frank mascia aia architect

Hard Times 001: Who do you keep working?

Tue, 6 Jan 2009 07:58:01 -0700

When times were good (better) a few years ago I wrote a piece suggesting that when an architect hires someone it might be a good idea to consider the notion of hiring away from their strength. You consider doing the work you are good at yourself and hiring a person to do what you don’t like or are not good at doing.

Well, I’ve always suggested that a smart hire lets you do more of what you like, more of what you are good at and more of what your clients want to buy. Lots of architects generate work they are good at, get a lot of that work, and then hire someone to do that work. This is a very intuitive and natural action, yet it is often a very poor practice. If someone commissions you to do some work, they probably want YOU to do that work.

All of the above is fine in “good” times - when finding people is harder than finding projects. What about the troubled times in which we now find ourselves? Would it be wise to consider the inverse of my earlier piece? Might it be a good idea in today’s world to fire away from one’s strength? Again, this answer may not seem to be the most intuitive course of action. However, let me suggest the following when you consider which staff you might do without:

You are “the” architect and if push comes to shove you can effectively do the “architecture” yourself.

It follows that retaining good support staff (usually paid less than an architect) to do the necessary tasks that you hate doing, rather than keeping an architect on the payroll doing the architecture you can and like to do, might be smart. If nothing else it makes economic sense. In short, an effective assistant can help you do lots more billable work with fewer technical staff. This of course is a viable idea for good times as well as bad times; for big firms or small firms.

Hard times or good times are both best addressed by thinking before you take an action.

Cheap Green

Wed, 18 Jul 2007 13:52:50 -0700

Plain & Simple

Cheap Green

Green is expensive but it is worth the cost – this sentiment seems to be permeating the conversation about responsible architecture. Is this a true statement or is it only one possibility?

After listening to Al Gore at the San Antonio Convention of the AIA I resolved to do my part to help sustain the planet. I have an existing home but I still wanted to do what I could. Living and working in the Arizona Sonora Desert where the issue of water is a major concern I decided that I would focus in that area. I have discovered that a few small items can make a big difference in the water sustainability of a building. What we did:

1) Took our major trees and landscape plants off drip irrigation. After some consultation with local landscape architects it became apparent that our arid climate-appropriate plants were mature enough to sustain themselves on rainfall, augmented with some harvested water. The roofs adjacent to our courtyard drain to the courtyard. So merely blocking the small area drain allowed us to harvest all the water that falls into the courtyard and onto the adjacent roofs.

The result is a courtyard that uses less water, shade for the houses that lets us use less A/C and its required electric power. This seems to be a double hit. Using less water and less power.

2) Use outdoor shower as my primary shower. This apparent luxury item is now a small part of the water harvesting system. The shower surface drains across the sidewalk into a small planter. A morning spent digging a small channel to reach all areas of the planter resulted in another area where we could eliminate the drip irrigation system.

The result is using less water for irrigation and reusing the gray water from my morning shower. Incidentally less power is used – no need to heat the water for my shower in Arizona.

3) Direct reuse of washer gray water. I recently replaced a 10-year-old stack washer dryer with new front-loading machines. The front loader, of course, uses less water but in addition I had a second washer box installed. This washer box drains directly to an exterior planter and provides gray water for irrigation. A small hose leads the water to this planter.

Again the result is using less water for irrigation and reusing the gray water, this time from my washer. The plants in this planter shade the east side of my house as an additional benefit.

4) Reuse swimming pool backwash water. We have a swimming pool (OK I admit it I love my creature comfort). I dug a small trench from the area where I usually backwash the pool to a small arid plant planting area. These plants are remarkably tolerant of the salty water coming out of the pool. Be careful to check the tolerance of any plants you want to water this way.

Once again the result is using less water for irrigation and reusing the gray water, this time from my pool. This also has the side benefit of relieving my conscience a bit about having a pool in the desert.

Thinking Globally - Acting Locally

Tue, 12 Jun 2007 13:39:09 -0700

Plain & Simple

An Uncomplicated Approach to Outsourcing

BENEFITS

Cost-Effective: less staff, overhead and office space required
• Pay your local staff to think, the overseas contingent to input information
• Time savings
• Broadening of horizons always a good thing for any practice – never know what will come of it

MANY SERVICES OUT THERE: SCRUTINIZE!

• Make contact and clearly spell out what you are looking for
• Align your specialties with theirs
• View web site for samples, list of staff and services available, equipment being used by them
• References
• Payment arrangements: advance payment required, wire transfers, credit offered?

TRIAL RUN

• Determine process for exchanging information:
Scans of files emailed from local print house. PDF’s of instructions or sketches generated in-house and emailed. Use of virtual office to upload to/download from or direct e-mailing of zip files?
• Send files, and info and ask for pricing for what is expected. Hourly? Per project?
• Some firms will do a trial run at no charge up to 15 hours of work.
• Communicate standards and conventions used in your office: version of AutoCAD, layering conventions, sheet and project naming conventions, plot file conventions.
• Proceed and watch for: accuracy, turn-around time, are they following instructions?

HINTS FOR SUCCESS

• Communication, communication, communication:

- The one transferring the files is not always a CAD technician but often an administrator. Helps to have an admin person spell things out in lay terms so all can understand.

- Remember the language barrier(s) and be careful to spell things out carefully.

- Develop relationships just like anywhere else in business. The better the rapport the better the chance of the endeavor succeeding.
• Assuage the concerns of staff people! CAD operators and architects alike tend to naturally shy away from a process that removes them from the driver’s seat, especially when they “control” is put in the hands of technicians 1/2 way around the globe. Take the opportunity (as we have) to send a sheet or two of a project for a strong skeptic and watch their eyes light up as they get a good, accurate drawing back quickly and for small cost!
• Realize that there will be a learning curve and bear with concerns both in your local office and the overseas office. Work together without finger-pointing to get the best results. Try, try again!
• Recognize what the overseas firm can do and cannot do. Don’t expect them to do what they cannot do (design, for instance); use them heavily for what they can do: input information given to them.

3-D Details in SketchUp

Thu, 10 May 2007 16:38:57 -0700

Plain & Simple

3-D Details in SketchUp

I have for some time been using SketchUp - no news there, everyone in the world is using this very useful program. However, I have found that like a lot of good software, the limits of the program are beyond what is presented as its basis use. The hook is that I use SketchUp 3-D models (exported into 2-D mode) to generate elevations; roof plans and occasionally section drawings.

Abstracted, the SketchUp program is a drawing tool, not a perspective drawing tool, but one that draws buildings very easily and very completely. One thing that separates SketchUp from many other drawing programs is that it draws in a very "BIM-like" fashion. I mean it draws plans, sections, roof plans and elevations simultaneously.

These various drawings can be obtained by merely de-selecting the "Perspective" feature under the "Camera" drop down menu. Once this has been done merely picking an elevation, plan or roof plan icon from the Toolbar immediately gives you that drawing in 2-D. The upside of this process is that while you are designing your building you are creating the basic line work your for CD's. As you might recall, this is exactly the "Fred Stitt Systems Drafting" approach of reusability of effort. The more complete the design drawings in SketchUp, the more useful the 2-D images, of course.

I export these 2-D views, one for each drawing I am going to use in an AutoCad format. Since I am on a Mac (of course I still am a Mac guy) I open these .dwg drawings with PowerCadd and cut and paste them into my pre-defined elevation sheet. A very quick touch up and some stand keynotes from the PowerCadd library and I have an elevation sheet. Of course I can do whatever I need to with the line weights – even make it look like an architect actually drew it. The process would be the same for AutoCad users, minus the Powercadd steps.

I have also found that the same process can be used to generate those wonderful Title Sheet renderings we are all so fond of (similar process): export as a 3-D model in .dwg format.

Finally I have found that the SketchUp library of construction materials is a wonderful kit of parts for drawing fully scaled perspective details of unusual framing details of complicated building sections.

With a little work this $500 (or free) program can do a lot of very BIM-like tasks. I think it would work very well for the conflict concept that is so much a selling point of BIM programs. It really exemplifies the classic 90% of the job for 10% of the cost program.