Plus ça change

The Willamette Valley Chapter (WVC) of the Construction Specifications Institute is hosting the 2020 CSI Northwest + West Bi-Region Conference this coming April 15-18 at the Sunriver Resort in central Oregon. As is always the case with such gatherings, this year’s conference promises plenty of opportunities for continuing education, networking, a trade show, and numerous recreation activities. If you haven’t previously visited Sunriver, you owe yourself a stay there to soak in the sunshine, scenery, and crisp High Desert air. Look for conference registration information soon. 

The conference organizers will field a veteran panel of speakers for one of the educational sessions that will compare and discuss advancements in various fields of expertise (construction, architecture, and contract law) that have occurred over the courses of the panel members’ professional lives. I’m certain many will find such a panel discussion intriguing, particularly younger people just beginning their careers in the design & construction industries. There’s no doubt rapidly evolving paradigms will impact how they work in the coming decades. Reflecting upon past changes is a useful means to appreciate the necessity of skillsets and strategies geared toward resilience in a future fraught with challenges of global consequence. 

I’ll be one of the “veteran” speakers on the panel. Though I once found it odd to consider myself in such terms, the fact is I’m now in my fifth decade of professional life: I first worked in an architectural office in 1978. I’ve been a licensed architect since 1985. Even if I don’t think I am, by virtue of my experience I’m probably as qualified as anyone to take stock of the massive changes that have occurred during my working life. 

One thing I hope to avoid is succumbing to using a variant of the old trope “when I was a kid, we had to walk fifteen miles to school, barefoot, in the snow, uphill both ways!” Yes, it’s easy to denigrate how much easier it is now to perform certain tasks—such as quickly generating multiple 3-D renderings of a design—than when I first started out. The reality is all the new-fangled modern conveniences we have at our disposal today are simply necessary for survival in a far leaner and meaner profession than the one I entered more than forty years ago. 

The following are the key advancements I’ve seen during my professional career and will speak to during the panel discussion: 

The Emergence of Computer-Aided Design (CAD)
Some of you youngins might find it hard to believe, but there was a time when architects had to rely upon primitive implements we called “pencils” to help prepare elaborate technical drawings on “vellum” or “mylar” for reproduction as “blueprints.”(1) I cut my teeth learning how to hand-draft, and spent my first years mastering the distinctive style of lettering architects were known for. 

2D CAD software made for use on personal computers—most notably AutoCAD—appeared on the scene during the 1980s. I began using AutoCAD in 1989 and haven’t relied upon hand-drafting ever since.(2)  For all its nostalgic charm, hand-drafting didn’t make sense once CAD appeared on the scene. The increased productivity, ease of editing and sharing, and convenience of data saving & retrieval afforded by CAD technology meant it was the future. 

Any architect today who asserts the slowness of method associated with the use of tools of the hand to produce construction drawings is superior or preferable to computer-aided design is a romantic Luddite, plain and simple. 

(sketch by Eric Gunderson, AIA)

The Sustainable Design Imperative
The 1970s energy crisis (triggered by oil embargos, wars in the Middle East, and the advent of “peak oil”) as well as a nascent environmental design movement were very much part of the architectural agenda while I was in school. The University of Oregon’s architecture program was a leader for sustainable design education then, as it is now. Since I graduated from the school in 1983, I’ve witnessed attentiveness to the impact of buildings upon the natural environment grow by leaps and bounds such that “sustainability” and “resilience” are commonplace in the lexicon of design and construction.

The LEED (Leadership in Energy and Environmental Design) rating system, rolled out by the U.S. Green Building Council in 1998, spurred mainstream awareness of “green building” and the vast ecosystem of green commerce we’re awash in today; however, by reducing sustainable design to a set of checklists that fail to take actual building performance into account, the LEED rating system may not do as much to limit environmental degradation as it promises. The way forward is de-carbonization, which demands far more drastic measures, beginning with reduced consumption on all fronts.

Increasing Diversity and Universal Design
Designing with universal access in mind and seeing diversity within the architectural profession has never seemed new or foreign to me. The design brief for my very first studio project (at the British Columbia Institute of Technology) was for a fully accessible, barrier-free student housing project. It wasn’t uncommon for my studios at the University of Oregon to be evenly split between men and women, or to include numerous persons of color. And my early years working professionally were spent in Vancouver and Los Angeles, two cosmopolitan metropolises with especially diverse (and largely progressive) populations. So why am I listing increasing diversity and universal design since the 1970s as among the significant advances in architectural practice?

The fact is addressing inequities in the profession and in society in general has been necessary. Notwithstanding my encouraging personal experiences, inequitable practices were very much present back in the 1970s and persist today despite the Americans with Disabilities Act being placed into law in 1990 and widespread recognition of the disproportionate lack of representation of women and minorities in senior leadership positions throughout architectural firms. While much has improved over the years, the fact is intractable structural inequities are only slowly abating; regardless, I consider increasing diversity and universal design to be among the significant developments during my career.

Integrated Design
The proliferation of various project delivery methods is a phenomenon I’ve witnessed in real time. When I started out, by far the dominant way of doing things was the linear design-bid-build process. It was conceptually simple, and everyone knew their roles. It did (and still does) have its shortcomings, which spurred development of new project delivery methods. These include design-build (wherein the design team works under a general contractor and holds no direct contract with the owner), an arrangement which was once regarded by some architectural licensing bodies as unethical (since the architect’s allegiance might be construed to lie first with the contractor rather than the building owner, the public interest, or the project itself). Other project delivery methods, such as CM-at risk (Construction Manager/General Contractor) and Integrated Project Delivery (IPD), have become commonplace on larger, more complex projects. 

The bottom line is I’ve participated in the trend toward working in a more consultative, networked manner as part of project teams whose focus is to deliver projects with greater assurance of being on budget and on schedule. Aligning interests, objectives, and practices through a team-based approach is the common thread. In my current experience, the “alternative” project delivery methods, and integrated design & collaboration have become mainstream. Use of any one type is dependent upon the specifics of each project. More is better because one size no longer fits all. 

Increasing Complexity/Accelerating Project Timelines
I’m probably wearing my rose-colored glasses as I look back, but I’m pretty sure life was simpler and the world a little less complex and hurried when I started in architecture than it is today. I’ve seen building codes become more voluminous, expectations grow unreasonably, and litigiousness rise to worrisome levels. The decisions we’re compelled to make on every design project have multiplied exponentially: What type of weather-proof barrier should we specify for the rainscreen assembly in our project? Should it be breathable? Liquid-applied or a self-adhering membrane? What thickness? Back in the day, we didn’t detail our exterior wall assemblies as rainscreens, and our weather barriers were often simply “building paper.” The scope of many other concerns has expanded as well. We worry now about a building material’s carbon footprint and whether its constituent elements are on “red lists”; such concepts didn’t even exist at the start of my career. 

We must have had more time at our disposal back when we prepared drawings and models by hand, did not use computers, and lacked email, video conferencing, and smart phones. Perhaps we didn’t but the time we had was certainly proportionate to what our projects demanded of us. Increasing complexity and diminishing project timelines have changed the equation.

If our clients truly understood architecture, they would regard the time they allow us to do our jobs just like the money they leverage for future profit—as an investment. The bottom line is without such an investment the likelihood of a profitable return is diminished. Our clients would realize real benefits accrue when architects enjoy the luxury of schedules that are commensurate with the scope and complexity of their projects. The most obvious benefits include greater efficiencies in the completed buildings—improved productivity, lower life-cycle costs—as well as enhanced property values. Devoting more time to significant projects could also yield something less tangible: great architecture that possesses integrity, presence, and beauty. 

The Hegemony of Building Information Modeling
2D CAD dominated the production of design & construction documents for many years (roughly from 1989 until 2010 in my office). During that same period, software developed around the concept of the Building Information Model (BIM) began making inroads on projects, promising much more than mere electronic drafting. 

BIM is based on several principles that can be implemented with relative independence. These include assembling a virtual, 3D model of a future building, which is continuously modified throughout the project’s life, valuably even after the completed building is in use. In addition, the model includes attached metadata, such as the material properties of a building component, and parametric modifiers like the height of a wall. Preparation of specifications can be tied to the metadata embedded in the model, and objects linked to online libraries can be updated automatically. Because the BIM model is an electronic simulacrum of the real thing, immersive visualization of an unbuilt design is possible.

The evolution of multiclient databases and cloud storage facilitates access to and sharing of the model by several people at once. I’ve always fancied myself as a bit of a futurist, but I doubt I could have predicted the power of building information modeling and how it has transformed the way the design and construction industries operate. 

My tools of the trade, circa 1978-1989

 

Given how much things have changed just since I’ve been around, odds are plenty more will change in the years to come. We’ll undoubtedly see continued pressure upon architectural practices to increase efficiency and commoditize fee structures, while creating ever greater value for our clients. In response, architects will work toward selling results as opposed to their time. As I mention above, we will rely more and more upon integrated design and collaboration, coupled with evermore powerful computer technology (including artificial intelligence). Most importantly, the profession of architecture—and more broadly the entire design & construction industry—must do its part to address the consequences of climate change, certainly the most pressing and challenging problem confronting humankind. 

Taking stock of how far we’ve come is useful. Doing so gives us some perspective. We may have had it tough when I was a mere child in architecture, but the profession is demanding today too, if only in different ways. Plus ça change, plus c'est la même chose. 

I’m looking forward to participating in the panel discussion at the 2020 CSI Northwest + West Bi-Region Conference and hearing from my fellow panelists. I hope to see all of you there too.

(1)  Actually, blueprints were already obsolete by the time I entered the profession. The prevalent reprographics technology in use when I started was the diazo printing process (whiteprinting), which was simpler and less toxic than blueprinting. Regardless, the diazo process generated noxious amounts of ammonia fumes. Whiteprinting itself became a rarity by the early 2000s. In my mind though, I still vividly recall the odorous smell of the ammonia.

(2)  Hand-sketching during the initial design phase remains my most fluid means to explore and record ideas in a rapidly iterative process. Drawing by hand preserves traces of intentions and speculations in a way CAD and BIM software generally cannot.