just use the oma/jpr argument with every project:

"The Eiffel tower was also despised, out of context, and too large when it was first built"

farwest, I've been meaning to ask this very thing. My bosses seem to just bend to the wishes of the client, no matter what, and I'm always afraid they are going to get a less than perfect building. Boss says that if they have imput, they will love it, even if its terrible, but I just can't let go I guess.

hence the realization that 5 years spent massaging our design methodologies in school is 4 years too many.

its all about having the numbers/data/code to back you up. (or you can just start sleeping with the client and the contractor)

come on you guys - get real.

the world is NOT going to genuflect in your presence, simply because you have a degree in architecture.

if you want influence, you need:
a) credibility, based on a strong knowledge base and/or track record;
b) a strong command of the language;
c) genuine empathy with your audience (you can't pull off sincerity if you take the view that your client is "tasteless"); and
d) the ability to put together a persuasive argument - not just an argument.

this is a tough profession and it's up to you to sell your ideas - acceptance is not, and never will be, automatic.

if you can't figure it out on your own, take a Dale Carnegie course.

Thanks, quizzical. Though I sense some condescension in your tone, your response is exactly the reason I asked this.

I'm reasonably good at selling my ideas. I've worked for people who got away with EVERYTHING. And I've worked for people who wilt at a client's slightest breath -- and reduce the design to a shambles. I don't want to be the latter.

As always, I agree with quizzical. On top of that, I think you can:

e) Interview your potential clients to gauge whether you will be able to see eye to eye about the outcome of the project.
f) Listen to your clients. They have needs and desires that need to be addressed. This is part of the design challenge. Do not come to the project with preconceived notions of what you want the project to be.
g) Have patience. You have spent a lifetime practicing architecture. Your clients have not. They need a little time to take things in and understand them. Help them understand.

I don't mean to come across as condescending -- however, I am reasonably frustrated at the number of posts here from people who seem to expect all problems to have an "easy button" solution.

there are a wealth of skills required to be successful in architecture - design ability is, I'm sad to say, one of the the least relevant, beyond a certain point.

most people require a lot of time, and practice, to put it all together. It's encouraging that you see the need to address this skill.

good luck.

I have an easy button.

Far from expecting problems to have an "easy button," the very reason I asked this question is because it's difficult——and because this is a community of experienced, like-minded people who can offer advice.

I think he's really asking for advice on putting together the persuasive argument.

I had a boss who was a master seller, he could convince anybody of anything. One of the things he would do though is... embellish would be putting it mildly, flat out lying would be a bit closer..... tell people whatever they needed to hear, that's a route I can't quite go, but beyond that he was still good and selling.

One of the anecdotes I heard was in regards to car sales, one of the things they've found is if a customer is comfortable and feels good, if you can make them feel good and be excited about the situation they often feel good about the decision. I saw this a bit with my employer as well, it's much easier to get the client excited about a project if you yourself are enthusiastic and genuinely excited about the work you are doing and the ideas you're presenting. The other thing that could at times help my boss was having a firm grasp on the cost and code implications of design decisions and using those to "justify" design moves. When he could show the client how we organized the project in such a way to allow the parking to utilize the minimum amount of space possible per code given the site, and show them how much that saves directly in money and indirectly in the quality of the space or providing more living space they'll suddenly think the move is brilliant, they might still think it's ugly, but they start to trust your judgement when you can "justify" some of the moves. Show that the decisions are informed.

Part of it though is selling the client up front and making sure they're comfortable with your aesthetic in the first place. One of the things my boss did was show that they were using the cheapest materials possible and that they'd adopted an aesthetic that was "of" those materials. Just be earnest though,

personal threats are always good

If you really want to know "how to get what you want" then I suggest working in sales for a while. When you can walk into a complete strangers house and walk out with a deposit check for disability insurance policy 90 minutes later then architecture/ design becomes an easy sell by comparison.

i wouldn't trade my sales experience for the world (though I hated it at the time) because i picked up tons of valuable lessons...too valuable to just share on an open internet forum. but i will leave you with one of my favorite sales cliches: "telling isn't selling"

"embellish would be putting it mildly, flat out lying would be a bit closer..... tell people whatever they needed to hear, that's a route I can't quite go, but beyond that he was still good and selling"

Interesting. I read an article recently (or heard somewhere) that the percentage of people with psychopathic behaviors (lack of empathy/conscience, manipulative, constant lying etc.) increases as you go up the corporate ladder.

Of course, I'm not advocating this kind of behavior to get your way. In fact, I've been more successful being completely honest. If its an opinion or a guess (even if it is an educated one), I'm upfront about it. Its even better if there is a visualization that the client can understand. If its numbers, graphs work. If it is design, sketch/render it so that the client can understand. The more tangible it is, and simpler the explanation, the better. And then there is the rare moment when you can say "This works/looks better AND it is less expensive/adds more value." Never say "Cheaper"! It just sounds .... cheap. If it is a specific material or construction assembly, literature always helps, especially if it isn't from the manufacturer/seller.

ok - let me apologize - when I replied earlier, I'd been stuck in an airport for three hous and was a bit cranky. I just arrived home, so am better now.

Persuasion is mostly about understanding both the other party's needs and his (her) frame of reference. Then, you have to formulate a "story" that helps the other party embrace your point of view as being conducive to his (her) best interests.

The danger always is being seen as "manipulative" for selfish or ego reasons. You have to be genuine and your solution really must serve the other party's interests. It's about being professional. There's a lot of "art" involved.

but then manipulation isn't as dirty a word as generally construed.
I think an architect has a higher responsability to give a client what they need not what they're saying they want - I doubt many clients can actually describe what they actually need.

While this may be true in some cases, it's not a universal truth. Many clients - especially those regularly in the construction market - know very well what they want and need. In fact, they may know a great deal more about their own particular building type than do you.

It's a huge mistake (IMHO) to underestimate or dismiss a client's perspective. In the end, the Golden Rule still applies - "he who has the gold, rules". Treat a client with disrespect and he usually leaves, taking his gold with him.

This can be very uncomfortable for us. It requires careful client selection. But, it also calls for highly developed political skills to steer a client where they need to be, without making the client feel manipulated or "handled" -- usually, this works best when there's a strong personal relationship founded on mutual trust and respect. That condition usually takes some time to develop.

this topic has nothing to do with architecture, it pertains to LIFE. There are a million books out there on how to sell and reading any one of them is a good start. It boils down to:

- listen with GENUINE empathy
- the client is not always right, but you should never make them feel wrong
- what the others said above.

key for me is to listen to those others and hear what they're really saying/requesting/proposing. why? because sometimes your idea is NOT the best option.

however - if it is absolutely clear that you have heard, considered, studied, and responded to what has been communicated to you, then your resulting response has a lot more credence.

--

sarah, what you may see as 'bending' could be a much more nuanced process of give and take, communication (which is really our job as much as anything else), working together to arrive at a best-possible-answer-for-these-particular-circumstances.

i watch over several young interns and i usually let them do most of the preliminary design work. i then keep them plugged in through the development of the project because then they will get to see and understand the reasons for subsequent changes and they will realize that - as convinced as they may have been of the brilliance of their design - there are real reasons why things should be different. this evolution almost always makes the project better, stronger, more sophisticated, less hollow form-making.

Steven, there are days that I wish you were my boss. Though I'm sure you, like all people, have a difficult streak, you always seem so wise.

Most of our changes come in the form of finishes and such. For example, in a "french country by way of southern alabama" building, the client wants to remove the cast stone fireplace on the interior, and replace it with a wood mantle and surround. On the exterior, they want to keep the cast stone fire place, but cover the entire back wall in stone, so the fireplace gets lost. Its these kinds of things that bother me at times. I'm always just afraid that they aren't seeing what they are asking for, and I try to explain why its a bad idea, with out saying its a bad idea, but they just never seem to understand that putting a stone fireplace infront of a same coloured stone wall will cause the fireplace to be less dramatic. Its stuff like that.

When it comes to side work, I always ask my 'clients' what and why they like something, what they want from the space, how they want to feel in the space. I then try to take all that into account when I start to design. I want them to be happy and proud of their product just as I am.

thanks for kind words, sarah.

the experience you described isn't an uncommon one. the burden is on us to figure out ways to explain or SHOW why the things you think are impt considerations should be addressed. first, though, you have to figure out how much these things really do matter. if the materials at the stone wall are the same, will the chimney still be set off by shadow instead of material distinction. if in the same plane, can the material change color? once you've answered these things, you're on firm ground if you take those answers and STILL think they should change their mind. you'll be able to say why with some authority based on having done due diligence.

we build our authority through the building of experience, trust, and reputation. if you're lacking in any of these you've still got to win the little battles one at a time.

farwest - what kind of clients were building your former starchitect's designs? Institutions or private biz?

Also available in book form, for those who don't live in San Francisco, New York or Chicago:

How to Win Friends and Influence People

blah.

here's the rub... those who want to the big name will defer to that name's opinion and ideas. that is why they are paying them. on the other hand, most clients do not see themselves as suckers who will eat whatever is on the fancy graphic plate that is put in front of them. in fact, they often feel that their ideas are better than the architect's ideas. they have, afterall, been thinking about their building for sometime. they know where they want to put the pizza oven. they know how big their drive in closets ought to be etc... your task as a professional is to listen. let me say that one more time with feeeling. LISTEN to them. The trick is to still come up with something that sings!!!! even though you have responded to all their stupid ideas and desires.

i second, savage love.

the best architect i ever worked for always capitulated to the client's wishes. it drove me crazy for about 4 months. i kept thinking, "how can you compromise our brilliant design like that?" it was then that i realized that these design changes were miniscule in the whole scheme of the design. the larger design ideas always remained intact and were what made his architecture great. it doesn't matter if you have to value engineer a floor finish out, and if it does, then, it means your design wasn't particularly good to start out with.

my advice, know what's important and what's not, then, compromise where necessary.

I think thats part of my problem jafidler. I'm still young, and feel that every detail is IMPORTANT.

The best architects, who are successful, are good listeners, understand that there are usually many good solutions to a design problem, and have an ability to persuade in such a way that they sweep their clients into their vision. They make the clients want the buildings to be they way they are, not by bullying them, or by mystifying them, but by successfully engaging their expectations.

A great book that touches on this topic is:

Complicity and Conviction, by William Hubbard

Unfortunately out-of-print, there are a few used available on Amazon. This is the best book on architectural theory I've ever read, and it influences how i work on a daily basis. Simply outstanding.

now Steven, you're never going to win friends and influence people with a sour attitude like that ......

sorry. tried to read it once and was turned off. pap.

that's probably because you already had your own way of operating that worked well for you ... not everybody is so lucky or intuitive.

Steven-

Wow...you really think that Hubbard's book is pap? (by the way, thanks for linking to the definition of 'pap'. That was really helpful!) That's a pretty scathing appraisal of a work you admit you haven't even finished reading.

I found Hubbard's use of several interesting metaphors for how architecture communicates to people really nuanced and illuminating. I'd be interested to hear what part of Hubbard's central thesis you find shallow.

Or were you talking about Dale Carnegie...?

One thing I have to throw in here is that we've all faced situations where a client has had a really bad (or ugly) idea, and simply couldn't be convinced that it was a bad idea.

Sure, listening is a part of being an architect. But having a certain type of aesthetic and programmatic training is also a part of it. It's difficult when a client decision involves the whole history of architecture, context and taste (I'm thinking of a specific example here: a client from another culture who couldn't understand why pink stucco arches over metal studs didn't make sense in Denver. The arches "felt right" as a style to the client, even though they were cheap, non-structural, out-of-context elements.)

These can be the most frustrating moments. Your interesting idea is slowly eroded in the face of a client's steadfast insistence an acontextual "style."

"it doesn't matter if you have to value engineer a floor finish out, and if it does, then, it means your design wasn't particularly good to start out with."

I actually disagree with this. I've seen the strongest elements value-engineered out of projects, in favor of the cheapest elements. In the American building market, the best idea doesn't necessarily win out, even with amazing salesmanship -- often the least-expensive idea does.

Sometimes clients and architects are simply mismatched. It sounds like the pink-arch fellow hired the wrong architect to do his project.

The subject of style is an interesting one. For me, it's important to get beyond style with your clients, and to try to deal with the deep meaning of the architecture. Style is just language...language used to convey meaning. What is he trying to communicate with the pink arches? How do those arches make him feel? What message do they convey to the inhabitant of the building? Warmth? Shelter? Enclosure? Openness? A cultural association? A memory? The romance of a specific locale? Maybe it's not that he has to have pink arches, but that he wants the building to speak to him in a certain way, and pink arches are the only way he knows to achieve that.

Spending time exploring what the explicit values are that he wants to communicate through the building is essential. Then, you can work with him to select and fine-tune a grammar of style for the building that accomplishes his goals in parallel to yours. That's the goal...to create work that functions on many levels, satisfying the client and the practitioner.

Nice post, EKE. I agree.

farwest1, re: the floor finish comment, perhaps it is my own pet peeve, but i think there's a new wave of young architects that think they can spec their way to good architecture, scanning the pages of dwell and metropolis for the latest cool product. i really hate architecture like that.

i maintain that the best architects can work with their client, design exclusively in cmu and vinyl tile if need be, and still make their design "sing." economy is a good design constraint; bad taste is not.

jafidler, in the spirit of your post I think I have had enough of this cool green product
coming soon in a mall renovation near you:

always check your ideas to ensure that they conform with the client's core goals and motivations for the project. ask the client what those are, or find out in other ways, and then make sure you're always referencing them.

i say referencing them, because what a client wants and what a client really wants may be two different things.

if you don't agree with the client's core goals and motivations, consider gracefully ending the project relationship -- or do what the client asks within the bounds of your integrity and move on afterwards.

jafidler, I agree. Except for the vinyl tile thing.

I'm surpised no one has mentioned the interests of the occupant/public/environment. How do you deal with client conflict when its not about what we want, but more accurately what we want for the occupants/public/environment? Stepping away from the pink stucco arch analogy, what about pushing sustainability or benefitting the occupant/public above minimum requirements set by code?

Some of the issues are quantifiable, but sometimes they're not. As a specific example - if we're not directed by the client to search for grants or financial incentive for sustainable design, do we do it anyway and tell them about some opportunities? Again....more questions than answers - my archinecting style.

EKE - i meant the carnegie. sorry for any confusion.

i haven't read hubbard in a VERY long time, but i remember thinking highly of it. maybe i'll get it and read it again.

since i got my brad pitt hat, the clients are linin up...

picturing it......hahahahahahahahaha!

good grief! if that works, shoud i use george clooney, johnny depp, ashley judd, or tom cruise (all kentuckians) in our marketing materials?

[should]

DON'T FORGET BRITNEY, STEVEN

oops, I swore britney was from KY, she's not.