BMW Guggenheim Lab Challenges Industry’s View of the Future of Urban Life

In the holiday rush, don’t let this fall off your twice-checked list: a visit to the Guggenheim Museum to view the exhibition Participatory City: 100 Urban Trends from the BMW Guggenheim Lab. 

The two-year culmination of the “urban think tank”’s work and travel (as the Lab is known) across New York, Berlin, and Mumbai, the exhibition’s goals are to explore new design, experimentation, and thinking for city life.

As a result of tours, workshops, debates, and discussions, the Lab discovered 100 trends within each of the three studied cities.  Explanations and examples of the trends are showcased at the Guggenheim until the end of the exhibition’s run on January 5, 2014.

Here, based on the Lab’s findings, PSMJ presents what we see as the Top 10 Trends that will affect the U.S. cityscape, and have direct bearing on the A/E/C industry, within the next ten years:

1) Non-Iconic Architecture:   Non-iconic architecture strives to prioritize the human scale of a space over its merely sculptural value and defends the importance of simplicity and functionality in design.

2) Micro Architecture: Micro architecture is the practice of using design solutions to adapt small urban spaces, thereby changing the behavior of city dwellers and activating underutilized areas.

3) Green Space: Urban green spaces can include parks, greenways, nature paths, gardens, and waterfronts. Green spaces provide ecological functions for cities—carbon sequestration, water purification, and cooling—and also allow people to interact with nature. Plentiful public green spaces are a critical feature of good urban design.

4) Dumpster Design: Dumpster design is an approach that employs used or discarded objects as raw materials for new products. Dumpster design has emerged out of a growing trend toward sustainable consumption, which promotes alternative economic structures facilitated by sharing, recycling, and “freecycling.”

5) Emotional Cityness: Emotional cityness is the rejection of impersonal and cold relationships in large urban areas in favor of face-to-face, convivial, and empathic interaction. In a climate of rapid urbanization and uncertainty, with dynamics leading toward social fragmentation, there is an increasing need for new connectivity in urban environments that can be achieved through the strengthening of personal relationships. Social interaction within cities is a vehicle toward community cohesiveness.

6) Inclusive Design: “Inclusive design” refers to design based on a user-centered approach. The goal of inclusive design is to ensure that devices, products, environments, and experiences remain equally accessible to everyone, regardless of age, culture, or ability. In today’s world, we see an increasing need for this kind of approach, since a diverse population requires more accessible environments, consumer items, interfaces, and services.

7) Aging Population: Today, 20 percent of the population is older than sixty-five; by 2060, every third person will have reached that age. The effect of the aging population on the urban environment and on social services is one of the most significant global challenges and opportunities of the next fifty years. Urban design, community initiatives, and public services can help meet the needs of young and old citizens alike.

8) Design Barriers: Design barriers are construction choices that limit or control an individual’s access to urban spaces. From “No Loitering” signs to benches with armrests designed to prevent homeless people from sleeping on them, our cities are full of devices meant to disperse and divide citizens along lines of race, class, and age.

9) Social Design: Social design reminds designers of their responsibility toward society. Since we live in a social world defined by interaction, it is natural that our actions have an impact on other people’s lives. Design can be seen, therefore, as a tool to promote social change. The development of projects engaged with communities, governments, and other organizations enables design to deal with social issues and commit to its important role in society.

10) Accessibility: “Accessibility” describes the ease with which something can be reached, obtained, used, or understood by as many people as possible. Though often used in reference to accessibility design—urban design that takes into account the full spectrum of other-abled (including elderly, disabled, and handicapped) individuals by creating a user-friendly urban and domestic environment.

For full definitions and more information about the BMW Guggenheim Lab and the Participatory City exhibition, visit: http://www.bmwguggenheimlab.org.

Open Mouth, Insert... Increased Employee Engagement?

In his article I Can’t Find Enough Good People … ! in the November issue of PSMJ, award-winning author, thought leader, and A/E/C industry expert Bob Kelleher wrote about the national crisis facing A/E/C firm leaders everywhere in training and developing their employee base.

The article corresponded with the release of Kelleher’s employee engagement video “Who’s Sinking Your Boat?”, which powerfully and startlingly illustrates the average level of engagement among American workers at a typical firm (hint: it’s abysmally low).
The question is, if we’re in such bad shape, what do we do about it?
The Aberdeen Group’s June 2013 Employee PerformanceManagement Research Brief provides some insights:

1)      Conversations between employees and managers that establish performance goals and agreed-upon development plans should be the number one priority. Managers who consistently keep their employees up-to-date on targets—and show how those targets align with the company’s overall goals—have employees exceed performance expectations by 20%.  Those same employees are also 10% more engaged.

2)      Managers should be enabled with technology to support performance management. Managers that are provided the appropriate tools—such as automated performance management resources—are better able to manage their employees.

3)      Conversations between managers and employees should be frequent and both formal and informal. The Research Brief showed that the more conversations managed had with employees, the better the employees performed.  Moreover, when the employees’ performance was tied directly to its effect on the company, the employees did better overall.

So, make a deal with yourself: make it your priority to talk to one of your employees today.  Remember, it’s okay if it’s an informal chat.  What’s important is to get the communication started.

For employee engagement and leadership workshops, check out Bob Kelleher’s The Employee Engagement Group.

Olin College Close-Up: Richard Miller Taking Engineering to Next Level

“Engineering is not a body of knowledge.  Engineering is a process,” declares RichardMiller, the Franklin W. Olin College of Engineering’s spirited president, succinctly summarizing the college’s  raison d’être.

If this sounds different from the objective of your engineering school, that’s because it is.  Founded by a board of directors who felt that today’s engineering education needed to be electric-shocked into the 21^st century, Olin recruited Richard Miller to kick-start a new teaching program—an experiment, really— based on the oldest of philosophies (Confucius himself gets the credit): “Tell me, and I’ll forget; show me, and I may remember; involve me, and I’ll understand.”  

And the experiment is working.  Students are turning down offers from MIT, Stanford, and Harvard for the privilege of being one of the 50 students accepted out of the roughly 500 students who apply each year.  Here, students pay a maximum of $38,000 in tuition for a full four years of education, develop a patent by the age of 19, have a business (with investors) set up by graduation,  as well as a job offer with a starting salary $25,000 above other engineering graduates.  What’s more, they have a gender neutral student body—nearly unheard of in today’s engineering classes—and all this is accomplished with a non-tenured faculty and zero academic departments.

How does Olin do it?  By using a design-based curriculum (which includes taking art, music, business, and humanitarian courses at nearby Babson and Wellesley Colleges), Olin leaves behind the “books-first-hardware-later” mindset of today’s most elite schools for a more hands-on approach. 

It began with an unlikely undertaking.  After meeting with his faculty to discuss what they remembered about their experiences in college, Miller found a common theme: most of them remembered nothing significant in their early freshman and sophomore science and mathematics classes, but all of them remembered—most in great detail—their senior projects, in which they actually had to create something.  This got Miller thinking:  why not have students complete projects first?

So the first assignment for the just-out-high-school students at Olin?  Create a working pulse oximeter in five weeks.  Resources?  Only the library and a patent drawing.

The faculty, expecting the students to come complaining that they didn’t understand the physics behind the making of the machine, were shocked to find an ugly, grey wire thing show up in their classroom five weeks later:  it was a pulse oximeter (sort of)—but, more important, it worked!  They retrieved a pulse oximeter from a hospital, and the readings between the two machines were in sync.  The students had done it—all without one math or science or physics prerequisite.

The epiphany that accompanied this accomplishment was game-changing: “Uniformly, across education, we underestimate what students can do,” says Miller.  And Miller was determined that his school would not repeat the mistakes of others.

Now, Olin is on the forefront of engineering education, creating some of the most in-demand graduates in the nation.  With its design-centered curriculum, students are expected to complete 20 projects in four years.  “They don’t just learn about engineering,” Miller states. “They learn to be an engineer.”

Ultimately, Miller wants a new kind of engineer that focuses on people—meeting their needs and solving their problems. “Our hope is that Olin students will be a force for innovation and change no matter where they go or what they do.”  So far, it looks like Olin is doing just that.

Architecture and Engineering Industry Outlook Remains Positive on All Major Indicators

FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE

Architecture and Engineering Industry Outlook Remains Positive on All Major Indicators

PSMJ’s latest data shows some construction markets recovering more quickly than others

October 31, 2013 (Newton, Mass.) — While still below pre-recession levels, all of the key indicators in the latest Quarterly Market Forecast (QMF) report from PSMJ Resources, Inc. (PSMJ) remain in positive territory.   This is a clear signal of continued optimism by architecture and engineering (A/E) firm leaders as we approach the finish line for 2013 and begin contemplating what is in store for 2014.

Unlike any other A/E industry outlook, PSMJ’s QMF survey examines market activity on proposal and backlog activity as well as current quarterly and projected quarterly revenues.  This format allows for a comprehensive understanding of how proposal activity is translating into backlog and how backlog is translating into revenue.

All four of the key indicators (proposal activity, backlog activity, current quarter revenues, and projected quarter revenues) remain positive in PSMJ’s Net Plus/Minus Index.  A major change from the depths of 2007 through 2009, this important data tells us that more A/E firm leaders are optimistic about what the future holds.

Drilling into the specific client markets, the QMF shows some of the biggest gains in sentiment in the housing market.  “Housing is posting continued good results compared to the past three years,” stated PSMJ’s Director of Research William Fanning.  “We have seen gains in multifamily and senior and assisted living for several quarters, but now we are beginning to see respectable gains as well in the single-family subdivision market – a market that has been in a deep depression for the past few years.”     

Since 2003, PSMJ’s QMF has surveyed A/E firm leaders on a quarterly basis regarding what they are seeing in 12 major client markets as well as more than 50 specific submarkets. 

To learn more about PSMJ’s QMF or to participate in the next survey, visit www.psmj.com or click here to be taken directly to the QMF information page.  Subscribers to PSMJ’s monthly professional journals (Professional Services Management Journal, A/E Marketing Journal, and Project Management) receive the full QMF report each quarter.  Non-subscribers can also purchase the report on PSMJ’s website. 

About PSMJ:  Established more than 35 years ago, PSMJ Resources, Inc. has grown to become the world’s leading authority, publisher, and consultant on the effective management of architecture, engineering, and construction firms.  With offices in the United States as well as the United Kingdom and Australia, PSMJ offers over 150 titles in book, audio, and video format.  In addition, the company publishes several monthly periodicals and delivers dozens of seminars, roundtables, conferences, webinars, and in-house training sessions every year for A/E professionals around the world.  PSMJ’s sought-after consulting expertise covers a range of critical business areas such as strategic planning, project management, valuation, succession planning, and mergers & acquisitions.

Press Contact:

Gregory C. Hart

PSMJ Resources, Inc.

10 Midland Avenue

Newton, Mass 02458

(617) 965-0055

ghart@psmj.com

www.psmj.com

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The 4Ps?! Time for the 4Es

When was the last time the guiding principles of the 4Ps molded your marketing strategy? Did you get to “Promotion” and then stop—leaving “Product,” “Place,” and “Price” by the wayside?  You’re not alone. 

The business of marketing is becoming almost exclusively associated with Promotions, marginalizing the other elements and therefore overlooking opportunities for tremendous client value-add.  And those companies that are applying 21^st century methods to those 1960s staples—or are reinventing them entirely—are the ones that are realizing the most success.

Companies using “design thinking” (loosely defined as the process of combining empathy, creativity and rationality to find creative resolutions to problems to drive business success) to integrate the 4Ps recognize that invention and innovative brand marketing are the new strategic imperatives.

Take AdWeek.  Their newest enterprise, Project Isaac, celebrates the most inventive ideas in marketing, advertising, and media, recognizing that to stay relevant, invention must be at the core of production. After all, Nike and Apple don’t build products—they invent them.

Brian Fetherstonhaugh, Chairman and CEO of Ogilvy One, condenses this into a new framework: the 4Es instead of the 4Ps—

·         From Product to Experience

Understand the end-to-end customer experience. How do clients shop for your firm?  What influences their purchasing decisions? What happens after they buy?

·         From Place to Everyplace

Instead of “interrupt,” “intercept.” Make contact with people when they are most receptive. Find interesting ways to connect your brand with your consumers. How can you help your client?  How can you provide a benefit that no one else can?

·         From Price to Exchange

Make sure you understand exchange. Do you know the value of your clients—what they bring to you? What are you willing to offer in exchange for their attention, engagement, and permission?

·         From Promotion to Evangelism

Create a brand experience so inspiring that your clients engage with you—and others. This combines word-of-mouth marketing with social networking and Web 2.0.  Infuse your leadership with passion and energy.

So, what are you going to do today to start using the 4Es in your A/E marketing initiatives? 

METALCON International featured on designandbuildwithmetal.com !!

METALCON International is the one event where the who's who of the metal design and construction industry attend every year. Click here to check out the feature of the 2013 METALCON International Tradeshow on DesignandBuildWithMetal.com! 

A New Face to Printing & Design

A 3-D face printed on paper from Mcor.
Image courtesy of OinkFROG 

3-D and 4-D multidimensional printing—they sound like something straight out of Mission Impossible.

But they couldn’t be more real.

According to Blaine Brownell, AIA, in Architect, this sort of additive manufacturing is “transforming architecture, design, and engineering, and motivating practitioners to rethink conventional methods of production.”

A singular advancement in the field of 3-D printing is the ability to print on—who would’ve guessed it?—paper (plastics and ceramics having been the most common materials in printing).

An Irish company called Mcor developed the paper-printing method using selection deposition lamination technology (SDL), which produces tactile, 3-D models from A4-sized sheets of paper outfitted with adhesive between each layer.

Brownell predicts that “it won’t be long before architecture students rush to their reviews with full-color, printed paper models.”

But, just as we’re wrapping our minds around the possibilities of 3-D printing, none other than the fourth dimension is on the rise.

Now, scientists can not only create static materials—but also dynamic ones.  With research spearheaded by Skylar Tibbits at the Self-Assembly Lab at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, materials are being created that can modify their own structure at the macro level—in other words, “parts can transform from one shape to another shape directly on their own,” according to Tibbits’ recent TEDTalk.

What does this mean for real-life application?  The short answer?  A whole lot of things. First, it could solve infrastructure problems by allowing us to create undulating water pipes that expand and contract on their own as water flows through them.  Materials could be built in extreme conditions, such as space, on their own: we would simply have to “program” the materials to build themselves (all without motors, wires, or robotics, mind you).

Other applications include materials that “may be capable of responding autonomously to changing environmental conditions,” according toBrownell. Think military uniforms that change camouflage depending on surroundings and coatings on buildings that undergo alterations depending on weather conditions.

To see 4-D printing in action, check out this video.

Though we’re still not at a place where a 3-D printer is as ubiquitous in an office as a copy machine, the future in additive manufacturing nears ever closer. What will be in store for 3-D and 4-D printing in the next five years … even two?  It’s exciting to pretend we’re mission-bound and imagine.