Pub. 1 2020-2021 Issue 1

25  — continued on page 26 Clients typically have six questions for architects: What is the scope of services architects provide? When is it appropriate to engage an architect? Where do I find an architect? Do architects add unnecessary costs to a project? How are they compensated? What is the nature of their role as clients when an architect is involved? The first three are reasonably easy to answer: Architects provide a range of services for which they may be contracted; architects should be consulted first and always (obviously), and finding an architecture firm has never been easier. The last three are much more difficult to answer: The cost of good design is related to the marketplace and the mentality of the client; there are different ways to calculate and establish actual fees associated with a firm’s design leadership on a project, and the kind of relationship clients ought to have with their architects is a matter of negotiation and setting expectations, two processes with multiple variables. As difficult as they are, these last three questions establish a value proposition in the minds of clients, but in times of crisis, they require a little extra context. How can you demonstrate the cost-saving measures of good design? Architects are trained to think holistically and solve problems by applying a critical eye and balancing the whole against the parts. But where the rubber meets the road, so to speak, is the bottom line, which extends throughout the life cycle of a building. Here are some angles to consider when your client gets the calculator out. Design for adaptivity, deconstruction, and reuse. This might indeed come with more upfront hard and soft costs compared to another kind of design. But there are well-documented cost savings to energy efficiencies, thoughtful plans and spatial arrangements that can adapt to future needs, and durable materials specified by a knowledgeable expert who is passionate about the tactility and tectonics of good design. All of these are areas where architects thrive. Design is key to creating better health in buildings and communities and results in quicker recovery times in hospitals, better learning outcomes in schools, and lower incidence of obesity, heart disease, and diabetes in many places. You could deliver reams of research to prospective clients supporting these claims. You can explain that “better, quicker, lower” are about numbers and a more holistic conception of salutogenic design. Profitability, as the sole measure of success, falls short of the ecological mandate that architects must meet at a time when sea levels, temperatures, and carbon emissions are rising in unsustainable ways — not to mention a time when climate change, obesity, and undernutrition form a global syndemic that will kill many more than the coronavirus pandemic. The relative value of design must center on health and wellness, and architects must be vocal and demonstrative about the benefits of good design. (In doing so, they must also arm themselves with facts against simplistic arguments that architects are largely responsible for the carbon emitted by buildings.) Health and well-being are emerging as a global leadership and market differentiation opportunity for building and property development industries worldwide. In 2018, the World Bank detailed how progressive real estate companies and investors incorporate environmental, social, and governance (ESG) considerations into business operations. ESG and corporate sustainability initiatives should be considered a seeded ground for architects to cultivate. Initiatives are ripe and low-hanging fruit. They provide obvious opportunities for new (and lasting) business. But considering today’s market conditions, architects need to address some of the acute concerns that COVID-19 raises about not just the eventual economic reopening, but the reopening of all spaces and places. How can your work mitigate pathogenic risks in an interconnected world? Writing for the LA Times in April, Sam Lubell outlined broad opportunities for a post-pandemic architectural economy, such as modular construction, adaptive reuse, lightweight architecture, telecommuting and “small city” living, and what he called the “town square reconsidered.” But his commentary on negative air pressure, displacement ventilation, clean air ventilation, and various filtration and humidity systems offered the most concrete clues about the first battle lines for building owners, developers, and facilities managers as they begin to reevaluate existing buildings and their plans to build anew. “These kinds of techniques will likely become standard in hospitals after the pandemic, but might they expand to wherever people congregate, like homes, offices, factories, Architects provide a range of services for which they may be contracted; architects should be consulted first and always (obviously), and finding an architecture firm has never been easier.