Early last month, I awoke with great anticipation, eager to review the final results of my home state of California's primary elections. Although I am not a politics junkie, I have lately taken to casting a watchful eye on where American social values seem to be moving based in part on the voters' mandate.

In the 2000 Presidential election, I counted 52 local and state ballot propositions on quality-of-life issues—school bonds, library bonds, clean air and water measures, affordable housing, land-use controls, and alternative transit proposals, to name a few. In the recent "off-year" election, two out of the four state propositions dealt with quality-of-life issues: One funding neighborhood parks passed by 57 percent; another using gas tax revenues to pay for transportation improvements passed by 69 percent. Additionally, the successful Republican challenger for the Governor's seat identified quality of life as one of his three primary concerns.

What's going on? Is California marching to a different drummer from the rest of America? I don't think so. Similar election results across the country over the past three years reinforce the findings of pollsters such as J. Walker Smith of the Yankelovich Group. Consumer-preference polling experts like Smith are discovering that more than ever the public seeks "intimacy, connectivity, and increased opportunities of nesting," and, in so doing, are building community and demanding a higher quality of life. Perhaps most significantly, the public is willing to pay for this higher quality of life through taxation. Smith points to the proliferation of life style magazines as further evidence of the public's interest in quality of life issues.

As I think about addressing these issues, design—both in policy and physical implementation—leaps to the forefront. Phrases we have all used—design matters, good design is good business, design represents a value proposition—finally are finding broader acceptance and a public voice. This is great news for our profession, because design is our core competence. This claim cannot be made by attorneys or venture capitalist or MBAs or dot-com whiz kids or technologists or surgeons or scientists. The interdisciplinary, integrative, and visionary dimensions of the design process are what we bring to the table. It is what makes our profession of increasing value to individuals and entire communities that want a better life for themselves and their children.

Design on the threshold?
In his book The Tipping Point, Malcolm Gladwell defines the tipping point as a threshold, a boiling point, or a moment of critical mass. Ideas transformed into products that reached a tipping point are the fax machine, cell phone, and, of course, the personal computer. Gladwell spells out what he sees to be the three characteristics of ideas that reach tipping points:

1) They are contagious—they spread like epidemics or viruses
2) They are leveraged—little causes create large impacts
3) Initially change occurs gradually but then speeds up rapidly as it approaches a tipping point.

Could both the prestige and impact of the design process be at a tipping point? Are we at a point similar to the impact science and technology had in ushering in the Industrial Revolution as well as our more recent Information age?

Design indeed may be reaching that critical mass. But it's not a sure thing. Important questions remain:
• Can we define design in a manner that is more expansive without being so broad as to be meaningless?
• What expanded services, roles, and responsibilities would architects assume as more and more issues are approached as design problems?
• Would the public find architects credible and valuable in these roles?
• Do we have the right education and skills to provide these new services?

These questions demand careful exploration and debate.

AIA convention explores architecture's tipping point
Design Design, the theme of this year's AIA national convention in Charlotte, May 9 to 11, offers a platform for such mind-expanding explorations, which will be launched by three dynamic keynote speakers. Starting on Thursday with management futurist Tom Peters, we'll explore the concept of how and when design matters. On Friday, Hugh McColl—former CEO and President of Nations Bank/Bank of America, credited with building much of Charlotte—will lead us in an examination of the role of architecture as a value-added proposition. Come Saturday Nissan's Creative Director Jerry Hirshberg will be the moderator of a panel of AIA Gold Medalists who will explore the wide-ranging power of architecture to bridge people, process, and place.

I believe we are at a unique point in our history as a profession: Seldom if ever have America's architects had such an opportunity to engage the public through the power of design. Seldom if ever have we been in a stronger position to create not only better architecture, but also a better profession. Come to Charlotte to explore the tipping point of design and expand your own thinking about your preferred future in architecture.

Copyright 2002 The American Institute of Architects. All rights reserved.