RePete

Rolling Fat: A Motor Trend

2011-09-26T17:06:00.000-04:00

Recently in the gym, I picked up a magazine to read while I warmed up on the bike. In a recent Motor Trend magazine, I happened upon an article,Technologue: Rolling Fat: Is Our Auto-Centric Lifestyle Making Us Obese?

As I’m burning off some calories, I find some recent research by Sheldon Jacobson, a Professor of Computer Science at the University of Illinois, linking automobile use and adult obesity. Their trend analysis of vehicle miles driven divided by the number of licensed drivers from 1985 to 2007 highly correlated (98 %) with annual obesity rate information from the Center for Disease Control and Prevention.

While there are many candidates for blame in the spiraling epidemic of obesity in the U.S., Jacobson submits that the number one source is our staple of modern life that we can’t seem to live without – the automobile. As he points out in the article, “Obesity is an energy imbalance, and driving is one of the lowest energy expenditure activities we do in any day.” But what can we really do about such a fundamental part of the nation’s daily routine? Is it possible to continue our driving patterns and still eliminate obesity? The research team sees this topic as complex requiring that we, as a society, will have to rethink the way we use our automobiles if we want to address obesity.

The following quote captures some perspective and change actions:

Turning its numbers around, the U of I team asserted that America’s obesity problem would be eliminated if we each replaced 12 miles of daily driving with a more physical means of transportation while continuing to do the same things. Jacobson knows this will never happen and notes “if the changes that lead to obesity are small, the changes that reverse it can be small, too – but they must be persistent. If every licensed driver reduced travel by one mile per day, in six years the adult obesity rate would be 2.16 %lower, leading to $16-18 billion in healthcare savings.

In a related article, Jacobson carries the discussion further to link these complex issues in both public health and environmental perspectives. He states “at the aggregate, if we drive less, not only will our carbon footprint be smaller, we will lose more weight as a nation.”

What Do You Believe?

2011-08-28T15:37:00.004-04:00

Last October I wrote about watching Simon Sinek's TEDx Talk, and I've finally gotten around to reading his book, Start With Why. I also just finished reading Clarence Jone's book, Beyond the Dream, which chronicles the events and setting of Martin Luther King Jr's I Have a Dream speech. As I read both books I found a lot of overlap in the themes of the two books, both focused on dreams, beliefs, values and culture for individuals, communities, organizations and countries. We've used these themes to inform discussion in our firm related to living our Vision and realizing the potential of our Ideas-Based practice, but they hold true, and can benefit, any organization.

In Start With Why, Simon Sinek talks a lot about the importance of organizational trust, the perspective of companies as a culture, and the realization that the culture results from a strong sense of shared beliefs and values. While these are not radically new concepts, they are a reassuring reminder to keep these issues at the forefront in organizational actions. Two points stood out for me: the relationship between trust and risk-taking, and the importance of beliefs in growing/adding people to an organization. The following quote from Sinek's book makes the first point clear.

"If there is no trust, then no one would take risks. No risks would mean no exploration, no experimentation and no advancement of society as a whole."

Deep trust is a critical condition for an ideas-based practice and, as Simon goes on to point out, to leaders of organizations. He states that leaders must provide a safety net of trust, both practical and emotional, to enable the desired broad ranging, creative thought and idea generation to occur.

On the second point of organizational growth and recruiting, Simon states that the most important characteristic is finding people who believe in what the firm believes. This assumes that the firm, the whole firm, understands what it believes and the reason why it believes as it does. He notes that the search is for people who are "good fits" with the "right attitude", not just those with the skills that are needed. He underscores this with a quote from Herb Kelleher of Southwest Airlines, "You don't hire for skills, you hire for attitude. You can always teach skills." While this concept doesn't quite fit architectural and engineering skills, what does carry over, is how attitude and beliefs influence what is done with one's skills. Taking it one step further, Simon says:

"Great companies don't hire skilled people and motivate them, they hire motivated people and inspire them. People are either motivated or they are not."

Leaders must consciously give motivated people something to believe in, something to work toward that is ultimately bigger and of broader importance than their individual job.

Like I did in a previous post, whenever I'm off thinking about these topics I always come back to Bill Caudill and his TIB's or writings called This I Believe. The following TIB, written by Bill Caudill on January 17, 1977, was called Values -- Values and Goals.

Goals could lead us to a very exciting future -- provided, of course, we are motivated and dedicated to carry them out.

GOALS RELATE TO VALUES.

So what are values? Webster lists seven or eight meanings. I like "relative worth", but that's still too vague. Let me try to tie "value" to goals.

IF A GOAL IS TO HAVE VALUE,

1. IT MUST MOTIVATE.
2. IT MUST COST SOMETHING -- MONEY, TIME, EFFORT, RESOURCES.
3. IT MUST SERVE SOMEONE.

CRS has always had certain values. These are spelled out in detail in the document called Ten General Goals passed by the Board in 1974. Values do change throughout the years, but very slowly. Goals are more changeable depending upon current problems within and outside CRS.

You can judge a firm by what it values. Same with a person.

To reiterate the three points made by Bill Caudill, a goal must motivate, must cost something and must serve someone. He links together motivation, inspiration, investment and service or purpose to provide Simon Sinek's 'why'.

For any organization, this is a reminder to think daily about the vision being pursued, to think deeply about why the organization is doing what it's doing, and to reconfirm the beliefs that drive all decisions.

What do you believe?

Associational Thinking

2011-08-07T15:25:00.003-04:00

A recent post and article in Forbes, by Clayton Christensen and colleagues, presented results of research on innovative companies. Their focus was development of a method to rank and evaluate publicly traded companies with a measure called The Innovation Premium. But to me, the really important ideas that come from their new book, The Innovator's DNA, and the article, are the five skills of disruptive innovators quoted below.

• Questioning allows innovators to challenge the status quo and consider new possibilities;
• Observing helps innovators detect small details—in the activities of customers, suppliers and other companies—that suggest new ways of doing things
• Networking permits innovators to gain radically different perspectives from individuals with diverse backgrounds;
• Experimenting prompts innovators to relentlessly try out new experiences, take things apart and test new ideas;
• Associational thinking—drawing connections among questions, problems or ideas from unrelated fields—is triggered by questioning, observing, networking and experimenting and is the catalyst for creative ideas.

I guess that professionals in architecture and engineering firms might very well think this article is mainly a consideration for corporate businesses, but because we are trained as creative professionals, we think that innovation is really our normal game. However that may be an arguable point. The five skills of disruptive innovators, along with the "3P's" of people, processes and philosophies, frame their understanding of the DNA of innovative organizations and provide a structure for all to assess their real innovation potential. It is a good message to understand.

Further on in the article, they ask the question "what does the average company need to achieve in these areas to spark an innovation premium?" They then lay out an answer for architectural and engineering firms to consider.

Fundamental change within senior managers (some mastery of the five discovery skills); changes in how their innovation project teams work (processes that support innovation); and changes in philosophies that foster the belief that innovation really is everyone’s job. Rare is the leader who fully grasps how to embed the 3Ps deeply enough into a company’s culture to create a powerful, positive innovation premium.

The takeaway for me in this innovation story is the importance of associational thinking. Let's take this research from the business world and related industries, and transfer it to architectural and engineering practices as the design industry deepens the growth of innovation and new ideas for the built environment.

Blog Post Wordle

2011-08-03T18:37:00.004-04:00

I recently created this wordle of a blog I posted Dec. 16, 2010 titled “Research Opportunities are Everywhere.” I thought it was an interesting graphical representation of the theme and tone of the post.

Wesleyan Philosophy of Practice

2011-06-02T11:50:00.001-04:00

During my visit to the gym last night, I happened to pick up of a copy of Inc Magazine to read while I warmed up on the bike. I came across an article on corporate social responsibility, which reminded me of our Office Life, Building Life, Architecture 2030 commitment, Open Hand Studio and other volunteer activities that are all part of our social responsibilities.

The introduction to the article had a quote from John Wesley, the founder of the Methodist movement. I must admit I’d never seen it before but was moved by the simple message. Here it is.

“Do all the good you can,
By all the means you can,
In all the ways you can,
In all the places you can,
At all the times you can,
To all the people you can,
As long as ever you can.”

It’s a practice vision from the 18th Century that offers good, simple, straightforward words for us to follow today.

What Do You Bet? - Idea Generation and Innovation

2011-05-20T13:22:00.006-04:00

I just read an interesting innovation article called Little Bets: Think Differently, written by Peter Sims and drawn from his new book, Little Bets. His article, published in Change This, starts with the provocative quote “The best way to predict the future is to invent it.” He offers an interesting perspective on idea generation and innovation that challenges some conventional wisdom. For example, he contrasts the genius and experimental approaches while also exploring the attributes of fixed and growth mindsets.

There are many useful perspectives, drawn from varying sources like Chris Rock, Amazon’s Jeff Bezos and Starbucks’ Howard Schultz, for various ways to approach the creation of ideas, and the testing and realization of those ideas. Two topics stand out for me: prototyping and “plussing”. Sims is a very strong proponent of idea prototyping and shares the collaborative design process of “plussing” as used by Pixar. The idea behind “plussing” is to build upon and improve ideas of your team mates without using judgmental language. Two good concepts and quotable thoughts relate to the architectural engineering world:

“Ingenious ideas almost never spring into people’s minds full formed; they emerge through a rigorous experimental discovery process.”

“For most of us, successfully adopting an experimental approach requires significant change in mindset. After all, we’ve been taught to avoid mistakes and failures at all costs.”

But of all the topics, discussions and examples, the theme of little bets and related small wins, is the most powerful and useful. So as Peter Sims summarizes, "It all begins with one little bet, what will yours be?"

Active Design Guidelines

2011-04-27T10:22:00.004-04:00

Much has been written recently regarding the health risks and future costs of sedentary life and obesity. Late last year New York City, through a multi-disciplinary effort of city agencies, academic partners and AIA NY, published what I think is the first comprehensive guideline focused on design features and elements that promote physical activity. The guide has four chapters including Design and Health, Urban Design, Building Design and Synergies with Sustainable and Universal Design.

This is a great reference and resource for use in all of our work and is very consumable through clear writing, good graphics, linkage for evidence-based design/good practice, case studies and checklists. A free download is available from nyc.gov.

A quote from the guideline’s executive summary frames the context for the current challenge for architectural and urban designers.

“In the 19th and early 20th centuries, architects and urban reformer helped to defeat infectious diseases like cholera and tuberculosis by designing better buildings, streets, neighborhoods, clean water systems, and parks. In the 21st century, designers can again play a crucial role in combating the most rapidly growing public health epidemics of our time: obesity and its impact on related chronic diseases such as diabetes, heart disease, and some cancers. Today, physical inactivity and unhealthy diet are second only to tobacco as the main causes of premature death in the United States. A growing body of research suggests that evidence-based architectural and urban design strategies can increase regular physical activity and healthy eating.”

So every opportunity to design and construct a component of the built environment is an opportunity to carefully create a design that promotes active living. The most obvious are stairs for everyday use. Let’s actively engage this research into our planning and design work.

Together We Can Each Be More Creative

2011-04-25T13:13:00.004-04:00

I never really though I'd learn much about creativity and design thinking from a cartoon character until I read Robert Fabricant's essay posted on Fast Company's blog, Frog Design: 3 Things Wile E. Coyote Teaches Us About Creative Intelligence. The essay does a fantastic job of helping to examine and explain just how we bring out creativity in one another. I think it's incredibly relevant to our firm and the A/E profession in general. Those design challenges, different ideas and unique perspectives that make up our profession can help drive us to be more creative.

Fabricant shows us how we can push each other to be more creative by examining the relationship between Wile E. Coyote and Road Runner. He argues, 'Would Wile E. be anywhere near as creative without Road Runner? Would his inventions emerge out of his own faculties unprompted or only in response to a situation? His relationship with Road Runner is a dynamic that constantly pushes him farther, faster and (unfortunately in more cases) higher than he imagined.'

Think about this as you work on new projects. Engage with as many fellow teammates, clients and colleagues in the profession as you can, whether they think like you do or not. Responding to challenges and seeking diverse views make for the kind of mentality and attitude that will drive us forward. It's those collaborations that can increase our firm and profession's overall creativity quotient.

Fabricant sums it up with, 'Creativity emerges out of relationships; it's the tension between different ideas and perspectives and so it is risky to define it as an ability that we inherently possess.'

Don't shy away from the tension of different ideas and perspectives. Seek them out, elaborate and strive for creative solutions to our challenging design opportunities.

Watch some Wile E. for inspiration.

Searching for Quality...

2011-01-07T15:46:00.007-05:00

Carlo Rotella's opinion article in the Boston Globe yesterday struck a chord with me in a number of ways. First, it started on an anti-technology direction, “Why I don’t allow laptops in my classroom,” but then switched to a more favorable and interesting view. He then argues for the need to distill the current large quantity of media/social media into quality.

The example he uses is the viral hit “Thru-YOU,” by Kutiman, a compilation of tunes assembled from YouTube samples. The video, and in particular the tune called “The Mother of All Funk Chords”, shows that large quantities of uneven quality material can be distilled to produce a new level of quality. It is a good demonstration of how the great streams of online information, in this case YouTube videos, can be used to produce unexpected musical quality.

Rotella’s quote sums it up:

“But Kutiman offers a reminder that quantity is not the enemy of quality, and that to live well online one must learn to transmute quantity into quality.”

It obviously works for Funk Chords. Can it work for architecture as well as we sift large quantities of research, articles, blogs and tweets in a search for quality evidence for our design process?

Research Opportunities Are Everywhere

2010-12-16T13:52:00.004-05:00

I recently read an article by Thomas Fisher, Dean of the College of Design at the University of Minnesota, that was part of the material attached to the Boston Society of Architects publication regarding their Research Grant program. The article, Research in the design studio, from page 6 of the 2009 Research Grants program review and report, reminds us that research opportunities are everywhere in our daily work. Sometimes we just don’t recognize them and then don’t use disciplined methods to record that information. Too often we don’t look for and use available information, better known as someone else’s research. Thomas Fisher’s message is clear and applicable to all of us and in all that we do. We shouldn’t be intimidated by the term “research” and think that it is done by someone else in a “lab” somewhere else. Remember our life and our work is our lab. I believe his message is all about how we approach our questions, our inquiry, our curiosity and our search. That search will allow us to take on the big challenges that face our profession and our planet.

In case the link above does not display, page 6 is pasted below.

Research in the design studio
Thomas Fisher, AIA

Research occurs in design studios and offices all the time: historical research, precedent studies, and programming analyses, form explanations, functional evaluations and so on. But we often don’t think of this as “research” and so we rarely frame our work using research protocols, such as hypothesis statements, testing methods, evaluation criteria or generalizable conclusions. Nor do we document and share the results of this research with colleagues very often. If we are to transform architecture into a more evidence-based, value-added discipline and profession, we desperately need to see design as a form of research and to capture and peer-review the knowledge we produce as a result.

At the same time, peer-reviewed research rarely gets folded into the work of design studios or architectural offices, which often means that we end up repeating or rediscovering what we already know, without much attention to the discovery or development of new knowledge. This happens, in part, because we don’t have a good sense of what constitutes “new” knowledge in our field. The need for greater access to and inclusion of research in our work has never been greater, even though our field has given it relatively little attention or funding.

In universities, design studios have many of the same features as “labs,” requiring the same levels of computing equipment and shop support. However, conceptually, most architecture schools treat them more like fine art studios, in which originality and individuality gets rewarded rather than the common knowledge generated there.

We can no longer afford this fine arts model, not because it is too expensive, but because the world needs architects and designers to grapple with the big problems we face on this planet – such as climate change, habitat fragmentation, dysfunctional cities, inadequate shelter for billions of people, etc. We need to find ways to identify the most pressing problems, identify the best solutions and peer-review them for broad dissemination. The world needs design studios, be they in universities or offices, to act more like research labs, and we will have no choice but to respond to that need.

Snap Judgements

2010-11-18T10:24:00.001-05:00

The current issue of Harvard Magazine has a very interesting article by social psychologist Amy Cuddy of Harvard Business School called The Psyche on Automatic. In the article, Cuddy probes the topic of snap judgments, the spontaneous decisions we make and that others make about us. Based on her research she has found that there are two critical variables, warmth and competence, and that they account for about 80% of our overall evaluation of people.

As I reflect on the article and my personal experience, I think this research is also profoundly useful and relevant to professional life. Its impact is wide ranging, from capturing work and client partnering, to team collaboration and daily interactions. While I understand the warmth and competence aspect, I think we all should think more about what we value, what we know and how we actually interact. It may not be conscious but there are warmth/competence tradeoffs. In short, Cuddy says that warmth is perceived first, and accounts for more in someone's overall evaluation than competence. On the other hand she notes a conflicting view where an individual's self perception values competence over warmth. In our design and technical architecture and engineering focused world, the bias to competence is understandable. Do you rate competence more than warmth?

Beyond this basic theme she covers many other useful concepts, including the neurological and physical impact of body position in our interactions, awareness of cultural and gender bias, stereotyping and other nonverbal signals. All of these factors contribute to our automatic responses. The last two paragraphs in the article provide good advice; focus on connecting. This quote makes her point clear.

       "That said, you don't have to prove that you're the most
        dominant, most competent person there. In fact it's rarely
        a good idea to strive to show everyone that you're the
        smartest guy in the room: that person tends to be less
        creative, and less cognitively open to other ideas and
        people."

Further she notes that competence oriented presentations and meetings, with their focus on words, content and precise delivery, can feel or sound scripted. Her advice instead? "Come into a room, be trusting, connect with your audience wherever they are, and then move them with you."

Start With Why

2010-10-25T22:14:00.004-04:00

A few weeks ago at an Educational Practice Leader workshop in Baltimore, we were focusing our discussion and speculation on the future of education and learning. One of the workshop events was a review and discussion of topics facilitated through videos from a number of well known futurists and inspired leaders. The most powerful and transformational video was a talk by author, teacher and leadership consultant, Simon Sinek. The TEDx Talk covered the essence of his book, 'Start With Why: How Great Leaders Inspire Everyone to Action,' and while not specifically focused on our topic of the future trends in teaching and learning or the design of educational facilities, the talk reminds you to ask why you think about the impact of digital technology, globalization and the preparation of the next generation for the many global challenges. It forces you to think, overall, about why you do what you do. As Sinek says in the talk, people in business or, in our case, architectural and engineering design practice, generally know what their firm does, sometimes know how their firm goes about doing it, but very few can answer the most profound question of why they are doing it.

The why question is not about profit, sales or prestige, it's about the essential purpose and passion. Through examples from the Wright Brothers to Apple Computers and Dr. Martin Luther King Jr., he shows that inspired leaders always start with why. The talk makes key points about leaders: you can learn to lead, leaders inspire and passion must be linked to purpose. His message "People don't buy what you do, they buy why you do it" is repeatedly stated, and he highlights King's passion. King didn't say "I have a plan," he said "I have a dream." Closing the video, Sinek sums it all up:

"There are leaders and there are those who lead. Leaders hold a position of power or authority, but those who lead, inspire us. Whether they're individuals or organizations, we follow those who lead, not because we have to, but because we want to. We follow those who lead, not for them, but for ourselves. And it's those who start with why that have the ability to inspire those around them or find others who inspire them."

Own Your Time

2010-10-21T13:25:00.004-04:00

Similar to my recent post, Life in Small Bites, a recent Fast Company blog by Graham Button, 7 Trends to Watch in an Age of Info Overload, looks at why the more information we have the less informed we feel. While he offers seven truths to keep things in perspective, two involved terms new to me - 'information sickness' or over exposure, and 'continuous partial attention' for multi-tasking. But what I find more important, particularly as it relates to our architectural and engineering professions, is the link between the daily information pressure and decisions we make about how to spend our time. Graham states that the real wealth is in owning our own time and being able to use it for creative social change. A quote from Google CEO Eric Schmidt reinforces this time pressure vs. creativity link:

"Innovation is something that comes when you're not under the gun. So it's important that, even if you don't have balance in your life, you have some time for reflection… The creative parts of one's mind are not on a schedule."

Life in Small Bites

2010-10-17T11:22:00.002-04:00

In a recent story in the Boston Globe titled Break it Down for Me, Beth Teitell discusses how our society wants to consume everything - food, news, information, relationship advice - in short, condensed forms. It is a very interesting read about the state of today's society and how we respond to the overload of information by what she calls bite-sizing.

As researchers have noted, this chunking down of things is an attempt to impose some order upon chaos. However one can see beyond the predigested chunks of single service food options to something even more concerning, single service mind options. If you save time with bite-sizing, the question then is what will result from the time saved - more mindfulness or just more automatic actions?

I believe this phenomenon has profound impacts and puts at risk the thoughtful and mindful processes of an architectural and engineering practice. There will be many implications well beyond snack packs. What do you think it means to professionals, firms and our industry? How does it impact marketing, presentation and client communications? How will you use the freed up time?

Environmental Research and Evidence Based Design

2010-09-17T12:55:00.003-04:00

I recently came across some material from the research team at the University of Montreal Faculty of Environmental Design headed by Professor Jacqueline Vischer PhD. The research group, the New Work Environments Research Group (GRET), has been active for more than ten years, focusing on a better built environment for people at work. Their research topics cover building performance measurement studies, occupant surveys related to functional comfort, and design considerations of the workplace of the future. In addition the research group maintains a website with links to publications as well as access to their Documentation Center of more than 800 articles.

One article on the website, Bridging the Gap Between Research and Design by Jacqueline Vischer and John Zeisel, explores the evolution of Evidence Based Design. They focus a good deal of attention on the way traditional pre-design programming and post occupancy evaluation affect the creation and use of research in the design process. These traditional opportunities, while not well or consistently implemented in current practice, are contrasted with Evidence Based Design processes to "bridge the gap" between research and practice.

There are many useful concepts in the article to aid in the understanding and development of a research based culture and design process. This quote regarding the value of research puts it well and I urge you to read the full article.

"Basing design decisions on research evidence lends a scientific case to professional design, eventually having a positive effect on clients' opinions of their designers (and on clients' willingness to pay for professional design services) in much the same way as other professions such as medicine and law are respected in our culture. As this proof - or evidence - accumulates, it must be stored and maintained for easy access and retrieval in the context of project applications, much as legal decisions and opinions are stored for legal practice and as medical practitioners in clinical practice now have EBM data electronically available."

Four Clicks

2010-08-31T16:13:00.008-04:00

This past Friday morning I had an interesting web journey. In my inbox was an email from Sagus International indicating that they were following me on Twitter. Curious to find out more about a company I didn't recognize, I clicked on the Sagus link to discover it was a Chicago furniture company focused on transforming environments and improving results in the 21st century school. Their site contained links to presentations, papers and videos, including, with a second click, an interview with Darryl Rosser, Sagus CEO. Responding to the interviewer's questions, he described his personal commitment to the 21st century school, and in particular, to the JV Martin Junior High School in Dillon, SC, the same school President Obama mentioned in a speech after being contacted by Ty Sheoma Bethea, an 8th grade student who described the poor condition and plight of the school. Rosser had come to South Carolina as co-sponsor of an educational campus symposium focused on establishing a blueprint that would incorporate a wide range of educational, health and community needs for tomorrow's school, but along the way, he visited JV Martin, saw their need, and enlisted employees and sponsors to donate and transform the interior of the dilapidated school with new furniture.

A third click and I was watching the video, produced by ETV South Carolina, of the symposium that Rosser attended. The one-hour video brought together key players in the discussion of private and public partnership on what and how to move our public schools into the 21st century in Dillon, SC and in the United States, covering a wide range of community, health, economic, sustainable and education issues. In the discussion, two people caught my attention, Dr. Oscar Lovelace, a rural family practitioner, and futurist David Houle. I'll leave you to watch the video and see what you think.

Intrigued by David Houle's comments and perspectives on the future of education, my fourth and final click took me to his article, America's Future in Global Education in SEEN Magazine. In the article, David spins through the history of major societal changes bringing us through the Information Age to the Shift Age, which he defines as the radical changes in technology, connectivity and globalization occurring today. Relating connectivity to education, he highlights its positive and negative impacts, and identifies the first true wave of digital natives who know only the Shift Age, in contrast to those of us from the Information Age who are merely digital immigrants.

My journey of four clicks, provided just the rapid and relevant learning experience Houle attributes to connectivity.

When you think about it, “Search” is a fundamental aspect of education and the acquisition of knowledge and the attainment of understanding.

I may only be a digital immigrant but I keep searching.

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2010-03-18T15:14:00.001-04:00

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1% for Architectural Research

2010-03-12T09:48:00.006-05:00

Some of my time these days is spent reading, thinking and writing, seeking perspective and insight into the current challenges related to our profession - in particular the critical role of research in addressing ways to create more responsible architecture despite the impacts of economic pressure and globalization of practice. I find myself looking both backward to historical precedents and forward to the actions we must take to advance our profession.

In my last post, I cited a paper on Caudill, Rowlett, Scott by Avigail Sachs, and now I'm adding references from her most recent award-winning research paper, The Postwar Legacy of Architectural Research. From these research papers and Bill Caudill's TIBS, we can see the historical context for architectural research, the professional need for this research, and the difficulties both past and present that architectural firms face in funding their research work.

In a 1966 TIB, Bill Caudill stated his view that architecture needed theories, research and greater creativity to respond to an increasingly complex profession. He further observed that many professionals in his firm, CRS, were resisting the need to delve into design research. One could make that same observation today about architectural practice.

TIB

Worlds -- THEORY

23 June 66 WWC

"Our complex profession is getting more complex. We must have theories, simpler methods, greater creativity, and much more design precision to solve our problems and those of our clients.

We are faced not only with the complexities of the team, technology, and larger projects, but we have problems relating to tremendous changes in architectural design created by new building types, large scale projects, advanced technology, and the necessity for team action.

I mentioned the need for new theories to solve the new and more complex problems relating to architecture. I find many CRS people resenting our activities in delving into design research. Too egghead is not CRS, they believe. They think theory is too foreign to CRS -- that it kills creativity, and only complicates things.

Theory should not frighten us. We architects are problem solvers -- practically or artistically."

As Avigail Sachs points out in her CRS study, Caudill's philosophies of practice were formed in the late 40's and early 50's by practicing in College Station, Texas; teaching at Texas A&M; and conducting research at the Architectural Devision of the Texas Engineering Experiment Station. This trinity forged the idealized institutional setting for establishing a firm theoretical basis for modern architecture and design. The following quote from Avigail's CRS paper gives Caudill's even earlier 1952 perspective on the profession. In the ideal institution, Caudill explained:

"The staff should practice architecture (to understand the problem), then do research (to find out how to solve some of the problems), and then teach it (to pass on to the students their broad experience and knowledge)."

While the quote shows the issues framed primarily in a university setting, Caudill carried these three perspectives into the structure of his research based, learning practice. These three ideal practice perspectives are still critical to contemporary architectural practice, and more so now than in 1966 when Caudill was considering the complexities of technology and larger projects. But as the history of CRS's and the AIA's commitment to research show, the reality of changing economical conditions, corporate or practice goals, and philosophy make the application very difficult to accomplish. The wide economic swings in the building industry put immense pressure on the AE process, challenging in many instances, some firm's survival. So how do today's firms resolve the contradicting and competing pressure to support research in their practices, beyond their philosophy, beliefs and determination?

These contradictions were established early on as shown in the Caudill comments noted in The Post War Legacy of Architectural Research.

"We believe that if architects can in some way carry out a continuous research program within their own office, if only on a very small scale, good advancement can be made. We also believe that if architects will exchange ideas, and will unselfishly work towards improving our architecture, the profession will be much better off."

The key concepts I take from the quote are the need for a continuous research program and the unselfish exchange of ideas. But as noted by Avigail Sachs, these concepts proved a challenge to realize even by Caudill and his partners. The following captures the contradictions:

"But as Caudill complained, this project was supported, and therefore also controlled, by the design work done in the firm: when we are busy we cannot spare the personnel; when we are not busy we cannot afford research. Caudill's comment also points to the snag in the AIA program. Although cooperation and collaboration were seminal ideals in the profession projected to emerge from the re-professionalization project, the existing profession was based on competition between private practioners."

So here we are forty to fifty years later, with the professional competition model far more developed than the cooperative model. As a result, the majority of architectural research has been advanced by the university community, specific interest groups like the Center for Health Design, industries like Steelcase, and the AIA.

What next? There will need to be a belief that there is an economic basis for our research in addition to the increases in intellectual capital, cultural capital and professional capital. Certainly research or evidence based design approaches now could be the basis for a 're-professionalization project', similar to prior attempts in the 50's to create the needed professional and intellectual capital. Collaboration with established university research programs, which has been the strategy of a few large firms, would leverage both intellectual and professional capital, and is an avenue that I believe can be expanded as CRS did. Improved design quality would be evident, but where is the economic engine to support funding beyond the scattered and incremental self-funded research programs which are often driven by a competition/differentiation model?

So perhaps the model of corporate social responsibility established by Y. Chouinard and Patagonia, called 1% for the Planet, could provide an alternative funding model. I previously wrote about 1% as it relates to sustainability, but I believe that this model could be reframed for the A/E profession and redefined as 1% for Architectural Research. Participating firms would contribute 1% of their gross income to a not-for-profit organization which in turn would provide funding to create an opportunity for a professionally supported, continuous research program. Parallel with this initiative, individual firms who believe in the economic and societal value, could simply allocate 1% of their gross income internally to achieve a similar goal within their own organization.

What do you think about investing 1% for Architectural Research?

RE:SEARCH

2010-01-05T12:11:00.012-05:00

In an earlier post regarding CRS, Bill Caudill and his TIB's, I mentioned CRS's commitment to research, and that I'd be returning to his "Things I Believe" and their relationship to current architectural issues. Flipping through the book, I came across the following TIB on research from Bill in April 1966.

"There are a lot of definitions for research.

I like this one:

'Regarding the search for truth'

It even looks good:

RE:SEARCH"

A few weeks ago I came across some new information on CRS. In her excellent paper, Marketing through research: William

Caudill and Caudill, Rowlett, Scott (CRS), Avigail Sachs provides historical analysis of the "research attitude" of the firm in its formative stage. She notes their power to integrate professional practice and research, in both marketing and design, while leading the AIA and profession in applying research and new techniques to the design world. In her conclusions, she advises contemporary architectural practices to learn from CRS's early stage commitments to research, scholarship, marketing and design leadership. Though many contemporary A/E firms have benefitted by engaging research in their practice methods, the profession still has a long way to go to bridge the research/practice gap.

For example, a few months ago I prepared a short paper in our firm, advancing the argument that architectural programming is actually primary research. The word research often has multiple meanings and requires a variety of skills that many architects and engineers are not trained to perform. Most design professionals understand that primary research is the collection and evaluation of data leading to knowledge that does not already exist, but what isn't clear to practicing professionals, is the linkages between architectural practice and design research. Looking at our profession and our firm's design practices, one might raise the question, what parts of our current methods are or could be defined as research and how as a firm and profession can we better understand and refine these methods.

In his book, Inquiry by Design, John Zeisel sets out some basic concepts regarding the relationship and cooperation between research and design, from the perspective of an environmental behavioral researcher and a designer. He argues that designers and researchers can work together to solve more broadly defined design problems than they could each solve alone. A major issue, however, is the usefulness of research material. It must be in a form that designers can not only use, but in turn, improves the chance that research information can be tested in practice. Research investigators learn by making hypothetical predictions, testing ideas, evaluating outcomes and modifying hypotheses. These activities are the basis of their collaboration and cooperation.

Zeisel states that there are at least three day to day design practices that offer opportunity for research/design cooperation.

1. Design Programming: research for the design of a particular project

2. Design Review: design assessment for conformance with exis

ting environmental behavioral research knowledge

3. Post Occupancy Evaluation: assessment of built projects in use in comparison with original design goals/hypotheses

This diagram is from Zeisel's text and describes the relationship between environmental behavior knowledge and the design process.

Of these three project practices, a revised approach to programming offers a major opportunity to recognize its research nature, improve our methodology, and create a basis for innovation and idea generation. In some ways over the past forty years, programming has moved from a very specialized consultant service into a more mainstream process, often blended with services like planning, master planning and concept design. Thus the discipline of programming has become blurred.

Perhaps a step back in recent history would be useful. Two important books were published forty years ago, Problem Seeking, by CRS and Emerging Techniques 2: Architectural Programming, published by the AIA. Both books presented the emerging practice and techniques which systematically defined quantative and qualitative facility needs. It was a predesign process and was viewed as specialty practice. In Problem Seeking, the classic quote and discipline separation was stated as "Programming is problem seeing, design is problem solving." As conceived and practiced, the programming research team was distinct from the design team and the program document was a thorough analysis and documentation of facility needs. It could stand alone as both a statement of requirements and as an evaluation tool for any design response to facility needs. A quote from the AIA Architects Guide to Facility Programming underscores the research perspective.

"It (the program) lays the foundation of information based on empirical evidence rather than assumption that helps the designer respond effectively and creatively to client requirements and facility parameters and constraints."

"Programming is an information-processing process. It involves a disciplined methodology of data collection, analysis, organization, communication and evaluation through which all human, physical and external influences on a facility's design may be explored."

The opportunity then is to reassess the methods, tools and techniques currently used to program within our profession, practices and building typologies. Considerable effort has been invested in developing templates and formats for quantative program/space needs and related programs. However a bigger opportunity still exists in regard to a wide variety of methods available to conduct primary research/facility program requirements. In Robert and Barbara Sommer's book, A Practical Guide to Behavioral Research, Tools and Techniques, they define the full array of methods appropriate for programming as research. Four basic techniques are defined: observation, experiment, questionnaire, and interview. When thought about specifically as programming, these techniques are most realistically practiced as a multi-method approach, combining observations, interviews and questionnaires, as well as case studies. The following outlines the techniques as both definition and reminder:

- Observation: includes casual observation, systematic observation, video recording, photographic recording, and behavioral mapping and trace measures.

- Interview: includes unstructured interviews, structured interviews, semi structured interviews, telephone interviews and focus groups.

- Questionnaire: includes open end and closed questions, ranking versus rating questions, matrix questions, group or individual survey, mail survey and internet survey.

I believe we should take Avigail Sach's advice to heart. We should learn from the early CRS "research attitude", look to the roots of architectural programming as a discipline, and as John Zeisel does, define programming as primary research.

SOS: Support Our Scientists

2009-11-18T11:56:00.002-05:00

In a recent Newsweek article, An SOS for Science, Daniel Lyons argues that clean energy science should trump politics in creating climate change legislation and positioning the United States to take advantage of the alternative energy revolution. SOS, the international signal for distress from 1908 to 1999, sends a message that we are sinking. According to wikipedia, the first ship to send an SOS was the Cunard Line, Slavonia, in June 1909 just over one hundred years ago. Much later, in popular use, the three letters were often associated with "save our ship" or "save our souls." However, Daniel Lyons is sending a different message, "support our scientists. "

His article covers the conflicting attempts to draft meaningful legislation, to get our policy makers to believe our scientists, and to get our country and policy makers to see what the rest of the world is doing to meet the alternative energy/climate change challenge. Lyons says that, as a country, we have too much prosperity, making us fearful of change and unwilling to make short-term sacrifices for long-term gains. He believes we, and in particular policy makers, are too easily frightened by politically charged arguments, framed to create what people in the computer industry call FUD - fear, uncertainty and doubt - against what otherwise might be common sense solutions. He draws a bleak and threatening picture of what we are up against, though in fact, that may be counterproductive.

"Alternative energy is the next tidal wave in tech innovation. If we miss it, we will not only weaken our economy and harm our national security - we will turn ourselves into a second-rate nation.

Meanwhile, the rest of the world is racing past us. In solar energy, the leaders are Japan, Germany and China. In wind it's Germany, Spain and Denmark. In nuclear it's France."

To underscore the concern he quotes Ralph Cicerone, President of the National Academy of Science who says "you can go up and down the list - in some cases we're players but we're no longer leading." To really catch up Cicerone says we'll need "a sustained commitment the likes of which are hard to see in American history." This approach in effect says we've collected the data on climate change, done the analysis and expect this information to change our thinking and, in particular, to change our policy formulation thinking.

Despite sending the SOS signal, Lyons doubts we have the collective will to respond to Ralph Cicerone's challenge of a "sustained commitment." He did note, however, a time over fifty years ago when we, as a nation, responded to the fear of falling behind the Soviets in the race for space. I was a junior in high school when Sputnik I and Sputnik II were launched, capturing the world's attention and catching the American public completely off-guard. During that year, the emphasis of college preparatory courses immediately switched to advanced math and science, leading me to the undergraduate study of engineering, and changing a generation of students and our country. Our nation's response to that "Sputnik moment," resulted in major investments in science, technology and education, leading to the creation of NASA and ultimately to man walking on the moon.

Unfortunately, the current climate change/global warming debate and context is not so singularly clear as being first in the race to launch a satellite into space. The impact of the Soviet launch was immediate and all Americans saw the event broadcast repeatedly on television and headlined in newspapers, resulting in the urgent, emotionally charged desire and commitment to change our behavior and speed up our own space program. But the space race was a long time ago. Not only has much changed regarding our own will to act, but much has been learned about how to enable people to act. Recent neuroscience has shown that, rather than threats, other methods are more effective in getting people to change their behavior, even for something as simple as recycling.

John Kotter's recent book, The Heart of Change, and an article, Managing with the Brain in Mind by David Rock, deal with neuroscience research and ways to approach change in behaviors based on the social nature of change and the brain. While their approach is related to change in organizations and high performance workplaces, the message is relevant to the save our scientists SOS signal. Current social brain research debunks common theories about the "threat and reward" response, finding instead that responding to a threat is generally not the productive path. As Rock states, "Humans cannot think creatively, work well together or make informed decisions when their threat responses are on high alert."

Nor is simply analyzing and defining the problem as shown in Kotter's message that "people change what they do less because they are given analysis that shifts their thinking than because they are shown a truth that influences their feelings." Analyzing all the science, facts and figures won't do as much to create behavioral change as feeling strongly about the truth of a given situation. Al Gore's documentary effectively used this concept to show "an inconvenient truth", thereby spawning an emotional reaction that would lead viewers to take action for countering climate change. There is no doubt that the heart of change is in the emotion. Kotter summarizes it as: See, Feel, Change; three words that make for a more successful result than Analyze, Think, Change.

So if we are to support our scientists, which I do, and save our planet, which we all must do, then let our scientists find broad, powerful ways to demonstrate the truths of their research, in turn leading to emotionally committed citizens and policy makers who will settle for nothing less than fully meeting the climate change challenge.

This I Too Believe

2009-10-06T20:20:00.007-04:00

Somehow I'm still in a reflective mood and have recently been looking at an out-of-print book about Bill Caudill. As one of the founders of Caudill Rowlett and Scott, (CRS), Bill was a driving force and role model as an architect, educator, researcher and author. The book, The TIBs of Bill Caudill, collects a small subset of writings that he prepared over twenty years, from 1964 until his death in 1983. The abbreviation stands for 'This I Believe' and the TIBs were distributed by memo to CRS leaders and displayed on office bulletin boards. The introduction to the book by then CRS Chairman of the Board, Tom Bullock, directly asks:

Why did he write them?

'Good question,' he once replied. 'To pinpoint things we really believe in? To encourage and express the openness that characterizes our company? To communicate thoughts on current issues? To produce responses? To carry on a continuous writing of our history? Paper therapy? Perhaps all of these.'

Probably the best answer is that he wanted to improve his thinking by expressing himself regularly in clear, simple thoughts. 'Most of us need to write/think,' he said.

The CRS archives at Texas A&M contain over 4,000 TIBs and, for those who may be interested, you can sign up at the site for a service that will email you one TIB each week. Me, I still like to open the book and flip through it, reading and thinking about his ideas and their relevancy to today. I think what Bill was doing with his TIBs was a sort of analog blogging. Most of the memos, if produced today, could be blog posts and some of the more concise thoughts would fit perfectly into the limited number of characters for a tweet. So to bring his TIBs into today's world so others can also discover or rediscover a designer, practitioner, researcher and educator who believed that learning never stops, every now and then I'm going to add my thoughts and post or tweet a flashback quote from Bill Caudill. Enjoy and learn.

TIB
Education -- NEVER COMPLETE
26 December 67 WWC

ARCHITECTURAL EDUCATION IS NEVER COMPLETE.

It is adquate when one has 1) developed sufficient skills, 2) absorbed every possible detail of knowledge, and 3) accumulated enough experience to ensure reasonable solutions to problems encountered by new work. Without all three -- skills, knowledge, and experience -- the architect is hard pressed to operate with any degree of competency.

If he hopes for precision in architectural practice, let's say the design approach, he must face the realization that education must continue at a greater pace than he experienced at the university.

This I believe.

Fortieth Anniversaries

2009-09-22T14:53:00.007-04:00

1969, the end of the turbulent 60's, was a year of national, international and personal milestones. Now forty years later, I find myself reflecting on the events which shaped my generation and influenced my personal and professional path.

The first of the forty-year anniversaries was our February wedding and honeymoon in our semi-complete ski house in Vermont. Getting snowed in so completely we were unable to get to the ski slopes, we spent the first day as newlyweds tiling the downstairs bathroom. That day was not only the start of many future housing renovations and construction projects, but of never missing an opportunity for accomplishment, regardless of the situation. Back in Somerville, we moved into our first apartment, painted some super graphics on walls and a radiator, got some furniture and started our life together. That spring I applied to the new graduate program in architecture at the State University of New York at Buffalo and we got ready to set off on another new adventure.

The summer of 1969 marked three more fortieth anniversaries: the New York City Stonewall riots in June, Apollo 11 in July and the Woodstock Festival in August. All were events of our time, marking the start of the gay rights movement, the completion of Kennedy's challenge to put a man on the moon, and a musical high point of the peace and love era. Along with millions of other people, we watched the Apollo mission on television, and we did drive from Boston to New York State in August - just not to Woodstock. Our trip was to Buffalo, New York for the start of graduate school in the very first year of the architectural program at SUNY Buffalo. What an adventure it was: a new city, a new professional direction and the purchase of our first home together. Very exciting times.

As I think back to the start of the graduate program, I'm reminded of people, process and purpose. Much humbler, but not unlike the goal of the space program to put a person on the moon, the school's innovative, even radical, purpose was to broaden the context of design and architecture by putting man and environmental considerations into the practice of architecture. The history of the school acknowledges John Eberhard as the visionary first dean of the School of Architecture and Planning and provides a thumbnail sketch of how it began. However the following quote forty years later by John in his most recent book, Brain Landscape, the Coexistence of Neuroscience and Architecture, puts the origin of the school into his own words.

An opportunity I couldn't resist presented itself when Martin Meyerson, president of the State University of New York at Buffalo (SUNY-Buffalo), invited me to start a new school of architecture at his university. He arranged for my new school to report to three provosts: Engineering, Fine arts, and Social Science. I decided to have this school focus on an inter-disclipinary graduate program, which would have as its purpose educating a new generation of architects who could organize and manage research projects--as contrasted to designing buildings. We formed a nonprofit organization outside the university called BOSTI--the Buffalo OSTI related to my friend Don Schon's research organization in Boston. During the next 5 years, our team of graduate students participated in more than 50 projects--all of which were funded through BOSTI by outside organizations.

The first person John asked to join his mission to build a new school was the late Mike Brill. Mike and John had previously collaborated at the National Bureau of Standards Institute for Applied Technology, using design-research teams that applied systematic analysis to problems in the built environment - a systems oriented, people committed social vision. Mike was the first chair of the graduate school and developed the research/teaching arm called BOSTI, Buffalo Organization for Social and Technological Innovation. The first class of twenty graduate students was a mature group from a variety of undergraduate majors, setting up the multi-disciplinary approach. All had altruistic, knowedgeable, energetic restlessness with the status quo. Banding together with purpose, they were rebels with a cause.

Those first months of a teach/learn experience in a program without a traditionally structured curriculum explored the roots of the educational model. A number of components of the vision and process were tested live on our experimental class, including: the multi-disciplinary approach to environmental design, projects as educational vehicles with real design-related problems and real clients, team learning in faculty-student teach-learn mode, research in action education funded through BOSTI, user-based, systems-oriented problem solving, and performance-based measurement of outcomes. The flavor and spirit was clearly activist and anti-establishment, particularly toward the architectural profession and schools which favored visual design education without social constructs. Assigned readings, such as Systems Approach by Churchman, General Systems Theory by von Bertalanffy, Structure of Scientific Revolution by Kuhn, Personal Space by Sommers and Hidden Dimension by Hall, supported systems thinking about social issues. Kuhn's book introduced the word 'paradigm' and John viewed this program as the new paradigm.

Forty years later, I can still see the space where we worked, its walls covered with diagrams, images, charts, and goal evaluation matrices from our projects, research or class assignments, yet I can also see how much of what was set out back then as a way to change architectural schools and practice, still remains incomplete today. Recently I took on a new role in our organization as Director of Research with the goal of completing the research-based practice loop started in Buffalo. While contributions from social science have continued to provide much more useful research about the design and use of the built environment, currently called evidence based design, the bridge between systems-based research and the mainstream practice world is still incomplete. My work started forty years ago with that drive to Buffalo, and the journey continues.

Labor Day Memory

2009-09-07T15:41:00.003-04:00

On Labor Day, particularly on a perfect blue sky day like today, I think back to Labor Day sermons at the Unitarian Church on Nantucket. In the 1980's, late August was family time on the island. There were sand castles, walks to the Sweet Shoppe, flashlight tag among the hawthorns and poison ivy, lots of cookouts and always, a special anniversary celebration. But the end of vacation and signal for the return to school and work, was that Labor Day sermon by Ted Anderson. Always on the same topic, the sermon pursued different perspectives, from celebrating the work ethic to the roots of unionism. With his sonorous voice filling the church, Ted would draw connections between the hard working Puritans and the way the labor movement promised, and provided, a better life for workers over a hundred years ago. He reminded us exactly how we got paid vacations, sick leave, and work place safety, always coming back to the virtues of work.

One particular Sunday he added a dimension that has always stuck with me. Reflecting on the diminished impact of the labor movement, and the growth of the knowledge worker, he took us back to the twelfth or thirteenth century, and the religious verb, profess - to take a vow or to affirm. From there he traced the path of professing, from religion to medicine, law, engineering and, as I heard it, architecture. The vow of professing denotes a societal commitment; hence the noun, professional, implies the same commitment, as related to health, safety and public welfare. As I reflect this Labor Day, I'm reminded by Ted Anderson to appreciate what the labor movement created over one hundred years ago and to reaffirm what I now profess.

In Search of Evidence

2009-08-24T18:52:00.003-04:00

In June I wrote about Creativity: Luck or Preparation and Navigating the New Normal. The first post concluded that creative outcomes aren't the result of luck but rather the result of preparation, attitude, discipline and mindset. The second focused on research for business in turbulent times, concluding that the key factors are organizational discipline, core values and preparation. My interest in these topics specifically relates to the corporate practice of architecture and engineering, and the search for research and evidence from many other fields that impact that practice.

In the architectural engineering world, particularly in the area of health care, the topic of evidence-based design has expanded and evolved. An article in the current issue of Architect Magazine, Is EDAC the Next Leed? tracks the background from evidence-based medicine to the creation of a new professional accreditation and certification program. While there may be confusing definitions in this evolving design methodology, there is no doubt about its goal: to move design decisions from intuitive to informed. The Center for Health Design, which is dedicated to advancing such practices, defines evidence-based design as "the process of basing decisions about the built environment on credible research to achieve the best possible outcomes." Such credible research is not only changing the way we look at our professional practice, but at all the other claims and promises so often presented by product manufacturers.

Continuing the search for meaningful research brings me to an interesting and related article from the Boston Globe Ideas section, Luck Inc. by Drake Bennett, regarding business success books. The article challenges the content of business success books beginning with In Search of Excellence, and continues through a string of other best sellers:

"...the basic idea underlying the literature is the same: that the secrets of success can be divined by careful study of the institutional habits of the world's business all-stars... At their most ambitious, these books purport to elevate the study of excellence to a science, its nuggets culled from exhaustive research and refined by painstaking analysis."

The remainder of the article focuses on recent books, article and papers arguing that success books are not actually based on science. Bennett cites The Halo Effect, by Phil Rosenzweig, along with books by Robert Sutton and Jeffrey Pfeffer of Stanford, which see problems with the reliability of the data upon which success literature is built. Rosenzweig states "These books try to impress you with the massive amounts of data that they gather, but much of the data are not valid." Fueled in part by the same quantitative urge that is behind evidence-based medical care, Bennett notes that many of the recent critiques argue "for a more truly evidence-based business-success literature." In perhaps the most radical critique, Bennett explores the findings of Michael Raynor and Mumtaz Ahmed of Deloitte Consulting, and University of Texas business school professor Andrew Henderson, that success books are not good at identifying the cause of success and cannot truly distinguish success from mere luck. They say the data is too inconsistent and suggest performance could be equally well explained by random chance. It would be nice if such challenges to the current business success books result in more rigorous future publications.

In spite of these claims, I have personally read many such business books and found the advice useful, even if not based on science. I am not a fan however, of the "luck" school of thought, and am confident that future, and deeper investigation of the topic of business success will turn up pertinent information related to organizational preparation and discipline. In all fields - medicine, business texts, product design and architecture - patients, readers, users and clients are looking for proof of promises. Perhaps the next best-selling business success book should be "In Search of Evidence".

True Grit

2009-08-17T15:34:00.003-04:00

Seems that I'm reading, thinking and writing a lot about innovation, creativity, and team structures for successful outcomes. Maybe it's related to that Yogism, "the more you look, the more you see." At the core of my investigation is the search for evidence supporting those observations that lead to new structures and patterns of behavior which can effect successful change.

Many contemporary studies cite deliberate practice, design thinking, optimum frame of mind or mental preparation as determinants of success, but some current research points in a different, and old school direction. In a recent Boston Globe Ideas article, The Truth About Grit, Jonah Lehrer traces success from Newton's apple/gravity observations to current research on the linkage between a flash of insight and the effort to document a theory or produce a successful result. He notes that the celebration of the "aha moment" often overshadows the goals, discipline, effort and stick-to-itiveness that is actually required for success.

In recent years, psychologists have come up with a term to describe this mental trait: grit. Although the idea itself isn't new - "Genius is 1 percent inspiration and 99 percent perspiration," Thomas Edison famously remarked - the researchers are quick to point out that grit isn't simply about the willingness to work hard. Instead, it's about setting a specific long-term goal and doing whatever it takes until the goal has been reached. It's always much easier to give up, but people with grit can keep going.

Lehrer reports that two research psychologists, Angela Duckworth, who has pioneered the study of grit at University of Pennsylvania, and Carol Dweck at Stanford University, have been simultaneously investigating these personality traits, attempting to answer questions like exactly what is the 'grit' personality trait, how do you isolate and measure it, and can grit be learned?

One of the main obstacles for scientists trying to document the influence of personality traits on achievement was that the standard definition of traits - attributes such as conscientiousness and extroversion - was rather vague. Duckworth began wondering if more narrowly defined traits might prove to be more predictive. She began by focusing on aspects of conscientiousness that have to do with "long-term stamina," such as maintaining a consistent set of interests, and downplayed aspects of the trait related to short-term self-control, such as staying on a diet. In other words, a gritty person might occasionally eat too much chocolate cake, but they won't change careers every year. "Grit is very much about the big picture," Duckworth says. "It's about picking a specific goal off in the distant future and not swerving from it."

As described by both researchers, benefits from a better understanding of grit would be first to provide additional tools, beyond conventional intelligence and achievement testing, for use in a wide variety of applications to more accurately predict future success. Take the survey yourself at www.gritstudy.com to see how you measure up. The second benefit would be to provide a body of knowledge for educators to teach children the virtues of continuous effort. Dweck refers to this teaching effort as creating a "growth mindset" while Duckworth envisions educators teaching these skills to develop "a generation of grittier children." Key to these educational approaches is an emphasis on perseverance, combined with reinforcement of the basic hard work and degree of effort that leads to accomplishment.

An excellent example of a school that Duckworth and Dweck might envision is the Bronx KIPP (Knowledge is Power Program) Academy. In Malcolm Gladwell's new book, Outliers, he tells the story of the school's co-founder, David Levin, the students at KIPP, and the unexpected characteristics of high student performance from this school in one of the poorer neighborhoods in New York City. Since its beginning in 1994, it has become one of the most desirable public schools in the City based on graduate achievement, and despite, or perhaps because of, its innovative schedule resulting in an extra two thirds time in the classroom over other district schools. KIPP students attend daily classes until 5 pm, spend four-hours in class every other Saturday, and don't complete their school year until three weeks into July. Gladwell quotes Levin on how students have adapted to the addition of the summer part of the program:

"The beginning is hard," he went on. "By the end of the day they're restless. Part of it is endurance, part of it is motivation. Part of it is incentives and rewards and fun stuff. Part of it is good old-fashioned discipline. You throw all of that into the stew. We talk a lot here about grit and self control. The kids know what those words mean."

No doubt, these are the forerunners of the generation of grittier, and more successful, children that Angela Duckworth envisioned.

Connected in Vermont

2009-07-22T16:09:00.002-04:00

Over the weekend I was reading and working up at our Vermont house. One of my tasks was to finish up some additional research on a sustainability/CR blog for posting on Monday. But when the weather cleared off at the end of the day, I decided to get out of the house and take a drive into Waitsfield for a walk around the village. Judy and I walked all the way up Main Street to the Old School House, then back up to Bridge Street and through the “tunnel” bridge, as Ollie calls it. The sweet, end of the day light inspired us to walk and photograph for a couple of hours.

On Monday, in the midst of all the Apollo 11 events, I got a Twitter message about a new follower, Jake Whitcomb. It turns out he works in Middlebury, Vermont as environmental program designer and co-founder of the non-profit Brighter Planet, whose focus is fighting global warming. Their advisory board is an environmental who’s who, including Terry Kellogg, Executive Director of One Percent for the Planet, and Mindy Lubber, President of Ceres, among other notable people.

It was a wow moment for many reasons.

One of my first blog posts about CSR was based in part on the Ceres principles. My weekend's work posted on Monday started off talking about Yvon Chouinard and One Percent for the Planet. But there were still more Vermont connections. The blog on the One Percent for the Planet website showed a picture of three young people standing in front of what looked like the Waitsfield "tunnel" bridge. They were summer interns who indeed had been photographed in front of the Waitsfield covered bridge, perhaps because their office is located just down the street in the Old School House we had walked by on Saturday.

I’m not surprised that leading experts and advocates for a sustainable planet live or are based in Vermont. That makes real sense to me. What is surprising are the tight connections between place - Mad River Valley, topic - corporate responsibility /sustainability, time - all in two days. A small world indeed.

Good for the Planet, Good for Business

2009-07-20T10:50:00.003-04:00

In the current Fast Company, there is an interesting interview with Patagonia founder, Yvon Chouinard, regarding the general topic of corporate social responsibility. The paradoxical title, "No Such Thing as Sustainability", focuses on his long-term commitment to environmental issues. As Chouinard states, Patagonia's mission is "to use business to inspire and implement solutions to the environmental crisis" based on three key points: learn the environmental impact of your business; take full responsibility for your product from birth to rebirth; and implement a self-taxing approach for your business-related pollution, similar to One Percent for the Planet, which was co-founded by Patagonia. As to the success of "self-taxing", over 1000 businesses have joined One Percent for the Planet since its inception in 2001, and six of the largest firms to join are having their best year ever. The concept is good for the planet and good for business.

Related to the Chouinard interview is a recent article in Environmental Leader by Kathee Rebernak called "Where Sustainability Lives: A Path to Integration and Innovation". In the article she cites a research study of Fortune 500 companies that looked at the function of sustainability within a firm, how the position is titled and what channels are set up for reporting to the CEO and board. They found a high correlation between well defined firm positions and board reporting structures, and awards or recognition for sustainability performance. Recent research published in the Harvard Business Review also correlates a sustainability structure which is integrated across the firm with the innovation it fosters and the resultant sustainability success. The Director of Sustainability at Symantec observed that, when the CEO drives the sustainability/corporate responsibility agenda, the process is accelerated. Kathee's summary quote caps the discussion well. "For the sustainability effort to drive business value, the CEO must be in the driver's seat".

This corporate sustainability research aligns and reinforces the examples of charismatic sustainability leaders like Patagonia's Yvon Chouinard and Interface Carpet's Ray Anderson. They have proven that personal commitment at the highest corporate levels will lead to more responsible and economically successful business practices.

Time for Climate Change Insurance

2009-07-13T09:11:00.003-04:00

Two recent articles/blogs by Oberlin College environmentalist David Orr and technologist Tim O'Reilly take on the debate of choices and chance in dealing with the issues of climate change. Both agree there is great risk, which becomes even greater with inaction, and that we don't need more evidence to act now.

David Orr frames the discussion around two choices - "adapting to a warmer world or mitigating the severity of climate change by sharply reducing greenhouse gas emissions". He bases his argument on five points:

climate change is occurring faster than expected and results are worse than predicted
adaptation most impacts those in society who are least able to adapt
mitigation now is easier and less costly than later
adaptation is ineffective due to the human behaviors of denial and procrastination
political programs and proposals about adaptation offer false hope

Orr's conclusion is echoed in ecologist George Woodwell's words, "The only adaptation is mitigation".

In response to David Orr's article, Bob Doppelt, the Director of Climate Change Initiative at the University of Oregon, offers a twist on the argument. He shifts the words and perspective from adaptation to preparation, because "our experience is that focusing on preparation builds support for mitigation while the focus on adaptation reduces support". To me, the conclusion is not either/or but both preparation and mitigation.

Tim O'Reilly sees the debate as a modern day version of Pascal's wager.

If catastrophic global warming turns out not to happen, the steps we'd take to address it are still worthwhile. Given that there's even a reasonable risk of disruptive climate change, any sensible person should decide to act. It's insurance. The risk of your house burning down is small, yet you carry homeowner's insurance; you don't expect to total your car, but you know that the risk is there, and again, most people carry insurance; you don't expect catastrophic illness to strike you down, but again, you invest in insurance.

We don't need to be 100% sure that the worst fears of climate scientists are correct in order to act. All we need to think about are the consequences of being wrong.

So where are the sensible world citizens who can carry forward these perspectives, and ultimately the behaviors that will alter climate change? As in all things important, it comes down to us, you and me. The time is now for all of us to reconsider our behaviors and to purchase our own climate change insurance.

Navigating the New Normal

2009-06-27T13:55:00.002-04:00

In a January interview in Fortune magazine, Jim Collins, author of 'Built to Last', identified a number of key characteristics that a business needs if it is to navigate through turbulent waters. His research on turbulence is especially relevant in the current business and environmental conditions, which he calls 'the new normal'. Much of what he says resonates with my own experience and with the core values and vision of our firm, but four things stand out.

First, set core values for the organization to provide a deep keel to stay your course. Second, be aware of the caliber of people in the organization. Are they the ones you would want with you in your foxhole? Third, have the perspective to take the long view in planning, and manage by the quarter century, not by first quarter results. Fourth, develop the attitude and confidence to succeed and prevail, not just to survive.

If this is how your organization operates, then Jim Collins says that turbulence can be your friend. The key point in realizing this opportunity, again echoing Louis Pasteur, is preparation.

"If you are disciplined and prepared before the storm came, you should be thankful for those (turbulent) times."

Creativity: Luck or Preparation

2009-06-23T08:12:00.006-04:00

Creative thinking has long been viewed as something special, belonging to a unique group of people who have a 'creative' eye and are lucky enough to see and solve problems differently from what would normally be expected. These especially creative people are seen as quick to get to the heart of a problem and as experts at producing unusual but successful results. Somehow they just have a knack for outside-the-box thinking that others both miss and envy. But what if that creative spark could be learned?

The topic of creative thinking and its partner, idea generation, has been studied and researched over the past 50 years, beginning with the original approach of advertising executive, Alex Osborn, in his 1948 book, "Your Creative Power". He followed that in 1953 with his best known work "Applied Imagination", leading to the subsequent broad interest in creative thinking, from "Brainstorming" by Charles Clark in 1958, to "A Sourcebook for Creative Thinking" by Parnes and Harding in 1962, to "Lateral Thinking" By Edward DeBono in 1970 and "Conceptual Blockbusting; A Guide to Better Ideas" by James Adams in 1979. These are some of the classics that established brainstorming as the definitive basic method to generate ideas. All that was required was an open mind to allow for the spontaneous generation of this multitude of ideas.

More recently, creative thinking in the area of practice application has become known as design thinking, a process of building up ideas as opposed to the breaking down of ideas common to critical thinking. A champion of this approach, David Burney, defines design thinking as "a way of thinking that produces transformative innovation". Just as with brainstorming, its goal is to generate lots of ideas using a seven step process to frame the problem, develop a plethora of possible solutions and then help choose the solution which will give the best result. Far from being a strict process however, design thinking uses this structured method to capture the 'popcorn' thinking of a multitude of ideas. Just imagine the mess everywhere if your Jiffy Popper didn't have its aluminum foil top to capture all those kernels of ideas.

The tools of both brainstorming and transformative design thinking, along with collaborative approaches and the right kind of culture, are currently being used to generate multiple options, where wild ideas are welcome, since they often lead to the most creative solutions. And those wild ideas may in fact be the result of a 'prepared mind'. The concept of creativity as an organized and learnable activity is the subject of research by John Kounios of Drexel University and Mark Jung-Beeman of Northwestern University in 2006.

"The research suggests that people can mentally prepare to have an 'Aha!' solution even before the problem is presented. Specifically, as people prepare for problems that they solve with insight, their pattern of brain activity suggests that they are focusing attention inwardly, are ready to switch to new trains of thought, and perhaps are actively silencing irrelevant thoughts. These findings are important because they show that people can mentally prepare to solve problems with different thinking styles and that these different forms of preparation can be identified with specific patterns of brain activity. This study may eventually lead to an understanding of how to put people in the optimal 'frame of mind' to deal with particular types of problems."

Which goes to show, a particularly creative outcome isn't just someone's good luck, but can be facilitated, and perhaps learned, based on Louis Pasteur's well-known quote that "chance favors only the prepared mind".

Walking the Talk

2009-05-31T13:44:00.010-04:00

On May 23, my tweet and reference to an article from Environmental Leader was oriented towards evidence that links responsible and sustainable corporate actions or Corporate Social Responsibility (CSR), with building positive brand reputation, and then market differentiation. The article cites research by Natural Marketing Institute which found that lifestyles of health and sustainability consumers look for proof to back up product or service claims. This demand for product or service evidence of facts, like in medicine or design, must be backed up by some type of third party assurance process, like the Good Housekeeping Seal of Approval but at the ‘global house’ scale.

The current understanding of Corporate Social Responsibility recognizes some form of Triple Bottom Line (TBL) reporting, based on UN Global Compact Principles, Ceres Principles and the Global Reporting Initiative (GRI) Guidelines, now regarded as the international standard. The TBL measures of organizational success are commonly referred to as environmental or planet, economic or profit and social or people. Since late 2006 and the introduction of the GRI G3 process, international corporations have embraced, at a rapid rate, sustainable principles and the TBL protocol. Ceres has tracked the corporate adoption of GRI from its initiation in 1997, noting a growth to 50 companies in 2000, 400 companies in 2004 and 1500 companies now. That equals a growth rate of 375% in 5 years, but there still remains a long way to go to meet global climate change initiatives.

The need for CSR is present in all corporations, large and small, international and regional, but is particularly appropriate to the design professional service corporations which already have an environmental responsibility by nature of licensing and practice. Clearly TBL should already be embedded in their cultures and vision statements, but the question is are they? And if so, how many actually have adopted the Ceres Principles and GRI and or TBL reporting? A review of the Ceres Companies shows only two architectural, engineering or planning firms listed, yet a review of the Architecture 2030 website would indicate that this type of sustainable commitment is much more common.

But why aren’t more large corporate architecture and engineering firms committing to Ceres Principles and GRI reporting? There are over 100 large, that is greater than 200 person, architectural and engineering firms in the US, so why are so few adopting this approach? Is it time and effort, fear of exposure of confidential information, the lack of true measurable goals, cultures of limited information sharing even within their own organization, or the clash of private firms and issues of public interest? Perhaps a review of one firm, Haley and Aldrich, which is a Ceres Company, would be useful to see what they say and what information they share. On their corporate website they have posted their 2008 sustainability report - People , Planet and Profit. The report is organized, readable and graphically well presented. Their vision is stated, success measures defined, a lean, increased value and decreased waste strategy presented, and a Plan-Do-Check-Adjust (PDCA) process stated to control implementation. The report has a simple four part structure, consisting of goals, recorded progress/metrics, assessment/grade and adjustments for 2009. The format follows the PDCA model and contains an open measurement of performance without the loss of confidential data.

To me it is an example of CSR that provides evidence of sustainable practices and creates differentiation from other peer professional firms - a disciplined, self regulating approach that, as Haley and Aldrich states, is “walking the talk.”

Every Rooftop is a Power Plant

2009-05-22T11:49:00.008-04:00

In the past couple of months, two solar power articles approach the topic from different perspectives yet result in similar conclusions. The Boston Globe covered the recent MIT Energy Conference in April and described the perspective from a large utility, Duke Energy, one of the top CO2 emitters in the United States. Duke Energy generates 97% of its power from coal and nuclear power, and wants to significantly reduce its carbon emissions. Jim Rodgers, who runs Duke Energy, is seeking the emission reduction through the development of solar power and increased energy efficiency. He was quoted as considering "every rooftop as a power plant", and noting the need for changes to the rules governing power companies to allow them to benefit from solar power by "moving beyond the meter". This means a power company would not only provide energy to a customer but would also share in the cost/profit from energy produced by a customer, leading to increased large scale investments in solar and ultimately reduced emissions from fossil fuel energy.

Selling the Sun by Michael Behar in On Earth Magazine features a story about Jigar Shah and Sun Edison, North America's largest and most successful provider of solar energy, a private business which has grown so quickly over the past five years that it could almost be considered a small utility company. Sun Edison's growth and success was created by their no up-front cost, power purchase agreement (PPA) business model.

Through a PPA, Sun Edison provides solar electrical power at a set price for a minimum of 10-years, with no capital cost to the customer. The PPA's are then used as collateral for investment funding to install and own the solar array. The investors benefit from a constant income stream on debt payment, depreciation and investment tax credits. The early adopters of this approach have been large scale retailers like Staples, Whole Foods, Kohl's, Ikea and Walmart. The avoidance of up-front capital cost with its longer term payback and a stable long term energy cost have created a large market place stimulating the whole solar industry. It is reported that Sun Edison has about 200 commercial installations with a 60-megawatt capacity, or enough to power 48,000 homes. A recent report by the National Renewable Energy Laboratory noted that investment in solar energy in the last three years grew by a compounded annual rate of 145%, and it's clear that the PPA model is substantially the cause of this growth.

The two articles however raise a couple of questions. Will the large scale utilities move into the micro scale, thousands of rooftops, model? Will a business like Sun Edison become more like a utility? When will the cost of solar and utility power, grid parity, become equal? On the last question, many experts project somewhere between 2012 and 2015, but in many parts of the U.S. it is happening now. The same experts note that the real issue may be scale more than subsidies. As Michael Behar's article states, "The formula is simple: the more solar installed, the cheaper it gets; and the cheaper it gets, the more it's installed". There is no doubt about that equation.

Turbocharge the Wind Industry in Massachusetts

2009-05-20T13:44:00.005-04:00

Last week the Boston Globe first reported the receipt of significant stimulus funding for construction of a large wind turbine blade testing facility in Charlestown. The Wind Technology Testing Center will be the nation's first commercial large blade testing facility capable of handling blades as long as 90 meters. While the majority of current testing occurs at the National Wind Technology Center in Boulder CO, no facility in the U.S. is capable of testing blades longer than 50 meters.

In a visit to the proposed site, which has both rail and critical shipping access, U.S. Energy Secretary Steven Chu and Governor Deval Patrick noted the importance of developing renewable energy systems and insuring that the best, most efficient turbines are built in America. "Testing the next generation of wind turbines here will make Massachusetts a hub for the fastest growing energy source in the world" said Governor Patrick as he announced the funding. Since the announcement, much enthusiasm has been generated by the plan to have the facility completed and ready for testing in late 2010. One government official was quoted noting that the facility would "turbocharge the wind industry in Massachusetts". For me, I've gotten much closer to large blade testing that I could imagine as I live about a half-mile from the site.

Really Big Sustainable Idea

2009-05-12T17:19:00.004-04:00

Today Zerofootprint has launched an innovative International Building Re-Skinning Competition at the Discovery 2009 Exhibition in Toronto. The focus of the competition is the development and advancement of the state of the art in retrofitting thousands of post war buildings, improving their energy efficiency and reducing their carbon footprint. The Z-Prize of $1 million will be awarded to the retrofitted building that achieves the most reduction in energy cost per square foot as measured and audited over a three year period following the retrofit.

The basis or catalyst for the competition is an ongoing project sponsored in 2007 by the Mayor’s Office of the City of Toronto, called Toronto Tower Renewal. This project is an outgrowth of ongoing research by E.R.A. Architects and the University of Toronto Faculty of Architecture, regarding the value and reuse potential of over 1,000 primarily residential high rise buildings. The initial investigations are well presented in the book , Concrete Toronto, and the background on reuse opportunities is described in the article 'A Suburban Future of Concrete and Gardens-Nice. Right?'

The outcomes of the Tower Renewal Project: The Sustainable City and the Re-Skinning Competition are very clear and further demonstrate the point that the most sustainable building is a reuse of an existing one. Here their goals include the reduction of green house gas emission through building and site retrofit (sustainable structures); introduction of mixed use new construction to build complete communities (sustainable lifestyles); and creation of technology, materials and industries to launch an increasingly cost effective approach (sustainable industries).

This is one really big sustainable idea with large scale benefits and major global impact. We in the United States should be following the City of Toronto’s lead in implementing such multifaceted sustainable renewal plans.

Recession/Reuse/Sustainability

2009-05-06T19:20:00.006-04:00

Well the forces have finally aligned and the Earth Day message from USGBC President and CEO, Rick Fedrizzi, made to point loud and clear. The economic crisis has forced everyone to reconsider priorities and make decisions that conserve resources, primarily money. The slowdown/stoppage of new construction brings the realization that there are hundreds of thousands of existing buildings and homes in need of energy reconstruction and reuse. USGBC sees the green movement as thriving and migrating toward conservation of resources, the essential sustainable activity, whether money, water, energy or jobs. Restore Media's President, Peter Miller, carried a similar message in his article "Why This Recession is Good for Traditional Building, Part II".

At the same time the preservation movement, which has also had its share of shifts since the first Earth Day in 1970, has reinvented itself from initial focus on landmarks, to adaptive reuse and then to emphasis on social and communal values. In the mid 70’s in the midst of the first sustainable design years, the preservation movement began to push forward the concept of embodied energy which linked the two movements. The studies of BTU value of existing built environments created an understanding that our older buildings were in fact fossil fuel repositories, and if we extended the life of these buildings we wouldn’t have to use the energy again. The January/February 2008 Preservation Magazine, Green Issue, in the article “A Cautionary Tale” ties the two movements together and provides many interesting facts and figures to support the arguments.

So one can say the nexus has occurred. Sustainability begins with preservation, whether social, cultural or economic and many have said the most responsible way to build is to recycle an old building. So per USGBC, more than 120 million buildings and homes await our action. The economic crisis has refocused our attention on these critical issues.

2009-05-04T21:05:00.000-04:00

Here goes! This blog will cover a wide range of interests, both professional and personal, primarily related to the creation of a more sustainable built environment. I would expect topics to include policy, planning, design, research, architecture, engineering and construction. Perhaps the central focus will be the knowledge and understanding of both the creation and design of the built environment, and whether those designs achieve their intended goals.