspective. Do not join if your interest is false or opportunistic. Benefits to all parties diminish if the contribution is inauthentic.
• Husband your resources and focus on long-lead marketing efforts that result in new business. Make economies where you can in order to subsidize this effort. This is a formidable challenge for small practitioners – and such marketing efforts may require the resources you have set aside for just this purpose. But keep in mind that the lag time between meeting a client and signing a contract may be longer now than it used to be.

Look ahead – way down the road. For the sake of the argument in favor of thrift and long-lead marketing: assume that business will remain flat (or worse) for the first 3 to 6 months of 2010. What marketing and business development efforts can you make that differentiate your firm from other contenders?