62 Reasons to be Optimistic (and 18 to still be Pessimistic) September 15, 2010
Posted by randydeutsch in architect, architecture industry, career, change, creativity, employment, management, optimism, possibility, pragmatism, survival, sustainability, technology, the economy, transition.Tags: AEC industry, Bondy Studio, Donald Trump, Google, NBC, Olson Kundig Architects, positive psychology, positivity, The Apprentice
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Not since my post from last year 32 Things to be Optimistic About Right Now have I tackled this subject head-on.
It’s about time.
That’s not to say I have avoided it altogether. I have addressed the positive side of practice on a number of occasions, not always to positive reception.
I was having a great conversation the other day with my good friend, architectural illustrator and e-book publisher, Bruce Bondy, when I noticed how up-beat he sounded.
I started paying attention to not only what he said but the number of positive things he mentioned, despite the general gloom in the economy right now.
He was positively optimistic – and it was admittedly contagious.
There’s scientific research that backs a 3-to-1 “positivity ratio” as a key tipping point where, essentially, it takes 3 good experiences to block out one bad one.
A 3:1 ratio of positive statements or experiences to negative ones is considered the ideal for staying optimistic.
This ratio answers the question for many of how you can be generally positive and optimistic while maintaining some negative emotions and thoughts.
The following list roughly reflects this ideal ratio.
Agree or not – just by reading the lists here you have done your part today in remaining positive and optimistic.
Here are 62 absolutely fresh, upbeat and practical reasons to be positive (and 18 to still be pessimistic) about our chances of recovering, enduring or otherwise surviving this recession as individuals, organizations, profession and industry.
I would love to hear – optimistic or pessimistic – reasons of your own, by leaving a comment below.
Let’s get the pessimistic out of the way first (a commenter’s brilliant suggestion.)
There are times of course when it is advisable to be pessimistic, and we don’t have to look far to find them. Being pessimistic at times gives you an insight to your problems and situation by allowing you to realistically assess challenges, obstacles and roadblocks you may face which otherwise you might overlook – by being overly-optimistic. After all, you wouldn’t want an overly optimistic commander taking you into the war zone underestimating the enemy or one so paralyzed by indecision they end up doing nothing.
Pessimistic
- We are seeing firms close that were once great, however amicably, due to economic pressures
- How can we get reciprocity in other states if we can’t get an NCARB certificate because the firms we once worked for – who can vouch for our tenure – no longer exist?
- Career stage: Being a mid-career professional – at no fault of one’s own
- Salary: Finding oneself too costly, too expensive, for most firms
- Finding one has not kept up with technology – and while that wasn’t a hazard in the past, it is an indictment against you today
- Statistics: Research shows once unemployed over 6 months – the odds are against you finding employment
- Compensation: If you made a good living before – one might rightfully doubt finding employment that would come anywhere close to what you made before
- Flexibility: If you had a great deal of freedom in your previous position – chances are under these circumstances that it is unlikely that sense of freedom would continue
- If well-rounded; firms seem to be looking, when they look at all, for experts, not generalists (thought see anexception below)
- M&A: Large conglomerates are buying-up well-established design firms, firms that helped give the profession variety, diversity and high profile design. In M&A news, according to Archinect, Stantec is on a tear. The mega-A/E company announced recently that it will acquire Burt Hill — just weeks after similar news about acquiring Anshen + Allen. Who will be next?
- Construction: Contractors are hiring graduates right out of school – potentially resulting in, or adding to the likelihood of, a lost generation
- Unemployed architects may never find work in the profession and be forced to leave, not to return
- Knowledge transfer: A great deal of knowledge and experience goes out the door with them
- Phil Read (Phil Read!) leaving HNTB (what is this world coming to?)
- Many architecture firms continue to shed staff and struggle to keep the lights on
- Ownership transition: Aging owners ready to monetize on their business, who in the past passed their practice on to the next generation internally, increasingly result in more acquisition activity because younger architects are not interested or in the position to buy.
- Intuition: This time around just “feels” different than any other downturn – very hard to compare it and therefore manage or act on it
- Being human: Even the best leader cannot maintain optimism in the midst of layoffs, salary reductions, increased workloads, missed payroll or bounced pay-checks.
Note: The following are optimistic without being rah-rah. And no qualifiers are necessary: these are not cautiously-, rationally-, pragmatically-, realistically- or conservatively-optimistic. They’re just:
Optimistic
- Experience: We ourselves are the reason to be optimistic – our training and experience have gotten us to where we are – and will also provided us with the tools and best practices to confront these changes
- Change: It’s all about change – and we’re not immune to it
- Resolve: We will design our way out of this
- We’re creative, resourceful, when it comes to seeking solutions, and this situation is no exception
- Training: We’re trained as problem solvers – we can solve this problem
- We needed a course correction; this situation provided us with the opportunity to change
- Change was imminent – something our industry has been wrestling with for ages
- Determination: This gives a chance to see what we are made of, how strong is our resolve
- An opportunity to look at our convictions – what it is we are really good at, what it is we believe in, what we ought to be putting our energies into, what really matters to us and to others – and to drop what isn’t as important
- Transparency: A chance for firms to share as much information as possible with each other, be transparent and open book – compare notes – not size each other up
- Our industry and profession has changed in the past – and will again
- Provides a chance for firm leaders to leverage the talents of those who work for them that otherwise may never have been tapped
- Design Excellence: The world will always need good design
- Owners will continue to need someone to sign and seal exceptional documents
- There are problems – such as retrofitting suburbs – that really only an architect can tackle
- Rest: This down time allows us to restore our energy and creativity
- Much-needed time to define and refine the current standards of care for our profession
- A chance to give to others – to help others out who may be in need
- The profession is no doubt smaller – but as the constant exchange of information makes the profession feel smaller, more accessible and manageable – we’re more likely to hear from and learn from each other
- Jobs: Everyday there are more and more jobs listed – and not just in NY and California
- Thawing: Word on the street, from developers, is that banks are freeing up loans for development
- Owners: Our clients are more and more cautiously optimistic
- You have to be optimistic to be in this profession
- Funding: Google Invests $86 Million In Low-Income Housing
- Governance: Great leadership opportunities and hope for greater voice and influence: More and more architects, such as Stefano Boeri, Italian architect in Milan and editor-in-chief of Abitare, announce plans to run for public office.
- Green design: Sustainability is no longer a specialty or added service and is on the verge of going mainstream and becoming standard procedure
- Olson Kundig Architects had an ad recently where they were seeking “Generalists Needed” in Seattle, WA
- Technology: There are iPhone apps for our profession and industry – including apps that allow us to read and CAD and Revit models and now “Buildings” – an iPhone app that help you find local architecture
- Marketing: The economic downturn has allowed us to refocus our energies on marketing, determine what it is that distinguishes us, and put it into words and images; to become better marketers of ourselves
- Selling: We’ve learned from the downturn how to make what we sell – which as a service is largely invisible – visible and tangible and therefore more likely to deliver
- Competition: The increase in competition and dearth of new projects has opened us to new markets and project types that otherwise may have remained outside our comfort zone
- The current situation itself, and all it entails, has widened our comfort zone considerably
- The truth is that nobody really knows what will happen next; why side with the negative?
- Correction: The optimistic scenario is that the recession is correcting the excesses of the euphoric bubble years, when the global economy was on an unsustainable path.
- Efficiency: We’re ushering in a new era of doing more with less
- Stabilizing effect: Instability leads inevitably to stability
- Green saplings: Optimists see the recession as a forest fire that clears out dead brush, making room for new growth.
- Progress: A lot of what we’re doing now would have been impossible even five years ago.
- Start-ups: There are a number of new firms and new ventures started because of this downturn, including completely new business models
- Global practice: Things look more optimistic if you adopt an international perspective
- Education and training: Those remaining or returning to school will be more highly educated forces when they return to practice
- Cost of materials: Prices on many materials are down after many years of climbing
- Recessions clean out the excess of past boom periods
- Registration and licensure: A recession results in an increase in individuals applying to take the Architect Registration Examination (ARE) to better position themselves in the workforce.
- Educators: A recession results in an increase in individuals applying to architecture programs and schools
- Sustainability: More people taking the LEED exam to give them the leg up when things pick up again
- More stabilized workforce: Many architecture firms have seen a leveling-off of the need to shed staff resulting in some stability
- M&A: We’re seeing some interesting mergers brought about by strategy and the need to fill specific niche needs as much as by the economy, such as the combining of OWP/P with Cannon Design.
- Learning: Professionals have had more time to learn and to catch-up on continuing education
- The lull has allowed some professionals to share information with the rest of us in the form of videos, webcasts, white papers and tutorials that we otherwise may never have benefitted from
- Helping-hand: Downsizing provides colleagues with the opportunity to secure another position for these individuals at other firms – the chance to contribute, help out, give and give back. A year later those individuals would often as not tell me ‘it was the best thing that happened to them.’
- Leadership: More leaders avoid mincing words, painting a false picture and putting spin on what is not know, while rising to the opportunity to be truthful, tell the truth, good or bad, be authentic in words and actions, will go a long way to assuaging what otherwise can be a devastatingly difficult time for some
- Doing this provides the right person with an incredible opportunity to lead
- And to (re)build trust
- Access to information: Accurate information about our profession and industry is right at our fingertips 24/7 – this was not always the case.
- Communication: The situation we find ourselves in forces you to communicate more frequently with others, showing you how connected you really are and how much you rely on one another; a valuable lesson lost on those who operate exclusively within their comfort zone
- Higher performance: Most people can sense a change in themselves when around optimistic people, feeling motivated, inspired and energized. That’s almost reason enough to be optimistic and be around optimistic people.
- This time around provided us with the chance to learn from our mistakes and move on.
- Resilience: Treat this as an opportunity to show your resilience.
- Attitude: As difficult as it might be to stomach, realize that “this too shall pass.” Remind yourself that there will be other challenges, that this is one among many and that you never went into your chosen field because it was easy. On some level you understood how difficult it would be. And that you were equal or better than the difficulties it entailed and that would ensue.
- Mindset: Without blame or recrimination, see this as an opportunity to face the situation with acceptance and peace.
- A sign: Recognize that pain of any type is to give us a message. Once you got the message, stop dwelling in the pain. See this situation as a sign that things, as they existed, were not sustainable. Come to realize that situations that present challenges have been brought to you so that you may learn and become more aware of your strength, resilience, ingenuity and ability to overcome.
Bonus item: Donald Trump and Co. are returning for a 10th season of NBC’s “The Apprentice.” In a new twist on the reality competition, this season’s 16 candidates have all been hit hard by the current economic downturn – and there is not one architect in the bunch. A sign of the times? You decide.
BTW 62 – the number of reasons to be optimistic – is the same number Edward De Bono used in his book entitled, Creativity Workout: 62 Exercises to Unlock Your Most Creative Ideas, a book that encourages you to make connections, think beyond your peers, recognize possibilities and create opportunities.
Not a bad place to start in keeping your 3-to-1 ratio intact.
Out-of-Work Architect Speaks September 10, 2010
Posted by randydeutsch in BIM, books, career, collaboration, employment, optimism, questions, survival, technology, the economy.Tags: best firms, conferences, conventions, employee engagement, public speaking, Pugh + Scarpa, scott berkun, Snøhetta, toastmasters
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…and speaks and speaks and speaks.
What’s so interesting about an unemployed architect saying something?
So interesting that you just have to read about it?
Or hear it for yourself?
Is it because up until now the out-of-work architect has been silent?
And suddenly – like an oracle – has something to say?
In the time I have been out of work – since earlier this year – I have been busy completing the writing of a book (my publisher expects to see the manuscript in 6 weeks,) creating content for two blogs,
And doing some public speaking.
So much so that my wife doesn’t consider me unemployed.
In fact, when she hears me refer to myself in public using the “u” word she’s momentarily taken aback.
Until she remembers that’s why she so often sees me voluntarily do the dishes and it all comes back to her.
Yes, I’m also learning new software and technology, applying for an MBA, interviewing at exceptional architecture firms, attending networking meet-ups and awaiting call-backs on some building design RFQs and RFPs – as well as making the kids lunches, helping with homework and walking the dog.
But in the meantime, this out-of-work architect speaks.
What have I gotten myself into?
Isn’t public speaking the thing where they say more people at a funeral would rather be the person in the coffin than the person up on stage giving the eulogy?
In all fairness, I have been a lecturer in graduate level building science/building technology at the University of Illinois at Chicago for a number of years.
Where I would present – no doubt to the chagrin of my students – upwards of two hours at a stretch without so much as a bathroom break.
And I was a playwright in an earlier life (though, according to one director, couldn’t act my way out of a paper bag.)
So I have some comfort in front of crowds.
Though you wouldn’t know it from recent attempts.
Speaking before peers on topics of interest – all of whom are experts in their domains – is something altogether different.
Earlier this year I gave the public speaking thing a try.
At KA Connect in Chicago – with mixed results.
KA Connect itself is an amazing, stimulating and entertaining conference with the next one – KA Connect 2011 – being held at the Fort Mason Center, San Francisco in April.
I can’t wait.
When they posted the thing on iTunes (for my kids and their friends to play and lambast me in public ridicule and merriment from the backseat of my car when I drive them to the movies) I was reminded of three rules that I would take to heart if I ever ventured into public speaking again:
Rule #1: Practice.
Rule #2: Practice.
Rule #3: Practice.
I can’t think of a better use of my time right now while I await my next big challenge than to travel all across the country, speak in front of large audiences of peers – often at other’s expense with modest honorariums – about the things that matter most to me.
I get to learn a great deal about myself – and even more about these topics – as I conduct research in preparation for the talks.
Stating your opinion in a blog post is one thing.
Being able to talk intelligently, entertainingly, on your feet representing all sides of the subject is something else altogether.
Yourself, in 100 words or less
One of the first, most challenging things you need to do when you speak is supply the conference organizers with a short written summary describing, well, you.
It’s an exercise everyone ought to go through – condensing yourself down to what’s absolutely essential – for someone else to know.
Here’s what I came up with my need-to-know blurb:
Randy Deutsch AIA, LEED AP is a lead design architect focusing on and dedicated to large, complex sustainable projects. A university instructor leading graduate-level building science, design studio and professional practice courses, he served on Chicago Architectural Club’s Board of Directors and as AIA Chicago Board as Vice President. Randy is a frequent blogger – with www.architects2zebras.com and www.bimandintegrateddesign.com both recently featured in ARCHITECT magazine – and the author of BIM and Integrated Design (Wiley, 2011,) a professional thought and practice leader, an Integrated Project Delivery (IPD) facilitator, speaker, mentor and recipient of the AIA Young Architect Award.
Here are brief summaries of the four talks I am giving in the next 8 weeks.
2010 Best Firms Summit, Sept 28-29, Las Vegas, NV
I’ll be giving the opening keynote talk in the Training & Development theme of Engaging and Cultivating Top Performers, entitled:
Keeping Employees Engaged in an Age of Disruption
Randy Deutsch AIA, LEED AP, Architect, Author and Consultant, Deutsch Insights
What motivates employees to stay engaged and eager to contribute?
As the advent of new digital technologies enables collaborative work processes (that I discuss at length in my other blog,) what are the social impacts of these disruptive tools and process changes to firm culture and morale?
What motivates employees to share, collaborate and act transparently when working on integrated teams?
Learn how the new team workflows affect how employees engage with project work, each other and with the firm.
This session will illustrate how firms are turning to employees themselves to determine how best to stay engaged and motivated when the focus is set on the bottom line.
Well, that at least is the bar I have set for myself.
Everyone – especially those in HR – knows what it takes to keep employees engaged in normal times.
But how about keeping employees motivated and engaged in the new normal?
That’s something few have written or spoken about.
At the summit, among other notables, Markku Allison will be speaking on collaboration, John Soter and Pam Britton on leadership and training, and Knowledge Architecture founder and KA Connect creator Chris Parsons will be speaking on Leveraging Social Media Tools and again with the mercurial Marjanne Pearson and Christine Brack on talent management and benchmarking.
To learn more about it look here and here.
2010 AIA Ohio Convention Sept 30-Oct 2, Toledo, OH
I have to get from Vegas to Toledo with, wouldn’t you know, no direct flights.
Another opening keynote talk (I’m noticing a theme. Did word get out that I’m a morning person?)
The Well-Informed Architect: Reasons to be Optimistic Randy Deutsch AIA, LEED AP, Architect, Author and Consultant, Architects2Zebras
This is how I describe my session in the brochure:
Architects are trained to be on the lookout for problems. We wear our skepticism as a badge of pride. Our dissatisfaction with the way things are keeps us focused, energized and motivated, while being optimistic is a sign of weakness. This session will focus on informed optimism as a critical attribute of all leaders and explain how to develop this attribute to attract clients, do our best work, collaborate with others, attract and retain employees and enjoy the work we do. This program promises to teach the steps to take to achieve informed optimism in your own work and practice.
You might be wondering about now, How did I get myself into this?
You might recall that about 6 months ago I wrote a somewhat controversial blog post entitled 81 Reasons Why There Has Never Been a Better Time to Be an Architect.
Organizers of the conference who wanted to see the author of this post tarred and feathered in a public venue generously offered to have me speak.
And I inexplicably complied.
The 2010 AIA Ohio Convention website, built around the theme: A Shared Vision from Different Perspectives, contains this sentence:
Keynote speakers include Craig Dykers of Snøhetta, Angela Brooks from Pugh + Scarpa, and Randy Deutsch.
Snøhetta… Pugh + Scarpa…Deutsch?!
Let’s just say when I first saw what esteemed company I was in I had a Zelig moment.
60 minutes of uninterupted optimism is what I promised to deliver.
60 minutes of uninterupted optimism is what they’ll get.
Questions? Complaints? Contact AIA Ohio
2010 AIA MN Convention, Nov 2 – 5, Minneapolis, MN
Beyond Convention is the theme for this year’s convention.
The convention planning committee invited speakers to share their knowledge and expertise with fellow practitioners and allied professionals as part of a special convention to address the changes occurring within the architectural profession and the implications on the future of practice.
They encouraged industry leaders and forward-thinking professionals who are on the cutting edge of practice, management, technology, collaboration, research, training, and mentoring to submit proposals to discuss trends that are changing the way architects practice.
I have Christopher Parsons, of Knowledge Architecture and KA Connect fame, to once again thank for this one.
Chris, the incomparable Laurie Dreyer and I will be speaking on the PMKC topic of
(Re)Learning to Collaborate Randy Deutsch AIA, LEED AP, Architect, Author and Consultant, Deutsch Insights
In 50 words or less,
Collaboration used to be simple. We knew how to do it as children. We have made it harder than it needs to be. Join Randy Deutsch, Laurie Dryer, and Christopher Parsons for an informative, entertaining, and contrarian tour through social media, knowledge management, IPD, and collaboration.
Followers of my blogs know that I ask lots of questions. In my portion of this session I’ll walk attendees through what I’ve learned along the way about:
- Why collaborate?
- How do we as professionals learn to collaborate?
- Is it something we need to learn?
- Or is it something we are born with and forget/just know?
- What distinguishes collaboration from working on teams?
- Is collaborating always desirable? How do we know?
2010 New Technologies | Alliances | Practices conference on Nov 12th, Washington DC
I love, absolutely love, the AIA TAP conferences.
Can’t get enough of what they have to offer.
Starting with the 2006 and 2007 conference and moving onto the present.
What’s different about this NTAP from previous TAP conferences, this one will be held in multiple venues and also virtually.
I have probably learned as much from them as from anything else I’ve encountered.
And so it is a thrill to be able to participate in this event.
This time, I won’t be getting up alone in front of a large crowd of peers.
I’m going to be moderating a panel of the world’s – and industry’s – most esteemed colleagues.
The session’s entitled:
Crossing the IPD Chasm with BIM Moderated by Randy Deutsch AIA, LEED AP, Architect, Author and Consultant, Deutsch Insights
The short of it is:
Early adopters of IPD have been well-documented. What role will BIM play in IPD going mainstream? What will it take to bridge the gap? Join industry leaders Phil Bernstein FAIA, Jonathan Cohen FAIA and Howard Ashcraft for a provocative discussion addressing what roles BIM plays in where IPD is headed.
Phil Bernstein FAIA. Jonathan Cohen FAIA. Howard Ashcraft.
And I get to ask them questions.
Should be a great, memorable panel and Q & A.
The proposed panel will be a moderated dialogue and interactive discussion among three notable panelists representing different expert perspectives from the AECOO community exploring how BIM can help bridge over the collaborative work processes and delivery method gap – brought about by concerns about interoperability, risk and responsibility, and the building lifecycle.
- What’s next on the horizon for IPD? Will this stall? Will it take off? What’s stopping owners and firms from adopting and implementing IPD? What’s with the workarounds – IPD as a philosophy but not a delivery method; IPD-ish projects; IPD-lite approaches and minor trust-based adjustments of existing team collaborations – and are they as effective and truly IPD?
- How does use of BIM encourage or discourage the widespread acceptance of IPD as a delivery method? Do architects need to return to startup mentality, by conducting the search for a new scalable, repeatable business model?
Again, lots of questions that I am eager to hear answered.
This panel discussion will focus on BIM tools and work processes that are going to be required for the industry to move toward a more collaborative project delivery methodology.
Participating venues include Washington D.C., Albuquerque, Chicago, Columbus, Dallas, Los Angeles, New York, Phoenix, Salt Lake City, San Francisco.
Let me know by leaving a comment here if there are other participating venues you know of that you don’t see here.
You can learn more about this event on TAP’s Ning site or by e-mailing tap@aia.org.
Public Speaking resources
While nothing compares with the experience and tips you get from joining a Toastmasters club in your area, I have read dozens of books on public speaking and have to say Scott Berkun’s book, Confessions of a Public Speaker, is my overall favorite. I love all of his books, but this one covers the topic in such a realistic way anyone who reads it will benefit immediately from his wisdom, experience and the tales he shares of others. Great read. Read it free here or here, borrow it from the library or get the 5 star rated book here. Better yet, watch this experience public presenter speak.
If you have done some public speaking, I’d love to hear about it. Leave a comment or contact me at randydeutsch@att.net
Become a Life Change Architect August 19, 2010
Posted by randydeutsch in architect, career, change, collaboration, creativity, employment, reading, survival, the economy.Tags: careers, jobsearch, life change artist, reinvention, the economy, unemployment
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Fall is near, school’s back in session.
You can feel it in the air.
Studio Assignment #1: Apply the skills you acquired in becoming an architect to design a way out of this mess.
Finding a job – or keeping your current one – is job #1 for many architects today.
But should it be job #2?
I know 2 talented, well-connected out-of-work architects who found jobs this year.
Only to have their firm file Chapter 11 bankruptcy.
Maybe our job #1 should be something else?
As in, ourselves.
Assuming we can all take care of our physiological needs –
Food?
Water?
Shelter?
– though admittedly these days, nothing can be taken for granted.
It may seem that anything other than 100% fixation on the bottom line is foolhardy.
But that’s just not the case.
Until you find that light at the end of the tunnel – however you define it – I am going to suggest you focus on something other than the economy, construction recovery, credit thaw or employment.
And I am going to suggest that you consider becoming something that you already do rather well.
In fact, quite exceptionally – better than most.
Literature of Reinvention or Chicken Soup for the Architect’s Soul?
Architects right now need empathy and understanding as much as they need work and relief.
Architects need courage and tools to face their situation and this is where a helpful new book comes in.
It offers both.
Heartily endorsed by Daniel Pink, Marshall Goldsmith and Gregg Levoy among others, the book can be read by all ages.
Though one senses the main audience might be what is innocuously referred to as “the third age.”
I posted a while back on the subject of increasingly prevalent thirds - and the third age is one of them.
What I am suggesting is that the answer to our circumstances may just be in retirement – specifically in the literature of self-reinvention.
Third age literature refers to retirement – how to spend our post-work years.
While retirement is not an option for most architects, and very few architects ever plan on retiring at all, perhaps it makes sense to think of our current situation as a third age of sorts.
Three (St)ages
1. School
2. Working pre-great recession
3. Work/Life post-great recession
The book I’m about to introduce you to helps you to plan for your third age – right now.
And by that I mean your post-great recession worklife.
It helps you to see your life as an architect stepping onto an empty lot for the first time – the architect’s equivalent of the blank canvas, blank page or hunk of clay.
The book is based on research into the work processes of artists and over 100 success stories of those who have managed to reinvent themselves under similar circumstances to our own.
Using the very same skills and creativity we use as architects.
Become a Life Change Architect
While waiting for your next opportunity and for your life to change you can become a life change artist.
Becoming a Life Change Artist: 7 Creative Skills to Reinvent Yourself at Any Stage of Life, by Fred Mandell, Ph.D., an acclaimed personal transformation catalyst, and Kathleen Jordan, Ph.D., a psychologist who specializes in personal creativity and business innovation.
As the book makes clear, the authors are equally adept at helping individuals make considerable changes in their organizational settings as well as their individual lives.
The book – recently published in paperback new from $7.39 – offers an innovative approach to reinventing yourself at any stage of life.
Making a Major Life Change
The authors deduced 7 key strengths that the most creative minds of history shared, and that anyone rethinking their future can cultivate to effectively change their life:
- Preparing the brain to undertake creative work
- Seeing the world and one’s life from new perspectives
- Using context to understand the facets of one’s life
- Embracing uncertainty
- Taking risks
- Collaborating
- Applying discipline
To architects this list may at first appear overly familiar and simplistic.
But don’t let these strengths fool you.
Once you dig into each you’ll realize that the abilities we take for granted – and use in our everyday lives – are much more powerful than we give them credit for.
Especially when you apply them to the problem of our worklives.
Just take the first strength: Preparation.
The book defines this not as undertaking mental or physical warm-ups but as “deliberately engaging in activities that help break us from our usual patterns of thought and feeling and prepare us for creative insight.”
This insight can be just what you need to lead the way to a breakthrough in your situation.
The book talks a great deal about creativity and art – but it is primarily focused on process, not product, as well as on skills and learning.
With the belief that the very skills we use in creating art – or in our case designing buildings – are those that we need to create a more fulfilling life.
The book argues that making a major life change requires the skills of an artist.
And certainly for the unemployed and underemployed, finding work of any sort but especially satisfying and fulfilling work, calls on our inherent creative ability.
As an architect, you already have a leg-up on the targeted audience of this book in that you have been trained in these seven key skills.
They’re in your blood and soul and you, at times like these, forget.
And don’t even realize it.
You can almost imagine a job interview in the near future where your future employer asks you what you did during the lull – and you explain that you treated your predicament as though it were a design assignment.
What was your secret?
How did you escape from the box you were in?
You treated the process of finding your way into a new life by utilizing the very skills engendered in becoming an architect.
You designed you way out the only way I knew.
If you do what you always did, you’ll get what you always got. Right?
So why not try something different?
To be sure, the book is not Chicken Soup for the Architect’s Soul.
But right now, despite the summer season, a little soup might just be what is needed to help us assuage and survive the predicament we find ourselves in.
When all life gives you are tomatoes, make gazpacho.
The book is inspiring and with its exercises, tools and creativity assessment in the appendix, it will help you to keep your creativity – and soul and much else – alive and well in these trying times.
Building on What You Already Know
You need help.
You want to help others in need.
And you help yourself by helping others.
Becoming a Life Change Artist: 7 Creative Skills to Reinvent Yourself at Any Stage of Life will help you to help others – the young, the elderly, neighbors, friends, emerging and senior talent, those out of work, those looking to make a change in their own lives – discover these qualities for themselves.
Because you already have these skills, strengths and insights: in droves.
You just needed someone – or something – to remind you.
With this book you can consider yourself reminded.
How Much Juice Can You Squeeze from an Architect? August 14, 2010
Posted by randydeutsch in career, employment, management, questions, the economy.Tags: big squeeze, credit freeze, economy, engaging employees, globalization
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I start each day – before doing anything else – by preparing a cup of warm lemon water.
Before tending to the still sleeping kids and pets, before stretching, yoga or meditating, before saying affirmations, doing visualizations or reading positive, uplifting quotes and passages – even before posting here – I take a sip from this cup.
Over time, while preparing my morning ritual elixir, I noticed no matter how hard I squeezed I was tossing out valuable pulp and juice.
One day I asked myself if I was getting the most from my morning lemon.
How much lemon juice can you get from 1 lemon?
Most will tell you, depending on size, about 2 ½ tablespoons (about how much I was getting.)
So how about if you could get a ¼ cup or so from each lemon
– with no additional effort or expense –
You’d do it, right?
Here’s how you can extract more juice from your lemon.
Briefly microwave the lemon for 15 seconds before juicing.
That’s it.
It doesn’t matter what type of lemon it is.
Meyer, Eureka or Lisbon, or whether organic or conventionally grown, foreign or from here.
What does the microwaving do to the lemon?
It warms it up. It pumps up the pulp. Prepares the lemon for the big squeeze.
Resulting in greater productivity and effectiveness from the lemon with less effort and waste.
So if you are not getting ¼ cup or so of juice from your lemon you’re not optimizing it, squeezing out all of its natural goodness. Which leads me to ask:
Could it be as easy to get the most and best from ourselves today at work?
Architects, Freshly Squeezed
Architects, before the economic downturn, used to do work roughly matching their skill sets and talents.
While others had jobs, vocations and careers, architects had a calling.
And architects were called. Now we’re doing most of the calling.
When the downturn came, people were let go and holes needed to be filled by those who remained.
Generally, people within the firm stepped down to fill the role of those immediately below them.
Interns were let go – and so junior architects took on their tasks – while maintaining their own workload.
Principals stepped down to ostensibly fill in for senior managers missing in action.
Hands-off designers – who formerly operated side-by-side – picked-up software, manned their posts and joined the DIY fray or else were permanently sidelined.
All of this while everybody took on additional tasks such as marketing, business development and IT; vacuuming, garbage and kitchen duty.
Often for less pay. And less gratitude. In less time.
The Big Squeeze
Architects of course are not alone today in feeling squeezed.
The book, The Big Squeeze, by labor correspondent for the New York Times Steven Greenhouse, is a personal and emotionally compelling look at what the American worker is experiencing today, an all too human tale about the American way of living in our time.
In an interview, Greenhouse was asked: Why did you title your book The Big Squeeze?
Greenhouse responded: I really feel there’s a squeeze on workers. In many ways, corporate America is clamping down on its workers. Wages have been cut over the past few years. We’ve seen health benefits get worse. Middle-class Americans have health insurance while the typical worker has to pay twice as much for health insurance as was the case seven years ago. We’ve seen good pensions kind of disappear, evaporate and be replaced by 401(k)s, which I describe as Swiss-cheese retirement plans. A lot of workers don’t have 401(k)s—many workers have little to support themselves when they retire. While wages are stagnant and benefits are getting worse, workers also are being squeezed to work harder. There’s less job security than there used to be. And with all the rounds of downsizing, workers feel more insecure on the job. If you’re feeling insecure, you’re less likely to push for better wages and benefits.
That from the comparatively halcyon days of 2008.
What’s Within Our Control?
How much of the squeeze is brought about by factors outside our control (the economy, globalization, frozen credit, etc) and what is within our control to change and interpret differently?
In other words, despite what the world is giving us today, are employers making every effort to do the right thing?
Are employees doing everything in their power – emotionally, rationally, psychically and physically – to adjust to the new realities of the workplace?
Part of the stress architects are feeling these days is due to their internal make-up.
With obvious exceptions, architects
- have an exceptional capacity for dealing with a variety of people, events and challenges – often simultaneously. The current economy doesn’t honor this capacity of the architect – limiting the people we work with, the number and type of projects we work on and the types of challenges we contend with;
- truly believe they can do most anything they are given to work on. More often than not today architects are being told what to work on, how to do it, and given little say in the project’s definition or destiny;
- work must be play or it is often not worth doing. Worthwhile tasks for the architect are those that affirm and enlarge the self, involve learning on the job and more fun than drudgery. Little of the work architects are given to undertake today – when there is work – could be described as “play.”
Architects also
- love to please others. They will overexert themselves – physically and psychologically – to please. Today they are finding that there are fewer people – colleagues to clients – to please;
- often work in fits and starts, and so when they become excited, they lose all sense of time, physical needs and anything else. They follow their enthusiasm until totally fatigued then collapse. More often today architects are experiencing a new kind of stress brought about from there being too little to do, too little to capture their attention and imagination, having to parse their work to fill in their allotted time;
- are rarely complacent. With their job security at risk, few are willing to go out on a limb to voice their opinion or attempt to improve a project or situation for fear of rocking the boat.
Architects generally make more starts than finishes – and the work they are given if it is about anything these days – is finish work: their motivating mantra reduced to get it done.
Taking on project work that is outside of their – and the firm’s – expertise, the result of overzealous and opportunistic marketing efforts.
Someone brought in this project, promises made without your input, and now you have to complete it.
It is not uncommon for architects to work themselves into exhaustion while following an inspiration. Open to a never-ending flow of alternatives in any situation, the work they are given today does not call for their creativity but their ability to come to a quick and certain conclusion: not normally the architect’s strong suit.
A Question of Capacity
As architects we don’t even know how much we have to give.
If we’re capable of lifting a car off of someone who has just been run over, we are capable of achieving a great deal more than we can fathom.
When an employee knows that they are valued – for their penetrating mind, their passions and interests, for their person, who they are – and recognized for their contributions to the firm, they will find that extra place from which they have the capacity to give.
Employers, ask yourself:
- Are you preparing your staff to be more productive?
- Are you being realistic about the amount of work you give them and expect them to undertake?
- Do you explain on a regular basis how the firm’s and world’s circumstances are driving this situation and that – while no one can predict when it will end – it is temporary?
- Are you doing all you can to keep your employees engaged with the work they’ve been given to complete?
- Or have you left it to them to fend for themselves, sink or swim?
Prepare your staff to give – from themselves, willingly, and not because they feel like they are being squeezed from all directions – in terms of time, money and output.
Employees, ask yourself:
- Are you getting enough rest?
- How about optimal nutrition and exercise?
- Are you making adjustments in your lifestyle to account for these changes in the workplace?
- Have you identified ways outside of work to remain energized, invigorated and to refuel? Have you identified a prize for yourself, however you define it – passing the ARE or studying for the LEED exam, taking a course in hand sketching, traveling or visiting projects that inspire you or however you define it for yourself – and kept your eyes on that prize?
- Do you feel like you are being squeezed in every direction, used up for your cheap labor, relatively flexible demands on your free time, your heightened energy levels, your need to gain experience, your wanting to climb the corporate ladder, your fear of being abandoned as so many of your peers?
As an architect, you are meant to give. Are you interpreting your current situation as the world telling you not to give of, and from, yourself?
The energy, attention, skill and talent are there in you to give – you only need to know how to properly prepare for it.
Greater productivity is ours to have – as individuals and as a profession.
The construction industry – which has seen no productivity gain in the past 40 years – will only improve if each individual who participates makes it their goal to achieve greater productivity and work more effectively.
To work smarter, not work more.
It all starts with you – one architect.
So, how much juice can you get from one architect?
Unless we change the way we work with and engage with ourselves and each other, the world may never know.
Are You a Koala or Raccoon? July 4, 2010
Posted by randydeutsch in Ambiguity, career, employment, environment, identity, pragmatism, survival, the economy.Tags: careers, employment, generalists, hedgehog and fox, hiring, specialists, well-rounded, wide and deep skills
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All architects are by training generalists and then in practice become specialists.
To see that this is true we only need to look at Vitruvius’s bucket list for the training of architects:
to be creative, apt in the acquisition of knowledge, a good writer, a skillful draftsman, versed in geometry and optics, expert at figures, acquainted with history, informed on the principles of natural and moral philosophy, somewhat of a musician, not ignorant of the law and of physics, nor of the motions, laws, and relations to each other, of the heavenly bodies
Despite never becoming somewhat of a musician, many practitioners understandably have remained generalists their entire careers.
Some to great success.
That is, until now.
For while statistics aren’t readily available it is conceivable that the majority of architects who find themselves out of work, or underemployed, today are the generalist sort.
That the better gamble would have – years earlier – been to become experts at something.
But that thinking – while comforting to tell oneself – would be off-the-mark.
By suddenly specializing, generalists do themselves a disservice, are untrue to their calling and sell themselves short.
More than anyone employers need to realize this.
For while there are certainly merits and detriments to each:
Is the current trend to fill holes predominantly with specialists short-sighted?
Using a biological analogy, a generalist species is able to thrive in a wide variety of environmental conditions and can make use of a variety of different resources while specialist species can only thrive in a narrow range of environmental conditions with a limited diet.
In more utilitarian terms, specialists know where to hit the nail to get rid of the creak in the floor board.
While generalists can recommend eleven types of flooring that don’t creak in the first place.
Generalists see the big picture.
Specialists have great depth of experience in one specific area.
Generalists conceive the big ideas and concepts that energize teams and carry construction projects through their arduous 3-5 year lifespan.
Specialists focus all of their effort and skill development on one specialty.
Generalists keep things interesting – they’re often whom colleagues and clients relate with best.
Specialists have an easier time selling their services once they find their market and can charge more.
Generalists are the glue that holds teams together.
In the body politic, specialists are the workhorse liver and spleen.
Generalists? The heart and sinew.
Specialists know the work inside and out.
Generalists – with broad peripheral knowledge and the ability to provide clients with alternatives if one solution doesn’t fit – are the heart and soul of the operation.
For that really is the crux of the matter:
When specialists die who attends their funeral?
When generalists die they’re standing 10 deep, nary a dry eye in the room.
Specialists may be safer in the short term but generalists are a whole lot more fun.
Wanted: Specialists – Not Deeper Generalists
Is your specialty being a generalist? Are generalists the new specialists?
Architects have so much to learn that being a jack-of-all-trades isn’t really a conceivable route to take.
Even generalists are more specialized than they give themselves credit for.
One look at the jobs postings – what there are of them – and its dishearteningly clear: only specialists are in demand.
Employers now require recruits and candidates that are exact matches for the holes they need to fill.
Down to the detail – looking for people with single attributes.
In the wish list of job requirements “well-rounded” is not among them.
Forget round altogether. We’re living in square peg, square hole times.
Not fire starters but firemen – relievers – to put out fires.
Wanted: Closers, not openers. Fastballs, not knuckleballs.
Generalists in a Specialist’s World
And there’s no room for ambiguity, no growing into the position. You’re either it – or you’re not.
It may be well and good that the architect’s core competency is a hard-earned and all-too-rare comfort with ambiguity.
Make no mistake. We are living in clearly unambiguous times.
This talent – often referred to as agility and flexibility – to keep as many balls in the air for as long as possible isn’t needed right now, thank you.
For there are far fewer balls to maneuver and the few that there are seem to hang in the air longer.
Task masters are in. Multitaskers need not apply.
Going back to that biological analogy, most organisms of course do not fit neatly into either the specialist or generalist camp. Some species are highly specialized, others less so, while some can tolerate many different environments.
In other words, it’s probably healthiest for architects to think of the specialist–generalist issue as a continuum, from highly specialized experts on one end to broadly generalist practitioners on the other.
Forget the Hedgehog or the Fox, where the generalist fox knows many things, but the specialist hedgehog knows one big thing.
Instead, ask yourself: Are you a Koala or Raccoon?
A well-known example of a specialist animal is the koala which subsists almost entirely on eucalyptus leaves. No eucalyptus, no koala.
In our current work environment it is perhaps best to think of oneself like the wily raccoon – which are able to adapt to all sorts of environments, even urban ones.
Ever adaptable, the raccoon is a generalist because it has a natural range that includes most of North and Central America and it is omnivorous, eating berries, insects, eggs and small animals.
But then again, adaptability – like the generalist today – is underrated.
Perhaps it’s best to be a little of both?
But you’d have to be a generalist to see it that way.
Image credit: Lynne Lancaster
The Pleasures and Sorrows of Summer June 28, 2009
Posted by randydeutsch in architect types, career, change, employment, survival, the economy.1 comment so far
One of the best books I have ever read, fiction or non-fiction, is Alain de Botton’s The Pleasures and Sorrows of Work writes Steve_Denning author of award-winning books The Secret Language of Leadership and The Leader’s Guide to Storytelling
Summer’s officially here – with recession in full swing – and so this would seem like the unlikeliest of times to be considering the subject of work. But work is the subject of this post – for I’m about to embark on a one month long voluntary furlough to help the firm make payroll for the remaining architects back in the office. I face the coming month with a mixture of curiosity, ennui and oddly, relief. Relief because up until now I have miraculously managed to be employed or self-employed continuously for 25 consecutive years and I am looking forward to doing many things with this newfound time: writing my book, biking with the kids, training in new technology, and perhaps as great as any of these, doing some much needed mid-career exploration of the very notion of work. And despite the furlough probably some work as well.
Do you live to work or work to live?
With so many out of work right now it would seem like a luxury to spend valuable sun-soaked hours pondering the meaning of work: what it means to individuals and society, who ultimately benefits from it and what it takes for it to be considered meaningful. It’s not as though work is an option – for most, it’s a necessity, and for others, a necessary evil. Few have the metaphysical disposition to question “to work or not to work?” That is certainly not the question, for work we must.
Who better to guide us on this exploration than Alain de Botton, author of The_Architecture_of_Happiness and this summer’s runaway nonfiction bestseller, The Pleasures and Sorrows of Work, an examination of 10 professions and industries in 10 chapters covering the one thing most of us devote the greater part of our lives to. Specifically, de Botton writes cleverly and entertainingly about the
- specialization of labor,
- production of superfluous goods,
- our removal from the sources of what we consume,
- detachment of meaning from work, and
- elusiveness of self-fulfillment.
What work?
As reviewers, commenters and de Botton himself points out – most of us entered our chosen field by way of decisions made when we were unthinking students looking for something to earn us spending or rent money without really giving it much thought. Our careers chose us by paying well or being conveniently located to our homes, we didn’t choose our careers. This lull in summer affords us the opportunity to consider – or reconsider – this choice. To take ownership of it. To make it our choice – rather than one that happened to us, as though from some source outside ourselves.
Identity
We all know what we do for a living. But what exactly is it? Work is the thing, says de_Botton, alongside love and perhaps children, from which we derive our identities. All societies have had work at their center, but modern Western culture, he says, is the first to assume that a “meaningful existence must invariably pass through the gate of remunerative employment.” In a time when we’re all just trying to make our mortgage payments – let alone enjoy some of the fringe benefits of summer in the city – is it too much of a burden put upon ourselves to ask of work to be anything more than a means to a paycheck?
As one commenter put it, “There is a nobility in simply arriving home at the end of a day having secured the resources sufficient to meet one’s needs.” And so again we ask: is this enough?
Questions
Along the way de Botton tries to answer some of the most urgent questions we ask about work:
- Why do we do it?
- What makes it pleasurable?
- What is its meaning? And
- Why do we daily exhaust not only ourselves but also the planet?
To look at work and life through a wider lens
Summer ought to be about pleasure pure and simple – not sorrow. A season not meant to be fraught with the burden of finding employment, meaningful or otherwise. This delightful book, dressed for summer release in sand colored sleeve, is a light read in a heavy book, as much photo essay as word painting, and the perfect accompaniment to your own explorations into the travails and pleasures of work.
Author Steve_Denning recommends Alain de Botton’s The Pleasures and Sorrows of Work (Penguin, 2009) strongly: “provided you understand his mindset and appreciate finely crafted prose, you will find this one of the funniest and wisest books you will ever read,” Denning concludes in his own review of this worthwhile and enjoyable book.
The Receptionist’s Candy Bowl as Economic Indicator June 7, 2009
Posted by randydeutsch in Ambiguity, architect, career, change, employment, survival, the economy.Tags: employment, the economy, Work
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It’s official. You no longer recognize your life.
Things you’ve seen over the past few months you can’t quite place. Often, you don’t have a name for them. And if it weren’t for your spouse, no one would believe that they’re happening to you.
It’s as though you’re living in some kind of simulacrum of someone else’s existence, only for about half the salary. Without matching funds. And the candy bowl is empty.
Your company mobile phones are long gone. You can no longer print in color. Just the sound of the office printer – inexplicably stocked only with resume paper – raises eyebrows.
The company printer is no longer for printing. It is for emailing. You use it to email things to yourself. Otherwise your mail box would be empty. This is now what you do for a living.
Working part time, if they want you to work a full week (and legally they can’t ask you to do that) they assign you to kitchen clean-up duty at 4:30PM on Fridays, a day you haven’t worked in 6 months. Not cleaning the kitchen at 4:30PM on Fridays is grounds for dismissal, so you show up for work on Friday at 4:30PM, clean the kitchen and leave fifteen minutes later.
You’ve cracked the code. This is the new win-win. And the kitchen is clean come Monday morning.
Renting available cubicle real-estate, your former clients now sit amongst you. They use the company bathroom, not the bathroom for company.
Going after work you normally don’t go after, you inevitably run into the same firms, going after work they normally don’t go after. Those that normally went after this work aren’t anywhere to be found.
The receptionist’s candy bowl as economic indicator. Completely empty in March, the bowl is now filled each morning with candy leftover from Halloween. Even so, it empties before noon.
You wonder if eating stale candy means things are improving.
In order to network effectively, you attend afterhours events featuring presentations on quarter sawn lumber, rooftop mounted wind-turbines, and the future of the city. All in the same day.
You no longer know who you are. You find yourself frequently referencing your business card to remind yourself who you are.
You need to order more business cards, but are afraid to ask.
Meanwhile, you find yourself considering whether quarter sawn wind-turbines might save our cities?
Attending webinars in conference rooms. Muted. Phoning-in to RFP Q&As. Disembodied voices.
Owners, recognizing the feeding frenzy, suddenly put out their projects in hopes of attracting the lowest bidder.
Can you be furloughed from a furlough? During your furlough, you’re needed at the office. Then, inexplicably, the client stops calling. You no longer know where you should be.
You find yourself offering weird services for which you know you are not qualified. Building commissioning in foreign countries. 3D laser scanning of entire cities. Quarter-sawing lumber.
People you haven’t spoken to in 20 years suddenly “friend” you online. Eleven seconds later they request an introduction. Wham Bam, Recommend Me Man.
Former colleagues, unemployed, quizzically seem better off than you. You run into one at the gym. They look at you like recession, what recession?
You know you should have taken their job offer.
Former donors to social service organizations are now recipients of their services.
You consider temporarily living away from your spouse, children and dog. You wonder how the dog will handle it.
Not knowing what to do with the accumulated pile of once vital information on living in Dubai.
Former classmates – now semi-famous politicians, actors and actresses – find you on social networking sites. Just at the one time in the past 20 years when you have nothing to brag about, you’re needy, and for all your former success the best you can offer when they suggest meeting for drinks is going Dutch.
You feel like you’re 16 again on Facebook because you are 16 again.
You’re making what you made in 1989 but the world, uncooperatively, costs 2009.
New technologies keep popping up, you wonder – with every passing day hovering ever closer to retirement – whether you’ll need to learn them. Or can take a pass. You wait and see.
The irony that you need to belong to organizations and attend networking events in order to find the kind of job where you make the kind of money to pay for these organizations and networking events.
No longer contributing to your 401K while watching the market climb. Afraid that contributing will trigger something that causes the market to stop climbing.
When your business cards finally run out, is that your last day?
You remind yourself that a watched receptionist’s candy bowl never fills.
ARE WE LISTENING? April 26, 2009
Posted by randydeutsch in architect, BIM, employment, optimism, the economy, transition.Tags: BIM, future of architecture, history repeats, IPD, predicting
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At Bookman’s Alley of Evanston this weekend, on the cusp of this week’s AIA National Convention in San Francisco, I couldn’t resist opening the May 1977 issue of Progressive Architecture bearing “The Future of Architecture” cover story. Louis Kahn’s last work had just opened at Yale, Harry Weese’s detention center in Chicago received an AIA National Honor Award and 30-50% of architecture firms had recently laid-off staff leading to rampant unemployment among architects. Thumbing through the long defunct but then most-edgy of building design magazines, one could easily conclude that history indeed repeats itself, only in more ways than one could have foretold.
PA editor, John Morris Dixon, notes in this issue that architecture at that time was at a point of “particular anxiety, uncertainty and challenge,” pointing out that the AIA Convention was convening the following week in California to “ponder the theme of ‘tomorrow’,” covering a span of 25 to 50 years – in other words, today – with the hopeful prompt: Where will all this uncertainty lead? Dixon himself responds: “To introspection, we hope; to re-examination of the architect’s role in society; to reconsideration of the power of architectural design in human life – and its potential glory.” It is interesting to note that live stream videoconferencing is available this week for those who cannot attend the AIA Convention – whereas in 1977 “videotaped replays will be shown at a later time.” Despite so much, how much has truly changed?
But this was around the time when the profession walked away from taking-on additional risk – including that of construction administration oversight. Here we find ourselves, over 30 years later, with yet another opportunity to address our collective comfort with risk – this time to the extent it is shared – and the question remains whether we are willing and ready to do so. Or, if not, whether we will take a pass on this perhaps last chance to step up and, at the beckoning of attorneys and insurers – as well as our own inner voice that tells us to stick to the knitting, so often defined as design, increasingly including sustainable and urban design – fall back on old habits, rest on our laurels and the comfort and familiarity of what we do so well.
To its credit PA got a lot about the future right, having identified trends that we now take for granted – and have yet to successfully nor adequately prepare for – such as the great migration of US population southwest and ensuing impacts on resources, addressing smaller families, aging of the population, fuel shortages, energy conservation and lifecycle costs, rising populations and scarcity of natural resources. There was no mention of computers, CAD or especially BIM in this issue but we only have to be reminded that BIM Handbook co-author, Chuck Eastman, had already penned in 1975 “The Use of Computers Instead of Drawings in Building Design” in the AIA Journal. PA guest author and social researcher Robert Gutman strongly advises “architects to take initiative for their services to remain essential” while presciently pointing out (via Future Shock author Alvin Toffler) that opportunities may emerge for architects in the area of information. Fast-forward 30 years – the “I” in BIM. Humorously, the editors point out that in 1977 “we are already encountering an advance wave of ‘information overload.’” Oh, if they only knew…
Seemingly out of nowhere, Gutman poses an epistemological question that proved unanswerable to those about to attend the 1977 AIA National Convention: What makes the architectural profession architectural? “Certainly not the fact that it gets buildings up on schedule, or that it designs buildings which are economical to construct and maintain…Such tasks could be handled as well by good contractors and engineers.” Gutman proposes that the architectural profession merits this title because “it alone is expected to coordinate the achievement of these ends with an aesthetic element, producing a design which responds to the canons of order, form, function and convenience all in a single solution.” Sadly, 1977 was the time of style wars in the profession and the answer – had there been one – no doubt would have been in stylistic or theoretical terms. With so much at stake, with so many roles to play, so much to continuously learn, and with so many opportunities before us, I wonder how we would answer this question today: What makes the architectural profession architectural?
Predicting the future is always risky. Living in it has proven even riskier. Who could have predicted BIM when computers weren’t yet readily available in architecture? Or, at the apex of participatory design, who could have anticipated IPD? It’s always both quaint and mildly amusing to look back at what the future was – was to be – and in the end, wasn’t in the least. The ironically titled “Progressive Architecture” now appears – with its colored pencil rendered cover – anything but. Today, with 4D BIM, 5D BIM and xD BIM – we can only wonder now what we are missing, getting woefully wrong and oh so off the mark. This week, in San Francisco, we’re gathering to talk to one another. Let us only hope that this time we’ll listen.
Optimistically, architect Richard Bender philosophically compares the underemployed architect with the fisherman in repose: “In many ways we are like the fishermen who haul in their boats for the winter. We will not catch many fish in this season, but we can patch and caulk the boat, replace some obsolete equipment, and make the many changes and improvements for which there is no time while we are at sea. As designers this is a familiar challenge. It is one I am happy to accept.” Indeed, perhaps there is no better metaphor for our circumstance today as we embark upon the annual gathering of like-minded professionals.
Architect’s Silver Lining January 17, 2009
Posted by randydeutsch in architect, architect types, architecture industry, creativity, employment, the economy.add a comment
No problem can be solved from the same level of consciousness that created it. Einstein
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We can’t solve problems by using the same kind of thinking we used when we created them. also Einstein
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A recent report in Archinect, a top online destination for progressive-design oriented students, architects, educators, and fans, entitled Checking_the_Pulse of the Architecture Industry Part II: the Survey Results, discusses the economic crisis and how it has impacted the architecture industry. What is particularly troubling about the report is that the survey_results for unemployed architects indicate that nearly 50% of all respondents are “actively seeking a job, and open to taking a job outside of the architecture industry, as long as it’s related to architecture in some way.”
A year ago suggestions for architects such as bolstering their practices in other areas like health care and education, looking for work abroad and even developing their own projects seemed helpful – but not any longer. At the time “a recent report by the American Institute of Architects forecasted that despite troubles in other fields related to real estate, job levels for architects in 2008 are expected to be similar to those from last year.” That was February 2008. Today, less than a year later, nearly half of all architects are actively seeking a job according to the Archinect survey.
Few of those reading this report have noticed, almost as a rebuttal, the alternate reality of the rather lengthy column of current architect_job_postings running from the length of the article (with 133_current_positions listed at the time of this posting.)
Alternate Realities
All of this speaks to the need to get out of one’s mindset and see things differently than the way they are currently being looked at. Creativity, as Woodrow Wilson stated, is a fresh pair of eyes. Two architects, Harris Stone in his unjustifiably out-of-print Workbook of an Unsuccessful Architect, and Young Lee formerly faced a similarly dire situation yet found ways to reinvent themselves. In the second case, Young Lee, a South Korean bouncer turned architect, partnered with Shelly Hwang, a USC graduate now in her mid-30s, to convert a failed LA teahouse into a frozen yogurt shop. The rest, as they say, is history. Pinkberry opened in January 2005 and today there are now 50 Pinkberry locations. Part of Pinkberry’s success – painted in bright colors, filled with modern decor from Philippe Starck and Le Klint – is the store itself.
