I found this to be an interesting discussion that I think people should think about.
Is it unethical for a non-profit to donate their design services to a local agency for the development of affordable housing, if the local agency is capable of paying for the services of local architects? However the housing units will be more affordable if the design services are donated. Local agency is also non-profit.
Are they stealing business by selling their services for cheap?
it's a catch 22 situation. There is a huge market for for-profit architects to get involved in affordable housing but little demand. Bare in mind H4H is the 4th largest builder in the US and tend to focus on a plan book of designs rather than 'out-sourcing' to design professionals.
How is the non-profit funded? Remember folks on staff have salaries too and are paid to provide those services, either by grants or donations. Is it really 'free services' if the professionals are actually being compensated for their design expertise, albeit at a not-for-profit rate.
Think of this. If a home is $120,000 to construct and the non-profit is paying an architect a salary or stipend, what 'percentage' is that architect or firm getting.
/Is it unethical that our professions code of ethics does not include a certain amount of pro-bono hours, such as doctors or lawyers?
//non-profit does not mean free, it means providing ones professional services at a rate that is accessible/affordable for the client. If the case of Darfur that might mean free, in the case of NYC or SF it might mean a small percentage.
///we should not be fighting each other for the scraps or pointing fingers, but expanding the reach of the profession to allow our colleagues (and ourselves) the opportunity to create more dignified and well designed structures for more people.
for lawyers it is a state by state thing (see below). and it is slowly becoming a mandatory statue for licensing. If IDP requires you to do community service [which you can get by working with Architecture for Humanity], why not professional with continuing education credits. Perhaps there should be continuing ethical credits.
---
Washington State pro bono rule simply says "a lawyer should render public interest legal service," either by waiving or reducing fees or donating money to assistance programs.
A couple of states, Florida and Maryland, require a minimum level of pro bono service. The Washington bar opted for a voluntary approach, recognizing that some lawyers have legitimate barriers to pro bono work.
Only 9 percent of the state's lawyers now participate in formal pro bono panels, according to the state bar. Under the proposed rule, lawyers would voluntarily report their pro bono service each year.
----
Case in point we worked with THREE law firms ALL donating pro-bono hours to develop contracts for folks rebuilding on the gulf coast, this has led to millions of dollars of financing into Biloxi. A little help, goes a long way.
"maybe more firms should adopt a pro-bono approach to helping the disadvantaged ... law firms do this all the time."
But I think that the question hinges on this: what constitutes disadvantage? Is the example in question one of disadvantage because the subject matter is low-income housing? Or is the example not one of disadvantage, because the agency has the capability to pay for services?
here we agree. and some agencies try and take advantage of the professions 'goodwill'. If an agency has a $xxx million fund from the federal government then wants you to work for 5 cents on the dollar - they are using you as 'cost savings' as other areas of the project are bloated.
How can you tell the difference and what is the criteria you would use to tell the difference?
This is the crux of the discussion. The agency can clearly afford the services, however the housing will be more affordable or perhaps we can even generate more units.
Where do you draw the line?
So far I have been using the affordable housing definition from HUD as my example. For small projects dealing strictly with one individual owner, I have deemed a person spending 30% or more of their annual household income, as a person that qualifies for pro bono services.
However, the question of organizations is a completely different story.
even if the non-profit agency can afford to pay top dollar to a for-profit firm for their services, working with a community design center or another non-profit may make a lot of sense, both financially (to the cdc - it helps them stay afloat) and institutionally (there could be an alliance formed).
case in point - once upon a time, when i tried (and ultimately failed) to gear up and develop an 'edgy' design driven studio within a non-profit housing group, we looked, for over a year, at forming a strategic alliance with two other, non-profit housing developers. the rationale was that we could offer in-house acquisition, design, development, financing, and management services that would allow us to do create and perpetuate our own low-income housing solutions (or for other agencies). that deal never materialized, but the idea was an interesting one.
we did some design work for one of the developers, but by and large they hired for-profit architectural firms. ultimately, i think the design studio has been phased out or soon will be, due to a lack of revenue streams coming in from it. it's hard, as a non-profit, to do a purely revenue driven model (as opposed to grants, etc. that cameron is talking about). people either assume that your fees should be free (which is not correct, as cameron points out) or that you won't touch their kind of project. and it does have its ethical quandrys. for example, do you take a house design for a young, 'poor' couple who want a hip design on the cheap? or for houses that people want to do 'affordably', even though they have budgets higher than some small countries? or do you truly throw yourself into doing work for agencies that filter out who really needs and deserves affordable housing? the one great thing we did as a group was to help enable 8 or so low income house designs that the city of biloxi, ms. wanted so that they could infill vacant lots. we finished all of them in 2004 - just in time for katrina. i know habitat has purchased many of the plans for their own reconstruction projects. hopefully they will be executed well....
Laru,
Did y'all do the Hope 6 housing? or another set? I'd love to see the plans/results as we just did the same with the Biloxi Model Home project (see the Open Architecture Network for photos/construction docs/etc.
Pro-bono work is an essential emerging part of our profession. In my view, we are quite distant from architecture practice in general being very relevant. When dealing with organizations with very grounded needs, the way in which we practice is transformed.
The most interesting aspect of pro-bono work is that there is a very delicate balance between design concerns and the realities and pragmatics of the way an organization works. Few do it very well, but many tout strong humanism in their work.
As an example, there was a lecture a few years ago about a low-income housing competition in Houston several years ago. One of the entries was a glass house. A question that the lecturer had no answer for was a question about the cost of cooling the house in the Texas heat. The house was not built and was able to stay as an idea...but in actually engaging an individual or organization in need, it is impossible to ignore these concerns. The architect cannot rest as tastemaker and expect people to tolerate half-baked work because it is fashionable.
That being said, I also think that the past few years of good firms engaging pro-bono work has led to a raised bar for design in non-profit projects. Koning-Eizenberg was really a pioneer in making a strong portfolio out of this type of project.
Ideally the profession develops a reasonably consistent idea of what deserves pro-bono services. Completely free is never a good idea in my opinion...clients must have something on the line, whether material costs, sweat equity, volunteerism, etc.
There's enough need...I don't think we're taking work from each other.
it was a set of 8 individual houses - 4 types, 2 variations of each. i can't remember the name of the guy from the city who was heading it up, but he left after katrina. they were a bit more traditional than the homes you all were working on - the city was trying to forclose on properties that owed back taxes, then demo the existing house (if need be) and then fill these back in. we had houses that would fit very narrow lots, some odd lots, etc. i honestly don't much about what happened to them - after i left the design studio, my successor got the call from habitat asking if they could use them.
wasn't hope 6 to answer your first question and they were all single family (1000-1250sf).
if i can find them in my files, i'd be happy to send them along (i have no idea what the copyright issues would be...)
is an initiative of Public Architecture in SF. They catalog firms that are engaging in pro-bono work. A few years ago we (www.laforum.org) had an independent initiative called CityworksLA which staged an exhibit called Communities Under Construction that was staged at the A+D Museum. The book from the exhibit is about to be available on Amazon. Another book was published by the NEA called University/Community Design Partnerships, which talks about the role of community design programs in schools as an agent of pro-bono architecture services. Our program at SCI-Arc is one of nine profiled.
blue cross blue shield is a non-profit....that just means the high end people in the company get the really big checks to help take away profits from the company....
i saw many cases that architect who "donate" their services have business intentions, mainly extending their network, gain publicity, strengthen their companies portfolio, help to gain points for other public tenders... if architects want to help the society, put more time on enhancing one's design skill or simply give money to the poor.
we have donate too much already to the society, please do not offer free services, it demotes our profession... besides the architect's profits is insignificant as compare with contractors or suppliers, the end user do not benefit much living a house designed by someone who worked for free.
I must question your last line "the end user do not benefit much living a housing designed by someone who worked for free".
That is automatically assuming that the quality is diminished when the work is done for cheaper. In my opion, that comment is simply incorrect.
I do believe however that when architects and contractors work for cheap in order to gain more business through obtaining that reputation then it hurts the profession. However, when an architect donates services to in an attempt to enhance the community, it is good for the profession. It broadens an architect's exposure to the community, and could possibly educate people as to what good design is.
huanmic, i did not imply nor intent to imply that the design quality is diminished when the work is done for free or cheaper.
as i state earlier, the architect's design fee is insignificant as compare to contractors or suppliers, whethter architect work free or not do not contribute much to the overall project especially when budget is a concern for the affordable housing... shall "squeeze" the supplier or contractor instead.
you have present an ideal case when individual architect want to contribute to enhance the community... but most of the time when an architectural firm conduct such act, it's 99% business oriented.
a real life example for an individual architect who claim to "donate",
a nobody architect who teaches at a university at hongkong, he donate his design consultancy to a bridge project for a rural village at china. budget is tight and money mainly came from the wealthy or institution. surposingly, a standard design would be a straight forward solution to serve the local community, however, the architect decide to provide his "high quality design" inorder to donate more... so alittle bit of herzog & tado here and there... after the bridge is completed, the nobody become somebody, lots of publications and awards from england...etc etc...
in my perspective, he used the project and under the name of "donation" to excercise his freedom of design which he would never get in the commercial industry... and there is no "pure" donation by providing design consultancy...
What about incorporating pro-bono work to the requirements of being a registered architect, exactly like continuing education? Would something like this be feasible?
If so, then this debate moves to the center of the profession. Is the integrity of the profession jeopardised by pro-bono work for people that can pay for it?
eastcoast - i completely disagree -dwell/the condo group was absolutely, positively a for-profit corporation seeking to explicitly exploit the insecurities of (primarily younger) designers to try and get free work. when a local, non-profit housing developer puts out a call for help, it's a different category of client. there, they genuinely may need to keep the overall costs low just to make a project happen.
that said, i have no problem with someone getting press attention for doing an innovative, pro-bono work. more power to them, so long as it doesn't overshadow the mission of the project itself. we need more innovation in the non-profit realm - if that generates press, consider it a bonus.
Great topic. I agree with encouraging more architects to provide pro-bono service to make well designed and affordable housing readily available to the community, and implementing it via Continuing Professional Development credits might just be the way to do it. There's no reason to reinvent the wheel but it may just be a matter of realising that providing design service to community is just as relevant as learning about the latest design fad/theory/technology. The kind of work done by not-for-profit design service organisations not only benefit the end-users but it also helps to raise awareness in our society where our profession is becoming, for the lack of a better word, alienated. Of course there are going to be those who abuse this system and hold ulterior motives for self-aggrandisement, but by and large majority of those who do committ themselves to community service and non-profits have good intentions and want to make positive change in their community.
The premise behind providing pro-bono service lies in that the kind of service professionals provide -whether it be doctors, laywers, architects - ought to be available to everyone, as that is the reason these professionals exist in the first place.
Ultimately even the work that not-for-profit organisations execute in the end are profitable, albeit in non-monetary ways, in that it benefits the whole society and helps us build a better community.
no it doesn't. Dwell is not a non-profit (it is a magazine), their 'client' was not a non-profit (it was a high-end luxury condo developer) and they were asking for free work - until the archinect/bustler threads. To put it mildly I take it as a slight on every design based non profit that you'd even see any connection what so ever.
It's like saying a cosmetic surgeons office who asks his staff to give 'free' face lifts is the same as Doctors Without Borders in Darfur.
C.
Aug 9, 07 9:31 pm ·
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Ethics (non-profit work stealing work from for-profit)
I found this to be an interesting discussion that I think people should think about.
Is it unethical for a non-profit to donate their design services to a local agency for the development of affordable housing, if the local agency is capable of paying for the services of local architects? However the housing units will be more affordable if the design services are donated. Local agency is also non-profit.
Are they stealing business by selling their services for cheap?
or
Are they commended for being angels?
This is black and white.
it's a donation...so no, not unethical
agree, it's not unethical, but it hinges on the local agency being non-profit
it would be great (eventually) if more of my competitors stole business by giving it away for free.
it's a catch 22 situation. There is a huge market for for-profit architects to get involved in affordable housing but little demand. Bare in mind H4H is the 4th largest builder in the US and tend to focus on a plan book of designs rather than 'out-sourcing' to design professionals.
How is the non-profit funded? Remember folks on staff have salaries too and are paid to provide those services, either by grants or donations. Is it really 'free services' if the professionals are actually being compensated for their design expertise, albeit at a not-for-profit rate.
Think of this. If a home is $120,000 to construct and the non-profit is paying an architect a salary or stipend, what 'percentage' is that architect or firm getting.
/Is it unethical that our professions code of ethics does not include a certain amount of pro-bono hours, such as doctors or lawyers?
//non-profit does not mean free, it means providing ones professional services at a rate that is accessible/affordable for the client. If the case of Darfur that might mean free, in the case of NYC or SF it might mean a small percentage.
///we should not be fighting each other for the scraps or pointing fingers, but expanding the reach of the profession to allow our colleagues (and ourselves) the opportunity to create more dignified and well designed structures for more people.
maybe more firms should adopt a pro-bono approach to helping the disadvantaged ... law firms do this all the time.
distant.
for lawyers it is a state by state thing (see below). and it is slowly becoming a mandatory statue for licensing. If IDP requires you to do community service [which you can get by working with Architecture for Humanity], why not professional with continuing education credits. Perhaps there should be continuing ethical credits.
---
Washington State pro bono rule simply says "a lawyer should render public interest legal service," either by waiving or reducing fees or donating money to assistance programs.
A couple of states, Florida and Maryland, require a minimum level of pro bono service. The Washington bar opted for a voluntary approach, recognizing that some lawyers have legitimate barriers to pro bono work.
Only 9 percent of the state's lawyers now participate in formal pro bono panels, according to the state bar. Under the proposed rule, lawyers would voluntarily report their pro bono service each year.
----
Case in point we worked with THREE law firms ALL donating pro-bono hours to develop contracts for folks rebuilding on the gulf coast, this has led to millions of dollars of financing into Biloxi. A little help, goes a long way.
But I think that the question hinges on this: what constitutes disadvantage? Is the example in question one of disadvantage because the subject matter is low-income housing? Or is the example not one of disadvantage, because the agency has the capability to pay for services?
here we agree. and some agencies try and take advantage of the professions 'goodwill'. If an agency has a $xxx million fund from the federal government then wants you to work for 5 cents on the dollar - they are using you as 'cost savings' as other areas of the project are bloated.
C.
How can you tell the difference and what is the criteria you would use to tell the difference?
This is the crux of the discussion. The agency can clearly afford the services, however the housing will be more affordable or perhaps we can even generate more units.
Where do you draw the line?
So far I have been using the affordable housing definition from HUD as my example. For small projects dealing strictly with one individual owner, I have deemed a person spending 30% or more of their annual household income, as a person that qualifies for pro bono services.
However, the question of organizations is a completely different story.
even if the non-profit agency can afford to pay top dollar to a for-profit firm for their services, working with a community design center or another non-profit may make a lot of sense, both financially (to the cdc - it helps them stay afloat) and institutionally (there could be an alliance formed).
case in point - once upon a time, when i tried (and ultimately failed) to gear up and develop an 'edgy' design driven studio within a non-profit housing group, we looked, for over a year, at forming a strategic alliance with two other, non-profit housing developers. the rationale was that we could offer in-house acquisition, design, development, financing, and management services that would allow us to do create and perpetuate our own low-income housing solutions (or for other agencies). that deal never materialized, but the idea was an interesting one.
we did some design work for one of the developers, but by and large they hired for-profit architectural firms. ultimately, i think the design studio has been phased out or soon will be, due to a lack of revenue streams coming in from it. it's hard, as a non-profit, to do a purely revenue driven model (as opposed to grants, etc. that cameron is talking about). people either assume that your fees should be free (which is not correct, as cameron points out) or that you won't touch their kind of project. and it does have its ethical quandrys. for example, do you take a house design for a young, 'poor' couple who want a hip design on the cheap? or for houses that people want to do 'affordably', even though they have budgets higher than some small countries? or do you truly throw yourself into doing work for agencies that filter out who really needs and deserves affordable housing? the one great thing we did as a group was to help enable 8 or so low income house designs that the city of biloxi, ms. wanted so that they could infill vacant lots. we finished all of them in 2004 - just in time for katrina. i know habitat has purchased many of the plans for their own reconstruction projects. hopefully they will be executed well....
Laru,
Did y'all do the Hope 6 housing? or another set? I'd love to see the plans/results as we just did the same with the Biloxi Model Home project (see the Open Architecture Network for photos/construction docs/etc.
C.
Pro-bono work is an essential emerging part of our profession. In my view, we are quite distant from architecture practice in general being very relevant. When dealing with organizations with very grounded needs, the way in which we practice is transformed.
The most interesting aspect of pro-bono work is that there is a very delicate balance between design concerns and the realities and pragmatics of the way an organization works. Few do it very well, but many tout strong humanism in their work.
As an example, there was a lecture a few years ago about a low-income housing competition in Houston several years ago. One of the entries was a glass house. A question that the lecturer had no answer for was a question about the cost of cooling the house in the Texas heat. The house was not built and was able to stay as an idea...but in actually engaging an individual or organization in need, it is impossible to ignore these concerns. The architect cannot rest as tastemaker and expect people to tolerate half-baked work because it is fashionable.
That being said, I also think that the past few years of good firms engaging pro-bono work has led to a raised bar for design in non-profit projects. Koning-Eizenberg was really a pioneer in making a strong portfolio out of this type of project.
Ideally the profession develops a reasonably consistent idea of what deserves pro-bono services. Completely free is never a good idea in my opinion...clients must have something on the line, whether material costs, sweat equity, volunteerism, etc.
There's enough need...I don't think we're taking work from each other.
cameron -
it was a set of 8 individual houses - 4 types, 2 variations of each. i can't remember the name of the guy from the city who was heading it up, but he left after katrina. they were a bit more traditional than the homes you all were working on - the city was trying to forclose on properties that owed back taxes, then demo the existing house (if need be) and then fill these back in. we had houses that would fit very narrow lots, some odd lots, etc. i honestly don't much about what happened to them - after i left the design studio, my successor got the call from habitat asking if they could use them.
wasn't hope 6 to answer your first question and they were all single family (1000-1250sf).
if i can find them in my files, i'd be happy to send them along (i have no idea what the copyright issues would be...)
is an initiative of Public Architecture in SF. They catalog firms that are engaging in pro-bono work. A few years ago we (www.laforum.org) had an independent initiative called CityworksLA which staged an exhibit called Communities Under Construction that was staged at the A+D Museum. The book from the exhibit is about to be available on Amazon. Another book was published by the NEA called University/Community Design Partnerships, which talks about the role of community design programs in schools as an agent of pro-bono architecture services. Our program at SCI-Arc is one of nine profiled.
blue cross blue shield is a non-profit....that just means the high end people in the company get the really big checks to help take away profits from the company....
i saw many cases that architect who "donate" their services have business intentions, mainly extending their network, gain publicity, strengthen their companies portfolio, help to gain points for other public tenders... if architects want to help the society, put more time on enhancing one's design skill or simply give money to the poor.
we have donate too much already to the society, please do not offer free services, it demotes our profession... besides the architect's profits is insignificant as compare with contractors or suppliers, the end user do not benefit much living a house designed by someone who worked for free.
aspect,
I must question your last line "the end user do not benefit much living a housing designed by someone who worked for free".
That is automatically assuming that the quality is diminished when the work is done for cheaper. In my opion, that comment is simply incorrect.
I do believe however that when architects and contractors work for cheap in order to gain more business through obtaining that reputation then it hurts the profession. However, when an architect donates services to in an attempt to enhance the community, it is good for the profession. It broadens an architect's exposure to the community, and could possibly educate people as to what good design is.
Anyway, thats my spiel.
huanmic, i did not imply nor intent to imply that the design quality is diminished when the work is done for free or cheaper.
as i state earlier, the architect's design fee is insignificant as compare to contractors or suppliers, whethter architect work free or not do not contribute much to the overall project especially when budget is a concern for the affordable housing... shall "squeeze" the supplier or contractor instead.
you have present an ideal case when individual architect want to contribute to enhance the community... but most of the time when an architectural firm conduct such act, it's 99% business oriented.
a real life example for an individual architect who claim to "donate",
a nobody architect who teaches at a university at hongkong, he donate his design consultancy to a bridge project for a rural village at china. budget is tight and money mainly came from the wealthy or institution. surposingly, a standard design would be a straight forward solution to serve the local community, however, the architect decide to provide his "high quality design" inorder to donate more... so alittle bit of herzog & tado here and there... after the bridge is completed, the nobody become somebody, lots of publications and awards from england...etc etc...
in my perspective, he used the project and under the name of "donation" to excercise his freedom of design which he would never get in the commercial industry... and there is no "pure" donation by providing design consultancy...
What about incorporating pro-bono work to the requirements of being a registered architect, exactly like continuing education? Would something like this be feasible?
If so, then this debate moves to the center of the profession. Is the integrity of the profession jeopardised by pro-bono work for people that can pay for it?
the funny thing is I think I know the bridge in China (how often can you say that)....
www.bridge2far.info
As Cameron said; the business model is non-profit; not non-cost.
I would agree that such practices are ethical under most circumstances.
this topic goes hand in hand with this thread
dwell exploits
eastcoast - i completely disagree -dwell/the condo group was absolutely, positively a for-profit corporation seeking to explicitly exploit the insecurities of (primarily younger) designers to try and get free work. when a local, non-profit housing developer puts out a call for help, it's a different category of client. there, they genuinely may need to keep the overall costs low just to make a project happen.
that said, i have no problem with someone getting press attention for doing an innovative, pro-bono work. more power to them, so long as it doesn't overshadow the mission of the project itself. we need more innovation in the non-profit realm - if that generates press, consider it a bonus.
Great topic. I agree with encouraging more architects to provide pro-bono service to make well designed and affordable housing readily available to the community, and implementing it via Continuing Professional Development credits might just be the way to do it. There's no reason to reinvent the wheel but it may just be a matter of realising that providing design service to community is just as relevant as learning about the latest design fad/theory/technology. The kind of work done by not-for-profit design service organisations not only benefit the end-users but it also helps to raise awareness in our society where our profession is becoming, for the lack of a better word, alienated. Of course there are going to be those who abuse this system and hold ulterior motives for self-aggrandisement, but by and large majority of those who do committ themselves to community service and non-profits have good intentions and want to make positive change in their community.
The premise behind providing pro-bono service lies in that the kind of service professionals provide -whether it be doctors, laywers, architects - ought to be available to everyone, as that is the reason these professionals exist in the first place.
Ultimately even the work that not-for-profit organisations execute in the end are profitable, albeit in non-monetary ways, in that it benefits the whole society and helps us build a better community.
eastcoastarch03,
no it doesn't. Dwell is not a non-profit (it is a magazine), their 'client' was not a non-profit (it was a high-end luxury condo developer) and they were asking for free work - until the archinect/bustler threads. To put it mildly I take it as a slight on every design based non profit that you'd even see any connection what so ever.
It's like saying a cosmetic surgeons office who asks his staff to give 'free' face lifts is the same as Doctors Without Borders in Darfur.
C.
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