J.T. Pennington - Prompt #2

PROMPT 2

Discuss ONE of the following questions with your mentor.  Select the question that best reflects your values for future practice:

How do you build a practice that is focused on people?

How do you build a practice that engages community?

How do you build a practice that is adaptable to change?

Use your discussion with your mentor as the basis for developing your unique response to the question.  How will YOU build a practice that ___________?

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I was most drawn to the question of community within the practice of architecture. I'm earning my Master of Architecture degree but chose Clemson University because of their graduate studies certificate program in the Architecture+communityBUILD design build program (A+cB). Clemson's website advertises the program as, "community centric architecture + process, design + building at full scale, sustainable programming + entrepreneurship, and post project documentation + sustained community impact," which I think are all good values to study and pursue in professional practice.

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When I spoke to my mentor Kate regarding how a private practice, I thought this would be a tough question because most of our clients are desiring to be homeowners and 90% of the firm's work is single family private residences. The firm does not regularly practice community centered design or build a lot of projects for the community.

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There are a variety of ways that private architectural firms can engage the community while still pursuing private client driven work; the first thing that Kate explained to me was to check which of the stakeholders are being involved in community centered work - it should be a minimum of the client, architect, and the authority having jurisdiction. For most of Beau Clowney's work with private clients in historic districts of Charleston, our firm calls or meets the staff of the City of Charleston regarding the appearance of changes in historic districts prior to submitting for approval or to the BAR (Board of Architectural Review). This step isn't required, and we're not paid a fee for this service, but it improves our relationship with the city so they aren't seeing the project blind when we apply for approval, and it gives them an opportunity to provide comments or suggestions to the design, which often helps us by reducing the shock of seeing lots of new work.

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Kate also described how Beau Clowney Architects must educate the client or the community on improving the status quo of the urban fabric within Charleston to a city and citizens that are stubborn and resistant to change. Change doesn't always have to be negative - some changes are good - but it appears to me that many wealthy older citizens do not wish to see the city change at all.

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In a private practice, Kate described how architects can move through official channels that provides opportunity for community response and input; we submit for zoning variances or submit projects to an architectural appearance committee that have public meetings where anyone can attend and voice comments; these meetings are given public notice - articles in the newspaper - and there are chances where someone can write or attend a meeting and speak to provide input to project design. She gently chided me that we can't have a whole neighborhood designing someone's private residence - which made me chuckle because you are never going to make the entire neighborhood or community happy; there will always be some resistance [to change] to architectural designs and new construction/renovations. What she did comment on was that we have to be looking for a strong solution that 1) meets our client's programmatic needs, 2) fits within their budget, and 3) meets our own standards of design and aethetic.

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Being the devil's advocate, I argued that many of these meetings happen during the middle of a work day and if I lived in Charleston I could not always take off from my schedule in order to attend a public meeting about a building in my neighborhood; I thought it would be better if those meetings are in the evening hours where more of the general public could attend them. While Kate agreed that could be an option, citizens could also write letters to their input for community projects in the event of their absence of attending an event.

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I'm interested in design charettes and having the stakeholders - clients and users of the space - to be able to provide input into architecture that engages the community; public charettes are complicated to host and hold, and the architect or designer has to have an honest and neutral opinion regarding the design of the architecture so to not let their opinions sway the general public for providing input; that often makes people feel manipulated or led down a narrow path. The Architecture+communityBUILD design build studio hosted a charette last semester in Clemson University's Lee Hall with some mixed success. What it did provide for us was confirmation regarding many of the design principles and strategies that we had been researching for improvements to the Lee Hall studio spaces, and was input from people who are both graphically savvy, users of the space, and able to articulate themselves. I believe this process provides a better community centered design practice than post-design feedback from the citizens.