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A few weeks ago I had a nice chat with John Wittman of Geier Brown Renfrow Architects in Old Town Alexandria; they are one of the firms I highlighted in my October 2008 post Top 24 Architecture Design Firms in the Washington DC area.  John had emailed me recently and invited me to come to their office so I could learn more about them and better understand the work they do.  While I was meeting with him I decided that this might be a great way for me to jumpstart back into blogging.  Instead of just writing about Architecture, it would be great for me to write about Architecture Offices in the DC area and their specific cultures!

Geier Brown Renfrow Architects have been around for the last 30 years but, like most small firms have gone through a few periods of reinvention. Currently they are coming off of one of those periods. About a year ago they moved into a new office on Royal Street in Old Town Alexandria.  Their new space is a physical manifestation of their corporate reinvention.

When I arrived at their office on Royal Street, I was not sure of what to expect.  From the exterior the building was nothing special, but when the elevator doors opened I was in for a treat.  The space is a bright and funky open plan intentionally designed around the concepts of collaboration, communication and the office as a community.  This stands in stark contrast to the more typical treatment of an office as a collection of architects each working in their own ivory tower. This theory of space is illustrated from the moment you enter their modern space, they have done away with the traditional receptionist and lobby schema and put the collaboration zone out in front as the main public space. It has a large worktable and pinup space with a smaller four top cafe table and chairs for informal meetings and a conversation pit consisting of chair and couch (neither, should I add, are the default Vassily or Barcelona chairs). This work zone doubles as both the public zone and the central hub of the office: the individual desks, IT nook, Traditional Work room, Library, Kitchen and Conference room all feed off of it. All of these areas are well lit either though natural lighting from the curtain wall glazing or as in the case of the interior only library, IT nook, and Traditional Work room, through the use of strategically placed light fixtures.

Part of their reinvention has been a focus on more holistic design part of this is a focus on more green efforts. John mentioned that in the move they significantly down sized their product library and left only the sustainable and human friendly products. The other holistic solution they are looking at is pro-bono projects. Besides giving back, one of their reasons for pursuing pro-bono work is as a way of reintroducing the public to the concept of architects as problem solvers and not just as a luxury commodity. This directly relates to one of the issues I’ve talked about on here before – the public perception of architects. One of the other advantages of the pro-bono work was that it afforded them an opportunity to provide an architectural student with an internship working on real projects. In this specific case they were not planning on hiring an intern but a young man approached then and offered to work for free. Many other firms would have taken that opportunity to exploit the young intern for cheap labor for their own profit.  Instead, GBR decided to do something different, the intern is volunteering on their pro-bono work and in exchange is getting valuable career experience.

While I was visiting John and I also discussed some of the previous articles I’ve written for this blog.  During our conversation John was able to synthesize the point of my BIM article in a much more succinct way that I have been able to express before. While the practice of architecture in its digital evolution has made great strides in office workflow and reducing repetitive tasks, it has also made great barriers for young architects looking to go out on their own; in the past all you needed was a roll of vellum, some pencils, and a client. Now you need a workstation, multiple thousand dollar software license, a plotter or a plotting service, liability insurance, networked and regularly backed up storage and full retinue of professional service firms to help you navigate the legal process of firm creation and operation. While the professional service firms and liability insurance are not specifically required by the tools now used to design, they are a byproduct of the evolution of business.  As projects get more complex not only does software solutions get more complex, but financial billings and legal liability become so as well.

I found the conversation informative and stimulative.  It was a helpful look into how other firms are run and how their operating spaces influence their work.  I would love to have the opportunity to interview other firms and discuss their specific cultures.

I think I may have a reason why this recovery is floundering, and it all has to do with housing.  Now stay with me a second, this is not subprime loans, nor predatory markets, or anything else that has already been blamed, this is a simple shift in how America lives and how that has affected our abilities to innovate and recover.  Yes, I am talking about the shift from single family residences to Condo and Town home living, and the lovely association rules that come with both of those housing styles.

Last year, when I decided to start my own architecture firm (studiosml.com) I, like many prospective small business owners, hit upon a major stumbling block – my condo association bylaws.  Specifically, they prohibit operating any business out of your unit.  At the time, this felt like just  another hurdle to get over, but now that I’ve had some distance and i’ve wathced our slow recovery, I have to wonder  whether rules like this are impedeing others as well.

Let me explain. I wanted to start my architecture firm, and at least in the beginning, operate it out of my house. This is one of the very common and traditional ways that people start firms, it means a lot less overhead which translates into more funds for other startup costs like licensing fees, filing fees, accountants, lawyers, etc. Unfortunately, like many people in my generation I live in and own a condo and my condo association strictly forbids running any sort of business our of your unit. This is rather common, and its not just an issue with condo owners, many Home Owners Associations (HOAs) also forbid the homeowners within the community from conducting any businesses out of their homes. This means that not only can I, an architect, not start up a home based business, but someone who wants to run an internet based craft business, a one person maid service, or even a webdesigner cannot legally use their home address as a business address. Furthermore, in some states you can’t use a PO box as a business mailing address, it has to be headquartered somewhere where a person can sign for any legal documents. This means that with their home address off limits a prospective entrepreneur needs to rent an office or use one of the many new business “virtual office” services like Regus, which start at $100 a month minimum.

So why is this a new reason for a slow recovery?  While I don’t have the hard numbers, in the two most recent recessions – 2000 and 1990, there were significantly less people living in condos and with HOAs.  The only hurdle to starting a business in your house would be getting a local occupancy permit, which for most traditional home based businesses is not a problem. So, when people were laid off or put on furlough they were able start a home business to either provide a new source of income or supplement their reduced income. This means that their personal effect on consumer spending was not as greatly affected by the economic recession and they were able to make a greater contribution to the recovery effort.

Now, to bring the dreaded predatory lending and subprime loans into the picture; as people lose their homes they are forced to either move into apartment buildings or live with family.  Both of these situations are incredible bad for small business. While some HOAs and Condo associations may make exceptions for certain types of businesses, it is universally accepted lease provision that you cannot run a business out of an apartment that is managed by a rental agency. This means that as the recession deepens people who could benefit most from reinventing themselves as entrepreneurs have an even greater hurdle to overcome.  Furthermore, if they move in with a family member, they have to hope that they not only live in a space that allows home businesses but they also have to be receptive to having that new resident run a business out of their house.

So where does this leave us?  I would propose that in an effort to jump start the small business economy State Legislatures should look at housing law and potential make it unlawful to prohibit someone from earning a living within their primary residence if their business met certain conditions.  These would be things like: no employees, no costumer visits, nothing that violates noise rules of an HOA or Condo Association, no service may be performed that can be a fire risk nor a health risk, etc.  This would be a big step to allowing many americans, especially those in urban areas, to get themselves off of unemployment and back into being a productive member of sociaety.

Today I came across an e-mail informing me that Autodesk had released the new 2011 versions of their CAD and BIM software, AutoCAD and Revit. If you are familiar with these products feel free to skip the following two paragraphs for my opinion about BIM and CAD, if not, read on.

For those of you who are not familiar with the world of architectural software it is broken into two different conceptual models: Computer Aided Drafting (CAD) and Building Information Modeling (BIM). CAD software has been around since the 1980′s and is a digital analog to hand drafting. In it, users work in either a 2-D or 3-D environment defined by points and lines (or vectors). CAD software is a time saver in that instead of each drawing being an independent sheet that needs to be redrawn whenever changes are made, the drawing lives virtually within the software and changes can be made rapidly without effecting other areas of the work. In addition drawing elements can be quickly scaled larger or smaller to create details or other drawings. Since CAD is a replication of the drawing process it is used by many different industries. For three dimensional work it can be clunky and hard to understand; to remedy this companies like Autodesk created add-on programs that extend the vector based system using pre-made and user definable blocks and proprietary elements indexed by a database to automate the three dimensional process. This system has its uses, but cannot compete with true BIM software when it comes to three dimensional coordination.

BIM is almost as old as CAD, but has only recently started to become a mainstream tool.  If CAD software is the digital analog of drafting, BIM software is the digital analog to model making. BIM uses a database of elements to define space: instead of drawing two lines to represent a wall, or using a wall tool to create a series of lines and surface to represent a wall, in a BIM system a user models a wall by selecting an element from a database and defining its values, like height, length, material components, etc. The element that appears in the program looks very similar to what you would find in a CAD program, but instead of being defined by its fixed points and vectors, it is instead being built from a database element. This allows individual elements in the building to be categorized and identified much quicker and allows for a higher level of integration. Instead of just defining a wall as X feet high, you can define it as running from floor 1 to ceiling 1, this way if the distance between floor 1 and ceiling 1 changes the wall changes without the user having to make any other corrections. This system can take lot of time and effort in the beginning to create a model of a project, because every major element needs to be present. Once the skeleton is in place, though it saves an incredible amount of time, because elements can be augmented at will, and, at least in theory, everything will adjust. This system can also be automated to produce warnings when elements intersect in ways that are not desired, which can be a godsend when coordinating multiple construction disciplines (architecture, mechanical engineering, plumbing, structural, etc.).

Since I recently started my own firm, I have been looking to buy software to automate our design process. In previous jobs I’ve used AutoCAD Architecture and in school I used Revit, so I am comfortable working in either CAD or BIM. The real issue for me is a cost benefit analysis. CAD software can be as inexpensive as the new version of Autodesk’s 2-D only non-enhanced software,AutoCAD LT, priced currently $900, or can ballon up to Autodesk’s expensive, but powerful, 2-D and 3-D software with architecture specific modeling tools, AutoCAD Architecture 2011, priced at $4995. On the other hand, Autodesk’s Revit Architecture 2011, one of many discipline specific varieties of BIM software, is priced at $5,495. To me as a small practitioner, the cost of either AutoCAD Architecture or Autodesk Revit is prohibitive when I have the option of software at 1/5 the price. On the other hand, if I was going to buy higher end professional software that can automate my tasks I cannot see a reason to by AutoCAD Architecture, for $600 more I could start working in what is sure to be the new method of construction design. In addition, the hardware requirements for AutoCAD Architecture or Revit far outstrips any machione I currently have, and would require an additional $2000 purchase. Now, of course, if I was an existing office the choice would be a lot more difficult, if my files and previous projects were all AutoCAD based, and my staff was all CAD trained, BIM might seem like an unreasonable hurdle to overcome. Thinking about this makes me wary of buying AutoCAD LT, because even though it is a reasonably priced entry level piece of software, if that is what I start my business with when I am ready to move to a higher end piece of software I may find myself trapped by my future staff’s ability and my past projects.

So, for now, I will content myself with hand drafting until I find either a profitable contract to offset the infrastructure purchase of a high end machine and revit or find myself wasting too much time revising a project and break down and buy the lower end software.

Today I turned another year older, and I think a little retrospective is in order. In the course of a year its sometimes hard to see the little things and I sometimes have a habit of overlooking all that I’ve accomplished. After sitting down with my employer yesterday for a yearly review I decided that maybe I should do the same for my life outside of my day job, so as a little experiment I figured I would list all of my quantifiable achievements and deficiencies over the past year. I:

• spent 7 months unemployed
• spent 5 months employed by NCARB
• sat for 7 sections of the ARE
• waited over 2 months for my last ARE result to arrive
• passed 7 sections of the ARE
• was licensed as an Architect in 2 jurisdictions (Virginia and Washington, DC)
• started my own architecture firm, studioSML, LLC
• wrote 40 posts to this blog
• had a gap of almost 5 months between posts
• wrote 2 posts for Greater Greater Washington
• wrote 15 posts for DC Metrocentric
• visited 3 homes by Frank Lloyd Wright
• wrote 0 articles about those homes (which I plan on remedying as soon as possible)

One of the things that has been the most disturbing to me since I graduated and joined the world of working architects is how little our craft seems to be understood in the United States, not to mention how little demand there is for architects to work on projects. There is a discussion raging over on archinect about the public conception that architects are wealthy, well paid, and always in high demand; while in reality compared to most of the other white collar professions (doctors, lawyers, et al.) it is the opposite. I for the past three weeks I’ve been trying to figure out how to explain why I think this is the case without devolving this post into a history lecture, and I think I’ve finally figured out how to do that. The root behind all of this confusion is two fold.

First, while architects work in the twenty-first century world, we still base our business on a nineteenth century business model. Unlike other doctors and lawyers who offer a mix of relatively small fee quick services (like sick visits and legal consultation) and large fee longterm services (complex procedures and trial and business law) architects perform mostly large fee longterm services for our clients. Most of our billing is for long drawn out projects, and even when we are involved in smaller home renovation services these projects still take weeks. What we need to discover is a way to sell single visit architectural consultation services which would be attractive to the public. To do this we have to determine a way to quantify the value that our services would add and why business and home owners should hire us instead of a less expensive builder driven solution. This leads into the second issue that architects face.

Architecture is a classist profession, it is only seen as necessity for business and government and as a luxury for upper and upper-middle class people. This contrasts sharply with Doctors and Lawyers who are seen as vital components to the modern way of life. Even the person of the most modest means will most likely visit a doctor in their life, whether through a medical clinic, hospital, or health care plan of some sort. In addition, since 50% of marriages end in divorce, even the poorest person has a very good chance of needing legal counsel if not for divorce, for some other reason. Whereas, most people will never work with an architect directly, and if they live in rural or suburban America, they will probably never live in a home designed by an Architect; the closest they will come will be working in buildings which are required by law to be designed by an Architect. This detachment from our industry prevents people from realizing not only the value of our services, but why we charge what we do for them. This lack of knowledge and detachment makes architecture and design a mysterious luxury, one which is far outside the world of most Americans. This will only change when we as a field discovers a way to make quick small fee services which will make us more accessible and affordable and not such a luxury.

[Image via The Library of Virginia.]

There has been a number of posts recently online decrying planning moves by Fairfax City that have been seen as anti-pedestrian and pro-vehicle. I believe that Fairfax Circle is the perfect place for Fairfax to make some planning changes that can be both car and pedestrian friendly.

As a driver in Northern Virginia I have long been confused by the not-quite circle at the intersections of routes 29 and 50. This confluence of roads is counter intuitive and dangerous for a number of reasons.

• This is the point where routes 29 and 50 merge in doing so their names also change. This creates a confusing situation where the roads leading into the circle are (clockwise from the North) Lee Highway (route 29), Arlington Boulevard (route 50), Old Lee Highway, and Lee Highway (routes 29 & 50).
• This circle has a series of lights, which effective kills any chance of it being a true traffic circle. This also makes merging into the circle difficult, because given the light cycle the circle may be filled with stopped cars which often create their own lanes.
• Route 50 travels through the center of the circle, but there are no left turns allowed and the signage indicating this is quite confusing. Drivers who wish to turn left onto Lee Highway or Old Lee Highway have to first turn right and then proceed through the circle, stopping at the light at route 50, from which they just turned off.
• To add to the confusion, left turns from Old Lee highway or Lee Highway onto Route 50 are allowed and encouraged.
• Lastly, like much of the landscaping in Fairfax, the planted portions of the circle are useless. Until recently there were no protected pedestrian crossings into the circle, and once in the circle there are no benches or any public amenities to act as a public draw.

At least the pedestrian access issue has been solved. After some mysterious construction, pedestrian crossing signals have been installed on the right hand turn lanes onto and off from route 50. This is a literal step in the right direction, but there is still a long way to go to make this circle something useable and safe.

This circle is near the border of Fairfax County and Fairfax City and could be treated as a celebrated entry into Fairfax City; this could be achieved by restoring this to a real roundabout, with lights regulating pedestrian crossings and entry into and out of the circle and creating a park-like center with a statue or fountain similar to many of the DC circles. If the traffic along route 50 needs a direct access to the other side of the circle a below grade ramp could be installed; there is already precedent for this treatment in Fairfax County. The intersection of Fairfax County Parkway and route 29 has a multi-tiered intersection with an express bypass for traffic along route 29. I personally do not believe that an underpass would be necessary. During rush hour traffic crawls through the circle, and at all other times of the day, the local 35 mile per hour speed limit should be easy to maintain in a properly timed and lighted DC style circle.

A real circle here would solve many of the problems highlighted above. This new traffic pattern would be easier for drivers, safer for pedestrians and the break in the continuity of route 50 would help emphasize the change from Fairfax County to fairfax City. In addition, the shopping centers surrounding this circle attract a decent number of pedestrians, a park-like circle would provide them with some easily accessible green space.

I was not able to post anything yesterday, because I had a job interview. Now I present you my weekly links of interest.

I have a new article on DC Metrocentric This one is a further exploration on my opinions of the Solar Decathlon.

In case you missed it last week, I wrote an article for Greater Greater Washington about using the Washington & Old Dominion Trail for a new VRE/Dulles Express line. This article kicked off a big discussion about metro and the silver line. You can see the rest of the articles here.

Archipreneur has a link to a presentation by Mickey Jacob, FAIA to House Committee on Small Business. This video highlights the goals of the AIA’s Rebuild & Renew Plan, which primarily calls on congress to make available low or no interest loans which would be useable for design fees as well as construction. This is the kind of boost that the A/E industry really needs to stay alive.

Treehugger has an article on a Prefab Portable Green Roof Installed In Toronto. I love the idea that companies could install removable green roofs on buildings that they are leasing without having to make permanent physical changes. In addition, I think this technology poses great possibility for low impact temporary installations.

The Floating House, by Morphosis Architect Thom Mayne, has received more traction within the news. If this design type becomes more common in New Orleans my personal proposal for the city would definitely be doable.

clips … Media/Reality … A folding plywood seat … A Modern sofa (I could swear I’ve seen a similar IKEA piece) …

Today I headed down to the Solar Decathlon on the National Mall. While there I was able to tour 15 of the 20 homes. I was happy to see that the Mall was crowded with people braving the wet and cold to visit these houses, even if that meant that the lines for some of the more award winning homes (like Germany and California) were so long that I chose to see 8 other houses instead of trying to get into them.

These houses all had innovative design solutions to create energy efficient and responsible homes. Interestingly enough, most of the homes used off the rack products, but just assembled them in innovative ways. Where I found the homes to be lacking was that most of them did not fully address their sites. Many of the homes did not interact with the portions of their lots that faced away from the main walk-way (those on the North were predominantly South focused, and those on the south were mainly North focused). Now I know a lot of this had to do with strategic window placement, but for homes which were little more than 15′x50′ rectangles it felt like opportunities to fully engage the site were lost. The teams DID engage the sites, they created decks, plantings and water features, but the houses often did not interact with these features.

One of the things that I found the most informative about the whole competition was not something anyone did, but rather what they were prohibited form doing. Most of the teams had integrated some form of waste water reduction technology through the filtration and re-use of gray and rain water systems. Unfortunately, they were not allowed to use these systems, because in DC it is a violation of plumbing code to use rain or gray water from anything domestic; it can only be used for landscaping needs. Apparently this is standard in many jurisdictions throughout the country. For a city that is trying to be more LEED friendly and at the same time develop its urban neighborhoods, this is a travesty. The student representatives at many of the buildings made it a point to highlight the water savings features and their inability to use them and encouraged visitors to contact their representatives to change this piece of legislation.

It took me a while to find an app that could successfully translate any business card into a contact. I tried out apps that limited the number of contact fields and the types of fields (e.g., no e-mail addresses or job titles), but eventually decided to bite the bullet and pay the rather hefty price of $18.99 for Beach House Software’s CardSnap. This application will translate any business card regardless of orientation or text arrangement into an iphone contact. The only drawback is that it can take up to 24 hours, this is because the application sends the photo of the business card that you’ve taken with the iphone to a server where a “proprietary process for processing and mapping the cards” creates a contact without using OCR. Now as far as I’m concerned that proprietary process is probably an offshore customer service center in Bangalore, but it works and thats what’s important. I have had to correct one or two letters in a company name on occasion. But for the most part this is a great app. It is definitely a time saver, if you are willing and able to wait a day to have a full contact automatically created from a business card.

I’ve always been a fan of transformer furniture, Treehugger has a post about an auditorium chair that transforms into a solid sloped plane when not in use. I could image using furniture like this to make a studio apartment have multiple uses.

Archipreneur highlights an apartment in NYC which is centered around a ribbon of concrete. I have long been interested in concrete in residential applications, and i feel that this project does a really good job of integrating the material into the space. I especially like the interplay of concrete, wood and brick.

clips …Build Blog has a post highlighting how to integrate both modern and traditional architecture into the same project … I love this Slope Sink on Materialicious … SEPTA has some very cool benches coming … Icebergs are stripped, who knew?