Every Monday morning, team members in the Philadelphia and Princeton offices gather together via video-conference to discuss firm news and upcoming events and projects. Since 2003, founding partner Allan Kehrt, FAIA, has delivered his Monday Morning Musings, weekly slices of personal insight into the design profession, to the firm. To comment on any of his posts, send an email to us. We look forward to hearing from you. |
| December 24, 2007 Intentions As architects we impose order on a project by bending the physical character of a design to our will, or we otherwise find order through the discipline we require putting in order a program or set of criteria. It's always a balancing act and we sometimes find ourselves responding haphazardly to the very design we are developing. Whether we are working on the larger design itself or the detailing of a small part of that design, the most important thing of which we must be aware is intention. It is essential that the intention of the individual directing the design is communicated very clearly to all team members so that the team may all move toward the same goal. It's been joked that a camel is a horse designed by a committee; if the communication of intent is lacking in a project, architects can and have, designed some really big camels. Let's be careful. |
| December 17, 2007 Looks
There is a central problem we deal with as architects: the aesthetic decision-making power of the client. Most of the clients we deal with are intelligent individuals, experienced users, have built buildings before, and have opinions about what they want, how their buildings should function and in many instances, what their buildings should look like. The functional knowledge they bring concerning the way their building should work is critical, but challenges occur when dealing with aesthetics. At times they are clearly on the right track, but in others their opinions are off the mark, or even off the planet. As the designers of their facility, we not only have a responsibility to listen to their thoughts and act on their direction, but a responsibility to the conscience of our design beliefs and to the greater good of the built environment as we add a small piece. It is a difficult place for us to be, so the conceptual, social, verbal, political, and argumentative skills of our profession are as important as our design skills, and sometimes more. If we fail in those areas we fail in the primary reason for which we work.
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| December 10, 2007 Fabrication A recent issue of Dwell presents a small house addition designed by John Nastasi, an architect on the faculty at Stevens Institute. The addition is crisp and clean and simple. While the work is not an architectural wonder, it is different in a significant way. Rather than going through the normal process of working with a structural engineer to develop the addition's complex steel truss and window system, his firm did it all in house, developing parametric models based around a preliminary design and a set of design intentions. The model gave them a series of options which they then tweaked prior to sending the digital model off directly to a fabricator. The truss and window system was delivered to the site and installed by the general contractor using a small crane, and the addition costs no more than normal residential construction. The quote from the architect says much about the way we traditionally build. "There is a myth that digitally driven fabrication isn't widely available, but it is--you just have to be willing to go outside of the architectural and building communities to get it." |
| December 3, 2007 Intent One of the most significant distractions we encounter in design is that of confused intent; not knowing exactly what it is you are trying to do. We should decide early during our process what it is we wish to accomplish and try to keep an eye on that goal as design proceeds. We all fall victim to distractions along the way and if we are not diligent we can end up somewhere very far from where we intended to be. There are countless examples of buildings that seemingly lost their way somewhere en route to what could have been a clear and satisfying solution; it's obvious from the final product that something went wrong along the way. There is a saying, "If you don't know where you're going, you're sure to get there." That is something we should keep in mind during design. We want eventually to arrive at where we want to be. Side trips are fine, but losing your way is not acceptable. |
