The details were hammered out around a table with the client, contractor, project manager, consultants and architect present. You needed to be able to communicate in a group and work with other people’s ideas in order to be successful. This process was not always easy and our client reminded us to work as a team but there is no doubt this way of working is changing the architectural profession’s identity. The Terminal is also a complex project with various building systems that demand specialised consultants, for building envelope, day lighting, sustainability, acoustical, and baggage handling – all were engaged and used within the design process. Their work and knowledge impacted the design. Floor-to-floor heights were adjusted to ensure the baggage handling system worked effectively and sustainable strategies were explored to help the project become LEED Silver certified.This complexity alone meant more than one person was the author of this project and the more outside input incorporated into the design the better it became. An airport terminal is vastly different than a house but with today’s demands for sustainability even houses have integrated mechanical and electrical systems that need collaborative work done early in the design process to ensure their success. In Wright’s day most, if not all, architectural firms were sole practitioners or partnerships where the owners’ names were on the door. This meant that as an architect in order to sell your firm you were essentially selling yourself. Consequently, stories like the one of Wright designing Falling Water were critical to ensure that clients understood they were getting the best person for the job. In today’s market, there are increasing numbers of multi- generation firms where original partners have been bought out and only their initials remain, or larger corporate practices, like Stantec, which function with less emphasis on name recognition of individuals. On occasion you get to know someone from a large firm, such as David Childs of SOM, but generally the idea of a collaborative team is what is being sold to clients. The recent name change of Cohos Evamy to Dialog is a sign of the shift away from an identifiable individual and towards a collaborative brand. Many architects might feel a tinge of nostalgia for Wright’s story and long for a time when architects bestowed their designs on their clients. There are many factors that are changing the focus away from the individual but in the end collaboration is a good thing. The focus on the individual and the perpetuation of a star system is outdated. The focus on the individual takes away from the good things architecture should be doing for our cities and the people that live in them. The truly interesting part of architecture is when a diverse group of people come together to make something positive in the world. g
As an architecture student you inevitably hear or read this story of Wright’s genius. It is the type of story that permeates the architecture profession; it is a basic building block of our identity. It is an analogy for the way the architecture profession perceives itself. Its nuances reflect the way we teach, learn and inevitably practice architecture. Yet, it is so fanciful that it could almost start with ‘once upon a time’. But, is it still possible to work the way Wright did, waiting until the last minute and only allowing his staff to sharpen his pencils as he single-handedly drafts a house? Wright first visited E.J. Kaufmann’s property in Bear Run outside Pittsburgh in November 1934 and during that first visit he requested a survey of the area around the waterfall. Wright received the results of the survey in March 1935 and it was nine months later when he feverishly drew his first and last design for the house. For Wright, the design was his and his alone, so much so that he didn’t need to sketch anything or talk to anyone before he revealed his work as a fete de complete at his first client meeting. 2 Whether the story is true or not does not matter. What the story does is support Wright’s status as the singular genius behind his great works of architecture. It helps to reinforce his brand. It is this idea that architecture is produced by a single person that shaped the identity of the architectural profession. This thrust toward the individual can be at the expense of the client, staff, consultants, contractors and even the project itself. For every project there is a large team of people making important decisions at their own level. These decisions will have a direct and lasting impact on the final outcome of the design. The current architectural milieu has seen a slow shift in its identity away from the individual. This comes from a place of necessity as buildings have become more complex with technological, environmental and legal requirements. There is simply too much work for one person to do a few hours before a meeting. The growing trend towards integrated project delivery models is also starting to dissolve the myth of the individual. Here everyone is at the table from day one with ideas and limitations that shape the design. In this world, the architect is the conductor of the symphony not the soloist. How well the architect conducts the team will determine the quality of the architecture. At Stantec Architecture, I recently had the role of project designer for the expansion of the Terminal at the Edmonton International Airport. But unlike Wright, the role of designer here meant working in a client-driven collaborative environment that in the end was critical to the success of the building. Edmonton Airport had an aggressive schedule which focused the team’s attention towards finding different ways to complete the design. To meet the schedule, the team entered into a design-assist arrangement which allowed our construction manager, PCL, to engage a steel fabricator early in the design process. In fact, we tendered the steel superstructure with 50% design development drawings. This meant much of the detailed design work was still to come. This design progression was not conceived in isolation in the architect’s mind and then breathed into the world at a meeting.
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