[GBlist] cryin' about the big bad wolf

[Gavin Bowie <gbowie@GGA.com>]

Title: cryin' about the big bad wolf

Bion told us:
Yesterday I rejected a job to "green" a 25,000 square foot trophy home,
when could not get architect to go back to client with a 6,400 sf (still
obscene) alternative idea.

Bion, what an admirable stance.
That said: People with money have ALWAYS built big expensive houses. That has been true since the Roman Empire and as far as I can tell will never change. Call them royalty, landed gentry, Victorian socialites, new money, tech millionaires, or whatever you want--people display wealth and position with mansions.

I, for one, would rather have my resident gazillionaire build a sensitively sited, proportionally elegant, energy efficient, naturally heated and cooled mansion that employs craftsman builders, gardeners, and domestic servants. And I would be proud to be the architect of such a building. Better that than a cheaply constructed, monstrously rambling, poorly sited, single glazed starter McCastle which burns fuel oil like crazy, employs no journeyman-level trades, and pillages the landscape to plant a forty acre lawn.

Just because my opinion is that people don't need so much to live well doesn't mean I think I'm morally superior. If a client wants my help I'll give him/her the best I can. And by god I'll make an impact on their lives and this world by encouraging those clients to live in harmony with their surroundings, by not designing something bad just because they think it's what they want.

The best way to change the world is to take those jobs and use them as showpieces, so that the freakin' "businesspeople" think it's fashionable to conserve energy. And you deserve to make a dime from it. Don't throw something away if it's an opportunity.

Bion also said:
Guess what -- the "architect" was being paid as a percentage of finished
square foot.... Now I am going to go back and flat-rate everything based on performance somehow.

Well, Bion, that's great. But don't you think you should charge a fee based on how difficult the project is? We all know that designing 10,000 sf of green building takes more time and energy than 25,000 sf of shit. So why not get paid more to design better and save your client money?

Man, I wish someone would come to me with a 20ksf house that they wanted to make greener.

Cheers,

Gavin