CREJ

42 / BUILDING DIALOGUE / December 2021 Colorado Springs | Denver | Jackson | Kansas City | Oklahoma City | Vail www.gejohnson.com Photo Credit: Jason O’Rear Pikes Peak Summit Visitor Center Pikes Peak, CO Switchbacks FC Downtown Stadium Colorado Springs, CO U.S. Olympic & Paralympic Museum Colorado Springs, CO ELEMENTS Relationships How We Work With Our Clients: Taking the Pressure Off W ould you rather tell someone some- thing or have a discussion? We fig- ured out early on in our process of working with clients that we would rather have a con- versation. We go in with no assumptions. Before we even start the discussion, we do quite a bit of data harvesting as well as social and natural science research. We get to know the site and its surroundings and we document everything. Then we come up with options. We present a number of design ideas with different costs for our clients to choose from. We ask, “What do you think?” We listen and we hear what people like and discover what their values are. Creativity is infinite. There are lots of ways to solve every problem. Designing more options might be more work, but it pays off in the end. Cli- ents see the right direction for them, and we don’t have to second guess. For a client that doesn’t know exactly what it wants, having options opens things up … and the client sees a path. This way, the client is in the position to make appropriate fi- nancial decisions and control the budget. And the Michael M. Moore Principal and Founder, Tres Birds