CREJ

14 / BUILDING DIALOGUE / September 2020 Great Architecture Should Look More Like a Team Sport N owmore than ever, it’s all about your team. Our business is a team sport. Real estate, design, construction – the whole thing. Whether you are creating a new office, build- ing a school, constructing an apartment com- munity or a museum, all of architecture is the result of a team effort. But we live in a culture that loves heroes. Vir- tually every movie about sports is proof of this. Sure, most mainstream sports are team endeav- ors, but everyone remembers Jordan, Gretzky, Montana. Architecture is no different. No knock to the “starchitects” in our profession, but the name on the door is just the tip of the iceberg. I spent an entire semester studying the work of Frank Lloyd Wright. With an internationally celebrated career that spanned three phases and nearly 70 years, one semester wasn’t long enough to take in the full breadth of his life’s work. He was an incredi- ble talent – no doubt. He also had teams of talent- ed professionals working for him. Turning visions of projects into occupiable, successful spaces where people can work, live, learn and thrive is incredibly difficult. It’s never just one person. Our work was, is and always will be the result of a col- lective effort. As an industry, we would do well to work harder to prioritize the soft skills in our teams – commu- nication, collaboration, openness, emotional intu- ition – while we work to develop the traditional skills of our respective professions. It doesn’t mat- ter where you are in the project life cycle, these skills of good teamwork de- termine its outcome. In the beginning, there are brokers, lawyers, and pro- fessional project managers working with developers or clients on a new project. Each firm works in concert with each other as well as with internal teams sized to best serve the project’s needs. As the project mate- rializes, they bring on addi- tional teams. Usually they first add a design team. It has its own structure. Usually the archi- tecture firm is at the top of the phone chain coordinat- ing a series of consultants (structural, electrical, mechanical and plumbing, and often civil engi- neers and landscape architects as well). Each firm has its own subteam of principals, internal project managers, production staff, interns and adminis- trators. Every one of these firms’ teams have to work seamlessly together, both internally and as a member of the larger project team. In the ideal scenario, a great construction team is brought on early on in the design process. The general contractor sits at the top of that pyramid. It hires and manages a veritable army of subcon- tractors, fabricators, suppliers and manufacturers. There are framers, drywallers, installers, electri- cians, plumbers, painters and more. Each of their companies has their own substructures too. Inter- nal project managers coordinate estimators, su- perintendents, foremen and field staff. In addition, every client also has systems to be integrated. Often led by professional project man- agers, clients hire companies to design and install servers, audiovisual systems, furniture, security systems and more. Each of those teams need to be integrated into the larger project ensemble. On a well-run project, all of these groups, teams and individuals move like a stage production. They identify, sort, contemplate, share, trouble- shoot and deploy solutions. They study, design, price, document, order, pick up, unpack, install and assemble systems, components and individu- al parts. Everything has to be timed properly, with schedules and budgets and contracts executed to synchronize the entire cast at the right moment. From the start of the project, timing is criti- Martin Goldstein Principal Architect, Venture Architecture Bridging the Gap There is no “I” in “team.”