Working for Tips

Starting a business cold turkey, without any clients, presented itself with plenty of problems. Not all of them new to the business world but certainly new for a first-time entrepreneur and fledgling business such as WAKE. One of those problems, and arguably the only one that matters, is how to generate work and get paid. In attempts to resolve this problem and because everyone deserves well-designed spaces we put into place a controversial office policy: 

Design projects which do not require a permit, are estimated below 40hrs of work, and below $15,000 in budget will be done on a tip-based fee structure. 

Our first tip based project: Built-in bookcase and reading niche

A fair amount of time was spent defending and explaining this policy to my peers, friends, potential clients, and current clients. Stating that architects have removed themselves from the public eye, partitioned off our profession, and spent too long purely in the world of the theoretical praising the now “starchitects” which solely focus on the hyper-rich and Avante-guard. Because of this, it is now the general perception that hiring a designer is only for the “well off” which couldn’t be further from the truth. 85% of all architects and designers operate in small firms, less than eight people according to the AIA, and are just as common as your local pediatrician. However, for smaller projects the typical designer charges close to 20% of the overall budget which is a hard pill to swallow for someone already on the fence, unsure of what they’re buying, and holding the opinion that we work only for the rich. 

Now I’m not saying this true of all designers, nor am I suggesting that everyone is “eligible” for this policy, but it is a service we will continue to provide to the public and our clients when asked or approached with a design project. We will continue to do this for the following reasons:

1. Because everyone deserves good design, especially in a time where we are constantly inundated with bad design. 
2. Because it is time for designers to start to repair the misaligned public perception about what we do and why design matters. 
3. Because it keeps us creative fluid as professionals and exposes us to a higher number of design problems for us to learn from.
4. Because it is a great learning experience for our juniors and allows them to directly interact with clients earlier on in their careers spurring growth. 
5. Because the experience gained on smaller projects makes our juniors more capable of handling larger projects, ultimately providing better service to our clients.
6. Because you never know who might know who and doing a good turn daily never hurt anyone.
7. Because I believe it is a better marketing strategy, and time better spent, than always trying to upsell people, only go after the 1%, or take out ads and that by helping people it will keep WAKE in the forefront of their minds when they’re at a friends dinner party, and someone wants to undertake a development project. 
8. Because I choose to believe people are inherently good, will not stiff you if you do a good job, and appreciate the holiday cards of clients growing families and baked banana bread sent to the office every holiday from those we have helped. 
    

Values

Recently, among friends, I was unable to answer a simple question, “What are your company values?” It made me realize that while I had defined goals and operating procedures the values of the company, that would contribute to the atmosphere and mentality of employees, had not been considered. 

After a few seconds, or minutes, the answers came to me realizing that they had taken shape in a previous post and exist each time I talked about lessons learned from Finnegan’s Wake. 

1.    To not fear the unknown or failure.
2.    To demand active participation. 
3.    To value the “What” in addition to the “How”

These values, while broad, begin to encompass my beliefs about the design process. 

1. To not fear the unknown or failure – speaks, again, to the lessons learned during my thesis and the experiences HCE has but more importantly reminds employees that design is an exploration of the unknown and that enviably you will fail. But as designers you must love the exploration of the unknown, you must accept failure as a learning experience, and you must recognize that the design process is one of collaboration, communication, and acknowledgment of what you do not know in the pursuit of more. 
2. To demand active participation – something Joyce did in his novel. Speaks to a higher level of accountability and involvement which is required by all parties involved in the process, from the junior on the project to the general contractor all parties must work together as a team, actively, to execute a successful project. Active-participation also supports the iterative design process, and the first value, used in our studio. For us, design, and its creation is not a linear process and a singular endeavor, it is iterative. Working through multiple iterations of the same concept, deconstruction, and reconstruction design principles, pulling the success and failures out of iterations to merge, remerge, fail, fail again, and then finally arrive at a design which best suits the needs of our clients. This process requires the active participation of those involved on all fronts to continually produce and reproduce work, modify, and edit spaces according to human interpretation and perception of space. Frankly put “to demand active-participation” is to expect more, to hold all parties accountable, and to strive for a higher level of design and project execution. 
3. To value the “What” in addition to the “How” – the more abstract yet most important value. In Finnegan’s Wake James Joyce turned centuries of literary tradition upside down, deciding not to write a linear text but instead a special one. Focusing not on “What does this mean” but instead on “How does this work?” hoping that readers would dive into his book, be active participants, not fear the unknown, and would discover new meaning through the spatial text he rigorously created. 

Everyone, without much effort, can think of multiple books, movies, comics, that exist in a linear format with strong thematic principles that progress through the hero's journey. i.e., the Lion King, Star Wars, Harry Potter, The Wizard of Oz, The Odyssey, The Man Who Would Be King, Momo, and The Hobbit to name a few. 

These examples, while impressive and teach us valuable lessons, do not demand-active participation to uncover their meaning. A passive or casual reader can pick up the book, or watch the movie, and understand the core message of the author without much effort due to its simple, linear, progression. By instead focusing on the “How” instead of the “What” Joyce created a masterpiece still studied, debated, and dissected today. One that challenges the literary world with his expectation for more. 

Applying the inverse, and like Joyce prioritizing the opposite, if we as architects and designers shift away from “How does this work” and move towards “What does this mean” what changes will arise in the built world? How will we view design differently? We live in a time where design has never been more important, more valued, and more critical in shaping the way we live our lives. However, as a profession, we are still too focused on the “How” instead of the “What” How does this app work? How does this building stand and how does circulation work? How does it impact the environment? Etc, etc. These are all important questions, ones we should not forget about and do not forget about at WAKE, but they are benign, basic, and of course, must be answered as a pre-requisite to the job. But they are just the prerequisite, the beginning of the design process and not what the focus should be on. We must ask ourselves and focus on the “What does this mean” for the betterment of our clients and project. What does this space mean for our client? What does this project mean for the community? What impressions linger in the afterthoughts of inhabitants that experience our plans and what do those impressions mean to them about our work and what we are trying to say through our design? 

To value the “What” in addition to the “How” is a reminder to focus on everything that is human in our work and for the inhabitants that will occupy our space. If a resolution of the function is why we are hired as architects and form the easiest to control as designers, then we here at WAKE design will forever focus on that which dwells between form and function. We will focus on that which is human, intangible, provocative, memorable, and compassionate within our designs while remembering too, of course, always resolve both form and function, the prerequisites for design and architecture. 

Each of these values can be interrupted differently and elaborated on more extensively, and have been in conversation with friends since that original question, but to do so here would be too time-consuming, for both you and I, and potentially close a door to future discussion with every curious client. A debate that I hope to have many times over the lifetime of this company and one which will evolve as my understanding of these values gets questions, argued against, and reshaped through intelligent, thoughtful discussion with the people most engaged in our lives.