Editor’s Note: Peter F. Gaito, Jr. AIA, NCARB is an architect at Peter F. Gaito Architects, Engineers, Planners and the current President of AIA Westchester + Hudson Valley, my local chapter here in Westchester County, New York. The following is a re-print of Peter’s monthly letter to the chapter shared here with his permission. I thought it was a great reminder on how to succeed when speaking about architecture when speaking with non-architects.
I’d love to know what you think. Please share your thoughts in the Comments section below.
How to Speak About Architecture When Speaking with Non-Architects
It has been a busy and snowy winter during these early months of 2015 and I trust that we will all remain busy throughout the year on many exciting new (and maybe revived) projects. I know that you are always prudent in keeping up with the latest and greatest architectural products, systems, and codes, as architects are in the continuous practice of thinking, drawing and arriving at solutions for clients. However, writing, speaking and presenting our thoughts to non-architects and the media, unfortunately usually take a backseat. It is with this general salesmanship and verbal communication where we most often struggle.
Whether we are presenting our projects to an owner’s selection committee, a planning board or to a newspaper reporter, our words often fall upon untrained ears.
We are all very well versed in describing the intricacies of our buildings; the way the sunlight transforms a space, the perfect spatial flow of one room into another and the use of local, durable, and hygienic materials. But when it comes to the simple explanation of “what, why and how,” we often find it difficult to convey the project’s essence in a few simple words that a non-architect can easily understand. The non-architects’ inability to understand a project stems not from a lack of words spoken, for most architects I know are very clever wordsmiths. Rather, their inability to understand a project is often caused by the architect failing to boil down the plethora of items that comprise a project into a few simple sentences.
We believe that people want to know all of the technical highlights and clever design ingenuity which led to a project’s creation. I am here to report that sometimes, people just want to hear the straight explanation.
Architecture discourse needs to be spoken in two separate ways; (1) in a plain spoken language to non-architects and members of the media and (2) the way we speak to other architects, engineers and planners. The latter, like math, often contains statements consisting of two parts: the hypothesis or assumptions, and the conclusion. “If A, then B” or “A implies B”. The conditions that make up “A” are the assumptions we make, and the conditions that make up “B” are the conclusion. The former, consists of the majority of people who just want to straight talk in order to comprehend the success of a project, its site and its team players.
“What Do Architects Do?”
I recently attended a leadership round-table in Albany for Chapter Presidents hosted by AIA New York State. In addition to the general overviews, tips, legal advice, and ways to better engage the board and chapter members, AIANYS had a featured speaker who was a former news anchorman and a current professional communications professor.
It was eye opening, insightful, and very funny.
He kept asking us “what do architects do?” and one by one, various architects tried to explain it, without much success. A few people offered what we all thought, were clear, exact explanations of our profession. Yet after each explanation, Mark reported back with a variety of honest and humorous responses, “That’s nice, but I still don’t know what you do”…“Stop- way too complicated”…“Interesting but you lost me after the first sentence”…
He all made us think that day.
Think about how to be better advocates for our profession. Think about how to win more clients and think about how speak to the media about our projects.
Here are 4 tips I learned that day for being a better communicator:
1. Know what the media wants.
2. Be plain spoken and passionate.
3. Have proof handy.
4. Be your own media outlet.
I wish you much success in 2015 at the drawing boards and with speaking to the press.
This is enlightening but still doesn’t say what architects do. I think most of us believe that we don’t all #lookup. When will the profession claim its place among the other professionals responsible for the lives of the general public. We have sat in the backseat too long and let the others drive us down the mountain. We protect the health,safety and welfare of the general public. We keep people safe. We provide the fundamental need of shelter and use the power of art to make it more than a cave. We mean to inspire the masses and make people aspire to be better because they don’t have to worry about their shelter, their office, their city hall.
Architects provide a fundamental need with the elegance of an artist, curiosity of a scientist, rational of an attorney and the responsibilty of a surgeon.
-SE
Well said Sean. I agree with you. Thanks for sharing.
We design homes and buildings.
We can expand that concise answer to any length desired.
Rand what is ArCH stand for?
Architects Creating Homes. ArCH is here: http://www.ArCHomes.org.
Mark interviewed a couple of our members a few months ago on one of his podcasts, bless him.
ArCH consists entirely of Licensed Architects who primarily design homes. Thanks for asking. ArCH is a nationwide professional society of Architects.
Thank you Rand, I will look into that and the podcast.
Great! Thanks. If you have any questions, please let me know.
I will.
I love Sean’s statement – “We mean to inspire the masses and make people aspire to be better…” That works for me. Sorry Rand, there doesn’t have to be lofty archispeak, but to simply say we “design” and limit it to homes and buildings automatically limits the public’s perception of us. What does design mean?
Sean’s further explanation continues to be accurate, yet optimistic. People can get technicians anywhere. Anyone can “design” a building.
Mark, this is an excellent and much needed conversation that must continue. Let’s not oversimplify it so much that it becomes bland and distasteful.
I like Sean’s statement also. My comment was not intended as a criticism of what he said. Rather, I was suggesting that we all have an initial comeback to the media who asks what we do and have the first part of that response be something that anyone can understand.
As I mentioned above: “We can expand that concise answer to any length desired.” I didn’t mean that in any sort of negative context. I meant: DO expand that to further define what you, as an Architect, believe you add to the explanation of What Architects Do. For myself, I think I would probably respond to a reporter’s question: What do Architects do?” in the following manner:
“Architects design homes and buildings.”
“If I may, I can amplify that answer…”
(assuming the reporter agrees)…
“Architects have a unique 4-step process:
1. Architects first LISTEN carefully to their Clients to learn what their desired LIFESTYLES and FUNCTIONAL NEEDS are.
2. Architects also ANALYZE THE LAND on which a project is to be built.
3. The Architect then INVENTS CONCEPTS for the project that are artistic, inspirational and technical.
4. Then, the Architect DESIGNS homes, buildings, spaces, other physical objects and energies that he or she believes result in positive responses to the project concepts and that result in outstanding functional use of the built facility.”
But that’s just me.
Any Architect anywhere is welcome to respond to the media however they wish.
The key, here I believe, is in first responding with a concise answer that will hopefully provoke a more detailed further explanation.
Second, having a “4-step process” (or however many you want in your process): because that will put the reporter into a “counting” mode, in which they will allow you to verbalize the various steps you are explaining and hopefully not get cut-off while you are doing so.
If you attempt to first answer with the long response, most reporters (or perhaps anyone, including potential Clients), may tune you out or interrupt. By first providing a simple answer that begs further explanation, you are engaging the reporter in a give and take discussion of which they become a part of your more elaborate explanation.
At least, that’s what seems to make sense to me. This is a good discussion for us Architects to have.
Rand, I never meant to imply you didn’t have a better answer. I’m sure you’re quite adept at doing it well. Notice I didn’t add my own answer yet. To be honest, it might depend on the audience.
I was taught by someone a long time ago to have that “cocktail party answer” or that “elevator ride answer” to what it is we do or what anything is about. It’s a brief time period to get to the point in a way that really captures it accurately, yet really captures the person’s attention.
It’s an art and a skill that we’d better get better at doing.
Architects serve individuals, businesses, and institutions utilizing their expertise of building science, esthetic theory, pragmatic spatial planning, municipal zoning and building code research methods to create balanced solutions to their building needs.
OK, that’s my first stab at it…a little wordy perhaps…but as I write this, one of our partner’s is on vacation. One of his clients called panicking because his project’s construction has been stopped. This guy is an in house facilities person (who thinks he’s every bit of an architect because he owns AutoCAD) for a warehouse expansion project. He decided to move their addition three feet closer to the property line (unbeknown to him) resulting in the building – a pre-engineered metal shed already now erected – requiring a 1 hour fire assembly on the exterior wall. We are now racking our brains trying to figure out how to get this to work for him. And he is riding our butts asking when it will be done. Will he learn from this? Will he hold architects up with professional respect as he does a doctor? I doubt it.
It is unfortunate that people do not understand the complexities of designing buildings. The AIA’s efforts have done little to enlighten the public. Many clients spend millions on their building projects and want to minimize the design process as much as possible. It makes little sense to me!
I happen to know that Edward Shannon, ArCH, Architect, is a gifted Architect capable of creating award-winning architecture as a Licensed Architect and that he can and will solve this present problem created by others.
I agree with you, that various professional organizations and public media have been conducting campaigns (whether intended or not) or allowing programs to erase real Licensed Architects from the public’s consciousness (such as with “associate” programs that bestows a main title after CAD operator names with whatever modifiers that the public doesn’t notice, who then interprets that they are the real deal). Interesting that one of those guys (who thinks they are an Architect) comes to a real licensed Architect to solve the big problems he’s made.
Secondarily, your company appears to be treated as a commodity. Once that happens, your firm has 2 choices:
1. Change the perception of the company in that marketplace by finding ways to distinguish itself as a specialist in a small few categories of work. This should lead to more Clients of that particular type, who should be willing to pay more for the expertise you offer.
2. Continue to be a commodity and compete with the CAD techs for lowball fees with continued professional legal responsibility (yuk).
If your firm chooses option #1, then it should immediately start a lifelong campaign to set itself up as the best in what they do for your market region.
This can happen in the form of:
A. Giving local talks at trade and professional organizations in the categories in which you wish to specialize.
B. Revamping your company website to reflect this shift in specialty, with webpages devoted to your specialties.
C. Social media regular postings of things your firm is doing (projects, talks, inventions) that characterize your company as a leader in what it does.
D. Testimonials from happy Clients on your website in the specialty categories.
E. I’m sure there are marketing people and folks like our pal Enoch that can further detail this list.
Thanks for the advice, Rand….. But many client types think of architects as a commodity. Why? Because they do not know what we do and how we can add value to their projects. Hopefully the efforts of ArCH and others will change public perceptions.
argreed.
When discussing what we do with non-architects, we have to put it in perspective of how they interact with it. Discussing architecture with non-architects is not that much different from designing architecture for our clients. It is never about us, or really what we “do”. It is about them- it is about how the architecture makes their lives better, makes their businesses more profitable, makes their students better learners. All we “do” is facilitate. We make a building that serves whatever it is that the client does.
In no way, does this mean that design or aesthetics do not matter. Clearly they do, but they matter in a less tangible way, and because of that intangibility, we digress into our “Archispeak” where we talk about “spatial quality” and the “built-environment”. Design matters to us in and of itself; design matters to designers for design’s sake. It matters to everyone else in how it betters their lives.
I saw this question pop up on your facebook group Mark, and I’d been thinking just yesterday about my “core values/purpose” as an architect and trying to turn that into my “elevator pitch”… so this was timely.
I was inspired to write a blog post, based on some previous posts/brochures I’ve written to try and explain our role to non-architects. This is what flowed forth earlier today if you’re interested: http://talinaedwards.com.au/2015/03/what-does-an-architect-do/
I’ve only just read your post here now – and I love ALL of the responses above too – and generally that was what I was trying to say too. I especially like Sean’s comment: “Architects provide a fundamental need with the elegance of an artist, curiosity of a scientist, rational of an attorney and the responsibility of a surgeon.”
The most poetic I got was “So I guess instead of being thought of as ‘composers’, Architects are more like conductors, leading the whole symphony orchestra to ensure each element plays its part to contribute to your masterpiece.”
Architects help enterprises establish and mature business capabilities for strategic advantage. This may include people/workforce, our processes and/or technology assets. We have different architect roles for different levels of planning and design.
Simple as that.
..and fantastic article btw, love the 4 points list. Simple and spot on.
Thanks. 4 works for my firm’s practice. Other firms may have more or less.
What is most important is that Mark has us all THINKING about this subject and cultivating our own answers so that when we are quizzed about this in the future, we’ll all be able to provide a good response. Have a good weekend.