Image Copyright, Detroit News

Would you live in a house that cost $1,125/sq. ft.?  Probably not.  Even if you didn’t need to pay for your electricity, heating or cooling.  It just plain costs too much.   What if that cost didn’t include the “slave labor” used to build it (it was actually built by students, so slave labor may not be the right term)?  Yet this is what is being promoted as the “future”.

This house, which was supposd to be able to heat itself suffered burst pipes and subsequent damage.  It’s never been used and the city doesn’t have the funds to repair or open it.  Maybe the publicity of the article will help.

But this is what gives “green” a bad name.  A house that costs far too much that doesn’t have aesthetic appeal to most people that doesn’t perform the way it was marketed.  All of these things turn people off to “green.”  They also show that hyped green isn’t affordable.

We’ve been doing “green” all along.  We encourange and design structures with high energy efficiencies, but also realise the law of diminishing returns.  A “net zero” structure is a great goal – the construction sciences and trades just aren’t there, yet, to do it affordably.  But we can get closer without spending almost a million bucks.

It’s projects like this, and their associated publicity, that really give “green” a bad name–making it that much more difficult to get people to understand that “green” isn’t bad, nor is it weird, nor is it necessarily expensive.

A few years ago our local reseller for Autodesk products that serves the Brainerd, Minnesota area called and strongly encouraged us make the transition from Architectural Desktop (now known as Architect) to Revit.  Apparently, according to him, everyone is going that way and if we don’t get on board, we will be behind.  Furthermore, although I don’t remember the details, if we converted when he recommended we could do the whole thing for a little bit less than if we waited too long.  What I do remember is that both prices, the regular cost to convert and the discounted cost to convert, both felt like highway robbery.

After using Revit to complete a couple of different projects we were completely frustrated.  We could get 95% of the way there but in that last 5% there was nothing we could do to make the drawings look right.  I about pulled all my hair out and wasted large amounts of time and money trying to make it work.  We went to the blogs and the help stuff even some training and were told of many “shortcuts” that would trick the program into getting a look close to what we wanted, but in the end, we had to settler for documents that didn’t quite look like we wanted of buildings that weren’t quite constructed accurately for BIM.  All of this, quite frankly, made the whole thing a waste of money in my mind.

Furthermore, Revit, because of it’s shortcomings provided no additional value to my clients.  We want to stay on the cutting edge of technology.  We want to implement the best tools.  But in the end, if it is not improving my clients experience then I would just assume keep my money.  It’s about added value.  Revit doesn’t add value, it just costs more…at least for now.

I love the concept of Revit.  I think that they are almost there.  But in a BIM system almost makes the whole thing useless, and now, here I am many thousands of dollars lighter in the pocket and nothing to show for it.  Are we the only ones who have had this experience?

In an effort to build our local business in Brainerd, Minnesota, I have joined a business networking group.  I have really enjoyed it.  I am getting to know a good group of people and we are getting better local exposure as a result.

In one of my networking meetings with another individual who represents the commercial building market which is actually a design build firm, they told me that they basically give away their design work for free.  I think his actual words were “we eat the design costs.”

That’s an interesting concept to me and I was immediately skeptical.  Clearly, their staff architects are getting paid a salary.  That salary has to come from somewhere and construction margins are quite that good.  I’m not saying it isn’t true, I just don’t see how that is a profitable business model.

But over the several months since that conversation I have been considering over and over the idea of giving away the design for free.   It seems to me, that this is a statement of how much they, as a company, value design. It would seem that this policy fosters what I think is one of the biggest problems with architecture and that is its devaluation in the minds of the public.

It that time, I have been trying to consider how to compete with free and it has had me a little worried.

But I have had an epiphany.

I don’t have to compete with that.  In fact, I don’t WANT to compete with that.  Those individuals who devalue design to such an extent that they expect it for free simply would not agree with me and we would not be a good fit for them.  It’s the difference between price, and value.  I will compete on value.