Poll: What Do You Think About the Profession?
I think the poll on
the current email does not have enough options, i.e., Question 5. It is
my opinion that we as a profession and our emphasis on design, is eroding
the profession. Our own self-glorification with self-administered design
awards based solely aesthetics ignoring budget, client needs, constructability,
and other more important issues does nothing but lower the architect’s
role and stance in society. I think in future polls you need to have a
wider choice of answers to reflect the reality of the profession.
I am one of the growing number of architects that do not practice architecture.
My guess is 20-25 percent of AIA members do not practice. I am concerned
that these polls, as well as the one with convention registration, address
practice issues only and do not give those in situations similar to mine
choices to reflect our viewpoints.
These multiple choice surveys are entertaining, but do not allow other
options and opinions that are perhaps closer to “the truth”
to be factored in. So I’ll give you some of my recent opinions and
experiences of the AIA:
1) I wish I could choose which AIA components to pay dues to each year:
a. Nationally, the AIA is definitely worth $260—the insurance, the
contracts, National newsletter, practice support, and the annual convention
are all very good. And they send all this information to my email or physical
address, as required.
b. The state component may or may not be worth the $210. Other than a
organizing a convention in August, and mailing out blank contracts, it
is not entirely clear what they do. They may lobby hard in the state legislature,
but I don’t really know for sure. If they lobby for Architects on
the state level, they may be worth the money. I just can’t really
tell. Can I pay half?
c. The local component used to be worth $175, but definitely isn’t
now. And since I started my own firm last year, it has been by far the
most underperforming group to which I have ever belonged. It has refused
to publish an accurate calendar on its website, or by any other means.
It has repeatedly refused to tell members or sponsors in a timely manner
about meetings by email, mail, phone, or any other method. Sponsors who
pay for the meetings call around town to find out when the meetings are,
and I no longer have the time or inclination to chase the chapter around
to attend a meeting I have to pay $15-$20 (on top of dues) to attend.
If attendance and fellowship is down, it is only because no one knows
when to show up. I have been an active associate member (then active full
member) since 1995, in Memphis. I started as a member of the AIAS at LSU
in 1990, and I can’t believe that I can say “I don’t
see the value of the membership on the local level.” I absolutely
oppose sending any money to the local sinking ship.
2) The national conversation is about sustainability, but there is a canyon
between the national and the local membership on the issue. Largely, practicing
architects in the best position to implement the sustainable initiative
are afraid of what they perceive as “new” or “untested”
technology. They are also very afraid that the client will say no, and
even more afraid that the “new” method will fail, even if
the client said yes. They do not see it as helping the client’s
bottom line in the long term, so never present it as an option, or as
a good idea to be considered. More education needs to be done to bring
up the comfort level with designing for a green building and specifying
green technology, so that it becomes an everyday part of practice—not
the massive research project/headache/lawsuit waiting to happen that it
currently feels like to so many architects.
3) The dangers to the future of the profession?
The intertwining issues of talent retention, boom/bust business cycles,
diversity in all aspects (of projects, of workforce, of clients), lack
of strong strategic partnerships and education about development, interior
design, or landscape architecture, failure to adopt good business practices
and client relations, and so many more…
I think the schools could help the profession greatly with more education
about the different kinds of construction industry jobs there are, and
the skills involved. I know I wish there had been a course on real estate
development--and the other political aspects of architecture. And interior/landscape
design was not covered as well as it should have been. Better integration
of teams and design would occur with more cross training. I learned most
of what I know about interior design in practice: because so often “guys
don’t do finish or color selection.” I am a “bridge”
architect between professions.
Talent retention of people my age is tough. A lot of my classmates did
not go into architecture because there were no jobs in the profession
when we graduated. Others were in for a while, and then burned out. Still
others hope to find a better balance between work and life outside of
work, so do not stay in the mainstream traditional architectural workforce
due to excessive demands from firms for all their time, and comparatively
little remuneration or vacation time for the accompanying stress related
medical bills, child, or house care. It is indeed survival of the fittest
or most stressed, but not necessarily the best, architects.
Clients have so far come in two categories—the ones that already
know what you do and can’t wait for you to start, and those who
have no clue, require a lot of education, and would not ever hire or pay
an architect if they could get around it somehow. There are very few in
between. However, a minority exists who never would have thought of hiring
an architect, but once they know one, think it’s a good idea. From
the national level, finding a “best practice” way for firms
to take on small projects and still make money would improve the architect’s
stature “on the street.” Small projects are very different
from large projects—but are where most of the public learns about
the process of architecture. Think of it as advertising for the profession.
The responses to your survey "What do you think about the profession"
are designed to elicit a certain point of view and none others. There
should be an "Other" option that is opened ended for those who
disagree with the given responses. This is an inappropriate survey technique
that would receive an "F" in any class in survey design. I am
very disappointed that my professional organization is not doing a better
job at polling members to reflect their true feelings.
As with most AIA national programs, the narrow-mindedness of the answers
to this poll will not get a true picture of the opinions of the membership
but only confirmation of the opinions of the authors. The answers required
did not even come close to my real opinion on some of the questions.
I'm very disturbed, and offended, that the survey page comes up with
a
selected answer pre-filled for each question. This tactic reveals bias
and tells me what the AIA thinks the 'right' answer is. I find it condescending,
self-serving and self-aggrandizing. It suggests that the AIA doesn't really
care about my opinion. If that's the case, why bother polling anyone?
Ed note: Our AIArchitect
survey software requires that one of the buttons be filled in. We chose
the top answer each question, with no intent to create bias.
Question 5, regarding erosion of the scope of architectural services,
is based upon erroneous presumptions. It presumes, first, that architectural
services are being eroded. Secondly, it presumes that any erosion is occurring
due to outside forces (forces outside the basic practice of architecture,
by architects). Lastly, it presumes certain specific “outside forces”
as the villains in any erosion of the architects’ services (via
the prompted answers of “construction management”, “interior
design” and “design/build”).
With that as an introduction that appears to undermine the validity of
the foundations of Question 5, some explanation is necessary and appropriate.
First, these beliefs are based upon my nearly 40-year association within
the profession, most in active practice. I don’t profess to be either
an architectural practice historian or one who possesses more knowledge
than any other architects with similar experience. I simply share my observations,
analyses, and beliefs as I have experienced them. That said, the following
is a summary of my beliefs regarding the subject of “erosion of
architectural services”, a belief that supports the claimed defects
in Question 5, as described above.
The practice of architecture and the services offered by its practitioners
is not being “eroded”. The practice is simply continuing to
evolve in response to society. The evolution over the last 40 years has
witnessed a general reduction in the scope of what I would classify as
“personalized service” provided to clients and their projects.
In that classification, I would include the general services descriptions
listed in Question 5’s prompted answers. This has occurred due to
a broad range of, mainly, outside forces of society, including: the lack
of effective, universal tort reform, the perceived greed of trial attorneys,
the trending change of corporate and public clients’ lead management
from industry-raised individuals to “professional managers”,
the control that industry insurers have gained over the delivery processes
for the built environment and the ignorance (meant as simply a lack of
relevant knowledge) of the average client in the entirety of the development
arena, among other influences.
These forces have generally been reacted to by the architectural profession
(including the AIA organization) in a half-hearted reactive manner and/or
simple acquiescence to all of the above. The result has been a general
regrouping of services within many firms to minimize or exclude services
outside of the “core” services, essentially those described
as Basic Services in editions of AIA B-141 prior to the 1997 edition.
As a result of the continuing and arguably, increasing need by clients
for these “discarded” services, several underserved market
niches were filled by entrepreneurs eager to accept a services niche that
architects had largely abandoned. Only in recent years has the profession
outwardly acknowledged the loss of these services to other service providers
and begun to express dismay. This Question 5 suggests that this dismay
is over services that were, somehow, taken inappropriately from architects.
I submit that the profession gave these services away. Noteworthy, is
recognition that many firms did not cease providing these services and
an emergence of other firms now expanding their service offerings to include
many of the previously “discarded” services. Only now, these
firms must compete with newcomers who have specialized in providing these
ancillary services. If architects would promote truly comprehensive services
to their clients and invest appropriate effort into assuring that each
service is provided with outstanding quality, they would regain dominance
over many of these ancillary services that they have lost.
However, the most troubling issue (in my opinion) is the general reduction
in the quality of service provided to clients, within the “core”
services provided by architects. This is an ongoing trend, although there
are visible signs that some firms are making sincere efforts to address
and correct the issue. This problem has been principally related to the
degradation of quality in construction documents services, becoming quite
notable after the advent of CADD and largely related to the use of CADD.
Twenty years ago there was only a fraction of the RFIs generated by typical
construction documents today. Unbelievably, it has become acceptable,
to some firms, to have 25 to 50 RFIs per million dollars of construction
work underway. Of course, many of those result in change orders. To an
owner, this lack of quality in preparation of the construction documents
is simply unacceptable.
Owners frequently do not thoroughly understand all the relationships and
responsibilities of the various parties providing service on a project,
yet, want to have fair, objective decisions made regarding responsibility
for the proliferation of these questions and subsequent additional project
costs. Therefore, owners seek someone who does understand, who can objectively
track and interpret the history of these incidents and provide guidance
in the determination of responsibility and fair resolution. That need
is one notable condition that gave rise to “construction manager”
and “owner’s representative” services. If architects
would make significant strides in improving the quality of construction
documents, owners would soon recognize that they no longer benefit from
expenditures required for these ancillary services.
In recent years, I have responded to these conditions by specializing
as an Owner’s Representative. In doing so, the many architectural
and engineering firms that worked “for” me, typically expressed
sincere appreciation for the presence of expertise representing the owners.
Of course, they also accused me of “raising the crossbar”
on their services. For this, I plead guilty. Interestingly, all parties
are ultimately appreciative.
The real lesson in this “lecture” is the following: if there
is a perceived problem in architectural practice, first seek to understand
the problem by looking within the profession; chances are, the problem
is not caused by outsiders but by the practitioners themselves. Of course,
that lesson can be applied to our individual lives, as well.
Please consider sharing this view with the Grassroots Leadership Conference
participants. I’m sure some of them will agree with many of the
points noted above. Perhaps an AIA effort to develop high quality ancillary
services offerings and to improve the quality of CDs would initiate a
movement within the profession leading to overcoming the perceived concerns
expressed by Question 5. I would hope so. Thanks for listening!
Question No.5 [eroding the scope of services]: I answered other - attorneys.
They have increased our liability and limited our ability as a profession
to determine what it takes to deliver a good product to our clients -
i.e., we cannot set standard/reasonable fees for different types and complexity
of projects. This has thrown the profession into the competitive marketplace,
made us compete against each other, and lowered our fees--all of which
has lowered the quality of the product we can afford to produce for our
clients. And, just coincidently, this has increased disputes, arbitration
and lawsuits--more money for them.
This survey as constructed is one you should consider useless. Please
have professionals develop the surveys to get honest and accurate answers.
At best, you can glean nothing from this particular survey.
Ref 4: Knowledge delivery, but at what a cost! It feels like the organization has picked up on this as another profit center; not only does one pay annual membership dues but there is a major annual hit to the wallet for continuing education credits and I am not sure that the salaries paid to those in the mid levels of the profession can support this annual expenditure. Advocacy and practice tools don't seem to have much impact at this level and the amount of dues and charges for this that and the other doesn't seem to have much positive effect. For the amount of money I expend and returns to me on the investments I make, both NCARB and CSI both seem to me to be better deals, even when taken together.
Ref 5 and 7: CM, because I think that architects have tended to be dealt out of the "game" due to a public perception that we are a "luxury" for which Owners don't want to pay; all they seem to want in many cases is the least expensive box to contain their function; a trip down any Main Street or past any strip shopping center will tell the tale, and CM's have done a better job at marketing their "value" to the industry than have architects.
Question 9: I think that many of the projects for which awards are given
and about which articles are written are more interesting to architects
rather than the general public. We pat ourselves on our collective backs
for projects to which people cannot relate: houses which don't appeal
(see cover of this month's journal); buildings which look like plane wrecks
(although they are objects of great admiration within the community of
architects); sterile glass and concrete facades without human scale, etc.
Upon reviewing this week's poll I have a few comments:
On Question 5, regarding eroding the scope of the profession I do not
regard construction management, interior design, or design/build as threats
to the scope of the profession but rather as opportunities for expanded
services by the architect. Whether by personal knowledge and training
or through strategic alliances these trends in the delivery of building
projects should have the expertise of the architect to give added value
to the client and added revenue to the design team. I marked "other"
as my choice of eroding forces because I view interference by the government
and the legal system in the profession as a much greater threat. Unwillingness
to pass torte reform and a willingness to create taxes on services by
government is a much greater threat to the profession than construction-related
processes that bring us back toward the origins of our profession as "Master
Builders".
On Question 9, I do not view a national license as a good idea because
of the problems I stated regarding question 5. A national license would
require the architect to have expertise is the requirements of every locality
nationwide. Such a requirement would increase the architect's liability
immensely. With a national building code (which could not do justice to
every locality without making it unaffordable by many) and nationwide
torte reform the liability of a national license would be unthinkable.
Holy disenfrancishement Batman! These polls don't speak at all to what's
important to most of us, they're more like self-congratulatory indices
of which functions we can tolerate. The AIA has really gone way too celebrity-centered
in its thinking, and promotes a lot of issues that are of its own fabrication,
sort of like Hollywood. Long term, nobody will ultimately care, and the
standing of the profession and its professionals will suffer...again,
sort of like Hollywood. Leadership is not about being the most gonzo,
it's being the most humble. Architecture is not the answer for everyone,
and we should act accordingly if we still want to relate to reality. Turn
off the bubble machine, guys.
Copyright 2003 The American Institute of Architects.
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