...technical difficulties....

Sorry folks, our home internet is horked temporarily, so I'm having to post on a borrowed machine. It should be back up later this week, and I can post some nonsense again.

Wish in one hand, draw with the other

As my colleagues and I slide into the new year and move forward with the big new 250,000-sf medical office building (MOB) for Gestalt (which they're tentatively calling Uber), we face the most rewarding and yet most frustrating part of designing a building: working with the users. When architects work on a project, sometimes the owner is the user: a single-family home or a small commercial building, for example. However, we quite often work for a client who is not the user. The obvious example of this is when we design a spec building for a developer to lease or sell to other tenants, be they residential or commercial. Less obvious but just as frequent are the local projects we do for a national company, and Gestalt is a prime example of this.

The owner of the Uber MOB is Gestalt HMO. They will pay for the building's construction (and all design and construction team fees), and they'll hire the doctors, nurses, specialists, and other staff members that treat patients in the MOB. However, the users are the teams of people who might or will work in the building, and/or who are in charge of the existing departments in Gestalt's other MOBs. For example, when Howie and I are designing the ambulatory surgery center for Uber MOB, we show and talk through the proposed floor plans to the surgery director and the head of nursing at Gestalt's Bierstadt MOB. With their feedback, we know better how Gestalt's staff will use this department (and all its other departments) and can design accordingly.

However, Gestalt's headquarters, based in the midwest, have their own set of rules and regulations and list of program for each of these departments. They even have diagrams and sample plans to show how each department should ideally be laid out. However, Gestalt Colorado does some things differently than Gestalt Headquarters, and it causes some friction. Some departments say that they don't need a consult room, or they need two consult rooms instead of one. We're not supposed to vary from the program that Gestalt HQ sends us, as those programs are based on meetings with those same users that we're now meeting with, but often the head of a department can change between setting up the original program and finally having the design meetings, and just as often the users will realize that there's an error in the program. Either they asked for something in those early programming meetings that didn't get filtered down to us, or they realize now that they see their needs put onto paper that they've forgotten something. Sometimes, the users just get drunk with power: we have a brand new building, and we're gonna make it awesome!! It is at this point that we have to explain that we're architects, not sugar daddies.

So while we're figuring out what spaces the users do or don't really need, we have to design the outside of the building along with the inside. It's a real balancing act to get the outside to fit the inside and not go over the square footage that the owner--Gestalt--mandated, while also making sure that each department inside the building is the right size for both the users and the owner, and that it flows well for the users. So if a department is undersized or oversized, it's not a simple matter of let's-stretch-the-building-to-the-north-four-feet, because that has repercussions on other floors--it might make the first floor work great, but now the second and third floors are hosed.

We're putting together a list of all the changes that the users have asked for, and we're going to submit it to Gestalt HQ at the end of the week. We might be able to talk them into some of the changes the users asked for, but we, and thereby the users, might get shot down. I have my fingers crossed, because there's really not much we can do short of a drastic redesign on some of the departments.

...aaand we're back.

I returned to Design Associates after a two-week break with a sense of anxiety and foreboding. First of all, I had practically forgotten what I'd been working on: schematic design on various departments in a quarter-million square-foot medical office building for Gestalt HMO, plus an ongoing remodeling project at the Bierstadt Building for Gestalt. After spending some wonderfully lazy and unproductive time in Georgia with my mom and sister, Guy and I got back to Denver for half a day in order to take Gracie to the vet (where she was pronounced pesky and healthy). We then spent the weekend at Copper Mountain for New year's, where those of you who watch the Weather Channel like it's SportsCenter know that the high was -10 on New Year's Eve and about 3 on New Year's Day. And guess who went cross country skiing in it? (Look, anything below about15 feels the same to me, so what's another 15 degrees?)

After lots of rest, wine, good company, and fun, I remembered how stress-inducing work had been, and I dragged myself into the office, only to find that Ingrid (a longtime colleague and awesome architect) had worked on my project and had kept it afloat and going well in my absence. Later on Monday, Howie called Sven and me into a conference room to let Sven know that I had been the subject of a colleague's hissy fit two weeks ago, and that it wasn't right that a) that colleague acted that way towards me and b) I shouldn't have to deal with that kind of crap, as I had too much to do. It was really a compliment, in a way, that Howie had been thinking about the hissy fit for two weeks and wanted to let Sven know that This Crap Shall Not Fly. It was also a relief, as I didn't feel like I had walked into a hornet's nest when I returned.

Here's hoping that 2011 will be busy but not horribly hectic, not just at work but in life in general. I don't really make resolutions (any change I've ever made that was substantial and stuck with me was made at some random point during the year, not on January 1st), but I have decided that this would be a good time to start setting some limits and rationing out (and saving) my energy a little better than I have in the past. And here's hoping that everyone reading this also has a balanced year: a little busy, a little quiet, always good.

Mile High Lazy

We were told just before Thanksgiving that we needed to use all of our 2010 vacation time or we were going to lose it. Now, technically, they can't take it away from us if we've earned it. However, we all understand that they need to get that "debt" off the books before we traipse into 2011. Funny, many of us haven't been able to take our vacation time this year because there's always something else to be done. But with this end-of-year mandate, we in the ranks are having no trouble using up our remaining days...Da Shorty included.

Turns out that even after taking off time for Thanksgiving, I still have eight days. Ergo, I will not be at work for the final two weeks of the year. Hell to the yeah. Today was spent running a couple of errands with Guy, and the rest of the week will be spent visiting with a good pal of mine, practicing meditation (at which I am terrible), walking and doing yoga, vegging out a little with some TV, drinking coffee and reading anything and everything, and just generally resting. We leave for Georgia on Christmas Eve for a few days' visit, and afterwards we'll be spending a few days in the mountains skiing in the New Year. And I won't be giving a crap about architecture. (I mean, I like architecture, but we see other people.)

So, posting will be spotty for the next couple of weeks (like it hasn't been for the past couple of months, derp!), but I'm getting some well-earned rest. Peace!

Thank heavens for small favors

So I finally had my review. Sven was present, as well as Howie (which I didn't understand--I really hadn't worked with him a lot in the past two years). I explained to them how worn out I was, and that one of my goals for 2011 is to learn to ration my energy a little better, set some limits, and get better at either turning down some requests and delegating others. At first it was almost like I had to defend myself--there was the inevitable attempt at an analogy by Howie: "well, I look at management as like being in a boat, and I can kinda steer the boat, but the other people in the boat can move it as well, and I can't always stop the boat from hitting the banks--"

"Fair enough," I replied, "but on my four projects, I'm the only one in the boat, and I'm dragging three more boats behind me, and I have to keep getting into those boats to steer them, too. I'm not 'managing' four projects; I'm working on them--I am those four projects."

Sven got my drift (no pun intended) instantly, but it took a little more for Howie to concede my point, ever begrudgingly. We talked about the nature of management and leadership and the internal changes it demands of people, and we talked about how my job has and will be changing, and then Howie said the most extraordinary thing. He had in front of him the Design Associates, Inc. Company Checklist of Traits and Behaviors That We Think Are Valuable In Our Employees, and he had checked "Excellent" on all of them on the checklis with my name on it, but I noticed that one of them had two checks by it. "I gave you double-checks for 'Promotes a positive work environment'," he said. "Your conduct with everyone and the way you treat people is so supportive and helpful, and you really make work a fun place to be."

So, after a lengthy discussion and a few pats on the back, I got a 3% raise. Which sounds sucky until you remember that not everyone got raises this year, only those who had either gotten licensed or done something really cool or whose job description had changed significantly. It was nice to be recognized, even a little bit, and I appreciated the kind words for sure. As we left the conference room, Sven suggested that he and I go to lunch in the next couple of weeks at some point to just talk. Well, how about that.

Monday Visual Inspiration: Now this is a bathroom sign

Taken at a gas station/convenience store somewhere in Kansas on Thanksgiving Sunday, 2010.

Monday Visual Inspiration: Dear Mommy, please make me these outfits

Rather than complain yet again about how tired and burned-out I am, I figure instead I'll show y'all a few shiny taffeta-ish-looking tops and dresses that I want Mom to make for me. Fire up the sewing machine!

First two pictures: pre-Thanksgiving window displays at Molly's of Denver.

Next two pictures: Xmas window displays at Adornments in Cherry Creek North