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The Committee on Design (COD) was founded to promote design excellence among members of the AIA, the broader design community, and the public at large, both nationally and internationally.

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Repositioning and the Profession, please review

  • 1.  Repositioning and the Profession, please review

    Posted 01-12-2015 08:11 PM
      |   view attached
    This message has been cross posted to the following Discussion Forums: Young Architects Forum and Committee on Design .
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    A current draft of the Group 7 mission statement is attached. An updated version will be presented next week to the AIA Culture Collective. Many of you are now quoted in this document. Any and all comments and suggestions will be greatly appreciated and incorporated in the final presentation if possible. Thanks to all. ------------------------------------------- Mike Mense FAIA Owner mmenseArchitects Anchorage AK -------------------------------------------

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    Group 7 rev010915.pdf   5.69 MB 1 version
    24.06.07 CODAIA24


  • 2.  RE: Repositioning and the Profession, please review

    Posted 01-13-2015 04:43 PM
    Mike,

    I just read the thread of documents regarding "Repositioning and the Profession". I'm afraid I haven't had the time to read the current draft of the Group 7 mission statement, but would like to offer some general comments that add to the thread. I apologize in advance if they repeat any information contained in the draft.

    REPOSITIONING

    The goal of medicine and law has been to improve the tools and knowledge used by its practitioners to protect the public interest. Architecture is perceived as serving private interest. It prepares a strategy to achieve an owner goal. Before you object, think about the struggle to accept building and zoning codes that protect the public interest. They have often been considered restrictions on creativity. Architecture needs a public goal before it can step onto the same arena with medicine and law. A brief review of the architectural process will help set the stage for my repositioning comments.

    PROCESS

    An architect defines an owner goal with a programming effort, or asks the owner to provide a program of requirements. A strategy to achieve the goal is defined through a design and production effort. The result is a set of construction documents. They define a product that is a prototype. Bidding of contract documents produces an agreement to achieve a vast number of specified objectives with one or more contractors. These contractors are field commanders.

    When a strategy hits the beach in this military analogy adjustments are required to compensate for imperfect anticipation. The same is true for a prototype. In these circumstances a prototype strategy that hits the beach requires an adjustment budget. Every untested strategy requires adjustment. Unfortunately, this is the Achilles' heel of architecture even though a 10% contingency should be a matter of pride. It is a 90% success rate in a struggle with anticipation. It's time to recognize the cost of anticipation when attempting to achieve an original goal with an untested strategy.

    GOALS and OBJECTIVES

    An architectural project is not only a prototype. It is a strategy to achieve an objective. It is like a medical objective to heal a patient. These are practitioner responsibilities. They are not organizational responsibilities. I believe this distinction is at the heart of an architectural repositioning discussion. The question to be debated, in my opinion, is one of organizational goals and practitioner goals. I'd like to suggest three levels of awareness and three professional goals that would involve repositioning.

    Awareness

    1. To recognize the presence of two worlds on a single planet: the Built Domain and the Natural Domain.
    2. To recognize the four divisions of the Built Domain: Shelter, Movement, Open Space and Life Support.
    3. To recognize that design matters because we must learn to live within geographic limits and function symbiotically. Organic form and appearance must follow symbiotic function. This is the message from Louis Sullivan and Frank Lloyd Wright.

    Goals

    1. To improve the design of shelter capacity, intensity and symbiotic function for growing populations within a geographically limited Built Domain that protects their quality and source of life - the Natural Domain.
    2. To improve the tools, knowledge and concepts needed to achieve the preceding goal by expanding private practice into the public domain and workplace.
    3. To build a network (of professional organizations) to achieve both preceding goals through research, collaboration, education and practice.
     

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    Walter Hosack
    Author
    Walter M. Hosack
    Dublin OH
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    Original Message
    24.06.07 CODAIA24