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.