A growing collection of “how-to” guides, by a variety of authors (including me). Click on a title to download a PDF.
Amazing arcCA Design Awards Guide
From arcCA 07.3, “Comparing Awards,” an extensive guide to national and international architecture design awards programs. Proven effective.
Confessions of a Design Reviewer: Ten Guidelines for Coming Out As an Architect
Drawing on her experience as a member of Denver’s Lower Downtown Design and Demolition Review Board, Wendy Kohn offers sage advice on how to behave–and how not to behave–at a Design Review hearing. From arcCA 07.2, “Design Review.”
Some people are comfortable telling others their accomplishments and abilities, and others aren’t. Here are some suggestions for tooting your horn without feeling like a big wind-bag.
If you’ve ever been asked to take over a project that had been begun by another architect, you know that this process (known as “supplanting”) can be fraught with problems. Kurt Cooknick, Assoc. AIA, Director of Regulation & Practice for the AIA California Council, offers advice.
Thank You For Submitting: Advice for the Award-Lorn
David Meckel, FAIA, provides insightful counsel to those who are flummoxed by the process of submitting for design awards. From arcCA 07.3, “Comparing Awards.”
For architects who may be frustrated by the general public’s lack of understanding of architecture, here are some tips for drawing others into the fold, graciously. This version was selected for the AIA’s Best Practices series, available online at www.aia.org/bestpractices.
A concise guide to the process by Sasha Culvahouse, age 6.
Here are some Bay Area-based folk who are expert at helping architects and others manage practice and projects.
Adi Shamir
Adi Shamir is the Executive Director of the Van Alen Institute: Projects in Public Architecture and the author of Open House: Unbound Space and the Modern Dwelling (New York: Rizzoli, 2002).
Julie D. Taylor, Hon. AIA/LA / Taylor & Company
Founded in 1994 by Julie D. Taylor, Hon. AIA/LA, Taylor & Company creates and implements proactive public relations programs for professionals, manufacturers, institutions, and organizations involved in creative design, architecture, building, furnishings, and the betterment of the built environment.
Sidewalk Plazas
Public Architecture’s Open Space Strategy proposes to reconfigure San Francisco’s Folsom and Howard as two-way streets, while still accommodating intensive traffic. At the heart of the plan is a proposal to make Folsom more pedestrian-oriented, with generous sidewalks creating new spaces for a variety of outdoor activities and urban amenities. These generous sidewalks, or Sidewalk Plazas, would be installed incrementally, programmed with diverse public amenities, keyed to the particular conditions of SoMa’s varying uses.
Steven I. Doctors / CM+ Group
Steven I. Doctors holds licenses as an architect and general contractor in the State of California. He received a Bachelor of Architecture at Cornell University and a Master of Science in Architecture at UC Berkeley. He is a PhD candidate in Architecture at UC Berkeley and an adjunct professor in the Architecture program at the University of San Francisco. His research interests include the history of architectural practice, design theory and methods, project management methodologies, project delivery strategies, early 20th century Italian architecture, and sacred spaces. He is a member of the Society of Architectural Historians and the Project Management Institute.
Since 1984, his firm, CM+ Group, has offered a wide range of project management services to building owners, tenants, financial institutions, educational groups, and non-profit organizations in the San Francisco Bay Area.
Since 2000, I have edited arcCA (Architecture California), the quarterly journal of the AIA California Council. Other consulting projects for the AIACC have included the consolidation and editing of the Council’s Long Range Plan and the editing of A Century of California Architecture, a centennial history of the Division of the State Architect.
Other clients include :
The Office of Charles F. Bloszies, AIA
Lionakis Beaumont Design Group
Places: Forum for the Design of the Public Realm
Kati Rubinyi & Associates, Research & Consulting
Starkweather Bondy Architecture, LLP
Other clients include :
The Office of Charles F. Bloszies, AIA
Starkweather Bondy Architecture, LLP
Places: Forum for the Design of the Public Realm
These entries are the first of approximately two hundred fifty observations on the spatial character of New Orleans, which I’m preparing for publication in book form. I will add entries occasionally during 2008, as the work progresses.
While I do communications consulting myself, I also work frequently with other communications experts, each of whom is better at something than I am. Here are my favorites. Most are Bay Area based, but they’re all totally cosmo. I am also happy to recommend other excellent writers.
Carol Miller / RED PENTAMETER
Carol Miller founded Red Pentameter in 2004 to start a new conversation about how language creates memorable identities and brands. What moves people, what we recall and what we can imagine are sparked by sensory experience. Language recreates experience: the warm cinnamon smell of home, hot asphalt in an August downpour. A PhD in English and a published poet and critic, Carol speaks to consumers as sentient beings to build meaningful brand experiences.
Kelly Macy / Kelly Macy Creative
Kelly Macy Creative is based in San Francisco, California. The practice is broad based, providing full spectrum design services for public, non-profit and private institutions.
Here are some graphic designers with whom I’ve enjoyed working. All are based in the Bay Area, but work beyond it.
Jeremy Mende / MendeDesign
Jeremy Mende is the principal and creative director of MendeDesign, a visual communications firm that specializes in producing memorable, poetic, and uniquely focused messages and images for design-centric clients. Areas of expertise include brand definition, identity, marketing collateral, image design, monograph design, and online experience/website design. MendeDesign, when questioned, will deny being Modernists but will enthusiastically admit to a belief in beauty and its enduring social value.
Ragina Johnson
Ragina Johnson is a freelance graphic designer known for her sensitive use of color and form and for her incisive ability to communicate complex ideas with typography. Her work within the architecture and non-profit communities has earned her a reputation for being a supreme professional and an enthusiastic collaborator. She is interested in exploring ways to merge art and design with progressive activism to see what role they play in fostering alternative ideas. Ragina is the layout designer for arcCA (Architecture California).
Michael S. Bernard / Virtual Practice Consulting
Michael S. Bernard has built a career upon successful project and firm management. Through his firm, Virtual Practice Consulting, he acts as mentor and monitor, serving in the capacity of consulting managing principal for small design firms that do not have one. He is capable of addressing operations issues that affect the everyday life of the small design practice: development of revenue models, development of fee projections, the review and preparation of contracts, fees and schedules, the mentoring of senior staff to foster their development as effective project managers. Michael’s range of clients includes the allied disciplines of architecture, landscape architecture, interior design and construction.
Michael Strogoff / Strogoff Consulting
Michael Strogoff, AIA, has advised many of the nation’s most successful architectural, engineering and interior design firms, managed large and complex projects over a 25 year career, led firms through successful mergers, acquisitions and internal transitions, and negotiated hundreds of agreements on behalf of design professionals. Strogoff Consulting provides practice management, leadership development, ownership transition, mergers & acquisitions, and negotiation services. At the core of their services is bringing people and interests together in creative and collaborative ways.
Asato Communications
Asato Communications works with architecture and design firms to create strategic tools for connecting with clients, decision-makers and influencers. Yosh Asato’s sixteen years of experience in the architecture and design industry include a long tenure leading AIA San Francisco’s design-related programs and communications initiatives. Most recently, she served as Director of Marketing for Skidmore, Owings & Merrill’s San Francisco office, where her responsibilities encompassed project-related research and public relations. An active member of the design community, she co-chairs the editorial board of LINE, AIA San Francisco’s online journal.
Caldwell Communications + Marketing
Kenneth Caldwell, Caldwell Communications + Marketing, consults on both strategic planning and implementation. His philosophy is based on the idea that successful marketing for professional services is a result of effective and targeted communication. Kenneth has placed articles in Architectural Record, Architecture, arcCA (Architecture California), ArchNewsNow, Building Design & Construction, Contract, Interior Design, Metropolis, Modern Steel Construction, San Francisco Chronicle, and Urban Land, as well as other trade and consumer publications. His own writing has appeared in Architectural Record, arcCA, Design Book Review, L.A. Architect, Landscape Architecture, and LINE.