I am writing this in a desperate attempt to find a solution to my problem – one painful problem which I think many of us share.
I am currently working on a very big project (14-story building on 13 hectares piece of land). In the team, there’s my boss (owner of the firm), the project architect, his assistant, and then there’s me. Below me is a team of technologists and drafters that I manage. Everyone is an active member except for my boss who only checks in once in a while.
Our job is a government job, and with that, comes an unprecedented level of bureaucracy, the likes of which I’ve never seen before (but perhaps some of you have). This government body is in charge of housing (let’s call them Ministry of Housing or MH). MH assembled a team, let’s call it The Committee, to represent their interest and deal with us on daily basis. The Committee answers to the Director, and the Director answers to the CEO. In general, we meet weekly with The Committee, monthly with the Director, and annually with the CEO.
During design phase, The Committee and the Director interfered a lot with our creative process. Our design was picked apart in a very technical way (the Director is an engineer, and The Committee consists of, IMHO, mud-dwelling bottom feeders with no concept of beauty whatsoever), and we were micromanaged in such a way that even though ours is a weekly meeting arrangement, it truly felt like we were meeting them every day. The Committee insisted on running through our presentation material before we met them, oftentimes asking us to revise many things up to mere hours before our actual meeting. It didn’t help that my Project Director is not a very confident man and we ended up giving in all the time.
We have just concluded the 1st round of design stage (meeting with the CEO) with a very disastrous result. Basically, our building looked like it was designed 20 years ago by a non-architect. And the worst part is, The Committee, the Director, and even our boss distanced themselves from our team during the meeting. The head of The Committee asked us rather condecendingly “what went wrong?” and in my heart I was screaming “You know exactly what went wrong. You were with us every step of the way, breathing down our neck, telling us what to do to the very minute detail, and now you’re feigning incredulity??”
I have honestly lost respect for these people and I don’t know if I’ll be able to give it my all again in the second round. I feel certainly discouraged now to do the extra mile, knowing they wouldn’t hesitate to throw you under the bus the minute they got a chance. I’m sure this problem is not unique and so I’d like to hear from all of you who have been through similar experiences. How did you go on working for these people after they burned so many bridges? And how do you maintain your artistic integrity when dealing with stubborn people who don’t have any design flair but think they do?
thompson's gazelle
Jul 9, 15 4:38 am
I'm not very experienced in the field, but have been unlucky enough to go through a number of similar experiences. I think this is a common problem that appears more likely regarding housing than other building types--cases where creativity oftentimes mean higher construction costs paired with smaller rentable square-footage.
Also the higher-ups at a corporate architecture office might have once been designers, but are in most cases closer to being entrepreneurs who seek financial profit above anything else--very understandable because they need to pay their employees.
I couldn't deal with the problems you've been going though, and simply switched to another office. Probably I wasn't genius enough to come up with ideas that made both design and money happy.
I'm still in a corporate setting, but a) my new team kind of works independently like a small architecture firm, and b) I'm working on different projects where design actually counts a little more (office headquarters, hotels, and etc). Wouldn't say it's the perfect job for me, but at least I'm less unhappy.
midlander
Jul 9, 15 6:04 am
It sounds like no one on your team is sufficiently experienced to manage a job like this. What you've encountered is totally normal on large projects or any government work - and it doesn't sound like the client has done anything wrong. They are paying a lot of money to buy a building so of course they are going to work hard to manage the process and make sure the design follows their requirements.
It sounds like your team doesn't know how to react to client requests regarding the design. It's rarely a matter of creative opinion: they have practical reasons including costs, constructability, functionality, maintenance that need to be considered in the design. You may have misunderstood the reasons behind their requests and thought they were making arbitrary design changes. But most likely there were legitimate reasons which your team should have asked the client to explain so you could explore the most suitable design changes.
Clients hire architects to advise them on building buildings that will meet their requirements. They don't owe the architect 'creative license', but they usually have some respect for the architect's design sensibility. In fact, that's often why they choose a firm. What they want is an architect who can take their requirements (which often evolve during the design stages) and turn that into an appealing building design.
Unfortunately it sounds like this process fell apart. Based on your reaction and the description of your team, it doesn't sound like anyone on your side has the experience to interpret client requests and communicate them to the design team in a productive way. If you feel this was your responsibility, consider it a tough lesson. If you think your boss should be handling this (or someone between you and the firm owner) then talk to your boss about getting a more experienced project manager on the team.
While there are bad and/or manipulative clients, this doesn't sound like such a case. I'm afraid your reaction is inappropriate for the circumstance. If you really hate this kind of process, you will find it very hard to be an architect. Understanding clients and negotiating their needs while maintaining a high standard of design is the essence of being a good architect.
Miles Jaffe
Jul 9, 15 8:21 am
++ mid, client management
null pointer
Jul 9, 15 9:01 am
I've worked corporate for the majority of my career. The key thing that I learned about client management is to learn when to make yourself scarce.
Do not send fucking sketches out every other day, do not treat them like private residential client, do not keep them in the loop.
You have to constantly and consistently overwhelm sophisticated clients in order to keep your credibility intact. That means sticking to big official drawing sets and setting specific milestones. "If you don't approve this by next week, we are pushing the whole calendar back one week".
Limit the clients input.
You're the architect, they are not. Part of the value you provide is in them not having to waste their time thinking about whether the corner apartment should be a 2br or a 3br or questioning the orientation of the building's circulation core. If the client steps out of their role, stating stuff like "we should get more 1 brs into this", the responsible thing is to fire back with "do you think you can rent those? do you have a marketing consultant? We should get one".
PriscillaS
Jul 9, 15 11:10 pm
midlander, your reply is very harsh. This is not my (nor my company's) first time in dealing with corporate clients. Our company has been in business for 30+ years with many successful projects. And no, I don't feel responsible for this because I know it wasn't my fault and I don’t have a falling-out with my team. If there was a communication breakdown, it was within the corporate itself. We didn’t interpret any instruction from The Committee wrong, everything was recorded down in meetings’ minutes and we can trace how the design came to be but of course they all now feigned ignorance.
When I said they micromanaged us, it wasn’t just about the building and its requirements, they even told us how to do the presentation, how to present the images, etc. We were stifled in every way imaginable. And just to reiterate, we had to clear our presentation with The Committee and the Director first before we were allowed to present to the CEO so The Committee and the Director knew very well what we were going to present. Yet, in the meeting they all acted as if it was the first time they ever saw our design.
You said they usually had some respect for the architect's design sensibility. In this particular case, no, they don't. A simple example: The Committee wanted us to use their corporate colors in the facade design so we introduced a subtler hue from the same family only to be told they wanted us to use literally the exact same color. They even forwarded us the Pantone codes. We explained so many times that the building would look so gaudy and outdated and they shut us down by saying it was a direct instruction from the Director. In the CEO meeting, this was one of the things that was picked on.
After the meeting, one of the better guys in The Committee texted us, admitting “too many people chiming in on the design and we ended up with a monster”. Our consultants all sympathized with us, they were all saying “this is how working with a government is like. They can’t be wrong, we will always be one who’s wrong. Just apologize and move on,”
I feel so disheartened by this. This is not just some abstract misunderstanding, we have all the evidence to back up our proposal, we’ve done everything according to what was asked of us, and now, my Project Architect is writing an apology letter to The Committee. You say this is mature. You say this is how it’s like. To me, this is just bullshit.
PriscillaS
Jul 9, 15 11:42 pm
Thompson's Gazelle, your advice is probably the most doable ;-) I, too, am looking for ways to be less unhappy. I am not naive, I want a balanced work life. I want to make enough money but also satisfy my inner architect self.
Hi Null Pointer, great advice. I just wish my boss and Project Architect are that brave. But on some occasions I've purposely disobeyed The Committee's request to see our presentation materials beforehand. I just don't get it, we're gonna present our design to them in a couple of hours anyway, why can't they just wait until then?
shellarchitect
Jul 10, 15 7:06 am
For better or worse, all projects eventually come to an end. Just don't f up your position with the firm and hopefully the next one will be much better
curtkram
Jul 10, 15 7:10 am
The government has corporate colors? Which government is this?
PriscillaS
Jul 12, 15 9:26 pm
Shuellmi, that's probably wise, or I'll probably just resign. The whole experience just left a nasty taste in my mouth.
Not the government's corporate color but their department's that's in charge of housing.
bowling_ball
Jul 13, 15 1:23 am
PriscillaS, I'm going thru the exact same thing on a gov't housing project. It's maddening how incompetent some of those folks can be.
What I've found works most of the time is to decide if the issue is large/important enough to require more than a couple hours of my time. If it is, I remind the client that they signed off on the design (even by inference or failing to address issues in a timely manner) and therefore I'll be charging them for my time. Because it's a bureaucracy, nobody on their end will ever take responsibility for it, but they also know that if they want the issue resolved, they'll have to deal with it sooner or later.
But then sometimes, we as architects aren't perfect and we make mistakes. It's good to remember that we provide a service, and if that client is a valued one, sometimes it makes sense to grit your teeth, smile, and move on with the project.
Dear my fellow architects,
I am writing this in a desperate attempt to find a solution to my problem – one painful problem which I think many of us share.
I am currently working on a very big project (14-story building on 13 hectares piece of land). In the team, there’s my boss (owner of the firm), the project architect, his assistant, and then there’s me. Below me is a team of technologists and drafters that I manage. Everyone is an active member except for my boss who only checks in once in a while.
Our job is a government job, and with that, comes an unprecedented level of bureaucracy, the likes of which I’ve never seen before (but perhaps some of you have). This government body is in charge of housing (let’s call them Ministry of Housing or MH). MH assembled a team, let’s call it The Committee, to represent their interest and deal with us on daily basis. The Committee answers to the Director, and the Director answers to the CEO. In general, we meet weekly with The Committee, monthly with the Director, and annually with the CEO.
During design phase, The Committee and the Director interfered a lot with our creative process. Our design was picked apart in a very technical way (the Director is an engineer, and The Committee consists of, IMHO, mud-dwelling bottom feeders with no concept of beauty whatsoever), and we were micromanaged in such a way that even though ours is a weekly meeting arrangement, it truly felt like we were meeting them every day. The Committee insisted on running through our presentation material before we met them, oftentimes asking us to revise many things up to mere hours before our actual meeting. It didn’t help that my Project Director is not a very confident man and we ended up giving in all the time.
We have just concluded the 1st round of design stage (meeting with the CEO) with a very disastrous result. Basically, our building looked like it was designed 20 years ago by a non-architect. And the worst part is, The Committee, the Director, and even our boss distanced themselves from our team during the meeting. The head of The Committee asked us rather condecendingly “what went wrong?” and in my heart I was screaming “You know exactly what went wrong. You were with us every step of the way, breathing down our neck, telling us what to do to the very minute detail, and now you’re feigning incredulity??”
I have honestly lost respect for these people and I don’t know if I’ll be able to give it my all again in the second round. I feel certainly discouraged now to do the extra mile, knowing they wouldn’t hesitate to throw you under the bus the minute they got a chance. I’m sure this problem is not unique and so I’d like to hear from all of you who have been through similar experiences. How did you go on working for these people after they burned so many bridges? And how do you maintain your artistic integrity when dealing with stubborn people who don’t have any design flair but think they do?
I'm not very experienced in the field, but have been unlucky enough to go through a number of similar experiences. I think this is a common problem that appears more likely regarding housing than other building types--cases where creativity oftentimes mean higher construction costs paired with smaller rentable square-footage.
Also the higher-ups at a corporate architecture office might have once been designers, but are in most cases closer to being entrepreneurs who seek financial profit above anything else--very understandable because they need to pay their employees.
I couldn't deal with the problems you've been going though, and simply switched to another office. Probably I wasn't genius enough to come up with ideas that made both design and money happy.
I'm still in a corporate setting, but a) my new team kind of works independently like a small architecture firm, and b) I'm working on different projects where design actually counts a little more (office headquarters, hotels, and etc). Wouldn't say it's the perfect job for me, but at least I'm less unhappy.
It sounds like no one on your team is sufficiently experienced to manage a job like this. What you've encountered is totally normal on large projects or any government work - and it doesn't sound like the client has done anything wrong. They are paying a lot of money to buy a building so of course they are going to work hard to manage the process and make sure the design follows their requirements.
It sounds like your team doesn't know how to react to client requests regarding the design. It's rarely a matter of creative opinion: they have practical reasons including costs, constructability, functionality, maintenance that need to be considered in the design. You may have misunderstood the reasons behind their requests and thought they were making arbitrary design changes. But most likely there were legitimate reasons which your team should have asked the client to explain so you could explore the most suitable design changes.
Clients hire architects to advise them on building buildings that will meet their requirements. They don't owe the architect 'creative license', but they usually have some respect for the architect's design sensibility. In fact, that's often why they choose a firm. What they want is an architect who can take their requirements (which often evolve during the design stages) and turn that into an appealing building design.
Unfortunately it sounds like this process fell apart. Based on your reaction and the description of your team, it doesn't sound like anyone on your side has the experience to interpret client requests and communicate them to the design team in a productive way. If you feel this was your responsibility, consider it a tough lesson. If you think your boss should be handling this (or someone between you and the firm owner) then talk to your boss about getting a more experienced project manager on the team.
While there are bad and/or manipulative clients, this doesn't sound like such a case. I'm afraid your reaction is inappropriate for the circumstance. If you really hate this kind of process, you will find it very hard to be an architect. Understanding clients and negotiating their needs while maintaining a high standard of design is the essence of being a good architect.
++ mid, client management
I've worked corporate for the majority of my career. The key thing that I learned about client management is to learn when to make yourself scarce.
Do not send fucking sketches out every other day, do not treat them like private residential client, do not keep them in the loop.
You have to constantly and consistently overwhelm sophisticated clients in order to keep your credibility intact. That means sticking to big official drawing sets and setting specific milestones. "If you don't approve this by next week, we are pushing the whole calendar back one week".
Limit the clients input.
You're the architect, they are not. Part of the value you provide is in them not having to waste their time thinking about whether the corner apartment should be a 2br or a 3br or questioning the orientation of the building's circulation core. If the client steps out of their role, stating stuff like "we should get more 1 brs into this", the responsible thing is to fire back with "do you think you can rent those? do you have a marketing consultant? We should get one".
midlander, your reply is very harsh. This is not my (nor my company's) first time in dealing with corporate clients. Our company has been in business for 30+ years with many successful projects. And no, I don't feel responsible for this because I know it wasn't my fault and I don’t have a falling-out with my team. If there was a communication breakdown, it was within the corporate itself. We didn’t interpret any instruction from The Committee wrong, everything was recorded down in meetings’ minutes and we can trace how the design came to be but of course they all now feigned ignorance.
When I said they micromanaged us, it wasn’t just about the building and its requirements, they even told us how to do the presentation, how to present the images, etc. We were stifled in every way imaginable. And just to reiterate, we had to clear our presentation with The Committee and the Director first before we were allowed to present to the CEO so The Committee and the Director knew very well what we were going to present. Yet, in the meeting they all acted as if it was the first time they ever saw our design.
You said they usually had some respect for the architect's design sensibility. In this particular case, no, they don't. A simple example: The Committee wanted us to use their corporate colors in the facade design so we introduced a subtler hue from the same family only to be told they wanted us to use literally the exact same color. They even forwarded us the Pantone codes. We explained so many times that the building would look so gaudy and outdated and they shut us down by saying it was a direct instruction from the Director. In the CEO meeting, this was one of the things that was picked on.
After the meeting, one of the better guys in The Committee texted us, admitting “too many people chiming in on the design and we ended up with a monster”. Our consultants all sympathized with us, they were all saying “this is how working with a government is like. They can’t be wrong, we will always be one who’s wrong. Just apologize and move on,”
I feel so disheartened by this. This is not just some abstract misunderstanding, we have all the evidence to back up our proposal, we’ve done everything according to what was asked of us, and now, my Project Architect is writing an apology letter to The Committee. You say this is mature. You say this is how it’s like. To me, this is just bullshit.
Thompson's Gazelle, your advice is probably the most doable ;-) I, too, am looking for ways to be less unhappy. I am not naive, I want a balanced work life. I want to make enough money but also satisfy my inner architect self.
Hi Null Pointer, great advice. I just wish my boss and Project Architect are that brave. But on some occasions I've purposely disobeyed The Committee's request to see our presentation materials beforehand. I just don't get it, we're gonna present our design to them in a couple of hours anyway, why can't they just wait until then?
For better or worse, all projects eventually come to an end. Just don't f up your position with the firm and hopefully the next one will be much better
The government has corporate colors? Which government is this?
Shuellmi, that's probably wise, or I'll probably just resign. The whole experience just left a nasty taste in my mouth.
Not the government's corporate color but their department's that's in charge of housing.
PriscillaS, I'm going thru the exact same thing on a gov't housing project. It's maddening how incompetent some of those folks can be.
What I've found works most of the time is to decide if the issue is large/important enough to require more than a couple hours of my time. If it is, I remind the client that they signed off on the design (even by inference or failing to address issues in a timely manner) and therefore I'll be charging them for my time. Because it's a bureaucracy, nobody on their end will ever take responsibility for it, but they also know that if they want the issue resolved, they'll have to deal with it sooner or later.
But then sometimes, we as architects aren't perfect and we make mistakes. It's good to remember that we provide a service, and if that client is a valued one, sometimes it makes sense to grit your teeth, smile, and move on with the project.