Tag Archives: architecture

Will Instagram displace Apple as the great strategic story of the decade?

The most important part of the Instagram story may not be the billion dollar purchase prize, but the transformational influence that Kodak’s failure in the light of Instagram’s success may have on corporate strategy and design.

Corporate cultures are influenced by short horizons. In a recent Forbes assessment of the Kodak bankruptcy, Larry Keeley observed this condition –

At least once a week, top executives tell me that new growth businesses in their firms are intriguing and potentially important, but they simply “don’t move the needle.” Said in plain American: “The hot new thing simply cannot produce enough revenues this quarter to improve my bonus as a senior executive.” So those projects are starved of resources instead of nurtured.

And in the New York Times, Nick Bilton observes that –

Even if Polaroid or Kodak could have developed Instagram, it’s likely that the project would have been killed anyway. What would be the reaction of almost any executive presented with a business plan to save the company with an iPhone app that had no prospect for revenue?

We’ve become very interested in this concept of “stock and flow” from other influences, but highlighted by the Instagram story.

What are your experiences with this “stock and flow” pattern?

How car dealers uncovered a surprising key to greater customer satisfaction

February 10, 2012

architecture, Design strategy, innovation, Strategy design, workplace design

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from Factory Image Programs: A NADA Research Project

One of the more active and heated debates on the value of design to business is over what are called “factory image programs” for car dealerships.

Most car manufacturers, concerned about the alignment of dealership appearance with their product programs, periodically impose or strongly influence updates to the physical quality and character of dealers’ facilities. Most dealers resist the programs because they are unable to link a measurable business benefit like increased sales to the high cost of these programs.

So the National Automobile Dealers Association (NADA) commissioned an independent study to uncover and identify the value in the programs and recommend a resolution to the ongoing conflict between them and the manufacturers. The study was just released at the annual NADA convention a couple of days ago.

I expect I’ll return to comment further on the study in the near future. But I did want to offer an initial and very interesting out-take from the study.

After discussing the diverse and complex array of considerations and influences that made solid conclusions almost impossible to derive, and especially after uncovering that the annual costs of billions of dollars spent on dealership facilities meant very little, if anything, to people buying the cars, the study uncovered an unanticipated yet solidly expressed value in the programs.

…dealers expressed pleasant surprise that, after they completed a store upgrade, it became much easier to attract, retain, and motivate good staff. One multi-point dealer even told us that “I modernize as much to attract good staff as to impress the customers.” Another pointed out that with improved employee morale came improved CSI scores, which makes sense. The impact seemed especially powerful in the service area: as one interviewee put it: “A dropped ceiling in the service bays will do wonders in attracting and retaining good technicians, who are pretty used otherwise to being ignored.”

Despite the experiential evidence that there was this direct link between employee satisfaction and customer satisfaction (CSI = Customer Satisfaction Index), there apparently has been no survey by the manufactures or the dealer association to uncover and verify these anecdotal, and logical, findings.

And I think that’s where I’ll return in future commentary. I have some significant experience in factory image programs and have consistently been surprised with the fact that they align things (store fixtures) with things (car designs) but not the real experiences with and in these things.

That to me is the most important point of this study, affirming what we know from other places. The real power of workplace design lies not in the “brand image” but in the experiences of work. The quality and character of the workplace directly links to attraction, engagement, morale, motivation and performance of good employees, and that directly links to quality and character of the customer’s experience with the organization.

The NADA has, in other words, discovered what we’ve said in so many other places – the leading organizations of the future will be the ones who “own” the experiences of work.

Where you [don't] sit in the office

February 8, 2012

architecture, Design strategy, innovation, Strategy design, workplace design

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We reflected recently on the debate taking place about the appropriateness of an open office to meet the needs of a diverse population with diverse needs and characteristics. Our position was and is that this is not an either/or choice of the rightness of open versus closed. We are also concerned that a hybrid may not be the best or more robust response, although we certainly believe this is an acceptable midterm-in-the-transformation-of-the-office solution.

Our emerging position is that work has changed substantially and fundamentally, and we now believe that the either/or/hybrid battle uses an increasingly archaic language. We believe that an entirely new lexicon of form is essential to get on and stay on the curve of the increasing momentum of change.

Beyond the open/closed debate, there is also the one about where we work – home or office – and the relative value of each. A recent example of this debate was published on the Bloomberg Businessweek site, here. As with the open/closed debate, we think that these arguments proposing that one or the other is the more correct place are the delightful indicator of a revolution in the making, yet also reflect a depressing tendency to hang on to an ancient lexicon and miss the currently delicious opportunity to design a new language of work and the places and spaces of work.

What is, however, great to grab from the debate is the data from the emerging science of space and interaction. In the Bloomberg Businessweek debate, Ben Weber cites the growing evidence of the benefits of productivity, engagement and job satisfaction that come from face-to-face interaction. This kind of data is helpful in shaping new solutions for the place we’ve called “the office” and is also helpful in identifying the cultural characteristics and attributes of personal and group behaviors that should be the “program” for designing new types of spaces where the new activities of work can take place.

In yet another example, Bob Frisch asked the question, “Does it matter where your top team sits?” in a recent HBR article (here). He is, essentially, advocating something we’ve done in past work, which is to provide multiple settings for people to do their work. “Two seats for every employee” sounds counter-intuitive in a time of great compression, but the mantra reinforces the recognition that capturing the value of face-to-face interactions means supporting it in lots of different locations.

Our take is that all of this discussion is the illumination of the fact that we work differently now and need a different response to thinking about and designing the workspace(s). Whether we sit at home or in “the office” or with one team or another, or in a place for focus or a place for collaboration, we should begin to recognize that we work in all of these places and in all of these modes. We should no longer demand a place only for one of us and try to make it work for all that we do, and we should no longer accept a place of work provided by the companies we work for that does not provide lots of places for us to work in the modes that best support what we need to do at whatever time of the day we need it.

We desperately need to move on in the world and get new stuff done. We need new places to do that.

Getting out of groupthink and into pursuing opportunities

February 5, 2012

architecture, Design strategy, innovation, social design, Strategy design, workplace design

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Lego Flying Car by katimar via flickr.com

There has been a lot of conversation in recent days about the form of the office and how to design it for those who work in it. This is enormously interesting to me because this conversation, like many others in culture, politics and business, is an exciting signal of the search for real innovation and of a desire for a revolution in the way we provide the places and spaces where we do the things we do.

Argument and revolution

The “conversation” that I reference is the point and counterpoint in recent debates about which way is best – the old comfortable way or a recent newly proposed and tested way. A round of confirming and contradicting commentary was recently evoked by Susan Cain’s article in the New York Times. While trying to make a case for consideration of the closeting needs of introverts, she broadly bashed the new, open workplace as a product of “groupthink” in its pejorative connotation. Using the same term in almost the same week, Jonah Lehrer referenced the incredible volume of creative product emerging from the famous Building 20 at MIT, “one of the most creative environments of all time,” generally credited to the informal interactions happening between people of different backgrounds and interests. And Alison Arlieff weighed in with the groupthink that collaborative spaces aren’t all they’re cracked up to be. Closed office vs. open office.

The “revolution” that I reference is my belief that a third form with a new language will emerge. This third form will have immediate credibility in the forehead-slapping “of course” mode and will make both of the currently debated forms artifacts in a rapidly receding history.

Getting out of groupthink – New forms will be generated from a new lexicon

I propose that the current arguments are nostalgic and a bit arrogant. They are arguments of an estate that recognizes it has lost its case but does not yet know where to turn. And they are arguments of a self-appointed enlightened who believe that the right way is the way they proposed to counter the old way but is now being uncovered as having had insufficient rigor, and that now has piles of data bias making a great case against it.

I think that the core issue we are now confronting arises from the loss of meaning of familiar terms like “office” and “workplace” and, even, “work.” “Office” is a term left over in the slow evolution from industrialization and carried the implications of production and supervision in its form. Attendance, for example, was a key characteristic of its managerial mode. “Workplace” implied a single setting, the place where work was done, the place that was separate from the other stuff we did, the place that was defined by time, location and character. “Work” was something separate from “life” and disregarded the reality that, even in the old mold, one defined the quality of the other.

In almost every meaningful, productive, and rewarding context now, these terms are antique.

“Work” certainly has changed dramatically from the dreary and dreaded stuff we did for “the man.” Most of what we call work, the valuable stuff, is creative in some form. Most of what we do is self-defined or collaboratively determined with a team oriented to a goal that is more frequently something defined by them and not by a manager.

There is no single “workplace” any more because we do what we do in multiple physical settings and multiple virtual settings, as well. Time, also, is no longer a limiter in what we do. We carry huge amounts of information on tiny devices everywhere we go, and we connect with our networks anywhere we are. In an odd inversion, we may find solitude and focus sitting with our headphones on in a public cafe and, when we are ready for socializing our ideas and learning from others, we go to the office.

The office best serves as a place for connecting with a network of knowledge and resources to get purposeful stuff done. The productive social buzz and innovative activity that now takes place there is called “distraction” and blamed on an “open” office by those who claim a value of “focus” to name whatever it is that they do behind their six-foot tall cubicle walls. They are missing the reality that entitled square footage for playing computerized solitaire never had, and now certainly no longer has, value. They miss that the work that is valuable is not the consumption of time but the generation of new ideas and approaches with a team of other highly motivated people. Those people, when they need focus, find a place for focus. Otherwise, the buzz of collaborative activity is the visible manifestation of the generation of value for the world.

Pursuing opportunities

Arguing about which of the existing ways of designing a workplace is wasteful. It is a form of the groupthink that the debaters debate. Work is no longer done in one place, and the office is no longer one thing.

Reflecting on what we do, and how we really do it, and then generating, testing and developing new environments for the activities and behaviors of work is productive and valuable.

As Kevin Kelly says, “Don’t solve problems; pursue opportunities.”

Things we’ve noticed

January 7, 2012

architecture, Design strategy, Strategy design, workplace design

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How. And why. Not what.

This is a very nice piece on enjoying the “how” and “why” in the process of answering a challenging question rather than rushing to the “what,” the answer.

The process of answering a question should be a voyage of discovery, a journey during which you learn something, and one where you enjoy yourself in the process.

The essay made me think about the invisible processes in business, and also how the places of businesses are not designed around the how and why. If the design and planning of workspaces made clearer the purposes of the enterprise, and if the processes people and teams used to get to the what were more transparent and observable, would an organization learn more, create more valuable knowledge, and achieve more?

What innovators share

Somewhat related to the above is this review in the Ottawa Business Journal of a recent book on the “innovator’s DNA.” The review reflects on the power of “the five whys” while also noting the five distinguishing characteristics of successful innovators.

associating, observing, questioning, experimenting and networking

We’d found our way this week, in the midst of our own annual strategic planning, to a discussion about the uniqueness of the places and spaces where innovation seems most successful. As I carry the images of those spaces, I’m making a resolution to shape our design mission – our client’s “program” or “design brief” for their corporate workspace – into a form that links workspace concepts to these 5 attributes.

That is, since most of our clients are engaged in a search for how to generate and support a more entrepreneurial culture, I intend to test a change of the lexicon of workplace design from conventional descriptors of corporate organization and function (“accounting”) and conventional workplace form (“conference room”) to new terms reflecting these innovation behavior attributes.

I expect that radical transformations in design processes and concepts will emerge.

Augmented reality

There are many things to enjoy and reflect on in this proposal of trends for 2012 from the Smithsonian here and here.

I expect I’ll come back to the list for further exploration and comment, since I stopped almost immediately at the first subject, augmented reality.

In a recent project, we found transformative approaches to design through our slogan of “augment, amplify, activate.” A client had a new workspace designed by others, but then found it experientially flat. It satisfied the organizations, functions and facility metrics of the enterprise, but did nothing to change their culture and performance, which was the purpose of the project in the first place. Our slogan was a motivator to the occupiers and the designers to explore conceptual modifications to support behavioral change and development.

This sense of “augmentation” seems like a rich territory for exploration in design. A while back I had speculated on “the autoupdating workspace.” And more recently, a colleague raised a question about augmented reality which made me think in entirely different terms about the “productivity” of both the principal artifact of our service, digital “drawings,” and the activities that take place in the spaces and places we design. I’ve become increasingly interested in how to build layers on top of our digital design information and capture digital information from the physical spaces we design.

The Race Against the Machine

Related to the above, I’ve just finished reading Race Against the Machine, and am now both tremendously excited as well as terribly frightened.

The motivation for me is to begin to imagine the role of the workspace in assuring the race with the machine. Finding a strengthening signal in the requests we are getting from clients, there is an accelerating realization that space supports enterprise sustainability, but this is increasingly tied to the changes in the way we work together because of the extraordinary acceleration of technology.

We are now attracted to, and attractive to, clients whose enterprise is shaped around technologies that, yes, automate creativity. These enterprises are now, or soon will be, seeking spatial solutions well beyond the most advanced corporate real estate solutions.

The Singularity

And, of course, this.

Focus groups

I am not sure about this, but can’t stop thinking about it. That is, is Facebook a relevant a valuable data source for workspace design? It seems so logical to “crowdsource” criteria and concepts for a satisfying and uniquely productive work environment…how do we best do it?

…and, in case you were wondering

Why humans have chins

An autoupdating workspace?

October 18, 2011

architecture, Design strategy, workplace design

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A couple of influences this week evoked once again my great interest in how to conceive of a workplace that is continuously updated and enriched by the actions and adaptations of its users.

There were, of course, the many reflections on the culture that Steve Jobs developed at Apple. I found interest in a video we’ve referenced before with this specific observation about the Apple design culture – Every time you present the user with a non-essential decision to make, you have failed as a designer.

It is easy to appreciate the meaning of this in the experience of Apple’s products, and in its retail environments. In architecture in other places, it conjures up Mies van der Rohe, Tadao Ando, Louis Kahn, and others. The work of each is beautiful in its sparseness, in its precision, in its critical attributes, in its reduction. It is also easy to imagine how these environments would be seen as disappointments to those who were not their direct commissioners.

The notion that google’s Chrome was developed as a blank platform with an “autoupdater” that progressively enriched the platform is a great inspirational concept, too. An app gets progressively more valuable as the experience of thousands or millions informs its designers, providing the insights for its progressive development and enrichment.

Buildings learn, it seems, but rarely cumulatively. And in between the experience of the users of a building and its learning potential is an authoritarian structure charged with control and armed with the limiting tools of standards. Its role is unidirectional by intention, but even when embracing an interest in more progressive approaches it is under-resourced to effectively and accurately receive and respond to information coming from the direction of the occupier/user. The user is, of course, also under-resourced, without tools or opportunities to experiment or implement what they perceive to be better approaches to environments that might help them do their jobs better.

Designers are unintentional disappointments, as well. That is, the desire for recognition from peers, and for appreciation from users, frequently generates fully-loaded designs perceived as rich environments for their purpose but stripping the user of opportunity for authorship.

Is it possible, in then, to develop a workplace infrastructure in which the initial commission can be the minimally awesome product, and in which the users have resources and authority to make progressive adaptations based on a commitment to purpose and a goal of performance and the insights from ongoing experience?

What do you think?

Jim Meredith

Have you been there? Have you seen it?

October 17, 2011

architecture, Design strategy, Strategy design, workplace design

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How Zuccotti Park can inform workplace design.

via edenpictures on flickr

No matter what your political viewpoint, Occupy Wall Street has captured the attention of everyone. Among the most heard questions in New York, and now in almost any major city across the world where the Occupy movement has taken hold, is “Have you been there?” or “Have you seen it?” asked not only of your neighbors but even of the illuminati. And everyone who goes, or does not, has an observation to make about the larger principles implied by this expanding movement.

After reading a rather remarkable opinion piece in the New York Times today by its architecture critic, I thought I’d tag onto his framework. And I am going to go so far as to suggest that Occupy Wall Street as an anti-establishment movement has offers insights to guide planning and design principles of significant value to the establishment itself.

In his observations, Michael Kimmelman discusses the role of public place in public discourse. Lamenting the evolution of the square into a “commercial sop” through the misaligned regulations of urban planning, he nonetheless finds restorative lessons in the public activities taking place now in the private place of Zuccotti Park.

You are already familiar with my own critiques of a similar regulatory frame, the planning standards of corporate real estate and the corporate workplace. I’ve observed over and over how real advancement of the organizational agenda requires an examination of the places and spaces where its activities take place.

With apologies to Kimmelman’s grander arc of history and culture, I offer a few observations that paraphrase his that I think have great relevance to the way that the workspace is designed where organizations are trying to meet the challenges of the Big Shift –

Place gains its power and influence because it is where we house knowledge, experience and innovation energy.

Face-to-face communication is the mode that moves revolutions.

While much is made of the role of social networking technologies in advancing the revolutions of the Arab Spring, they, and Occupy Wall Street, build a movement through face-to-face communication. Reflecting thinking of ancient model civilizations, the human voice is a primary component of a healthy and connected community.

Hearing others, and then telling their stories, enhances comprehension and understanding.

There’s a fascinating concept and practice used by the people at Occupy Wall Street called “mic check.”

When the authorities restricted their ability to use loudspeakers, the front of the crowd there developed a practice of repeating, word for word, what had been said by the speaker. Each successive layer of listening passed the message in the same way deeper into the back of the crowd so everybody heard the same thing.

Here’s a great quite from one of the participants: “We’re so distracted these days, people have forgotten how to focus. But the ‘mic check’ demands not just that we listen to other people’s opinions but that we really hear what they’re saying because we have to repeat their words exactly.”

In the corporate workplace, the mantra is to isolate people so they are not distracted. Here’s a lesson that suggests that hearing others increases the potential for focus by a required reflection on/of what others say.

Shared interests are better defined through the diversity of the community.

And unity of purpose is found out of the diversity of the community.

There have been lots of commentators criticizing the Occupy Wall Street movement of having too diverse of an agenda. But listen to how Kimmelman describes the role of diversity here: “Imagine Zuccotti Park, one protester told me, as a Venn diagram of characters representing disparate political and economic disenchantments. The park is where their grievances overlap. It’s literally common ground.”

In our work in the corporate and institutional domains these days, we are trying to design to uncover and release the value and speed of “multidisciplinary” teams. Each member brings something different, together the team develops something totally unique but of great value to all of its members.

In much of our work, we struggle to have our clients understand the power and influence of the Zuccotti Parks of the workplace. We may soon see good illustration of how overlooking the social can suppress the achievement of big things.

Please don’t hesitate to let me know what you think after reading Kimmelman’s article.

Jim Meredith

things we saw this week that you might like, also

August 7, 2011

architecture, Design strategy, Detroit, Strategy design, urban, workplace design

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Among some of the things that caught our attention last week and that may influence our thinking this week are these –

	This is a delightfully simple essay that illuminates the power of spatial experience in moving decisions and closing deals.
	“The idea that cars run free…that idea’s about to change.” Sculptor Chris Burden has been working on this rather remarkable interpretation of “Metropolis” to evoke the energy of a city
	This was a brief but interesting conversation about an apparent bias toward modernism in most design competitions in the UK. This question seems to have its own answer: “Should modernity be preferred precisely because it is innovative and forward thinking?”
	This seemed an unlikely place to find a discussion about the “green workplace” but, once past the intro, is an interesting insight into the subject and, more significantly for me, how a bit of research required by an event led to a deep dive into a subject and then a globally recognized expertise.
	Detroit is struggling to remake itself after decades of irrational and obsessive self-destruction by almost every leader, “civic” or private. We find it hard to accept this preferential apportioning of the limited resources the City has left, feeling it to be a better-dressed replay of prior practices.
	Designer-driven innovation – This is a rather pretty concept to illustrate a debate about whether markets or vision are the optimum origins for innovation

A new value equation for organizational real estate

May 6, 2010

Design strategy, Strategy design, workplace design

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Emerging opportunities in organizational real estate and workplace programs – and how to capture their value

I have become considerably optimistic about the future of our practice from the evidence of disruption that had been latently present and now is increasing activating our economy. What had been a slowly emerging awareness of the need for doing things in new ways is now attaining greater momentum through the recognition that a fundamental shift has taken place, and that new strategies and designs are essential to successfully get in the flow of new achievement.

I sketched a diagram, an emergent equation of sorts, that begins to express some of the shift and its potential in a couple of domains of interest for me.

It tries to express that the content of the institutions and organizations of the recent past, which had still been bound up in closed and constrained systems, is breaking out and finding new value through more open and innovative systems. The impacts of this change of state include the collapsing value of the services and infrastructures that sustained the older systems in the first decade of the millennium, and the emergent power and potential residing in the transitional white space between the recent now and the yet-unformed next.

Some familiar recitations

Corporations, as individually competitive entities, were essentially closed systems where not being number one or two meant death. They were administrated by hierarchies enclosed in towers expressive of stature, status, and power. The value in these towers was attained through internal controls like efficiency of utilization, and external influences like financial instruments.

These real estate values were achieved through a set of services, equipment and standards managed separately from the core purposes of the organization, and yet influenced the shape of buildings and cities. People sat in policy-defined cubes. Furniture manufacturers fabricated responsive and dimensionally-confined systems. And architects and designers influenced site selection and lease negotiations based on “test fits” measuring the efficiency of the ratio of space enclosed in cubes versus the amount of space left over. Developers achieved “investment grade” ratings on their buildings by, among other things, reducing the inches of building constructed between the module of the furniture systems proscribed by the corporate standards and the minimum dimensions of aisles defined by code. Geometric precision defined economic value.

Then, a confluence of global comic development, financial meltdown, technology acceleration and the innovation imperative scrambled the value set. Rising real (and artificial) estate costs initiated a quest to squeeze, and “footprint hierarchy” disappeared. Technology enabled a work-anywhere potential, and realistic real estate utilization metrics proved the case for dramatic reduction in real estate demand. Innovation, the key to competitive differentiation and precious growth, was now believed to arise from a culture of creative and cross-disciplinary collaboration for which the cube was an enemy. Even after economic collapse and the disappearance of price pressure on real estate decisions, the demand for space may now be felt more by the coffee shop than the corporation.

Leading organizations are now trying to find ways to operate as networked clusters of competencies rather than closed corporations. The concept of work “stations” now only has value if you believe that if you have one you will not get laid off; instead, quality of place and attraction of space get attention. Work, in any case, is no longer contained in a company’s buildings, nor by the clock, and is progressively becoming part of a seamlessly networked, diversely urban lifestyle. People now much more agile in place and time, choose places and spaces that are the most effective, or can be made more effective, for whatever activity is part of their workstream.

So, what might this mean?

Our clients regularly ask us about trends. Understanding what is happening in workplace planning and design, for example, allows them to become current, test their status against industry and competitors, and make more informed choices about their own programs. Trends, a term borrowed from the world of style, may however be evidence more of group-think and less a valid tool for decision-making. The trend-setter may actually have been the only one in the chain who made an authentic move, creatively adapting and innovating their workspace to meet the unique and differential needs of their organization’s purpose. His followers may now be experiencing the frustration of trying to fit function to form.

In a recently posted video of his presentation at a TED conference, Simon Sinek offers a diagram – “the Golden Circle” – of the path to influential leadership, and a simple formulation that people want what you believe, not what you are.
Individuals and organizations with a well-formulated and articulated belief system (“why” – their purpose for being) develop aligned and authentic means to deliver on their promise (“how”). In order for the “how” of their organization to be effective, they shape their presence in place and space in the character of their culture (“what” – the tangible and physical expression of their unique DNA).

Trends in organizational real estate and workplace design

In their real estate and workplace design programs, aspirational organizations may see the impact and influence of others’ space moves and, sensing “trend,” may choose a similar approach for themselves, believing they, too, may benefit from the concepts.

The trend-setting organization may say – we are relentless in our quest to understand the needs of our clients and their customers. To get this understanding we do our work standing next to them, enabled by technology and support policies that allow our people to work in our client’s places. We’ve developed an agile workplace with all of the tools to support and nurture our highly committed and recognized staff.

The trend-following organization sees a “trend” to shed real estate costs through a reduced space inventory and minimized allocations. They initiate a mobile work “policy” and measure their success with a 40% reduction in occupancy costs, which, they believe, enhances their competitive position in the market. Their people begin to experience a high level of stress, make harmful decisions based on the celebrated internal metrics, and cling to a cubicle as an entitlement and an assumed job insurance.

If I could apply Simon Sinek’s principles to our advice to our clients, I would always propose that we design from the inside out. Developing a deep understanding of the purpose and goals of the organization (the why), we would then begin to shape with them a strategy design (the how) to meet their goals and then begin to uncover, test and develop concepts to shape a design strategy for place and space (the what) to enhance the performance of people and to achieve and sustain leadership in their mission.

In other words, I’d try this new formula with them–

Articulate why you are in business and let that purpose be the principle drive of real estate programs and decisions
Define how you uniquely do what you do, first without reference to space
Shape space and place around the how

This is a great time for corporations and other forms of organizations to reassess the purposes and power of place for their own goals and objectives, whether considering new initiatives or reviewing the impacts of past or recent programs.

What do you think?

© Jim Meredith

Why can’t the world’s best architects build better web sites?

March 26, 2010

architecture, Design strategy, Strategy design, workplace design

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I’ve been spending time lately in the development space of entrepreneurs for the purposes of designing spaces for entrepreneurs, and I am learning. A central ritual of entrepreneurial life is the pitch to venture capitalists. A central discipline of the pitch is its conciseness of form, its brevity in delivery, its formula for content, its cadence, its medium, its goal.

This essential crispness of discipline is reinforced over and over. The VC’s motivation to commit millions of dollars of investment is tied to a handful of PowerPoint slides and no more than 15 to 18 minutes of clear accessible language in presentation and conversation.

I reflect on this because of the contrast it has with the performance in my core practice – architecture and design. The connection arises because recently Fast Company gave voice to Alissa Walker who offered an appropriately stinging commentary on the design of the web sites of leading architects. Web sites and pitches are not directly aligned, but they relate here because architects’ web sites are part of a culture of presentation that evokes sharp reactions from those outside of the profession who see something that does not make sense to them.

And does it make sense for architects, themselves, anymore?

I went to a lecture last night (these are always, actually, portfolio presentations) by a very well-known architect. Organized around a small number of key themes, she presented mostly what we call “work on the boards.” These were projects well advanced in design, but not yet constructed.

Among the projects she presented was work done for the federal government. “As you know,” she said, “the GSA’s Design Excellence projects require you to develop 3 schemes. We gave names to these schemes – Z, T and I.”

Encapsulated in that sentence are several aspects of the culture and practice of the profession that characterize architectural presentations and may be contributing factors to the enormous frustration people feel with architects’ web sites.

First, by way of background, architects are chosen on the basis of “qualifications” and, in the parlance of most clients, this means “experience” and experience means the display of projects that are like the project contemplated by the client. Rarely is there an interest in the chance luck of a great piece of architecture coming out of a start-up or otherwise inexperienced firm.

In a project, despite months of extended conversations between architects and their clients, architects are compelled, typically, to present not one big idea but three. This practice comes both from the insecurity of the client and the insecurity of the architect, and may also be a tactic to attempt to move the client from a preconceived concept to one that the architect prefers or recommends as better for whatever reasons.

Architects are also notorious users of jargon, mostly from the domains of academic criticism and usually obscure and inaccessible. Even in the case I cited above, the selection of very simple letter designations is a layered abstraction. The letters relate to the plan form of the building concepts (Z-shaped, etc.). This, of course, separates form from function, and separates the architect’s language of shape from the client’s language of purpose, production and performance.

I expect that architects’ web sites are an extension of all of this. For a diverse practice, the necessity to present a large number of projects is a way of potentially participating in a client selection lottery, of sorts, assuring that client X may find at least one project that satisfies the qualifications checklist. Verbal jargon may very well be a way to suspend the conversation, in a way, so that the precision of words does not imply or incur exclusion. Flash animation is participation in a domain of presentation and technology as a way of claiming currency and legitimacy and, perhaps, also the continuation of the practice of presenting form before content.

After the collapse of the economy, and of the opportunity to build, I realized that almost every project opportunity I might have could only become real by treating a project like a business plan, like an entrepreneur’s pitch. Every move to access and utilize capital by the project had to be linked to a performance result, an impact on the organization or the business that resonated well beyond the building itself. My client became, in essence, my client’s customers.

Opportunities arise now not from the presentation of qualifications validated by a portfolio of past work, but through a concise conversation about how place and space will measurably enhance the business or transform the organization. The design solution is less these days the form that emerges after the extended development of a program of requirements, but the fresh idea presented at the first meeting with the client that demonstrates a well-developed understanding of the challenges and opportunities in their domain of operation and the factors that will move them to differential success.

I expect that this new form of practice will begin to reshape the way that architects present themselves – in lectures, presentations, and web sites. (And gives me my own homework, here!)

As part of the mashup of news and ideas that occurs in my daily dawn review of RSS feeds, there was coincidentally, in addition to the Fast Company article, a link to this TED Talks video of David Rose’s advice on the entrepreneurial pitch.

Architects, could you imagine a client interview guided by this advice? Clients, if VC’s will make a commitment of millions on the basis of these guidelines, why not you in your projects?

—archizoo

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