My wife has told me on several occasions that I have ruined her. Before me, she would have been happy to live in a nice large, new, builder home with furniture straight out of the Pottery Barn catalog. Now, I have made her painfully aware of the terrible, the unplanned, and the danger of asymmetrical hierarchy that is embodied in every custom builder home that is so pervasive in our neck of the woods. I know shopping for houses, furniture, whatever, is a complete beating for her because I have a strong opinion about everything.
The design direction on most of our projects are driven by women with the men relegated to creating one or two man rooms (typically a study, media room, or garage). For the most part, the men are grateful to not participate in the design meetings when fixture packages, color schemes, furniture arrangements, kitchen layouts, etc. (I could keep going for awhile) are discussed.
Not my poor wife. She can’t make a move without getting unsolicited input from yours truly. You can’t really blame me – this is what I do! I spend an exorbitant amount of time thinking about these things compared to the average person. For all I know, I am judged by every Tom, Dick and Harry – scratch that – Jill, Sue and Mary who come over to my home (not that there are lots of women coming over to my house, let’s focus people!). I can’t help but think that all the concessions my wife and I extend to one another in the spirit of compromise dilute the “design vision” of our house. We have spent hours talking about cabinet pulls, butt hinges, concrete pads, even plants.
Another other crippling blow that I routinely strike comes when it times to buy furniture. If I can’t afford to buy exactly what I want, I would rather not spend anything. As a result, and after 15 years of marriage, a large percentage of our house is still outfitted with the finest IKEA has to offer.
It is insane and I know I don’t handle it well. I am used to people coming to me as the expert and paying to hear me tell them what to do in all matters of design. Only since moving into our current home, have several of these things have started to change, a little. We moved from approximately 3,000 square feet to 1,800 square feet and we had to get rid of a lot of stuff. That process of reduction has empowered us to buy nicer things for the simple reason there was less to buy. A perfect example is door hardware. The previous four homes all had door hardware from Home Depot or Lowe’s – but this house, since there are only 6 doors, we got some really nice stuff, almost extravagant. This was a luxury we never considered possible before.
Yes sir, things are looking up. As a matter of fact, we had a delivery made at the house today and the deliveryman said this was the coolest house he’d ever been in….then again, I can’t remember if that was before or after I gave him a tip…..
Hidden Cove Residence by AlterStudio
I am starting the lose it with showers in new homes. They just keep getting bigger and bigger; as soon as I think they can’t possibly add another feature – POW! – another feature.
- A large builder home shower
- How about a shower with 37 body sprays and rain heads
- Maybe one with more than 4 different tiles surrounded by frosted glass that had a large flower motif (I found loads of those by the way)
- Or something very beautiful but just…a bit…much
Determining architectural fees are a mystery to most, and that includes architects. As a group, architects are terrible at charging for professional services – as though it’s bad taste to send a bill to a client. In addition, architects are especially bad at keeping a handle on scope creep and recognizing when items should be billed as additional services. I attribute this to the fact that part of the by-product of designing a home for someone, you become very friendly with them and you don’t want to upset your new friend for additional fees because they wanted to change a door location during construction documents.
There are many different ways architects charge for their professional services; hourly, percentage of construction, some combination of the two, a la carte based on specific phase of service (i.e. schematic design, design development, construction documentation, bidding and negotiation, and construction administration), or a cost per square foot of construction. To make things really interesting, a mixture of several of these fee structures could feasibly be combined. Everything clear so far? No? Good, keep reading, it gets worse.
In my office, we typically use either the hourly or percentage of construction methods. For us, this represents the most direct path for our clients in understanding our fees but as straight forward as that seems, there are always complications and misunderstandings. I will clarify a few things that always seem to create problems and hopefully along the way, things will become less confusing.
Hourly
Just like it sounds – there will be an hourly chart for different level positions (administration, drafting, project architect, partner, etc.) and you are charged that rate for the time spent. The only time we use this format is when the scope of the work is not very comprehensive, unknown, or an existing client who prefers this method of billing. Generally speaking, most people don’t like being charged an hourly fee for fear of getting a surprise when the bill comes. As a result, when the work is charged hourly, we try and reduce concerns for the client by capping the amount or identifying financial milestones that indicate progress along the way. There are some significant advantages to selecting this as part of the billing method but it is when you have a combination of billing types within one contract. I’ll get into this in more detail tomorrow.
Percentage of Construction Costs
These percentages vary by firm but generally fall in the 8% to 15% range. This is our preferred method of determining our fee but one of the things that can always cause confusion is what exactly counts as part of the cost of construction. A good rule of thumb is to consider any scope where architectural coordination is required as part of the cost of construction. Seems pretty clear right? Well, we are just getting started; give me a chance to muddy the waters. We do not charge for coordinating other consultants scope of work, i.e. interior designers, landscape architects, pool design, exterior hardscape, etc. even though we spend a considerable amount of time and energy pulling their information into our documents and coordinating the design intent and construction requirements. We also do not charge for high cost specialty items (like chandeliers) because the cost of the fixture is irrelevant to the amount of effort we spent to make sure that a junction box is provided for it in a specific location. It might as well be a surface mounted fixture from Home Depot. However, this is not true when it comes to kitchen appliances even though on the surface, they may seem no different to you than my chandelier analogy. A considerable amount of time is spent detailing and reviewing the cabinetry that surrounds the appliances and the specific trim out options and conditions they present. We also spend time selecting and presenting, or evaluating the appliance packages with clients so there is coordination energy spent. Just read my post on the amount of time I have spent talking about the shape of ice cubes (here) and maybe you will get a better feel for it.
The Myth of Price Gouging
This is an understandable area of confusion and new clients routinely ask about the potential for us to increase our fees because we can specify expensive materials and drive the cost of construction up. There is an easy way for clients to quell these concerns; have a budget and tell your architect what it is up front. If we ever blow a stated budget when the construction bids come in, we will not charge the clients to redesign and redraw the project to get it back within the parameters established at the beginning. Where this area can get messy is when clients blow their own budgets, disregard our advice and continue moving forward with the documentation. I am constantly amazed at the successful and seemingly intelligent people who are surprised that the bid numbers are higher than the original budget when the house is 1,000 square feet larger than the original program. Did they think that there was a sale on square feet once you got over the 4,000? We might tell someone that the style and finish out of the house they want is tracking at $225 a square foot; therefore, if their budget is $1,000,000, that means approximately 4,450 square feet of house. When the program they present is 5,000 square feet (I bet you know what’s coming next don’t you?), they will be over budget. Seems pretty obvious doesn’t it? Apparently not.
I just received this email from my wife:
1. The gene pool that is your social life will not have a lot of diversity
Architects are friends with other architects. This is either because they are the only other people you see because of item #3, or your interests align closely so you run into the same people (because architects don’t stop being architects at 5:00pm). I know of about 10 married couples where both are architects. I don’t know any lawyers married to lawyers, or doctors married to doctors – certainly not the extent that architect marry one another. Really, why is this?
2. The pay and benefits are not as good as they could be
I have not tracked this information but rather basing it on what I know from colleagues working at other architectural firms. A majority of architectural firms do not offer comprehensive benefit packages that would be considered standard in other professional industries. I am talking about 401K programs, dental and vision insurance, availability to get long term disability, flex spending accounts, etc. I have already written about the pay structure for architects (you can find it here). I am one of the lucky ones because I work at one of the rare (rare like finding a live platypus in your toilet) firms that offers almost all of these things and we only have 6 full time employees. The fact that we do it here is evidence that other firms can do it as well if they made it a priority. There are occasions when my wife comes home and I imagine how things could be different if I worked in a “real” industry that cared about its employees over the long haul. Maybe that should be a post – do architectural firms really care about their employees? As an industry, we seem to value the experience that comes from someone who has moved around - we just don’t want to foot the bill while training someone else’s future employee.
3. The hours you work are long and under-valued
The time you spend working on a project, in many regards, is proportional to the quality of the end product. It is very difficult to separate out the desire to create something with the business of how much time you have to create it. As a result, architects tend to work late hours developing scheme after scheme to evaluating possible solutions. Most of the time, so much fee is burned up during schematic design and design development when the people with the highest billing rates contribute, that the production period of the project is compressed down into a calendar deadline, not a fee-based allotment of time. The difference is that the company doesn’t pay you more for working a 8 hour day versus a 16 hour day – but they do pay rent on the space you occupy, the computer you use, the software on that computer, etc. If there is 200 hours of time allocated to produce construction drawings (at your billing rate) and you work 8 hour days – that 25 work days of time. If you work 16 hour days, that’s slightly more than 2 weeks and all the overhead associated with a person working in your position has just essentially been cut in half. Great for them, sucks for you -it’s hazing for adults.
4. Your ideals don’t really matter
Your clients hire you to give them a product that they want, not necessarily what you want. We basically go to school to learn how to learn – architecture isn’t a trade. As a result, you should be equipped to design projects that aren’t in the style of architecture that you would like to do for yourself. Most projects are developed for profit and despite the fact that good design equals good solutions which translates into a form of measured success, everybody wants more for less. There will be times when you are told to do something that you know is terrible and the absolute wrong thing to do. Based on your need for the work, or the force of your personality, you will make concessions that will make you want to die.
5. If your ideals are important to you, you will lose work
Because architects are opinionated, they will argue for points that the client has clearly stated that they do not want. You are probably thinking that a clearly stated result, while demonstrating the error in the alternative, will win out. It doesn’t always work that way. I have been fired by a client, while trying to fire them, because I didn’t want my name associated with their project. They didn’t know that I was trying to get both the husband and wife into the office so we could give them the drawings, wish them luck, and then kick their sorry butts out the door. So while I was trying to schedule a meeting with both of them, the husband got mad that we “weren’t listening” when the wife said she could handle the meeting without her husband. We really needed them both in this particular meeting. Ironic really.
6. Not all architects have fun jobs
Maybe glamorous is a better word than fun. I am sure that 95% of the time you spent in your design studios at school was about design and not about construction detailing or project management, or communication, shop drawings, billing, etc. Very few architects 10 years down the road into their careers are “designers”, most are project architects. The role of project architect can be very rewarding but there will be aspects to that job that you never imagined could be so tedious and boring. The only analogy I can currently think of to describe it is building a car so you can drive down the street. A lot of work goes in to creating buildings and very little of that time is spent on design.
7. The house you live in will depress you
This is an easy one because what I know is far from what I can afford. I have lived in 5 houses during a 15 year stretch and have spent almost as much time fantasizing all the things I could do to make them better as I have fantasized about winning the lottery. The good news is that the light at the end of the really unimaginably long tunnel is your future ability to change that situation. It just takes patience.
8. You will live with terrible decisions
The nature of architecture includes, and sometimes require, experimentation. As a result, you will make decisions that are really bad and you will have to live with knowing that your terrible idea is ruining people’s lives all day, every day. The good news is that buildings seem to be disposable now and it will only be a matter of time before your mistake is corrected by someone else. Oh yeah – the projects you do that are good will also be disposable and shortly torn down to make way for yet another branch bank.
9. Architecture requires a lot of work and dedication
Architects go to school for a long time, take a lot of demanding tests, and have to work for years to gain the experience to call themselves an “architect”. There are a lot of other jobs that if you were to put in the same level of time and singularly minded dedication, you would be much further along in your development. Please note that I didn’t say that you would be making more money because we have already rung that bell. This is about putting your time in and paying your dues to develop the skill to practice architecture. I’d like to think that most architects are pretty bright individuals and if they wanted to be a doctor or a lawyer they could have. If you want to be a lawyer, go get a 4 year degree, then 3 years of law school, graduate and take a test. 7 years and you are in! It took my 6 years and 207 degree hours to get my Bachelors degree in Architecture and I studied abroad during that time. I worked for 6 years before taking the Architectural Registration Exam (passed them all on the first try btw) and was rewarded with a healthy raise of $0. Point is, you had better really want to be an architect – I did and I knew it when I was 5 years old. Then again, 5 year olds don’t know much yet so re-evaluate from time to time.
10. You probably won’t be a designer
In my class, everyone thought they were the next super-designer. I mean every single person. The truth is, almost none-of them are now. I get to spend a lot of my time designing (in my office of eight) but I spend a lot more time doing other things. There is one person in our office that comes closest to meeting the definition of “designer” but even she does more than that. I spent time working at RTKL in the mid-90′s and there were about 120 people in that office. Out of those 120, probably 108 were being developed as project architects and they never talked to a client. If they were lucky, maybe they talked to a contractor but it took years to get to that level. the remaining 12 were the designers. Those 12 were made up of 5 who designed things that actually got built and the other 7 designed things that sold the work that the previously mentioned 5 designed. I was one of the 12 and I thought it was a terrible job. I never did see anything get built in person. I didn’t have to worry about how it was going to be detailed – that was someone else’s job. Eventually, they started putting me in front of clients because I am picking good at talking in front of a lot of people and can think well enough on my feet to avoid saying something that will get us in trouble. At any rate, aspiring to be a designer isn’t as great as you might think it is.
If you are reading this list, you owe it to yourself to read the list of reason why you should be an architect. You can find it here
I have seen a lot of lists recently that have reasons why not to be an architect so I thought I would come up with a list of reasons why you should be an architect. To make things interesting, I am only allowing myself 30 minutes to write this entry so hopefully this limitation will force my own reasons to the surface.
1. It’s a lifestyle, not a job.
Architects typically tend to think about architecture all the time, I know I do. Not just the big ‘A’ type of buildings or projects, but every little thing from every where I go. I go somewhere and start looking at materials, form, massing, lighting, etc. If I take a trip somewhere, I start by planning it around the buildings I want to visit. Probably 90% of all the books I buy (not including children’s titles) are about architecture – I even put them on my Christmas list.
2. People respect architects.
Even if they don’t really understand what we do, there is a perception that architects are ethical and responsible and will endeavor to make the right decision to our own detriment. It’s part of the reason that ‘architect’ is chosen so often as the vocation for title characters in movie and TV roles. Architects aren’t generally viewed as driven by financial rewards like doctors or as scurrilous as lawyers (can be).
3. Job is constantly evolving.
Architects are not artists – we have to address building technology and programming. There are constantly evolving materials and construction methods out there and we are required as a profession to address the demands of the public at large (building performance, energy consumption, incorporating recycled materials, etc.). Architects create new design concepts that push how modern day construction is executed. Architecture is one of the few professions that is never static.
4. Artistic freedom and personal expression.
As an architect, we are given certain project parameters that help guide the direction of our projects. We are then given the freedom to pursue the artistic embodiment of those parameters. 10 architects with the same client and the same project parameters will provide 10 different solutions. Every time.
5. You can be your own boss.
You can be your own firm of one and still be a viable service provider on almost any size project. You can enter contests and win commissions for major projects by yourself – I can’t think of another vocation that can provide similar latitudes. I have also seen a team of 3 people design and prepare construction documents on a mall over 1,000,000 square feet.
6. There are tangible (and sometimes euphoric) results.
Anyone who has ever seen a building that they worked get built knows exactly what I am talking about. I am still excited to watch one of my projects getting built – it’s like having your own laboratory where you can experiment and refine things that you consider to be important and worthwhile. It ties into the artistic freedom listed in #4 but architects generally have a sense of ownership on every project they work.
7. We can positively impact peoples lives.
It is rewarding to develop a personal relationship with your client, particularly when you know that the process will yield a more fruitful end product. By understanding the process, our clients appreciate the product. By appreciating the product, they are acknowledging the role it plays.
8. Experimentation is expected.
Despite architecture having to contain building sciences and technology, the final esoteric product does not have a definitively right or wrong answer. Because no two architects will ever come up with the exact same solution given an identical set of parameters, there is a liberating sense that you are here for the purpose of imparting your own personality on the project. We are expected to try new things, explore different materials, and incorporate emerging technologies into every project.
9. Longevity of Career.
You can practice the profession of architecture for as long as you want – you’ll always be an architect even when it isn’t your job anymore. Most architects don’t really start to become good until later in life – I’m talking in their 50′s. I imagine that you have to come to some sort of understanding as to who you are as an individual before you can start to be consistent with imparting your imprint onto a building.
10. Incredible variety of options within the profession.
Unlike other professions, you graduate with a degree in architecture without having to know what type of architecture you are going to focus on. This is really great because when you graduate, you don’t know enough about the possibilities to know what you want to do. You can float between big and little firms, the role of project architect, designer, or management. You can work on building types from different market sectors like hospitality, residential, civic, retail, etc. and will still be an architect. Your degree will have a marketable value beyond the time of your immediate graduation.
Bonus. We can wear ridiculous eye wear and get away with it.
People expect architects to be a little bit nerd mixed with creative artist. This conflict of known social paradigms allows generous liberties to be taken with your personal billboard (but you have to earn it).
Over the next month, I will be talking to three separate groups of young architects about the job market and what they can expect. I will be covering what type of jobs might be right for them, big firms versus small firms, etc. I feel qualified to talk on this subject because I have held a lot of jobs (click here for a list) as an architect and I have never gone on an interview without getting a job offer. So I will share with you some tips and techniques that I think can make the difference between receiving an offer and someone offering to “keep your resume on file should anything come up”.
Dress Appropriately and Be on time
You should dress professionally but depending on your age, this could mean different things. You can recover from over-dressing but you can never recover from under-dressing. This may sound like an obvious thing to point out but you would be surprised to see what people have worn to their interview with me (unless you’re that guy). I always preferred to wear a suit and dress shirt with an open collar. Ties are tricky and you might be sending an unintentional message by the tie you choose. If you are meeting with someone for the first time, they will be judging you by your attire, it’s unavoidable, so for now, don’t make your attire part of your personal personality billboard.
Do some research on the firm you are interviewing
Don’t walk into an office thinking that you can wing it because you are amazing. You should know what market sectors they work in and how they are viewed in the marketplace. Be able to reference projects they have done and specific things about those projects that you admired. There is a fine line here – you don’t want it to come across that you studied their website prior to this meeting, but you want it to come across that you want to be here for reason other than just receiving a paycheck. Everyone, including the person you are interviewing with, appreciates hearing that their work is something worth aspiring to and that you can learn something from them.
Be Specific with your answers
There are a handful of questions you should be prepared to answer so think about what you might say when you hear them. People who know me might think this is a funny tip considering how much I blather on. I can usually talk for 10 minutes on just about anything whether you want to hear it or not but during an interview, I keep it brief, specific and on topic.
It isn’t just your answers to questions that are important; it’s also how you respond. Attitude can solve far more perceived ills than ability during an interview. Since I can’t truly evaluate your abilities during our conversation, I am dialing in on how you are presenting yourself. Some typical questions you should expect to hear include:
Why did you leave your last job?
What do you think is your best skill?
What are your goals for working here?
What are your expectations for this job?
How much money do you expect to make?
In every job interview I ever went on, I always asked very specific questions. Some of my typical questions might have included:
What needs are they trying to fill with me?
What are my opportunities for advancement?
What is the pay structure and benefits?
How long did their employees stay with them?
Finally, you should gear your resume and portfolio towards the job you want. If you think you are a designer, your portfolio should reflect that. You should also bring the appropriate type of material to the interview. If you have been out of school for awhile, don’t bring school work along – believe me when I tell you nobody cares about your ‘Dark Side of the Moon Aviary Research Center’. You should also be prepared to explain what your role was when showing someone a set of construction documents.
I am not going to write a specific piece on resumes or cover letters – there is too much information available out there to anyone who cares. I will say that there are three things that drive me crazy when I see them:
- Don’t use a form letter for your cover. Make it specific to the firm you are sending it to. Call ahead and find out who the letter should be addressed to and for God’s sake SPELLCHECK EVERYTHING – TWICE!!
- Don’t list Microsoft Office products as software you know (e.g. Word, Excel, PowerPoint, etc.). Everybody in the civilized world knows these products and either you’re dumb for not knowing that or you think I am.
- Don’t write that your goal is to “gain meaningful employment in the field of architecture”. You might as well say that your goal is to get a job. Isn’t that everybody’s goal if their sending out a resume? Instead, consider writing something like your goal is to “advance beyond your current position and earn the respect of your peers”. Can you see how much more information someone can infer about you just by this minor change?
Modern design, including modern architecture, is experiencing a dramatic surge in popularity. More and more of our clients are coming in and asking for modern designs without knowing what it means to have a residence in the “modern” style. You can find modern design everywhere now – the background to every car commercial being made, to the checkout stands at your local grocery store.
“I wasn’t looking at that issue of Women’s Fitness, I was looking at this issue of…..Dwell. Besides, she’s too fit for my taste anyways”
There is also a massive disconnect between what it costs to build a modern residence versus what people think it costs. Modern homes, with their clarity often mistaken for simplicity, are extremely expensive to build.
In the decade after World War I, modern architects were interested in the “rational” use of modern materials (steel and glass most notably), the principles of functionalist planning, and the rejection of historical precedent and ornament. There was a widespread belief that building forms must be determined by their functions and materials if they were to achieve intrinsic significance or beauty in contemporary terms.
Okay – so put down that awesome issue of DWELL magazine – where the pages are adorned with the manicured images of kick ass looking houses populated by uber-cool, yet tragically forlorn, dual income homeowners. I am going to give you the starter kit of classic rules for modern architecture:
• adoption of the machine aesthetic
• materials and functional requirements determine the final product
• emphasis of horizontal lines
• express the structure of the building
• rejection of ornamentation – the simplification of form + elimination of “unnecessary detail”
and the most enduring, and most quoted rule of all:
• Form follows function
What does this all mean to the 40-something’s that come in wanting a modern house?
Nothing ….. yet. I don’t need for them to understand the maxims of modern architecture – I’m just happy they care enough to hire an architect. My job is actually a lot more fun when I get to go through this educational process with them. This is a period when everybody loves each other – we’re meeting for coffee, I’m loaning them books on Marcel Breuer, Richard Neutra, Le Corbusier and Mies van der Rohe. Things are going great and I am their hero – leading them from the dark ages and the soul consuming blackness that is the gothic builder home and into the light.
When you introduce “cost” into the conversation, things start to turn like a pork sandwich left out in the sun.
Client: “It’s going to cost what? It’s a concrete box with glass walls on two sides”
Me: “But we’ve emphasized the horizontal lines”
Client: “There’s only 7 rooms!”
Me: “Form follows function”
Client: “I’m not getting you”
Me: “uummm, we’ve adopted a machine aesthetic and expressed the structure?”
These are the critical moments with your client that separate the wheat from the chaff. It would be so much easier to take the client to a modern style house that was poorly (or cheaply) built where every single flawed issue of craft is exposed. The skill level needed from the contractor to plan ahead and adjust for dimensional “nuances” so that the joint pattern of the tile aligns with the window layout and that there isn’t any remnant pieces of leftover tile just before you get to the corner. Ever noticed that the openings in brick walls are the exact same size of the windows? That no bricks had to be cut? That meant the placement of every window in that wall was perfectly located months before any bricks even showed up on site. These things take skill to execute and just like everything else, skill costs money.
I’m not trying to say that contractors who build traditional style houses don’t have skill. What I am saying is that the skill level needed to build a house without ornamentation is higher than traditional houses because there aren’t as many ways to hide errors or “nuances”. How many traditional houses have exposed concrete floors? If you are going to be covering them up with a wood parquet floor, why pay extra to get the concrete floor perfectly smooth and level? If you are going to be slathering texture on the walls, why bother floating out the entire surface with gypsum to make it flat. Ever wondered why those old Fox & Jacob homes from the 70′s had popcorn texture on the ceilings? Aaahhhh – it’s all becoming clearer isn’t it?
The best rule of modern design is probably one you’ve heard before but you thought it meant something else:
Less is More
First let me begin by thanking all the people who have visited my blog and endured my horrific writing style.
Me: “Did I just say I had a writing style? Wow – I have a style”?
Everyone else: “Yes … and it’s terrible”.
I am well aware that my “writing style” is more of a “talking style” and I have been told before that I suffer from verbal diarrhea and that I talk too much and I even tell people that when you ask me what time it is I will tell you how to build a clock. Whew!
Let’s not even get into my total disregard for proper grammar. How did you like that run on sentence in the last paragraph? It was amazing wasn’t it? Well, I hope you agree because there are plenty more where that came from. Actually, now that I look back at it, it wasn’t even a paragraph – it was one sentence. And did you see that sentence I just wrote? I just can’t stop…
So I am also pretty sure that I am making up my own form of grammar now but I am just going to continue rolling with it. Apparently, people with a background in journalism would call this my “voice”. I write like I talk (insert joke here). The grammar that I use has more to do with trying to instruct the reader on where to pause, what to emphasize, or what I might be thinking in my head – which is a dodgy area on the best of days.
The only real plus that I can hold up as defense is that when I write, my goal is to be conversational and casual. I frequently discover that my clients don’t speak “big A” architecture and if I am not paying attention, I am going to lose them during the course of our discussion. There are words that are unique to the architectural profession and unless you work in that world, you might not know them. Ever used the word juxtaposed before? I used it 7 times before lunch. How about axis mundi? These are ridiculous words but every architect I have ever met has used these words before because they have very specific meanings. To my thinking, if you just threw words like these out there and assume that they are common and everyone speaks “your” language, you’re kind of an ass.
Over the years, I have unintentionally started talking to people in a way to avoid creating these verbal disconnects, or at the very least to not expose the fact that they have no idea what I am talking about. By incorporating the meaning of a specific architectural word, when I use that specific architectural word, as part of the process of the discussion, the result is that I am now overly specific and incredibly wordy. (that last sentence had 3 commas – amazing really)
Me: Hello everyone, my name is Bob and I have a disease.
Everyone Else: Shut up.
Last year I was also asked to design a doghouse to benefit the White Rock Lake Dog Park. I took the same approach that it actually needed to work as a doghouse. I went a little overboard and my design included insulated walls, a solar panel that would illuminate the clear plexiglass dog bone over the entry, as well as the roof being hinged for storing dog toys.
Exterior at Front
Finding a house that you like is difficult under any circumstances but it’s downright impossible if you are a residential architect. To say that I am picky is an understatement when it comes to my house and it’s appearance. That is not to say my house isn’t without faults – it has a million of them, and I am painfully aware of every single one of them.
When my wife and I have gone house hunting, it has been a fairly easy process to eliminate our choices (hate it, hate it, looks terrible, what is that?, hate it, etc.) but I knew it when I had found the right one. So far, I think my wife has been on board with my edicts but the houses we have moved into have all been in terrible shape and it has presented a lot of challenges. To give you an idea of my wife’s patience, we are living in our 5th house in the last 14 years whereas I had lived in 1 house in the previous 23 years.
Interior Courtyard at Entry
Buying our current house was by far the most challenging experience we have had – partially because the banking world was changing daily (we bought April ’09) but mostly because of the area we were looking. Our daughter was going to be enrolling in kindergarten that fall and we were trying to buy in a specific neighborhood based on the reputation of the school district (HPISD). Because this geographic area is limited in size, and private schools in Dallas are ridiculously expensive, it is not uncommon that people with children try to move into this area because mortgages can be fixed while tuition rates generally just keep going up. As a result, home prices here are elevated based on demand (and a majority of the houses are builder specials – another topic that I’ll eventually get around to).
So we looked at one terrible house after another. Because we couldn’t afford most of the houses in this area, and I have rules against buying garbage, we weren’t having much luck and were desperately looking at anything that was a possibility. Most of the homes that were close to our budget were owned by people who were trying to flip the property. If you don’t know what I’m talking about, flipping is when someone buys a property that is in an obvious state of disrepair, or has not been renovated, and they come in and make mostly superficial alterations to clean it up and resell it at a profit. It’s a disgusting practice and one that I find loathsome because most people have terrible taste, or at the very least, not my taste. When I would walk through one of these houses, I always thought the same two things:
- I am going to have to pay for that piece of sh*t twice, once for them putting it in and once for me taking it out, and/ or
- Do they think I’m so stupid that I don’t realize that these are cheap renovations?
Don’t read too much into this, it’s just an analogy, but me buying one of these spec/ flipper homes would be like Vincent van Gogh buying art at a “Starving Artist Liquidation Sale“. I just can’t do it. Right or wrong, I always think people will judge me when seeing my home. Would you hire a personal trainer who looks to be one push-up away from a major coronary incident? I don’t necessarily think my analogy is a fair comparison because the short version is that I can’t afford me. What I know and how I think things should be done are outside my financial reach but it’s still something that I think about constantly and it’s probably a contributor to why I am on my 5th house.
Looking towards Entry
The great news for me was we found a house that, except for an architect and his family, nobody would buy. In all likelihood, our house was on a path that would eventually lead to it being torn down and replaced with a terrible spec builder home (that had been neutered of all personality so as to appeal to the greatest possible cross section of the population). It was too small – only 2 bedrooms/ 2 bathrooms and for people moving here with kids, that reduces the pool of interested buyers. In addition, because of the banking problems last year, our timing was good because there weren’t too many spec builders looking to acquire development projects so we didn’t have to compete with them, most had inventory they needed to move. The homeowner, who had lived in this house for all but about 10 years of its existence, was moving into an assisted living facility - in an effort to sell his house in a terrible market, had resigned himself to sell the house for lot value. When he learned that it was an architect that was going to buy his home (and not tear it down), he was willing to work with us further on the price.
View of Den
Another Den Image
I love my house, but I realize that in it’s current state, it’s defined more by vision than reality. I try and remind myself of my own situation whenever I am meeting with new clients who want more than they can afford. I am also grateful for the clients who change their programming to reflect the budget rather than trying to get as much, for as little, as they can. When my wife and I hosted a Christmas party for a bunch of fellow architects, I was happy to learn that they understood what they were looking at and rather than focusing on the blemishes, they too saw what I saw – a well thought out plan, consistent detailing and personality.
The Kitchen
The Third & The Seventh from Alex Roman on Vimeo.
I stumbled across this video earlier and really enjoyed it. If you are even remotely a fan of architecture or cinematography, watching this video is how you should spend the next 12 minutes of your day.
One of the rituals when you go to architecture school is to stand in front of a bunch of people (typically made up of your classmates and other professors) and present your design. As soon as you finish presenting, your project and how you presented your project, would be critiqued. This process is very important in the education of an architect – this is when you learn how to articulate your reasons for making esoteric decisions (click here for more on that). Depending on the style of the professors, these juries could be brutal and emotionally damaging. I can still recall from my sophomore year design studio watching “Juanita” present her design for a community bathhouse. The first words out of the mouth of the professor (he had earned the nickname Professor Chainsaw) were:
“Let me show you where you f*cked this up” (actual quote)
Ooohh! I can’t say if Juanita ever recovered because I don’t remember hearing from her….ever….again.
There were all sorts of lessons and skills that evolved from these critiques but one of the things I learned to look for was the type of comment, if not necessarily the way it was delivered. Since the professors that were critiquing your project generally were not that familiar with the intricacies of the project, they didn’t stray too often from talking about the big ideas – the Concept. It didn’t take long to learn that following the rules and playing it safe didn’t get you very far and that in the end, a successful design was all about the concept and not about the detailed fine points. If after presenting your project, nobody is talking about your big idea but rather focusing on your bathroom layout….well let’s just say that your project sucked (and that Professor Chainsaw wasn’t on the jury panel).
This lesson comes in handy almost everyday but in the course of doing residential design, it’s really useful when listening to the questions and comments of the homeowners. You can tell pretty quickly if they understand what they are looking at based on the specificity of the comments they make. If a homeowner is paying too much attention to one specific item, you know that they have latched onto something they do understand and are strenuously vocalizing their opinion on the matter in an effort to participate.
I will admit I have a rat problem. I don’t know how bad, I mean, it’s not an infestation but having one rat more than zero is one more than I want. They are currently trying to take up roost in the roof eaves – sort of the interstitial space between outside and inside. However you want it described, it’s not a place where they belong.
2. You don’t kill something if relocating is a viable option. This guideline can occasionally get into a gray area simply because of the word “if” – it’s open to some level of interpretation. I don’t have a problem grabbing a cricket that has found it’s way inside but that isn’t true with everyone in my house. If I am not around, termination is quite possible.
3. You can kill “bad” things if they are where they shouldn’t be. “Where they shouldn’t be” is define by being inside my house and is really focused on the potential to damage my personal property. This also includes anything that stings and guideline #2 isn’t an option, you know, because of the stinging. This is basically the inverse of #1 with a twist.
5. You can kill any and all ants for leisure or sport. I really just don’t like ants and have given myself exempt status where they are concerned.
So my rat problem falls into guideline #3 which, according to my escalation guideline for justifiable homicide, means I can eliminate them with a clean conscious. I went to the hardware store and bought snap traps (brutal looking things but we have a another set of guidelines when it comes to suffering). Poison is a bad option because I don’t want them to crawl somewhere remote in my house and then die. That’s when my suffering begins because things will start to smell.
So far I have baited the same 2 traps at least 5 times (peanut butter is my bait of choice) and the rat body count is zero. At one point the other night, when they were making noise and blatantly mocking me, I ran outside, saw the cleaned out traps and in my frustration grabbed the first thing that was handy – RoundUp weed spray!! There I was, spritzing away at 11:00pm in my underwear and house shoes when I realized the depth of my defeat.
Round One goes to the rats but this is not over till one of us leaves in a body bag (or a bio-degradable paper bag that came from the grocery store).
Follow up:
I found a better snap trap similar to the paddle style trap pictured above. Loaded it up with peanut butter and Shazam!! Round 2 goes to me since I have successfully removed about a half dozen rats – I left the last one laying around in the trap for a little while to send a message to any other possible new tenants. Very Escape for New York minus the head and the hood of my car part.
