Architect is an Enabling Orchestra Leader

Business901 Podcast Transcription
Implementing Lean Marketing Systems

A Good Architect is an enabling
Orchestra Leader
Guest was Zachary D. Evans

Related Podcast:
The Strength of an Architect is in their
Collaborative Abilities

The Strength of an Architect is in their Collaborative Abilities
Copyright Business901


Zachary Evans is an architect and partner at Kelty Tappy Design,
Inc., a Fort Wayne architecture, planning, and urban design firm.
A Ball State University graduate (Muncie,
Indiana), Zach holds professional architectural
registrations in Indiana and Ohio and is
certified by the National Council of
Architectural Registration Boards (NCARB). He
is an active member of the American Institute
of Architects (AIA) Fort Wayne Chapter, and
currently serves on the City of Fort Wayne
(Indiana) Downtown Design Review
Committee.

LinkedIn: Zachary Evans Twitter: @zdevans

A good Architect is an enabling Orchestra Leader, not a
Distant Composer.

Joe Dager: Welcome everyone. This is Joe Dager, the host of
the Business901 podcast. With me today is Zachary Evans. Zach
is an architect and partner at the Kelty Tappy Design firm which
is an architecture, planning, and urban design firm. A Ball State
University graduate, Zach holds professional architectural
registrations in Indiana and Ohio and is certified by the National
Council of Architectural Registration Board. He's an active
member of the American Institute of Architects and currently
serves on the city of Fort Wayne's downtown design review
committee.
Zach, I'd like to welcome you and maybe a good lead-in question
is why did you choose architecture as your profession?
Zachary Evans: First of all, thanks, Joe, for having me. It's an
honor to be on the podcast. Architecture is a very interesting

profession. It's got several different aspects. I think at a young
age I admired a lot of the mystery involved in what an architect
does and it took some digging to find out. I think a lot of the
general public has questions about what architects really do
during the day. Do they play with markers and design all day long
or do they tour around and inspect construction projects? I think
that's really what got me involved.

Joe: What'd you find out? Did you find out that they tooled
around, played with markers?

Zachary: During the college years the education of an architect
is a small sliver of what the actual profession opens up to you.
During college you spend a lot of time in the programming and
schematic design phases of a project where you either develop a
program for a client or you're given one and you produce a few
concepts and then start to refine those concepts. But, typically,
you stop pretty quickly. You don't actually get to develop the
whole project or create construction documents or see a final
product. It's a pretty narrow view of what the full design process
is. Once you enter the workforce, either on internship or following
graduation, you have your first job, you find out there's a lot of
work that goes on before I actually get to start any type of design
work. That can be picturing financing or meeting a client for the
first time and how all that works, some contractual items.
Then afterward, after you have a design concept that's agreed
upon, there are several iterations of the design that you have to
work through with the client and all the consultants that are
involved in a project, which can be almost up to 10 or 12
different consultants on a large project.
Joe: Well, I look at Ball State is one of the leading universities in
architectural design that you chose, they've always had a great
reputation. How much time do they take in teaching you about


design? Did you take an art class to broaden your horizon there
and learn how to sketch and everything?

Zachary: Sure. The program I went through was a 10 semester
program and every semester you had a design studio that you
spent about 12 hours a week with supervision, with instructors
there. Each semester there was a different focus on design. There
were books and architects that you would study from different
periods. There were courses on architectural history and theory.
We took courses on different design mediums such as water
color, model building, computer generated, four plains elevation,
and 3D modeling.
Joe: Is there a pattern to a thought process an architect has?
Zachary: There is a little bit of a pattern. I think the biggest
factor and biggest item that you're taught is to not get stuck in
one mode of thinking. There are three steps. You have to be
willing to take a step back and conceptualize and brainstorm on
an item. If you're moving down the design path and you're not
sure about what's going on or your client, if you have a client, is
not comfortable with where you're going you have to take a step
back, brainstorm multiple options, test those options, and then
move to the next level of detail. Typically, the resulting design
that you have or concept is a combination of the options that you
made.
Joe: What you explained to me, architecture incorporates a huge
part of the business aspect of the project and you're the front
runner or the person that oversees everything. Is that true?
Zachary: Every case is a little different, Joe. These days’
architects work for contractors, we work for clients. There are
even architects that have become developers in their own right,
create their own projects, they secure financing and secure
property, and then they act as their own client and either build a
speculative building or maintain those projects down the road

after they're built. These days some architects are creating work
for themselves and they're getting pretty creative with their own
business model.
Joe: During the design process where do people struggle in
creating the concept? How do you go about that?
Zachary: Architectural design, just like any other creative
activity, it's not something that can be forced out. Although there
are many extremely talented designers out there nobody can
expect them to churn out ground-breaking designs all day every
day so some time needs to be taken for rest and inspiration.
Joe: You're not sitting there, let's say, in front of a computer
and you've got to force yourself, you've got a deadline. That
doesn't really work well, does it?
Zachary: No. We all have deadlines. There are things that we do
to try to break a brain freeze, if you will, if we're trying to come
up with multiple concepts. Sometimes we just need to open up a
book or design magazine and go through and try to receive some
of the inspiration from the pages of the magazines. Sometimes
we go out and just take a tour, either just walking around town
or going to visit certain case studies or projects that we think
might provide us with some inspiration. A lot of times we'll call
other designers in. That's why collaboration is important. Just
having one person's view or opinion of a concept can be limiting.
Joe: I find it really interesting that designers have a tendency to
collaborate really well. Is that the reason for it, that they maybe
have better receptors or something like that to try to stimulate
ideas?

Zachary: Yeah. I think it's part of the atmosphere and attitude
you have on designing. If you think there's a right and wrong
answer it's probably not going to go very well for you and you're
going to stumble a little bit trying to develop concepts. If you

have an atmosphere where it's free to throw out ideas and allow
others to challenge those or build upon them I think you're in a
lot better situation to come out with a wide range of concepts to
develop the next stage from.
Joe: You mentioned earlier that there's a lot of different ways of
customer involvement in recent years. Have you seen any trends
that are happening that is different than maybe when you first
started?
Zachary: I haven't seen any definite trends. I know that with
the increased use of the Internet and all the quality information
on the Internet our clients have become a lot more educated on
the design process itself and construction materials and
techniques. We've had clients come in and tell us what structural
system they think is most appropriate for the building and we try
to back up from that, especially if we don't have any type of
design or design constraints set yet because that's something
we'll work out with our design team along with the client and
include their input. We always enjoy hearing stories from our
clients about them wanting to be architects when they were
young. A lot of our clients enjoyed taking a larger role with the
design team in creating a design for their project, to play
architect. We always encourage that. The more customer
involvement they have, the more involvement they have with our
design team, the better the result's going to be. It makes
communication a lot easier because they're trying 110 percent to
understand where we're going and they're onboard with the
ultimate goal of the project.

Joe: You really try to go out and create a co-creation type
atmosphere with them?
Zachary: Sure. We don't want to just consult with them. We
want to pull them in and engage them on the team. They need all
the consultants, the engineers. Typically for a job you have


mechanical, electrical engineers, you have a structural engineer,
landscape architects. Sometimes you have artists who will design
artwork. Interior designers that help us create the interior
atmosphere, pick out furnishings. We encourage as much
involvement with the client as they're willing to put in. We do
have some clients that hand over a specific task and they want us
to call them when it's finished and others that enjoy coming up to
the office every day, taking a role in the project and seeing how it
progresses.
Joe: Is there a way that you set expectations of projects?
Zachary: Absolutely. That's why the early customer involvement
is extremely important. We try to spend a lot of time educating
the client on what our process is. Every architect and every
design firm has a different process that they like to go through
and they involve different timelines. We try to lay all that out
upfront, typically verbally and in written proposals so they can
take it home with them or take it back to their business and
absorb it a little bit. But managing expectations upfront is key. If
you get down the road in a design project and the owner's upset
for some reason because it took too long or they thought they
were going to get a different product at the end. It's really the
design team's fault for not being outgoing and aggressive in
engaging the client and making sure their expectations were
managed properly.
Joe: I'm always intrigued the modeling concept of architecture
because most people have a problem with visualization. I think
that's what separates designers are that they've got this idea.
They can visualize the whole thing and a lot of people struggle
with that. How do you start with prototyping modeling? Can you
talk me let's say through a smaller project, a little bit of some of
the modeling characteristics, steps that you go through with the
customer?


Zachary: Sure. Architects are trained to think visually and a lot
of times young adults get involved in architecture because they
always think visually. I think a lot of people who aren't in
architecture can do that but there are a many people that cannot
visualize a three dimensional space in their mind so modeling
becomes extremely important. We do drawings in two dimensions
and three dimensions. Typically, the two dimensional drawings
are for the construction drawings that are given to a contractor
for building purposes and the other type of modeling is done
digitally is 3D modeling. There are really two different reasons to
do modeling. The first is for design intent. These can be digital or
physical models that we do early in the design stages, especially
when we're doing the conceptualizing and brainstorming.
We use cardboard or foam cord boards. Sometimes it's as crude
as hot glue guns and cardboard to create something that you can
turn, flip upside down, and hand to a client that helps us get a
sense of what that space might feel like if they were inside of it, if
it were a full-size structure.
Digital models we use to convey design intent works well. There's
simple programs that can be used such as Google SketchUp and
more complex 3D modeling softwares that are out there that we
use. The real purpose of those is to allow the design team to
work and coordinate a conceptualize design and convey that
information to a client.
The second big type of digital modeling is typically use a little bit
later, after a design at least has been approved conceptually and
moves on to one of the middle stages of design that we call
design development and is BIM. BIM stands for Building
Information Modeling and has become very prevalent lately and is
really the software of the future and process of the future where
all of the building systems are put into a single digital model.


The structure is modeled, the mechanical system including all the
ductwork and air handlers are modeled, all the architectural
elements are modeled, the doors and corridors. Also all the
written information, product information, design intent
statements, can be included in it. It's a single file, single model
that contains all the information for that project. It can even be
used by contractors to work off of during bidding and
construction.
Joe: It's not a 2K file is it?

Zachary: No. They can be pretty large, Joe.
Joe: It sounded pretty detailed.
Zachary: It is and we've seen it being used the most in
healthcare projects, any type of project that is systems heavy.
When I say systems heavy I mean all of the things in the wall. In
healthcare projects, we typically see a lot of air and gas buried in
the walls. If you're working two dimensions it's too difficult to
chart every item in the wall or every item above the ceiling and
being able to coordinate that prior to construction. What happens
is the contractor gets up to the site, he pops a ceiling tile, and
there's a fire suppression line running right here his duct has to
go. With the bin software, the vast majority of these problems
can be resolved before the contractor even gets on site. It is very
beneficial, especially for the systems heavy projects.
Joe: Is there much virtual work nowadays where you're sitting
there collaborating on the screen with clients and contractors?
Has that become a big part of your firm's work?

Zachary: It is. These days everything is moving so quickly that
there are architects that work across state lines and even in other
countries. There just isn't a way to keep up with the speed of
business without using virtual meetings. There are even firms
that have offices in the United States that will work on projects all

day long and then send them to the cloud or send them over to
their other office over in Asia and have them work on them all
night. There are firms, worldwide firms that work 24 hours.
Joe: Does this remove more of the personal things or do you
think that these things are enabling to create more of a
relationship?
Zachary: I think all this technology and the ability to collaborate
is a great next step for design in general. Being able to
collaborate with engineers and other designers with other talents
and perspectives on the same project only makes the outcome
better for our clients.
Joe: Going back to the modeling, I always think about
prototyping early and often. You use that feedback from them so
there aren't any surprises. When you give them that foam glued
together piece and they turn it around in their hand, is that like a
toy to the customer? Is he sitting there looking at it and turning it
around in his hands, is that a good feeling of accomplishment for
you when you see him turn it upside down and looking at it?
Zachary: It really is, Joe. I think any type of model, whether it's
a physical model that we create or a virtual model that we create,
it's like our baby. It's our way of conveying our design intent.
There are some people that are able to see things visually and
some people that need to hear things verbally, but if you can
describe design intent along with either type of model I think you
cover all bases and it's the best way to get design intent across.
Joe: You're taking a step by step approach going through a
client. It's not necessarily linear it's more iterative, I would think,
that you're doing this, trying this, back and forth that you do with
any collaboration. You're reaching out and doing this with your
engineers and maybe other contractors and receiving feedback
from them. It seems like a pretty overwhelming task and a great
way to have scope creep.

Zachary: We always try to take it one layer at a time. When we
make our first presentation of several different design concepts
we try to give general overviews of each design concept and
specifically highlight the key differences between the designs.
Then we receive general feedback on those and work to come up
with a hybrid solution of those different concepts. Once we go
back to the design team alone, work out a few other concepts,
and go to the next layer. We do our best not to pile on all this
detailed information during one of the early design meetings.
That will come later once the client has a better understanding of
the project goal and timeline.
Joe: Walt Disney always had a thing where they went through
their design process, he had different stages and he never let
someone go back two stages to something. They could influence
the stage before but they couldn't influence two stages back and
that's how he stopped some of the scope creep.
Zachary: That's a great example. One thing we always stress in
our office is if you get stuck, zoom up a level and take a look at
what's going on. Same thing with trying to determine what a
client's challenge may be. If they're out of space at their current
location, they're packed in, they don't have room for employees
you may take a step back and look at why is that? Is the space
they have now inefficient? It may be that they don't need to add
on, they just need to renovate the space they have and make it
more efficient for their use. Any time we hit a stumbling block
with what we're doing we try to take one step up and I think
Disney's rule for that is pretty appropriate.

Joe: When I think of design thinking I go to the marketing side,
the Service Dominant Logic from Steve Vargo, but when most
think of design thinkers most think of IDEO. How do architects
relate to IDEO and Tim Brown?


Zachary: I think Tim Brown and the IDEO organization does a
good job of going through the three steps of the design process.
If you boil everything down, you really have a prototyping stage,
a testing stage, and then the refinement period and you repeat
that. You don't go through each step once. Each phase embraces
all three of those steps and then you move to the next level of
detail. If you hit a stumbling block you back up a step and repeat.
I think the prototyping stage, testing stage, and refinement stage
is really key to the design thinking attitude.
Joe: Have funding projects changed a lot? Are you seeing where
there's maybe a different type of funding, private funding more
so than public funding?
Zachary: I think it's stayed somewhat similar of the recent
economic challenges here in the United States. Public/private
partnerships are a little more popular. We're seeing some private
funding maybe incorporated with public funding, either state or
federal funding, in order to get projects to go. We're starting to
see some of the private work increase again. It's been at a pretty
low level for the past couple of years. The public jobs have been
moving along at a decent rate. But I think the advent of the
public/private partnership has opened a new era in getting
projects completed.
Joe: Is there a big difference when you're working for a public
versus a private? Are expectations completely different?
Zachary: I think the expectations are usually very similar. The
way we go about what we produce as architects and engineers
are different, the legal requirements are different for public and
private jobs. For instance, bidding. Public jobs have to be publicly
bid. I think the expectations and the goals are usually pretty
similar.
Joe: An architect gets to be at the ground floor. He gets to be at
the beginning of the process. Most designers, as we discussed,

are at the tail end where they get to make the thing pretty. We're
seeing now, especially in service design, where that designer is
moving to the beginning now in the chain. He's no longer the last
guy before it goes out to the market and I think a lot of that's got
to do with user experience, customer experience becoming so
prevalent that you have to gather that information upfront. The
designer is the guy to do that. What tips would you give to
someone that's moving from the tail end of the process to the
beginning of the process?
Zachary: I think no matter what point a designer gets involved
in the project there are always some constraints. They may be
fewer and they may not be as noticeable. Say, for instance, an
architect is on a green site there might be constraints with that
site on where construction may occur, who owns the property,
what the featured use of the property may be, zoning issues
come into play. I think no matter how open and free the canvas
looks I think there are always some constraints that should be
looked at as opportunities. We were taught in design school that
any constraint should be embraced as an opportunity. It was a lot
more difficult to design without any context or feedback than it
was to have some constraints and parameters for a project.
First step should always be brainstorming and throwing out as
many ideas as you can on the paper. We like to use a dry erase
board. We have a wall that's all dry erase material and we just
get out the markers and go to it and talk while we're doing it.
There are no wrong ideas. Usually we get several good ideas to
take to the next level out of the brainstorming sessions.

If they don't work out it never hurts to bring in colleagues or
consultants with in order to try to help out with that process.
Joe: Explain that process a little bit to me. You gather a group of
people including the customer maybe, you go through some


ideas, and you start doing it. How do you solicit ideas? How do
you get it started? How do you get the fires burning?

Zachary: Usually it's through verbal communications. We try to
get as much information about the existing structure or existing
site, any site constraints, zoning information, just about anything
we can. We lay it out all on the table. Usually at that point, we've
already had discussions with the client about what avenue they
want to proceed with. We bring as many people crammed into
the conference room we can. We get the markers out. Usually we
encourage the client, also, and draw or write whatever comes to
mind and then we always document it photographically and use
all those ideas in the next iteration of the design.
Joe: You brainstorm effectively throughout a project then? Are
you going back to that whiteboard three, four, five, six times
during a project?
Zachary: We do. Every project... You always hit a stumbling
block and we always try to take a step back, reevaluate the issue,
and see if there's a better way to create a solution. We don't
always go and use the whiteboard. Sometimes it's on paper, at
our desk, or on the computer. Even when you're detailing a
project, trying to complete construction documents, you may get
to a handrail detail, for instance, that just isn't working out and
you take a step back and reevaluate the constraints and the
parameters you have and try to come up with a few different
options on how to solve that issue. Usually bring a couple extra
designers in to take a look at it is the best route to go.

Joe: What have you found to be the most difficult thing being an
architect that you didn't really realize going into it? Is there
something that's like "Wow, this has been a tough road for me to
get down?"
Zachary: Personally, I'm a pretty detail-oriented manager. I
think that's a good way to define my characteristics and it's

always been a challenge for me to accept that something is a
failure or it wasn't the best solution. Always having an open mind,
always being willing to take input, take a step back and
reevaluate the situation is key for any successful design project.
Another one is collaboration. There's a lot of pressure to have a
single figurehead on the design but every project has to have a
willing client, a design team of many professionals, and a skilled
contractor in order to create the built piece of architecture. It
takes a lot of people, a lot of different talents, and there's no one
person that can do it all.
Joe: What has been the funniest part? What have you come
back saying, "I'm glad I'm an architect."
Zachary: There's nothing better than spending a year or two on
a design project and seeing it completed and seeing the users
take advantage of it, but really, Joe, the best part is to meet all
the people, learn what they do for a living, learn what they enjoy,
and be able to play a part in their success.

Joe: Thank you very much, I appreciate it.
Zachary: Thank you, Joe. I had a great time and I hope the
information is useful.



Joseph T. Dager
Lean Marketing Systems
Ph: 260-438-0411 Fax: 260-818-2022
Email: jtdager@business901.com
Web/Blog: http://www.business901.com
Twitter: @business901

What others say: In the past 20 years, Joe and I have collaborated on
many difficult issues. Joe's ability to combine his expertise with "out of the
box" thinking is unsurpassed. He has always delivered quickly, cost
effectively and with ingenuity. A brilliant mind that is always a pleasure to
work with." James R.

Joe Dager is President of Business901, a progressive company providing
direction in areas such as Lean Marketing, Product Marketing, Product
Launches and Re-Launches. As a Lean Six Sigma Black Belt,
Business901 provides and implements marketing, project and performance
planning methodologies in small businesses. The simplicity of a single
flexible model will create clarity for your staff and as a result better
execution. My goal is to allow you spend your time on the need versus the
plan.

An example of how we may work: Business901 could start with a
consulting style utilizing an individual from your organization or a virtual
assistance that is well versed in our principles. We have capabilities to
plug virtually any marketing function into your process immediately. As
proficiencies develop, Business901 moves into a coach’s role supporting the
process as needed. The goal of implementing a system is that the processes
will become a habit and not an event.

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Architect is an Enabling Orchestra Leader

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