architecture blog

A Better Way to Build

Modative was founded in 2006 with the goal of making modern design more affordable. Since then, we have been an architecture-only firm -- until last year when we formed a separate construction company called Modative Build, Inc. to provide our clients with an alternative to the traditional and often unsuccessful owner-contractor-architect relationship triangle. By having our own construction company we can now offer our clients a streamlined approach to getting their projects built at a reduced cost with far less headaches. Learn more about our approach.

What You'll Be Working On

Although you may be occasionally asked to do a coffee run, this is not one of those kinds of internships. This is a hands-on, learn-though-real-experiences type of internship. You will not be directly constructing anything, but rather working on what really makes all construction companies tick: coordination and problem solving.

Bidding

Your primary responsibility will be to coordinate the bidding of several projects that Modative (the architecture company) has designed. You will work hands-on with the project designer and learn about all the trades that are required to put a real project together. You'll bid those trades out to subcontractors, then compile the selected subs into a beautiful, comprehensive bid. The projects you'll be bidding are primarily residential, type V construction. They are all modern.

Construction Management

You will also help us with the Fay 2X Homes, which are currently under construction a few blocks from our office. You'll get to see the construction process of these two homes happen first-hand, while also helping the project manager with behind-the-scenes coordination.

Collaboration

The construction company (Modative Build, Inc) and architecture firm (Modative, Inc.) operate in the same small office space without any cubicles. We're low on hierarchy and high on collaboration, so you might get pulled onto any number of projects.

What We're Looking For

We're looking for someone with an architecture or construction education/background, who like us, sees the importance of overlapping these two professions to achieve a greater goal. Someone that wants to turn the antiquated construction industry on it's head and that can use their design and organizational skills to bridge the architecture/construction gap.

If we like you and the opportunity arises, this internship could lead to a full-time position at Modative Build or Modative.

Bonus Points

You'll be using ArchiCAD, Numbers (Apple's version of Excel) and QuickBooks. Knowledge of these will help your learning curve. Spanish speaking will earn you extra points. We're also fans of creative resumes.

How to Apply

Send us a resume, portfolio and whatever else makes you look good to info@modativebuild.com .

To avoid spam, please include (MB Internship) in the subject line. Also, please provide short, concise answers the following questions in your email:

1. Please describe your current level of experience/education in the architecture and/or construction industry. If you're still in school and this is your first job, that's fine too.

2. Do you have experience with any CAD or BIM software?

3. Do you have experience with Excel and/or Numbers?

Schedule

We will be accepting applications until 6 pm PST on 06.09.11. From the applications we receive, we will narrow it down to 5-10 candidates for 15-minute speed interviews on 06.13.11. Follow-up interviews will be conducted later in the week if necessary. The internship will begin on Monday, 06.20.11 and last until late August or late September 2011.

Internship Location

One of the most difficult client types to gauge when they first contact our architecture firm is single family residential clients. We often find ourselves asking them the same questions from memory in order to determine our architecture fee and if their project is a good fit for our office.

After repeating this exercise all too often, we decided that there was an easier way. So we wrote up a list of 10 questions for potential residential clients to answer. This was not an attempt to remove the personal touch of discussing a clients potential project over the phone or in a face-to-face meeting, but a way to be thorough in collecting all the basic information that helps us write better proposals that cater to the client's needs.

Would you like a pool house with that?

The idea was to email the questions over as a follow up to that first phone call. We decided to keep it simple. Make it multiple choice when we could and encourage short answers. Our previous attempts to create questionnaires like this were often bloated, causing our clients to feel overwhelmed and hesitant to complete them.

We created the document in Pages (Apple's version of Word), but then converted it to the more universal Microsoft Word format. As it says at the top of the document, the client can choose how they want to fill it out and return it to us.

Here's our 10 question Residential Project Checklist in its full format. A link to download this as a Word file is provided at the end of the post.

-----------------------

Residential Project Checklist

10 quick questions to help us better understand your needs

1. Your Name:  Jane Doe

2. Phone Number(s): XXX.XXX.XXX

3. Email Address: janedoe@gmail.com

4. Spouse/Partner’s Name (if applicable):  John Doe

5. Project Address:
101 Terrace Ave
Los Angeles, CA 90000

6. My project falls under which categories (place an X in front of all that apply and briefly
describe):

__ Ground-up Residential
 Size: XXXX square feet
 Quick Description: Add quantity and type of rooms

__ Residential Remodel
 Size: XXXX square feet
 Quick Description: Add quantity and type of rooms

__ Residential Addition
 Size: XXXX square feet
 Quick Description: Add quantity and type of rooms

__ Pool/Pool House
 Size: XXXX square feet
 Quick Description: Add quantity and type of rooms

7. What is your estimated budget for the construction project?
 __ less than $25,000
  __$25,000 - $75,000
 __ $75,000 - $150,000
 __$150,000 - $250,000
  __ $250,000 - $500,000
 __ $500,000 - $1,000,000
  __ over $2,000,000

8. If you have a schedule in mind, please explain below:
 I’d like to start construction on this project in blank months.

9. If you are doing a remodel or addition, do you have any existing plans of the house? (please
mark all that apply):
 __ I don’t have any plans.
 __ I have physical copies of the plans (like old blueprints).
 __ I have digital copies of the plans (like .dwg or .pdf files).
 __ I drew up the plans myself

10. Anything else you care to share about your project?
    Things you must have? Ideas on green design?

----------------------------------------

Here's a link to download the Residential Client Checklist

If you have any suggestions or key questions you think the list is missing, please feel free to add them in the comments.

Contributors to this post include Christian Návar, Michael Scott and Krystal Návar.

To us here at Modative, modern architecture is really more about a way of thinking than a style. It's about doing things better, even if it means abandoning old traditional rules. We carry this same critical thinking into the occasional graphic design assignment. An example of this recently occurred with our business cards.

Architect's Business Cards

Four years after our initial order, a few of us were running low on business cards. The natural architect instinct is to redesign the entire card; however, since we're still happy with our logo and look, we decided on only a few minor modifications. Subtracting instead of adding - much like we would do in a building design - eliminating the unnecessary.

No changes to the back of our business card. We like the bold simplicity and abundance of orange that screams "pull this business card out of the jar for the random prize drawing".

The front of our old business cards.

The first subtraction was an easy call: nixing the fax number. Honestly, we don't want faxes. We've contemplated eliminating our fax machine altogether. Anything that can be faxed can be scanned and emailed.

We also considered removing our physical address. The physical address on our business cards has actually been the cause of confusion over the years because it listed our mailing address, not our office location. When we originally designed the cards, we did this intentionally, because we knew we'd move our office a few times in those early years. And we did.

Unfortunately, more than one person has shown up at our mailbox for a meeting. Since we don't want two addresses on the card (too much clutter), we narrowed it down to three options:

1. Keep the mailing address
2. No address, but have "Los Angeles" to give people a sense of our location
3. Go with no address or city and rely on people going to our website to find our two addresses.

In the end we decided on Option 3: no address. People have much better access to the web than they did even four years ago when we first printed business cards and our website clearly provides both our office location and mailing address.

The new ultra simple business card sans fax and address.

Integrating Graphic Design and Architecture

We enjoy graphic design, especially when it's integrated into the architecture, like the graphics work we did as part of the Fashion Square Car Wash remodel.

New sign graphics designed by Modative.

The old sign

Simplifying the signs at the welcome canopy.

The old cluttered welcome canopy.

For the Fashion Square Car Wash, we designed all of the signs and graphics, including business cards, coupons and staff shirts.

We've found that providing our clients with graphic design as part of our beyond architecture services provides for a strong consistency between the graphics and architecture, making for a successful project.

Contributors to this post include Christian Návar, Michael Scott and Krystal Návar.

If you've been following along with us here over the last few weeks, you've surely noticed that we've been bashing open architecture competitions and even suggesting alternatives to these time wasters.

So you may find it a bit hypocritical that today I'm announcing that we won a competition. That is, until you note the following differences between this competition and a typical open architecture competition.

Not Just an Architecture Competition

The competition we entered was through the Urban Land Institute (ULI)  to develop housing for the chronically homeless. As I posted back in April, it was a team development competition consisting of other young real estate and social work professionals. Architecture was only a piece of the proposal. Our team had to find a property, create a program, design a project, determine the services offered, and develop a detailed pro forma of how the project would be financed. The process simulated a real project compressed into six weeks.

The site we selected in Glendale.

The Competition Wasn't Open

Our team had to apply in order to get accepted to participate. There were only five teams competing.

We even got to make our own cool logo. We were called Team HETED (Homeless Empowerment Through Efficient Development)

Collaboration

Each team was assigned a city to work with in Los Angeles County: Pasadena, Whittier, East Dominguez Hills, Long Beach and our sponsor city, Glendale. We also worked closely with homeless non-profit advocates and developers, Path Achieve Glendale and Path Ventures. The city and these organizations acted like our clients. By working with them we got to make real connections. Connections that could lead to future work.

The project concept is a hybrid of preservation of 1920's bungalows and modern intervention of adding new elements to bring the project up to code and provide services for the residents.

Team Aspect

Our team really enjoyed working with each other on this. I think we will collaborate again on future projects.

Exposure

The Urban Land Institute is a diverse organization. It reaches all types of real estate professionals. We prefer this type of exposure over showcasing our work to a bunch of fellow architects.

Pro Bono

This competition was our launch into pro bono work. We spent 130 hours working on this competition. This gives us a real gauge as to the level of commitment required to do future pro bono projects. We already have an idea for our next pro bono project. It won't be through a competition.

Overall view of the project

Whether or not you buy our arguments for entering this competition, I encourage you to check out our winning proposal. You can also view our online press release.

What do you think of our proposal?

A few weeks back, Bob Borson, AIA asked me to do a guest post on his Life of an Architect blog. Bob's blog is a favorite of mine and one of the few architecture blogs I follow regularly. The post, titled Rules for an Architect's Blog, is about the history and philosophy of our Modative blog.

The post even briefly covers the blogging history of some of architecture's greats like Frank Lloyd Wright.

I encourage you to check it out and stay for a while. Bob's blog is full of great content for both architects and those trying to learn more about architects.

Obviously, not everyone agrees with our last post "Why Architecture Competitions are Bad for Architects". A day after our post, archdaily, posted "Why open architecture competitions are good for Architects, a counter argument". 

The archdaily post, some blog comments, and a few twitter posts claim that our argument against competitions is an attack on creativity and passion within the architecture profession. This couldn't be further from the truth. A few questions to ponder:

Do open competitions have a monopoly on creativity?

Are competitions the only way to progress the architecture profession?

Absolutely not.

Open architecture competitions actually take much of the creativity out of what architects do. They provide everything: the site, program, objectives, and deadlines. Then they judge your work in private, without any back and forth collaboration.

It's comforting for architects to have all of this delivered to them. It's exactly how architecture school works. All the architect has to do is design in a bubble. I can certainly see the appeal.

Many architects will never be convinced that open competitions are bad for them and that's fine. But I would feel bad ripping on open competitions without providing some viable alternates. 

Architects will at some point inevitably find themselves with free time and/or needing a release from the daily grind. Instead of doing what architects have traditionally done (open competitions), consider one of these options instead:

1. Pro Bono Architecture

Pro bono work is more rewarding and has far more upside than an open architecture competition. And there are plenty of non-profit organizations that need an architect's help, but can't afford it. 

The 1% program website is a great starting point to learn about pro bono architecture and connect with with non-profits looking for architects. The 1% program asks that you donate at least 1% of your time to providing free or deeply discounted design work. In exchange, you get a rewarding experience working with people and building connections. Your work is also likely to be constructed and the publicity and experience you'll receive can lead to future paid commissions -often times in project types where you previously had no experience. 

2. A Design Intervention

This is how the 1% program got started. Public Architecture, a firm in San Francisco, decided that instead of entering another pointless competition, they would use that time and energy to improve their neighborhood through actual design interventions. They took an unused portion of the street and made it a temporary public park. The project was built with donated materials and labor. The neighborhood praised their efforts and the Mayor of San Francisco spoke at the project's opening. Now that's a great use of an architect's time.

Mayor Newsome at the opening of Public Architecture's Pavement to Parks Project. Photo from Public Architecture's website.

Your Mayor doesn't give a shit about your open architecture competition entry.

A design intervention is essentially like doing your own competition. If you're going to do free work, you might as well do it for yourself and for something you're passionate about. Find a problem in your neighborhood, your city, and solve it. Get the community involved. Publish the process and the results, even if it never gets constructed.

3. Non-Architecture Projects

If you want a release, try out your design skills on something new. A few ideas:

Furniture - A coffee table for a modern lifestyle (laptops and ipads).

Building Materials - I have yet to see a building facade system that can be easily removed and recycled (like carpet tiles).

Products - Why let Karim Rashid have all the fun?

Karim is laughing at you because you're letting him and Phillipe Stark design all the cool stuff. Photo by Roman Leo, New York

Textiles - There's a serious shortage of great modern rugs. I know, I've looked.

T-Shirts - A flooded market, but an easy one to get into nowadays.

4. Architect as Entrepreneur

Architects should be more entrepreneurial. We have some of the best problem solving skills around, yet we mostly wait for the phone to ring to get projects. We wait for the problem to come to us.

Imagine how much better our cities would look and function if more architects got involved in real estate development. Creating their own projects and developing them. Well, you don't have to imagine. Jonathan Segal, FAIA and Sebastian Mariscal have been doing this for years in San Diego with great success.

5. Go to a Bar

You are more likely to meet a stranger at a bar that will hire you to design them a real building than to win an actual architectural commission from an open competition. And even if you don't, you'll at least leave happy and having spent less money than you would on a competition.

If you have any additions to this list that you'd like to share, please add a comment.

Let's keep in touch - subscribe to this blog via email (top of right column) or RSS (for the techies).

Architects need to stop entering open architecture competitions. 

Most architecture competitions are not worth it, but none more than the complete waste of time known as the open architecture competition.This type of competition is what it says it is: open to anyone. Sometimes they are for a real project, but most often, they are fake, or as they're often called, an "ideas" competition.

As you may have seen in our last post, we're currently in the middle of a team competition for homeless housing, which is neither open nor purely architectural.

Since the Sand Hut experience, there have been many opportunities to enter competitions, and of the three Modative partners, I'm often the biggest proponent of entering competitions. Thankfully, my logical business partners are able to convince me not to enter open architecture competitions. They use any number of the following five reasons why open architecture competitions are bad for us:

1.Waste of time and money

An open competition is a project. A project you are going to work on for free. Whether you like it or not, architecture is a business and businesses are in the business of making money, not working for free.

If you're one of the rare architects with idle time, there are plenty of more productive things to do with your time.

2. Projects are almost never built

Every architect knows this. Even the competitions that claim to be for real buildings almost never get built because competition budgets are nonexistent or ignored. The most eye catching and extravagant design wins. The most extravagant design rarely meets budget.

3. Too much competition (You won't win)

Obvious but true. Open competitions have few barriers to entry - it's free-for-all. No matter how good your competition design skills are, you're competing against hundreds or thousands of other architects.

So, for example, if the competition jury reviewed submissions for 8 hours (a generous assumption), and they received 1,000 submissions, that would give them about 28 seconds to look at your project. The same project you just worked on for 100+ hours is getting judged in less than half a minute. You get the point.

4. Provide little publicity, if any.

If you don't get gold, silver or bronze, no one cares. Even if you are recognized in the competition, the publicity will rarely match the effort.

Besides, the world of publicity has changed significantly in the last few years. Hoping to get press through a competition win is an old-school mentality. Nowadays, you can design great stuff then let the world know on the interwebs. If you're really good, and decent at getting the word out, people will find you. You don't need a competition for publicity.

5. They devalue architects

Ooh look, we can get all these silly little architects to work for free. Have you ever seen doctors or lawyers sign up in droves to do free work?

Exhibit A

Disclaimers: I'm an AIA member, and like anyone that pays a lot of money towards a professional organization, I have the occasional right to gripe. Before everyone gets all cranky, I do realize that this competition is for a good cause. However, there are many other ways for you to use your skills as an architect for a good cause which we'll touch on in a future blog post.

Problem #1: Submission Fees: Not only is this not a competition for a real building, nor do you get money if you win, but you have to pay to enter. Pay them, then work for free. Does anyone else find this crazy?

Problem #2: The Reward: So, if you're lucky enough to win this competition, you get to show other architects your work for a few days at the AIA National Convention in Miami. None of these architects will hire you to build your genius temporary relief housing scheme. Not such a great reward for all this work, huh?

Instead of just complaining about open competitions, we've got some solutions. In a future post, we'll discuss some alternatives to architects wasting time with open competitions. UPDATE: That post now exists - 5 Things Architects Should Do Instead of Entering Open Competitions

Side Note: This post has been sitting in the draft box for several weeks. A few days back, I noticed that a very talented fellow architect blogger, Jody Brown, AIA, LEED AP, posted a very interesting article about architecture competitions on his "Coffee with an Architect" Blog. At first I was hesitant to publish this after seeing his post on the same topic. Who wants to be seen as a topic copycat? But we have very different takes on open competitions. I encourage you to check out his post - Architectural Competitions are a Glorious Waste of Time. He makes some very interesting points that go against most of what I just said. He's pretty convincing.

What are your thoughts on open architecture competitions?

We're big believers in incorporating personality and creativity into our professional brand. In our Rethink Your Resume guide, we encouraged integration of personal interests and photos into professional resumes.

But a resume is just one step in a career. There are so many opportunities to use this strategy.

Once such opportunity was our recent team application to participate in the Urban Land Institute's 1,000 Homes Competition for Housing the Chronically Homeless in LA County.

This annual development competition asks young professionals with different backgrounds to form teams of four to eight members and submit a group application. From those applications, the judges  select five teams to participate in the competition.

Our team, called Team HETED (Homeless Empowerment Through Efficient Development), consists of five members with a variety of experience in development, construction, real estate finance, social work, and architecture. While we were confident in our chances of being selected based on our backgrounds (resumes were part of the application), we took no chances and got creative and personal with our statement of interest.

Instead of the typical, bland, corporate sounding group statement, we split our statement of interest into short blurbs about our individual personal interest in entering this competition. Our statements also include our role on the team, education background, and a small picture.

Here's a sampling of our statement of interest page for the competition application, reformated for this post:

The decision to enter this competition is very personal for each member of Team HETED. While our goal is to combine our skills to create an innovative solution for the homelessness issue in Los Angeles, we feel compelled to share our individual motivations for entering this competition.

Jed Tarr  Development + Project Feasibility William Warren Group Development Associate Arizona State, B.A. Economics + Real Estate, 2007

Connor Humphreys  Finance Budget Finance Co. Director of Acquisitions Emory University, B.A. Sociology, 2006

Laura Leavitt, MSW  Social Work Columbia University School of Social Work, Masters of Social Work, 2009                                                        Kenyon College, B.A. Psychology, 2005

Derek Leavitt, AIA  Architecture + Development Modative, Inc. Principal + Founder University of Southern California, B.Arch + Minor Business, 2000

Our fifth team member, Idalia Santos, was added to our team after this original application was submitted. Her knowledge of development and construction combined with her passion for homeless issues makes her a highly valuable part of our team.

Going creative and personal can be difficult. The easier approach is to play it safe and go with what's been done before. However, for Team HETED, the creative route worked as we were selected as one of the five teams to participate in the competition. Our team is now  partnered up with the City of Glendale and Path Achieve Glendale and over the next six weeks we will develop a proposal for a permanent supportive housing project in Glendale.

What are your thoughts on professional applications?

This post is part of the How to Start an Architecture Firm series.

In February 2006, Christian, Michael and I went to work on forming our own architecture firm. The following is tip number six of seven in our start-up strategy.

Tip 06: Stay Flexible

photo credit

Starting your own architecture firm is not a settling experience. It's not glamorous.

There are many implications to being a flexible company, but I'm going to focus on our flexibility with regard to physically moving our office.

Office 01

As mentioned back in Tip 01, we started our firm in Michael's basement. We didn't have money for fancy furniture. We could only afford IKEA. This turned out to be a blessing.

Our IKEA desks are simple. The $20 laminate table top is sold separate from the $4 metal legs. After a few minutes mounting the leg brackets with a drill, the legs screw right into the table top. Equally important, the legs unscrew, without tools, in about 30 seconds. A genius design, especially considering that we moved into our fourth office space by the time our company was 40 months old.

IKEA Vika Amon table top and Vika Curry legs

Office 02

After a few months in Michael's basement doing start-up stuff and completing our first few jobs, we had enough money for a real office. Well, not a real office, but a small office suite in a tower by the airport. The conference room was shared with other businesses on our floor. Our office suite looked right out on the 405 freeway (see picture 02 below).

Our four offices in 40 months overlaid on a map of Los Angeles.

Office 03

Our third office space, as touched upon in Tip 02, was a converted old house located on a commercial property. The property was the future site of a project we were designing, the Venice Boulevard Urban Dwellings. We worked out free rent as part of our design fee.

Office 04

When that project was put on hold as a result of the housing market collapse, we had to move next door into a commercial building. Rent wasn't free anymore. The space required some upgrading, but nothing like what we went through with the old house. We're still here and it's working well for us.

One way we maintained consistency was to get a mailbox in our first month of operation. We opted for a UPS mailbox near where I live. We still have the mailbox, which is a small price to pay for staying flexible. One less obstacle to moving the office quickly.

While I never expected to be moving so much, we always had a positive mindset. Each move was not only a physical upgrade, but  an opportunity to rethink our internal organization. Keeping things fresh.

Stay tuned as we fill in the final tip of our 7 Tips for Starting an Architecture Firm.

	7 Tips for Starting an Architecture Firm
	00 Bootstrapping Not a tip, but a critical theme in our start-up adventure. posted 12.03.09
	01 Be Cheap posted 12.08.09
	02 DIY (Do It Yourself) posted 12.18.09
	03 Get Advice posted 12.22.09
	04 Learn from the Bad posted 01.22.10
	05 Start and Stay Small posted 03.03.10
	06 Stay Flexible posted 04.05.10
	07 Plan It Out posted 03.13.12

1. You Like Christian, Michael and Derek (the founders of Modative)

You want them to succeed.

You'd invest in their company if people were actually foolish enough to invest in architecture firms. Becoming a fan on facebook will be your investment.

Becoming a fan of Modative Architecture now is like buying Apple stock back in 1996, days before Steve Jobs returned. If you did that back then, you'd now be a kagillionaire. So, joining the Modative train now will get you some serious internet clout when we get around to designing the architecture equivalent of the ipod.

Hey, they seem like nice, upstanding citizens. I think I'll become a fan of their architecture firm.

2. You Hate Christian, Michael and Derek

You can't wait to see them fail.

You dislike them personally, their silly modern architecture and everything else they stand for. All great reasons to become a fan. It'll be like having front row facebook tickets to their demise.

I don't know. That's a pretty grainy political-ad-style photo. I can't wait to become a fan and watch their architecture empire crumble.

3. You Need Culture in Your Life

Actually, you don't need culture. You need the appearance of culture.

When your ex from high school finds you on facebook, they will dissect your profile, finding clues to the level of your lameness. Like it or not, you'll be defined by the pages on your profile. It could get ugly. But alas, there between the "Britney Spears Fan Page" and "Ground Beef Taco Lovers Club" they find a gem - "Modative Architecture". Bingo.

Wow, my ex follows a modern architecture firm. That's some serious culture and sophistication.

Little do they know, you consistently turn down invites to art gallery openings to stay home and watch bad reality TV shows in your underwear.

It's the appearance of culture we're after here people

4. It's a Low Maintenance Relationship

You know your random facebook acquaintance with the horrible band. The one that asked you to become a fan of their group. You gave in. Big mistake.

Now you're bombarded with daily group updates clogging your news feed:

"Check out our new song on MySpace called 'Pig's Lair'"

"Vote for us like a bagillion times in this useless online contest"

"Come rock out with us at our Tuesday night gig at Malloy's in Salinas, CA"

Salinas, seriously?

At Modative we won't spam up your news feed. Why? because we're too busy drawing buildings and other important architecture stuff. Complex, technical stuff.

We rarely update. And when we do, we'll be just as easy to ignore as the rest of your group/page updates.

So, if you're ready to make this minor commitment, you may facebook (used as a verb) us here -  Modative Architecture on facebook

Craving more social media madness?

Follow Derek's frequent twitter updates here - @architectderek

Wait for Christian's rare tweets here - @modative_navar

Or, if you want the appearance of culture in your inbox, subscribe to this architecture blog to recieve an email every time we post.