Architects

Gary L. Cole AIA, Esq. is now an American Arbitration Association (AAA) Construction Mediator

May 8, 2013

Construction attorney & licensed architect Gary L. Cole AIA, Esq., already a construction arbitrator for the American Arbitration Association (AAA), has joined the AAA’s panel of construction mediators.

Mr. Cole has served as a Certified Mediator in over forty disputes.  He also serves as an expert witness and consulting counsel in construction, ADA and historic preservation disputes litigation.

His combines his experience and technical background as a licensed architect, construction contractor and former Visiting Associate Professor of Architecture at the University of Illinois, with fifteen years of experience as a construction attorney to arrive at insightful and well-reasoned alternative dispute resolutions.

Parties interested in his arbitrator, mediator, expert witness or litigation consulting counsel services may reach him at garycole@garylcolelaw.com.

© Gary L. Cole AIA, Esq. 2013

Preservation 2.0: A Call for Replacing the Secretary’s Standards with a Model Historic Building Code

April 8, 2013

By Gary L. Cole AIA, Esq.

[Author’s Note:  The following is the inaugural article for my newly-launched historic preservation-only website “Historic Preservation 2.0:  Preservation For The 21st Century” at http://www.newhistoricpreservation.com.  The article will also be published in the April 2013 print and online edition of Traditional Building Magazine.]

“The Standards are neither technical nor prescriptive, but are intended to promote responsible preservation practices that help protect our Nation’s irreplaceable cultural resources.  For example, they cannot, in and of themselves, be used to make essential decisions about which features of the historic building should be saved and which can be changed.  But once a treatment is selected, the Standards provide philosophical consistency to the work.”  Introduction to Standards and Guidelines.  National Park Service.

On January 25, 2013, U.S. Secretary of the Interior Ken Salazar asked the National Park Service (NPS) to conduct an internal review of the Federal Historic Preservation Tax Incentives Program (HTC) to “. . . make sure that we are doing everything we can to work in partnership with local communities, developers and other stakeholders to provide guidance and promote restoration efforts.”

This is welcome news, though as a former Illinois State Historic Preservation Office (SHPO) staff architect charged with interpreting the Secretary of the Interior’s Standards for Rehabilitation (Standards) for the HTC and other historic rehabilitation tax-incentive programs and now as a private practice attorney, I temper expectations.  Governmental reform is rarely a swift or revolutionary process.

Many of historic preservation’s laws and programs are nearly old enough for their own historic designations and are in dire need of rehabilitation.  The public would certainly benefit from a little regulatory tinkering with the HTC program, starting with eliminating application fees and the redundant SHPO and NPS review process.

However, meaningful reform includes reforming the way historic properties and communities are able to attract reinvestment capital for business growth, job creation and local economic stability.  This should start by relegating the Standards to their intended role of simply providing philosophical consistency to historic rehabilitation efforts, and not as a de facto historic building code by historic preservation administrative entities.

Hardly changed since their inception in 1977, the Standards comprise a ten-point manifesto of historic preservation’s essential rehab doctrine as enforced by federal, state and local historic preservation regulatory entities.  While philosophical guidance can inform the development of federal regulations with high social and legal aspirations, the vague language of the Standards bars the public from any objective, plain meaning understanding of their text.  Published “Interpretations” of the Standards by the NPS have merely transformed doctrine into dogma.  Though most of the Standards have retained their relevance, some, such as the unloved Standard No. 9, is the product of an outdated 1970s Modernist architectural bias and should be eliminated.

Communities seeking to redevelop their historic properties compete with other communities for a limited pool of private reinvestment capital.  When faced with choices, developers and investors will often chose the more predictable and less risky of those options.  The ambiguous Standards and their unpredictable interpretations by administrative entities can decrease the former, increase the latter and discourage reinvestment in historic properties.

But the solution is simple:  the Secretary of the Interior should support phasing out the Standards and replacing them with a Model Historic Building Code that conforms to the Federal Plain Language Guidelines, combines the ethics of the Standards with clear performance and prescriptive rehabilitation requirements; embraces 21^st century preservation technology and materials science; and . . .

Increased Architecture Billings in October / Uncertainty About 2013 & Bringing Value to Clients

By Gary L. Cole AIA, Esq. Attorney / Architect

The American Institute of Architects (AIA) reports that the “Architects Billing Index” for October 2012 was the highest it’s been in three years, with growth in all four reporting regions around the country.  The strongest was the in South, the weakest in the Midwest.  By specialization, architecture firms with commercial/industrial specializations reported weaker billings than residential and institutional-focused firms.

The full AIA article can be read HERE.

The AIA asked architecture firms to indicate their top concerns for 2013:

   “Despite the recent improvements in the economy, more than half of the responding firms (57 percent) cited coping with an unpredictable economy as one of their biggest concerns for 2013. One third of firms indicated that identifying new projects, markets, and clients is one of their biggest issues, and 30 percent are worried about negotiating appropriate project fees. In addition, nearly as many respondents (29 percent) were concerned about dealing with competing firms/contractors, while 22 percent cited managing the rising costs of running a firm.”

Or, in architect-speak, their concerns for 2013 are about the same as in any year and in any market: getting new clients/projects; not getting clients/projects snatched away by competing firms; and, generating and collecting fees from said clients/projects.

One answer to those concerns is by bringing value to clients in ways that competing firms do not – or cannot.  In part, that starts with architects speaking a potential client’s language, not requiring them to speak theirs – something some architects are naturally better at than others.

But how to improve upon it?  It depends on the client type, but certainly with commercial clients – especially developers – it starts by understanding what they always want and need:  good projects and ways to help pay for them – preferably with someone else’s money, as in development tax and finance incentives.  Architects – even if they don’t realize it – are uniquely qualified to address those needs with some easy recalibrations to their focus and practices.

But a question on point for all architects looking to develop new clients or generate more work with existing clients is:

“Instead of waiting for clients to call with projects – when was the last time you called them with one?” 

More on that to be published later on this website.

Copyright Gary L. Cole AIA, Esq. 2012

Gary L. Cole AIA, Esq. http://www.garylcolelaw.com/ is Chicago-based Illinois and Florida-licensed attorney and Illinois-licensed architect. He practices design & construction law, real estate law, historic preservation law, accessibility law, is an arbitrator with the American Arbitration Association’s Construction Division, is a Certified Mediator, and is a consultant and an expert witness in civil construction, historic preservation and federal accessibility litigation. He can be contacted at garycole@garylcolelaw.com.

Memorizing Pi: Construction Contracts and Visual Thinking Adventures in “Piphilology”

By Gary L. Cole AIA, Esq. / Attorney & Architect

[Author’s Note:  The following is not a chapter of the regular “Visual Thinker’s Guide to Understanding and Communicating Construction Contract Essentials.” This is more of a side trip, a little backstory about visual thinking and visual memory as relates to certain amazing accomplishments in the sport of memorizing the unending, non-repeating numbers of Pi.  Readers who would like to read The Visual Thinker’s Guide in its current evolving state, can do so in downloadable PDF form by clicking HERE.]

Pi, as we learned in school, is an irrational number, a mathematical constant used to calculate the circumference and area of a circle.  As an irrational number, the numbers to the right of its decimal point never repeat and never end, though Pi is often approximated as 3.14159.  The current record for calculating Pi’s unending and nonrepeating digits is ten trillion.

There is a hobby, a sport and a competition for everything – and so it is with Pi.  Piphilology is the practice of memorizing the digits to the right of Pi’s decimal point in sequence, with the current verifiable world record at 67,890.  It seems that a Mr. Chao Lu of China took the time – had the time – to memorize and repeat the first 67,890 digits of Pi without error.  Actually, as the story goes, he was aiming for 100,000 numbers, but after over 24 hours of reciting Pi’s digits in sequence, he got a little loopy and slipped at a mere 67,890.

The Visual Thinker’s Guide to Understanding and Communicating Construction Contract Essentials, currently being published on this website in installments, uses visual mnemonics, visual thinking and visual communication to develop a deep understanding and effortless recall of construction contracts, with the AIA B101 (2007) Owner-Architect’s Agreement as the demonstrator.  On one level, construction contracts can be considered just numerically organized text.  Of course, they’re much more than that, but the first step in visually understanding the provisions of their articles, sections and paragraphs is to visually memorize their numerical organizational system.

Piphilology, of course, is about memorizing numbers – specifically Pi’s.

So it should be no surprise that some Piphilologists rely on the same visual memory techniques taught in The Visual Thinker’s Guide to commit hundreds and sometimes thousands of Pi’s digits to memory.  By comparison, visually memorizing an AIA contract’s numerical organizational system – including the hefty A201 General Conditions – wouldn’t even be a warm-up exercise for a moderately skilled Piphilologist.

But many Piphilologists don’t rely on visual thinking at all.  One of the most popular techniques for memorizing Pi uses a “piem,” a portmanteau of Pi and poem, in which the numbers of Pi are converted to words and assembled into a long poem.  Piems are good for memorizing the digits of Pi – if you’re good at memorizing epic poems, which most people aren’t.  There’s a reason a sport for memorizing Pi exists, but not one for memorizing the Iliad and the Odyssey.

To many visual thinkers . . .

The Visual Thinker’s Guide: The Story So Far . . . November 18, 2012

By Gary L. Cole AIA, Esq. / Attorney & Architect

Recognizing that new readers may prefer to absorb the series in one document, all installments of “The Visual Thinker’s Guide to Understanding and Communicating Construction Contract Essentials” that have been published to date on this website can be downloaded in PDF form by clicking HERE.  Each time a new installment is published, an updated PDF that adds the current article to the existing ones will also be published.

Some readers have requested that I notify them by email upon my next posting of a “Visual Thinker’s Guide” installment. I’m more than happy to do so for anyone who emails me directly at garycole@garylcolelaw.com and simply puts “Receive Visual Thinker Updates” in the email Subject line.

Copyright Gary L. Cole AIA, Esq. 2012

Gary L. Cole AIA, Esq. http://www.garylcolelaw.com/ is Chicago-based Illinois and Florida-licensed attorney and Illinois-licensed architect. He practices design & construction law, real estate law, historic preservation law, accessibility law, is an arbitrator with the American Arbitration Association’s Construction Division, is a Certified Mediator, and is a consultant and an expert witness in civil construction, historic preservation and federal accessibility litigation. He can be contacted at garycole@garylcolelaw.com.

Chapter 1: The Visual Thinker’s Guide to Understanding and Communicating Construction Contract Essentials

By Gary L. Cole AIA, Esq. / Attorney & Architect

[Author’s Note: This is the first part of a series of articles that will demonstrate for design, engineering and construction professionals how to better understand and communicate the substance of construction contracts and other text-heavy documents by using their existing abilities as visual thinkers.  

The Introduction to this series can be read by clicking HERE.

Some readers have requested that I notify them by email upon my next posting of a “Visual Thinker’s Guide” installment. I’m more than happy to do so for anyone who emails me directly at garycole@garylcolelaw.com and simply puts “Receive Visual Thinker Updates” in the email Subject line. Thanks.]

The goal of The Visual Thinker’s Guide to Understanding and Communicating Construction Contract Essentials is to allow visual thinkers – in this case design and construction professionals – to be smarter in their practices.

Of course, “smarter” is a loaded term and its use always carries the risk of sounding hubristically smug.  But as used here, it has nothing to do with hubris, smugness or even “IQ,” a controversial term that I’ve always understood to be a measure of potential, not of performance.

For these articles, I define “smarter” as follows:  “the ability to process and retain more useful information in less time and to produce something of value for a professional market.”  Certainly, the term is broad and there are many ways to define and apply it; but these articles are about working smarter and more productively, not harder with less to show.

The key words are “process and retain more useful information in less time.”  Call it a solid Midwestern upbringing, but I’m interested in practical results.  It’s not that I have anything against implausible thought experiments with no remote possibility of leading to anything useful – they can be excellent diversions.  But to paraphrase Mick Jagger:  “Too much intellectual posturing in the bath is not a good thing.”  It’s also not a very useful thing in professional markets.  More on point, and to quote someone who was not the leader of the greatest R & R band ever:  “The business of business is business.”

Therefore, on to business.

Boiled down, the logic underlying The Visual Thinker’s Guide to Understanding and Communicating Construction Contract Essentials can be expressed almost algebraically:

“To be able to communicate knowledge of something, that thing must be deeply understood.  To deeply understand something, it must be fully remembered.  For visual thinkers, the best way to recall something is visually.”

Or, further reduced:

Communication (knowledge) = Understanding = Recall = Visual Memory (visual thinkers).

Architects, engineers and contractors are knowledge workers.  Their market value . . .