We are excited about the results of a recent think tank in Seattle, which was the second in a series of meetings through which the AIA and the National School Boards Association connect Committee on Architecture for Education PIA members with the wide range of clients in the education field.

In both think tanks, we asked clients to describe tasks for which they use an advisor for education environments, such as strategy, educational planning, and site selection. The architects taking part in the think tanks questioned the clients about the broader concerns and motivations behind these tasks. As a group, we then prioritized the tasks for which clients need advice from a trusted advisor who can help integrate all the things the client wants to do into a cohesive strategy.

The first think tank, held at Cambridge, gave us three prioritized tasks for the architect:
• Help clients—educators, administrators, operations directors, and school board members—ask the right questions about the design and implementation of the project
• Expand architects' communication skills to speaking the client's language
• Facilitate clients' investigation in what they need to accomplish by helping them think in new ways; help them look beyond their typical scope of thinking.

Initial findings from the second think tank
Here is some of what participants had to say at the second think tank, held in Seattle.

Susan J Wolff, EdD, outlined the importance of the architect understanding current educational theory and practice. When the education client is not prepared with its mission and learning objectives, she said, the architect must become the de facto representative, offering research that affects learning and, ultimately, the learning facility.

Nancy Moffit, assistant superintendent of facilities for the North Kitsap (Wash.) School District, spoke of the great opportunity that occurs when an educational project is initiated, because it may be the only time a school district stops, questions, and re-evaluates what they are doing in terms of "how students learn."

Bob Hughes, a school board member from the Lake Washington School District offered three main client responsibilities with which a trusted advisor can help:
• Be visionary; know where education is going
• Know the pulse of the community
• Understand the level of involvement required by the school board.

The team of Forrest Miller, director of support services, Lake Washington School District, and Marilyn Brockman, AIA, Bassetti Architects, defined what the architect will bring to the table when working with a school board:
• Ability to envision the future, to take a dream and make it tangible
• Infectious enthusiasm and leadership
• Integrated design team process
• Innovation through diversity
• Judicious and accurate financial management
• Design schedule/project management
• Tenacity and facility in obtaining building permits
• Grasp of lessons learned from other projects in an ongoing knowledge loop
• Willingness to design from the viewpoint of the owner.

Although the participants generated the comments specifically about the design of education environments, I believe they apply to all design markets.

Learning from the client
In fact, you can also draw many connections from beyond the design profession. As an example, in a previous article, Insight Alliance—a strategic alliance composed of architecture firms Callison, TVS, and Wimberly Allison Tong & Goo—described one of its objectives as: "to offer the absolute best knowledge/value to and on behalf of their clients." That need for knowledge shows up in many places outside the profession, as described by Stephen Denning is his book, The Springboard: How Storytelling Ignites Action in Knowledge Era Organizations (Butterworth-Heinemann, 2000).

The story Denning tells in this book relates to knowledge management at the World Bank, which was in the process of asking (as many architects are now doing) "what business are we in?" They found their clients were becoming increasingly dissatisfied with merely receiving the expertise of the individual directly assigned to their project and wanted expertise from around the globe that the entire organization could provide.

The Springboard says that even though many organizations acknowledge that clients need "knowledge brokers," most did not have a framework to establish and maintain access to new organizational knowledge or extend its potential reach. The moral of this story, I believe, parallels the architect's great opportunity to become a knowledge integrator for clients. This opportunity forms the essence of both think tanks' message: Clients are asking for a trusted advisor to facilitate a process of broad exploration and discovery.

Want to take part in a case-study research project?
We believe that firms entrusted with serving as knowledge integrators for clients can benefit by applying pertinent research. This kind of research, says the Wallace Group's Mary Colette Wallace, "is about the architect's relationship with users, performance, and how design will resond so that 'architecture' is for the users of the future." In other words, this research is about how the architect becomes the client's trusted advisor.

We currently are embarking on a case study to determine what areas of design research are most readily usable by architecture firms. The goal of this research, which will be led by the Wallace Research Group, is to document patterns and levels of research usage—through the filters of strategy and marketing—based on feedback from six firms. These firms will receive an in-depth report specific to a building type (to be determined by participants' consensus).

Participants will receive and use the research, share the cost of the research, and in turn, will receive recognition for taking part. They will use the research results and respond to several questionnaires from November 2002 to February 2003. Results will be provided to the participating firms and also used as part of the "strategy and marketing" segment of the University of Washington's Design Firm Leadership and Management certificate program in the spring of 2003.

If you are interested in participating in the case study, contact Richard Hobbs, rhobbs@richardwhobbs.com. We will send you more information about the process.

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