Future Worlds

Stephen Kieran and James Timberlake
October 2007

We have absolutely no interest in the process of architecture for the sake of process itself. What motivates us is the art of architecture - the making of beautiful buildings that elevate us all through the fusion of purpose with place, craft and ethical design. For us, this aspiration requires control, deep control, the ability to consistently and insistently translate idea into form, intention into substance. Our drawings depict intention to the fabricators and builders who then give form to the intention (Figure 1). Most art is about the controlled translation of vision into form. The problem today, however, is that this ideal of controlled translation is under assault. The forces that have collapsed upon architecture and conspire against control are many. They include cost (value engineering), schedule (time), quality (punch list) and fabrication strategies. A graph of productivity in design and construction since the 1960's portrays a distressing tale that continues to undercut the prospect for deep control (Figure 2) . The story of declining productivity in architecture and construction is without parallel in modern times. While nearly all other fabrication has gained productivity, building activity remains alone in a declining trajectory. Cars are today unquestionably better than they were just fifteen years ago, while the cost and time of building architecture has increased as the quality and scope decline (Figure 3). With each cycle of declining productivity, the loss of control understandably deepens. This, however, is only the symptom. The real issues lie deeper.

How has this loss of control come to pass? What are the forces that have driven a wedge between designing and making? In theoretical terms, modern specialization has forced segregation of responsibility. Brunelleschi's dome, where the designer has deep control (he was, after all, conceiver, material scientist, product engineer and builder all in one), has given way theoretically to a world in which the conception is phoned in, as in Man Ray's famous 1920's provocation in which he literally phones in the fabrication directions, art untouched by the hand of the conceiver (Figure 4). Man Ray was here forcing the issue, pushing us to confront the complete disjunction of designing from making in modern theory. This disjunction has assumed legal status in most architectural contracts. In contrast to Frank Lloyd Wright's simple one page contract for a Usonian house, complete with its intention to eliminate the contractor to the greatest extent possible through the provision of an architectural intern to oversee completion of the work, the AIA Owner-Architect Agreement excludes the "means and methods of construction" from participation and even comment by the architect. Lastly, there is the matter of systems complexity. Control was deeper when systems were shallow. We use the word shallow not in a negative but rather in a matter-of-fact sense. Deep control is more attainable with fewer elements in the field. When systems were limited in an 1899 dormitory to a fireplace for heat and gutters for drainage, the field of control, using cost as a measure, was reduced by 30-50% compared to a present day building fully loaded with heating, cooling, mechanical ventilation, hot and cold water, sanitary drainage, power, lighting, fire suppression and detection, security, voice and data, etc.(Figure 5).

The world we work in has understandably responded by taking control where we architects have failed to do so. We have ceded, and continue to cede ground to the lawyers. Various new forms of contractual relationships from construction and project management to design-build formally marginalize the architect even further. How can we break this downward spiral? How can we attain, once again, deep control of our art? The word "practice" has long been coupled with professions: we practice medicine, law, engineering and architecture. To be working in these disciplines is said to be "in practice." The professions, especially architecture, are coupled with the word "practice" for a reason: they are not perfect. But how do we become better? Practice alone does not, contrary to the old adage, make perfect, especially if we repeat the same mistakes over and over again. Architects are designers. We define and propose solutions to problems. The first act of design, however, has to be the design of practice itself. We must recognize that architecture is practice and that we have an ethical obligation to design ourselves to get better with each successive act of architecture.

In the design of our firm, we focus on culture. The culture of architecture firms must be designed. It cannot be allowed to just happen. Unlike an ethnic group, or even an institution, few architecture firms have the longevity to simply let culture evolve. In the design of any large, complex structure, culture may well be the most potent architect, far more powerful and with far deeper tentacles than even the most energetic and forceful talents and personalities. There are three realms of the design of our firm's culture we want to touch on here. The first of these realms is ethical, and it is an obligation, not an option. The ethical realm is a broad topic that for us includes the nature of twenty-first century collaborations and changes necessary to the legal structures that have arisen to guide these collaborations, as well as our responsibilities to the environment. The second realm (also an obligation) is research, both for its own sake and infused with architectural and urban design problems. The third realm is quality, the obligation to make what we make better.

COLLABORATION

The first of our ethical obligations is collaboration, the breaking down of the silos that segregate us from those on whom we are dependent to realize design (Figure 6). We recall as young architects the way in which form was often conceived in the late 1970's and early 1980's, with the architect describing the solution and giving the form to the engineers with the charge to "make it work," no matter what the horsepower required. Those directive relationships have receded in leading edge practices, with far more collaborative models coming of age in the last 20 years. The same can now be said of our relationships with contractors. This is one of the unexpected benefits of our own inability to control. We as a profession have been asked or required by our clients, with increasing frequency, to engage in "construction management" or "design-build" relationships with contractors. The potential benefits of these early relationships, ideally collaborations, with contractors are now well accepted: earlier cost certainty, earlier access to the trades for design detailing, and shared as opposed to conflicting objectives. The connections back to product engineers and materials scientists, those who make the materials and assemblies that become the form of our buildings, have proven more elusive. We believe this is largely because we do not yet "speak the language" of these disciplines. With changes in education and the development of research within practice, this has begun and can continue to change. This is a historic opportunity for us as architects. We need not wait for our clients to force this one on us. We can lead the profession into deep collaborations with those who make the materials that form our buildings, impacting the design and form of architecture in profound ways. There exists in this set of collaborative relationships the potential for "deep design," for levels of collaborative control that have not been attained in the modern era. There also exists the potential for the architect to move to a central rather than a peripheral role in the totality of the enterprise, a master controller, not a marginalized player (Figure 7). This new world, however, is by no means assured. A central impediment is the legal structures that have evolved to segregate the entities that make architecture into isolated "silos," all under the guise of limiting liability. Our continued exclusion from participation in the "means and methods" of construction - i.e. how we build, and professional liability exclusions from "product design" are serious issues that must be addressed. Phil Bernstein and others associated with the development of the next generation of AIA contracts are taking on just these questions at this time. It is in the seams of the "means and methods," that which is between the "silos," where much of the improvement we can make to both design and construction resides. Returning to our central objective as architects, it is here that the ability to directly control the translation of image into form will be attained.

RESEARCH

The most important activity that architecture needs to infuse into its ethos to move forward into the envisioned world of "master control" is research. Research is investment in an as yet only vaguely perceived future. Without research investment we, like all industries, have no new product. Without new product, we become the produced rather than the producer. We react to what comes our way rather than finding, selecting and designing a new and better way. Compared to other industries, architecture has little effective investment in research. We know all the excuses: we are a highly decentralized industry with huge numbers of small players who do not have the financial resources; we do not have the training or expertise. These are unacceptable. We just need to begin and do it. No excuses. In the design of our own 50 person firm, we have placed research squarely at the center of all that we do. We design with research. Our ability to design, invent and occasionally to innovate derives from research activity. Everything about our firm from the workplace itself (completely flexible, always shifting and evolving); to our staffing (we have a research core of 3-4 full-time professional positions); to our finances (we support research by a mix of grants, corporate and client funding, and self-funding by reinvesting profit); as well as our technology, public relations, and marketing are designed to support research initiatives (Figure 8). We call these initiatives "kernels." They are seeds to be strategically spread among all the activities of our firm, ranging from architectural projects to teaching, industrial design, exhibitions and publications (Figure 9). Once placed, the intention is germination, the formation of new and improved worlds. Not all efforts prove constructive. Some whither swiftly, while others spiral outward into sometimes surprising worlds through collaborations with corporations, institutions and other professionals.

We think of each research kernel not as a hierarchical passage but rather as a potential spiral, a research passage that unfolds from a core idea and spirals in ever-evolving paths through the realms of speculation, education, realization and recognition, then back and out yet again. We no longer keep track of projects by simple lists. Rather, we track their spiraling trajectories across four realms: speculation, education, realization and recognition. Research projects, kernels, can begin in any of these four realms and they can move between them in any direction or order. They can and often do spiral back upon themselves, repeating the passage but in a different tighter or looser trajectory.

The ideas that ultimately led to the arguments set forth in our book reFabricating Architecture began in the education realm, with our graduate students in our design research laboratory at the University of Pennsylvania (Figure 10). Through initial speculations with these students in the spring of 2000 about transfer technologies and processes, we formulated a full fledged speculation, a research proposal that was funded through the AIA College of Fellows inaugural national design research prize, the Latrobe Fellowship. This funding permitted the hiring of our first full-time research staff and research into industries with integrated collaborations: planes, ships and cars. We crossed the country studying the methods of these industries. One common ground was the redesign of the supply chain into hierarchical tiers, with the aim of creating integrated component assemblies, like the dashboard of a car, and the reduction of joints at the point of final assembly.

Opportunities to realize theory, to actually build based upon the speculative propositions of the book, have in turn come directly from the reviews and recognition of the book, moving us in ever tightening circles toward realization through applied research on our projects. A chemical company has asked us to design an offsite fabricated vanity using solid surfacing materials (Figure 11). A medical device manufacturer who also read the book has called us expressing interest in becoming a tier one supplier to the construction industry. In the meanwhile, a problem arose. We had to take apart and put back together 55 bathrooms together for a residential college renovation in a very constricted space with a short schedule. We developed the design of the offsite fabricated vanity further for one of our projects. It has now evolved into an integrated component assembly composed of structure, counter and shell, multiple sinks, all the associated plumbing and drain lines, electrical power, mirror, lights and accessories. Refinements continue to be made through three successive iterations in projects.

For the same client, Yale University, in the same project, the renovation of Pierson College, we had another problem. A decision is made to seize an opportunity to build new housing for thirty students in a relatively inaccessible, hidden court adjacent to the college (Figure 12). In this case, the research opportunity began with a project, a design problem. Owing to the tight site and the required use of the site as staging for the adjacent renovation, we suggested off site fabrication. The effort then moved from the project into the realm of speculation with visits by the client and the construction manager to potential fabrication facilities. An off site fabricator in Lebanon, NJ, Kullman Industries, was selected; detailing systems and new methods of joining the assemblies were developed, and the building was constructed in the shop in 33 "grand blocks" over the course of six weeks. Each block is a complete geographic fragment of the building. Each has integrated structure, heating, electrical power, lighting, voice and data, fire protection, exterior masonry walls and windows, and interior finishes. They were set in place during one week over the course of spring break. The project then moved into the realm of recognition through publications and lectures. Ultimately, it yielded further opportunity in the form of new projects which begin the cycle anew.

Research into new materials is another stream of the agenda that we began in our design laboratory at the University of Pennsylvania and continued through the Latrobe Fellowship and into speculations in reFabricating Architecture. The last few decades have seen an explosion of new materials. While other industries have found ways to improve their products through application of these materials, relatively few have made their way into architecture. The properties of these materials are often the reciprocal image of the properties of conventional materials. For example, one new material, carbon fiber, that has drawn considerable speculative attention but few actual architectural applications, has a nearly inverse relationship between density and strength when compared to conventional materials such as brick, aluminum, glass and steel. In addition, there is an entirely new class of intelligent materials that have yet to find application. Beginning with our own speculations, we then charged our graduate students with examining the potential use of new material classes that gave rise to speculative collaborations with industry and the demonstration of an idea about new material use in our SmartWrap pavilion at the Cooper Hewitt National Design Museum in New York City (Figure 13). The proposition exploited advances in polymer chemistry to suggest the idea of printed functionalities, organic solar cells, conductive ink, energy storage, and organic light emitting diodes, on a tensile polyester skin. This proposition has in turn led back to the question of speculation with industry to work toward the realization of new architectural products.

The insertion of a new computer science building into the engineering quadrangle at the University of Pennsylvania has spawned a research agenda into the ethics of glass curtain walls and a further foray into integrated component assembly (Figure 14). The site for this project was a service courtyard. A central design objective for the new structure was to turn this back into a front, to create a new front door for the School of Engineering and to render the school transparent to the university and the city. With this idea came an ethical obligation. If the building was to be glass juxtaposed against the largely opaque adjoining structures, then it had to be energy efficient. A research and education process began for ourselves and the client that investigated all the known technologies, and we settled upon one that had yet to be used in the US: an active wall. This system is triple glazed and the return air plenum for the building is through a 3" cavity between the layers of glass. This cavity contains an electronically controlled blind that functions not only to shield the interior from solar gain and glare but as a radiator. Part of the speculative agenda for this system involved the off site panelization of this "smart wall." The Levine Hall wall is not erected conventionally, in the field, stick-by-stick. Instead, it is fabricated as a unitized assembly - framing, gaskets, glass, hardware, blinds, and electronic controls are all collected off site and assembled into large scale panels, then shipped to the site and hung from adjustable clips attached to the concrete floor plates. The entire installation is gasketed from panel to panel. There are no sealants employed. Time in the field was limited to several weeks and the quality control was largely accomplished off site at the fabrication facility.

The central agenda for the LEED platinum aspiring Middle School at Sidwell Friends School in Washington, DC derived from the Quaker ethic depicted in Edward Hick's painting of The Peaceable Kingdom. In this world view, man is at peace with the natural world - within nature rather than above or outside it. While there are dozens of ways in which this ethic has permeated the new and renovated building, we will focus on only one here, the way in which the building manages water (Figure 15). The desire to complete the water cycle, to purify and reuse sewage, existed early in the project. A living machine was included in the first estimates for the building. The speculation here, however, quickly centered on an integral, natural approach to purification, the constructed wetland, not yet another machine but rather nature itself, with the sloping courtyard reinterpreted as terraced purifier, a new form of a working academic quadrangle. Constructed wetlands remain unusual and were unheard of in this jurisdiction, so considerable research and education were required. In addition to the wetland, the courtyard is a storage system, a man made estuary for water. Water that falls on the green roof, when present in sufficient quantity, overflows the roof into scuppers where it is conducted through open leaders to a spillway and biology pond. This pond overflows into a rain garden when there is enough rainfall. In drier times, the rain garden is empty, but the pond remains full, a visual manifestation of the cisterns that store rainwater. The complete cycles of water are manifest in this research courtyard. The passive "academic" courtyard of Oxford and Cambridge origin is here transformed into a research quadrangle, not only our own research that went into its design and fabrication, but a source of ongoing research and monitoring by the children and teachers.

We return now to one of the images with which we began - that of Man Ray "phoning in" the description of a work of art for transcription by the receiver. This was held up as the antithesis of control, as the epitome of the modern separation of designing and making. Originating in the education and speculative realms, however, we began to see and explore the seeds, the kernels that might turn this observation on its head (Figure 16). We are speaking, of course, of digital modeling and ultimately, the ability to translate image directly into substance in the form of cad/cam fabrication, three dimensional printing and similar translations of information into material substance. Our research into the design and fabrication methodologies of Boeing showed the way forward from simulation to reality. The fully integrated imaging and information systems developed by Boeing to control design, testing, purchasing, planning, fabricating and maintaining its aircraft are a provocation to us as architects. We have taken up this provocation with applied research into parametric modeling and integrated information management. Using two projects as test cases for this applied research, we have modeled using both Digital Project and Autodesk Revit. We regularly develop three dimensional prints from these and other softwares. We are embedding deep information into these models, researching and attempting to use them as another tool in the arsenal of deep control, moving us ever closer to the reconnection of conceiving with making.

QUALITY

Lastly, and perhaps most importantly, there is the elusive question of quality. If one believes, as we do, that the ethical practice of architecture is extended through a commitment to architecture as design with research, then we have a further obligation: extraordinary quality. If one wants to improve the art of architecture through research and innovation, then the risks of exploring new worlds needs to be offset by rigorous dedication to quality. Because architecture is design, because it is a statement of intentions rather than the actual realization of those intentions, we have a limiting view of our obligations to quality. There is often even an underlying fear that excessive focus on "systems" and "process" will undermine the intuitive, creative acts that lie at the core of all architecture. As a result, quality is most often an added feature of architectural practice today rather than a generative driver of design. For the most part, "redlining" and checking are the industry standard for the practice of quality control. This view of quality, however, is too little and too late. The mistakes have already been made and the effort to correct them is inevitably patchwork. Few architects practice the deep control of quality that derives from a focus on the process of how we make things, rather than the after the fact correction of what we have made. There is enormous potential for improvement through the transfer of externally audited quality control systems such as ISO 9001 to architecture. ISO 9001 is most often associated with manufacturing processes, but it is a flexible system that is fully adaptable to the practice of architecture. Our firm began this process more than a year ago with the creation of our own quality management system that we call KTMS (KieranTimberlake Management System). It is not a single pre-existing system that exists independent of any organization or culture. Rather it requires definition and customization to the specific culture and way of doing things that every architectural practice evolves across time. The fundamental premise is that process failure, not human failure, underlies most quality compromises (Figure 17). The design exercise for such an ISO based system is in large part anthropological. It requires analysis and codification of what you are already doing. It is about stating and describing who you already are. It is not about the invention of a new culture or way of doing architecture. Once stated, however, the quality management system becomes the driver toward continuous improvement. It is the engine that allows one to move toward future worlds through the necessity to improve what one does with each successive act of design. Planning and doing are followed by monitoring and learning. You cannot just plan and do, plan and do, plan and do. The process requires the monitoring and measurement of what you have done, it requires real learning and reflection and improvement before you begin the cycle of planning and doing anew.

The prospect of the architect reasserting master control of architecture is before us. All the tools exist. We simply need to commit ourselves to design and form cultures to support master control, We have willing and able collaborators who can take us to places we can now only vaguely perceive. We can forge ethical future worlds through commitment to research with these collaborators. Lastly, we can design the process of making to include a commitment to the deep control and continuous improvement of all that we do through the addition of monitoring and learning to planning and doing. The time to act is now. Seize the day.

© 2007 KieranTimberlake
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