SHAPING the FUTURE WITH OPINION

Too much opinion and too little knowledge can easily produce the wrong conviction. This is true in both the legislature and the judiciary. It is true in city councils and appointed commissions. It is true in all walks of life. Opinion has been debated since observation, emotion, and imagination began. It has produced hubris and humility. It has been misled by coincidence and abused with ignorance. It has been executed, burned at the stake, and subjected to politically correct intimidation. It has saved lives, produced destruction, and resulted in death. It has condemned the innocent and acquitted the guilty. It has stimulated debate and been a substitute for answers. It is a combination of intelligence and logic seasoned with wisdom and ignited by emotion. It has been our formula for choice in the absence of knowledge. It is a fork in the road chosen with logic that can lead to adaptation or extinction. It is a friend that can lead us in the wrong direction. It has been our salvation and our ruin. It is our hope for a better life.

When decisions are based on observation, assumption, measurement, evaluation, logic, and conclusion, the knowledge gained improves future policy, strategy, and action based on opinion. (For instance, mercury was once believed to be a cure for syphilis based on deficient knowledge and hopeful opinion.) Opinion is where we have been and where we will always be. The future is unpredictable. The consequences of decisions can only be anticipated. The repetition of success and avoidance of failure is a goal. Knowledge simply improves anticipation and our odds of survival. Little knowledge produces poor anticipation, inadequate logic, intimidation, and poor direction. Popular opinion in these circumstances simply adds to the confusion. It focuses on special interest without the homework or accumulated knowledge required to form policy direction, strategic plans, and tactical projects for common benefit.

We live in a tactile world. It’s not hard to understand why abstract strategy and policy are rarely distinguished from action. In fact, it’s my guess that policy and strategy remain largely intuitive components of daily decisions, even though they are the foundation for every choice we make. For instance, a policy of being home on time can be pursued with a number of alternate strategies until the action taken produces the desired outcome.

Each of us is driven by the anticipation of consequences to greater and lesser degrees. City planning and design are forced to anticipate with little proof of consequences and must rely on the logic of debatable anticipation. This erodes the credibility of their arguments, but the opposition is in the same boat. Decisions become unstable, uncertain choices that survive the conflict of logic, interest, manipulation, and emotion when knowledge remains unconvincing.

In city planning, this stalemate can produce an over-reliance on deficient zoning regulation that has never been able to consistently duplicate success and avoid failure. These regulations conflict with each other because they have never been accurately correlated. The consequences have been confusion, random decisions, and carcinogenic sprawl. We could solve climate change and still suffocate the planet with a blanket of pavement. It will slowly consume our source of life without geographic limits as we build the shelter, movement, open space, and life support we need to survive.

I’m afraid this opinion will continue to be challenged until there is an adequate vocabulary and language of measurement, evaluation, and prediction that can build the knowledge needed to support this conviction. Proof can only be provided with extinction. Choices will always be required, but we must be able to express them in a language that can be used to explain, design, enforce, and repeat success that enhances the credibility of opinion based on knowledge.

I have written The Science of City Design to contribute a language that is capable of correlating the social, psychological, environmental and economic work of others with the physical design decisions needed to shelter growing activities within a limited Built Domain that protects our quality and source of life – The Natural Domain. The book introduces a vocabulary and language that will permit you to measure, assemble, correlate, and evaluate relevant data in a search for answers to what has become a symbiotic question. The goal is to improve the credibility of opinion and its rate of success during the search. It can be found in e-book and paperback versions on Amazon.com.

In my opinion, we must use the fundamental gifts we have been given to anticipate what must be avoided. Our formula for survival has always been observation, correlation, anticipation, and adaptation with instinct, intuition, insight, and invention based on improvements in vocabulary, language, and education.

Pop-up Urban Projects

I began reading “Human-friendly Cities and Pop-up Urban Projects” in the Urban Planning group of Linked-In to understand what the author, Krzysztof Bilinski, meant by “pop-up”. I found myself underlining the text and making notes in the margin. The following presents each underlined passage and associated margin note. Words in parentheses are my attempts to clarify the brevity.

Bilinski (B): “What…makes those places special and what do they have in common?”

Hosack (H): Research is required to answer the question, but research topics and a common, comparative measurement language have been missing.

B: “…the 20^th century modernism paradigm (planning), which aimed at dividing a city by its functions, failed.

H: I wouldn’t claim that planning failed to achieve an objective, but it needs to redefine its goal, strategy, tactics, measurement, and correlation ability before it can begin to build knowledge capable of consistently improving the results produced by practitioners around the globe.

B: “According to Jan Gehl…using a human scale can resolve problems our cities struggle with…”

H: The term “human scale” sounds great, but there has been no quantitative measurement system capable of defining the term with relevant measurements of shelter capacity, intensity, intrusion, and dominance at the project, neighborhood, district, city, and regional levels of The Built Domain.

B: “We have a wide range of tools at our disposal whose purpose is to make redevelopment of the cities easier.”

H: We don’t. I have previously written two editions of “Land Development Calculations: Interactive Tools and Techniques for Site Planning, Analysis, and Design” and have recently published “The Science of City Design: Architectural Algorithms for City Planning and Design Leadership” to contribute some of the comprehensive, quantitative tools, language, and knowledge needed.

B: There has to be a bridge between city planners, real estate companies, and city residents”.

H: The bridge must extend further. Chapter 14 of “The Science of City Design” discusses the topic. Correlation among isolated public and private specialties is a key concept, but it requires a focus on relevant, measureable, and correlated Big Data.

B: Ghent, Belgium example of pop-up project: “After (a) few summer weeks urban furniture and plants are removed and streets go back to the way they were….”

H: It is creative, but appears to be a desperate solution to resolve inadequate open space. Its primary contribution is the growing awareness of the need for open space and change.

B: Wroclaw, Poland has introduced a cargo container bandstand for 3 months on a recently renovated public square to increase its popularity. Blue seats have been placed at the stairs of one of the boulevards to increase their usefulness. "Before, this place was uninviting..." 

H: Not all open space is equal in popularity, but its presence is an asset that is invaluable.

B: “Pop-up initiatives…stand for simple, creative, and significantly improving urban space solutions.”

H: Some of the examples I’ve read here, and in other articles, represent creative but partial attempts to modify impossible open space deficiencies. They illustrate the need for a permanent revision to the goals, strategy, and tactics adopted to define our cities and their four divisions: Shelter, Movement, Open Space, and Life Support. Hope is preserved when a network of open space is woven through the urban pattern to coexist with its source of life - The Natural Domain and its cosmic parent.

JANE JACOBS & URBAN RENEWAL

I was moved to write this after reading a book review by John Buntin concerning the life of Jane Jacobs in the September 22, 2016 issue of The Wall Street Journal. Ms. Jacob’s book, “The Death and Life of Great American Cities”, made the term “urban renewal” politically indefensible. I never thought I would challenge her polemic position because the urban renewal results involved were deplorable, but it’s time for a fresh breeze to clear the air.

A city is no different from a forest or a farm. All must renew themselves to survive. The new term for the effort is “economic development”. It is a more sophisticated term because it implies that urban decline is a function of far more than visually blighted and deteriorating physical conditions. Blight is only a symptom of disease. We addressed these physical symptoms in the past, and Jane Jacobs recognized that this was not a cure for the modern equivalent of a plague. We killed the patient with our attempted remedies. It was another failure in our long history of deficient cures created in an effort to survive.

The problem has become worse because we have given up on the policy of urban renewal and adopted a policy of sprawl. It threatens to consume our source of life and suffocate the planet with a blanket of pavement as populations grow. Sprawl is nothing less than a carcinogenic disease. It must be cured with a policy of urban renewal that can shelter growing populations within a limited Built Domain that protects their quality and source of life – The Natural Domain.

This is not the final goal, however. Urban renewal cannot succeed over generations until it is guided by the knowledge required to correlate our presence with our source of life. Correlated answers will represent symbiotic solutions for survival that protect our physical, social, psychological, environmental, and economic quality of life. In other words, the goal can only be equitable urban renewal that contributes to symbiotic solutions for survival on a planet that is not a world without end. This will require an ability to correlate Big Data.

At the time of the Black Plague it was impossible to treat the illness effectively. The visible symptoms gave no hint of the cure required. The language, tools, data, and scientific concepts of the time did not permit the population to visualize the cause of the disease, or to pursue knowledge that would contribute to potential remedies. It has taken centuries to build the language, knowledge, and awareness required to diagnose the medieval problem.

Sprawl is the modern equivalent of a plague on the planet with no apparent cure. It is widely recognized as a problem but not a disease. Urban renewal is not recognized as a potential cure because the term has become synonymous with failure. The term is not the problem, however. It represents a goal symbolized by the term “renew”. The remedies created to achieve the goal were the problem. They were proposed because language, data, knowledge, and awareness were inadequate. The mistakes made have increased our knowledge along the torturous path we call progress.

I have attempted to improve the awareness and language required to correlate physical results with scientific urban imperatives in my book, “The Science of City Design: Architectural Algorithms for City Planning and Design Leadership”. It is my attempt to make a contribution after a lifetime of experience and contemplation. I have self-published the book and made it available on Amazon.com in both e-book and paperback versions at a price I limited to make it affordable. Reading the book represents homework. Completing the book will yield the awareness, language, and correlation potential needed to reconcile the physical, social, psychological, environmental, and economic issues related to the goal: Symbiotic shelter for growing populations within a limited Built Domain that protects their quality and source of life – The Natural Domain.

Detroit to Test Zoning

I read an article from Next City about Detroit’s intent to solicit proposals for livable community projects. According to Next City, Detroit’s intent is to compare these projects to their zoning ordinance and modify its regulations to improve its ability to produce livable communities. I wrote a comment below the blog and called it "Repeating Success within the Shelter Division of The Built Domain", but felt it needed further explanation.

Detroit’s concept contains two inherently weak assumptions. (1) That the projects will prove successful. (2) That the existing ordinance contains a comprehensive list of regulation topics that do not conflict and will ensure repeated success once their provisions are adjusted.

The concept of research is admirable, but the city can simply measure existing successful and unsuccessful projects once they know what to measure, how to correlate these measurements, how to compare results, how to use conclusions to predict the future shelter capacity of any land area, and how to write a zoning ordinance that correlates the design specification topics and values required. At this point they will be prepared to defend conclusions and plan for the future physical, social, psychological, environmental, and economic welfare (quality of life) of the city.

For further information, please see my blog at wmhosack.com and the following books for measurement and forecasting tools that can be used to repeat success within the Shelter Division of The Built Domain. (1) The Science of City Design: Architectural Algorithms for City Planning and Design leadership, and (2) Land Development Calculations: Interactive tools for Site Planning, Analysis, and Design. Book (1) can be found in both paperback and e-book versions on Amazon.com. Book (2) should only be purchased in the hardback version. The e-book does not contain the CD tool explained and attached to the hardbound version.

The goal is to shelter growing human populations within a limited Built Domain that protects their quality and source of life - The Natural Domain.

Accomplishing the goal will require a commitment to establish a symbiotic relationship with the planet over time.

Repeating Success within the Shelter Division of the Built Domain

See the following books for measurement and forecasting tools that can be used to repeat success within the Shelter Division of The Built Domain. (1) The Science of City Design: Architectural algorithms for City Planning and Design leadership, and (2) Land Development Calculations: Interactive tools for Site Planning, Analysis, and Design. Book (1) can be found in both paperback and e-book versions on Amazon.com. Book (2) should only be purchased in the hardback version. The e-book does not contain the CD tool explained by the book.

The goal is to shelter growing human populations within a limited Built Domain that protects their quality and source of life - The Natural Domain.

Accomplishing the goal will require a commitment to establish a symbiotic relationship with the planet.

City Planning and Design Basics

City planning involves a blizzard of issues that make it difficult to see through the storm. In such conditions, a few reference points can provide direction.

Land Use Evaluation

Imagine the real estate property map of any city with each zoning district represented by a transparent color. All property tax-exempt areas are in white. Calculate the area of each zoning district and subtract the tax-exempt areas to find net area per zone. Divide the total real estate tax produced per zone by the gross and net area calculated to find the real estate tax revenue per acre per zone. Next, divide the income tax revenue from each zone by the gross and net land area per zone to find the income tax revenue per acre from each zone. Add all real estate and income tax revenue and divide by the total net and gross acres in the city to find the revenue yield per gross and net acre from all zones. Divide annual revenue from all other municipal sources by a city’s gross and net land area to find other financial yield per gross and net acre. Add all real estate tax revenue, income tax revenue, and other revenue to find total municipal revenue and divide it by a city’s gross and net acres to find a city’s average revenue per gross and net acre.

Finally, divide the city’s total annual expense by its gross and net acres. Compare its gross and net annual revenue per acre to its total annual expense per gross and net acre. The two should be equal, but this does not indicate an adequate quality of life.

Compare the city’s total annual expense per gross and net acre to the gross and net revenue received per zone. The zones that turn up negative are being subsidized by those that turn up positive. The ratio of positive to negative is one indication of stability.

A city is required to maintain a balanced annual budget, but does the population feel the programs and services provided are both needed and adequate? This is a public policy question they are able to answer if the programs and services are submitted to a general election. If the need is there but the service is inadequate, then a city’s revenue per acre is inadequate and additional funds must be found. The data also provides a foundation for additional program request evaluation.

Development Capacity Evaluation

So far, this discussion has addressed land use allocation; but allocation is only half of the issue. A building shelters activity and can be remodeled to serve other activities. I’ve called gross building area per buildable acre development capacity, and it determines the scope of activity that can be sheltered per acre. Shelter capacity and activity per buildable acre determine the revenue produced per acre. In other words, the development capacity introduced combines with the activity permitted to produce public revenue per acre. Every activity has an average yield per acre, but we have not collected the information. We have also not been able to accurately and consistently predict development capacity options for a buildable land area, but activity allocation and development capacity combine to determine the public revenue potential of a buildable acre, and the economic potential of a city’s total area.

When a city can correlate land use activity with development capacity options and revenue potential, it will be in a position to evaluate options and credibly defend planning recommendations.

I’ve written The Science of City Design: Architectural Algorithms for City Planning and Design Leadership to give you the ability to predict development capacity options for any buildable land area because shelter area determines activity capacity and revenue potential. It can be found on Amazon.com and as a Kindle Fire e-book.

Conclusion

If I have made myself clear, a land use plan without development capacity correlation simply separates incompatible activity. It does not ensure economic stability that is a function of a correlated land use and development capacity plan. I have referred to the combination as city design, and there are a number of pre-requisite chapters in the book I mentioned that lead you to the topic. Adequate city design is the physical foundation needed to undertake the blizzard of city planning issues that face us.

Excerpts from The Science of City Design

Shelter design: The correlation of two dimensional areas and three dimensional building mass to protect human activity in a single project area.

Urban design: The correlation of land use allocation and shelter design within a limited aggregation of project areas.

City design: The correlation of land use allocation and urban design within a jurisdiction.

Built Domain: A collection of jurisdictions that shelter and serve human activity.

Natural Domain: The source of life for all activity

The Goal: To shelter growing human populations within a limited Built Domain that protects their quality and source of life – the Natural Domain.

The Policy: To establish a symbiotic relationship with the planet.

Design: The definition of a problem and an exploration of potential solutions with instinct, observation, education, anticipation, comparison, evaluation, correlation, measurement, logic, talent, and perseverance. In many cases, the result is failure. In some cases, the result is knowledge. Darwin called it evolution and adaptation. Others have called it chaos.

Intelligence: The ability to memorize, retain, and apply both information and knowledge.

Fine Art: A category of successful and unsuccessful design solutions established by aesthetic opinion.

Design can be considered fine art and fail as a solution to a problem based on the two definitions I’ve written. Design involves the use of logic. When that fails, the result may still be considered fine art but is not a successful answer to the problem. This is the paradox we face. Design and fine art are separate issues. When the priority is form, appearance, and fine art, design can suffer and the solution can be compromised; not to mention the education provided. The goal is to correlate priorities. The policy is symbiotic survival.

PROLOGUE

If you had one acre of land and were asked to find its ideal gross building area potential, you would first ask if parking were required; and identify the parking system to be provided.

If you were given a gross building area objective and were asked to find the buildable land area required, you would first ask if parking were required; and identify the parking system to be provided.

These two sentences represent two questions:

1)     What gross building area options can be produced on a given gross land area, and what are the intensity implications when floor quantity is an option?

2)     What land acquisition options can accommodate a given gross building area objective, and what are the intensity implications when floor quantity is an option?

Our ability to accurately and consistently answer these two questions will determine our ability to shelter the activities of growing populations, and to protect their quality of life, within a limited Built Domain that does not sprawl to threaten their source of life: The Natural Domain.

This goal cannot be achieved until we create a reliable leadership language to:

1)     Consistently measure existing physical conditions with a vocabulary that can be used to compare, evaluate, and correlate the social, psychological, environmental, and economic implications of these measurements.

2)     Consistently forecast future options with the same vocabulary, and an increasing store of measured knowledge, for comparative evaluation.

The objective of this book is to provide a conceptual foundation supported by a vocabulary and language that can be used to build a Science of City Design. We cannot lead until we learn how to speak. This is the message from those who could not speak and pondered the cave paintings of Lascaux, Altamira, and Font-de-Gaumme 17,300 years ago. The scientific language and cellular awareness of Biology is one result.

INTRODUCTION

Unlimited urban growth is sprawl. It continues to expand over the face of a planet that is our source of life. It is encouraged by a primitive definition of “growth”, and a leadership language based on emotion and opinion that does not fear what it cannot see. We could solve climate change and still suffocate the Earth with this expanding blanket.

There are now two worlds on a single planet. The plant and animal kingdoms of Linnaeus have been superseded by the Built and Natural Domains of the 21^st century; and the inhabitants of the Built Domain are threatening to consume their indispensable host.

Zoning ordinances are not written to address the issue. They contain conflicting design requirements that encourage arbitrary results within an expanding Built Domain. As a consequence, we have not had a leadership language capable of consistently measuring problems, predicting options, evaluating solutions, accumulating knowledge, and creating a design strategy:

To shelter growing populations within a limited Built Domain that protects their quality and source of life.

This book will propose a scientific language of city design based on a shelter classification vocabulary, architectural algorithms, and master equations. It will introduce six universal shelter design categories, three residential activity groups, design specification templates, and forecast models for each category. Architectural algorithms will calculate topic quantities from specification value decisions; and they will correlate results for use by a category master equation. Master equations and subordinate equations will predict the shelter capacity and intensity options implied by a collection of category specifications. A change to any specification value will produce a new shelter capacity and intensity forecast for evaluation. The topics and equations in a forecast model will clearly demonstrate why density is a social measure that cannot lead shelter design toward physical objectives, strategic plans, or policy goals.

Shelter design categories are occupied by activity groups. Activities add a social and economic dimension to physical capacity, intensity, location, and condition. Design categories, activity groups, specification templates, architectural algorithms, master equations, and planning forecast panels introduce a quantitative, comprehensive method of measuring and predicting the shelter capacity of land, and the intensity of the options predicted. The vocabulary and equations to be introduced will represent a city design language that can correlate capacity and intensity with activity on any land area to achieve pre-determined physical, social, psychological, environmental, and economic objectives.

I should add that the compatibility of land use allocation is compromised when the shelter capacity, intensity, and activity planned or present is not correlated with the municipal revenue required to meet expense per acre over time. The mathematical language and forecasting ability of city design makes this strategic correlation feasible.

The classification system and mathematical language of city design is a means to an end. It makes the accumulation and evaluation of comparative knowledge feasible. Success will be symbolized by the form and appearance of shelter that emerges from symbiotic solutions correlated by the science of city design within a limited Built Domain.

THE SHELTER QUESTION

The satellite images of sprawl and one image of Earth from the Moon tell us there is no world without end. It’s time to imagine the threat, the relevant detail, the relationships, and the language that can lead us toward solutions that meet the challenge to survive.

We should all be concerned with the answer to a single question.

How do we shelter the activities of growing populations within a geographically limited Built Domain that does not threaten their quality of life with excessive intensity and their source of life with sprawl?

The answer depends on the information available, and this creates two subordinate questions that will be addressed throughout this book. When gross land area is given, the question becomes:

What maximum gross building area can be accommodated on a given gross land area without excessive intensity?

When a gross building area objective is given, the question becomes:

What minimum buildable land area is needed to accommodate a given gross building area objective without excessive intensity?

Answers depend on the shelter design category chosen and the specification decisions adopted. The shelter capacity of land will determine our ability to protect growing populations within a geographically limited Built Domain; but solutions cannot threaten their quality of life with excessive intensity. This means that we must be able to accurately measure, evaluate, and forecast shelter capacity and intensity options.

ANSWERS

The answer to each preceding question depends on the shelter design category chosen. A design category is gross building area classified by its primary parking system, except for combinations of surface and structure parking that are classified by the parking structure configuration employed. There are six building design categories within the Shelter Division of the Built Domain.

1)     G1: Buildings surrounded by a surface parking lot

2)     G2: Buildings above a surface parking lot

3)     S1:  Buildings adjacent to a parking garage

4)     S2:  Buildings above an underground parking garage

5)     S3:  Buildings above a parking garage at grade

6)     NP: Buildings with no parking requirement

A design category may be occupied by any permitted activity group. This distinction separates two-dimensional land use planning from three-dimensional city design, and the two must be correlated to create sustainable cities and a desirable quality of life within limited geographic areas.

The remainder of the book is devoted to the generic design categories that may contain any permitted activity group. These categories represent our source of shelter within the Built Domain. They are customized to suit a particular occupant activity. Their capacity, intensity, location, and condition combine with land use allocation to determine a city’s economic stability and quality of life.

SUMMARY

The city design language you will encounter offers the opportunity to evaluate shelter capacity, intensity, activity, economy, and quality of life options on a quantitative basis in a very brief period of time. We have been handicapped by an inability to measure, evaluate and predict the consequences of shelter design decisions in a precise language that is capable of repeating success and avoiding failure. This has led to a Ponzi scheme of land use misallocation and consumption that we call annexation for growth and economic development. It continues to grow in rings from an expanding core of decay to consume our source of life because we do not speak in terms that can make a difference.

We survive in the nucleus of a cell we have artificially created with property lines on a planet that does not recognize ownership. These property cells multiply as populations grow. They are part of a Built Domain that is sprawling to threaten the Natural Domain with its concept of property rights, but the planet and the universe do not bestow rights. They demand compliance with commands that must be anticipated. Knowledge follows.

We have produced sprawl and pollution on the face of a gift we have had the temerity to challenge with theories of freedom and concepts of power. The planet and the universe have not given us freedom or power. They have given us responsibility. Acceptance of this responsibility will begin when we use the mathematical language of city design to understand a property cell and organize its aggregation to protect our quality and source of life. This organization will produce an anatomy that is not a gift. It is a challenge to our creative ability, and the price for our presence on a planet that is losing its patience.

The preceding has been an excerpt from my book, The Science of City Design. The book can be found on Amazon.com and CreateSpace.com.

The Science of City Design

The Science of City Design introduces the perspective, format, vocabulary, language, measurement, and forecasting ability needed to shelter the activities of growing human populations within a limited Built Domain that protects their quality and source of life – The Natural Domain.

Editions 1 and 2 of Land Development Calculations by the same author introduced a tool entitled "Development Capacity Evaluation" on a CD-ROM. The Science of City Design introduces the knowledge that was required to create the tool so that the effort can become a building block for future generations.

Our challenge is to visualize, measure, predict, and establish a sustainable relationship between the cities we build to shelter human activity and the source of life we consume in the process. The Plant and Animal kingdoms of Linnaeus have been superseded by two worlds on a single planet - The Built and Natural Domains. The Science of City Design introduces a new language of design categories, specification values, architectural algorithms, master equations, shelter capacity predictions, and intensity calculations that can be used to discuss the issue and define leadership alternatives in terms that can repeat success without duplicating physical composition, context, and appearance. The book can be found on the Amazon.com web site and at CreateSpace.com.

If you would like a free desk copy for evaluation, please submit your mailing address, a URL address showing your position as a professor in an accredited institution for higher learning, and a brief explanation of its potential use with the e-mail option on the author profile page.

Architectural Comments Worth Considering

Mr. Jonassen,

I’m afraid I haven’t kept up with all the AIA posts while working on my book. I just noticed your post on Dec. 19, 2014 and wrote the following recommendation.

 

I recommend that all architects ponder Mr. Jonassen's comments and his first sentence in particular. The remainder emphasizes the goals of a successful practice, which I also recommend; but a successful practice is a business achievement.

Mr. Jonassen mentions that the profession "...demonstrate(s) no specific purpose that resonates with clients." This is at the heart of the matter because the profession is the only forum that can focus on building and sharing common goals supported by the education, information, tools and knowledge needed for achievement in a competitive environment. Even if you agree with the concept, however, it is meaningless until adjustment is able to meet the challenge.

 

Mr. Jonassen’s comments posted Dec. 19, 2014:

The profession as a whole and many practices demonstrate no specific purpose that resonates with potential clients.

Those practices that find, profess and live a purpose in which clients sense an intellectual, financial and emotional connection generally get respect and work from those clients.

When the architect's purpose is limited to the minimum of mandated professional responsibility and great design, defined solely in aesthetic terms, the reach of client resonance is pretty limited. Those practices which believe and act on a purpose which includes achieving a high level of intellectual, emotional and financial value for clients generally succeed.

Of course this is not profound...it’s just true.

NOTE: Mr. Jonassen is a partner at the architectural firm NBBJ, Seattle.

ARCHITECTURAL PRACTICE and PROFESSION

***PLEASE SEE MY LATEST BOOK: The Science of City Design: Architectural Algorithms for City Planning and Design Leadership. The book offers a universal language to correlate the work of many isolated disciplines concerned with one issue: The provision of shelter for the activities of growing populations within a limited Built domain that protects their quality and source of life - The Natural Domain. It is available from Amazon.com in both e-book and paperback.***

An architectural office is a city-state that competes with others for work. I have never had the impression that offices are very interested in sharing their competitive advantage, if it exists.

I have the impression that the architectural profession wishes to improve the public perception of its value in order to increase the work available to competing offices. This requires cooperation rather than competition.

At the risk of over-simplification, an office goal is to survive competition. A professional goal is to increase market share in an effort to protect the public interest.

It appears to me that the profession is struggling to develop an argument that will increase the public perception of its value in order to increase its market share, and has had difficulty achieving its goal by repeating the arguments of the past. It has also had difficulty defining research that will produce the tools and knowledge needed to improve this argument and the public perception that follows.

The Point

My point is that all must recognize the difference between practice goals and professional goals if they haven’t already. Professional goals improve the tools and knowledge that is shared by architectural practitioners. I agree that we must communicate with the public in terms they can understand. This is no different than a doctor talking to his patient, but it is a practice goal. The professional goal must be to improve the knowledge, education, tools and experience all practitioners can use to solve a problem of great public significance.

A medical analogy might help to make my point. The goal of the medical profession is to improve the tools, knowledge and treatment of injury and disease. The goal of a doctor is to successfully treat a patient with the education and experience provided.

In the case of architecture and city design, the problem is shelter within sustainable geographic limits without excessive intensity. This is the larger context that has great public significance, and the problem grows one project at a time in a pattern currently referred to as “sprawl”. A practitioner must be able to address a project. A profession must be able to address the problem before solutions can be found.