Architects have a stressful job.
You’re responsible for coordination between a myriad of disciplines. Since you’re leading the design effort, you have the most responsibility – and feel the most pressure – to make sure the project is successful. You’ve got a lot on your plate.
You shouldn’t have to deal with any extra frustration from other design consultants who can’t keep up.
That’s why we’ve tailored our design process to solving your pains.
But, first we had to understand what would make the most difference for you. So we asked architects across the country to describe their most common pains and frustrations. We identified some common threads and narrowed them down to the top 5 pain points architects have with other design consultants:
1. Design is prohibitively expensive
2. Lack of creativity
3. Poor coordination between consultants
4. No specialized expertise
5. Unresponsiveness and missed deadlines
By removing the burden of these pains and frustrations, we help architects focus on what you do best. And we give you confidence we’ll do our part to bring your project success.
1. Design is prohibitively expensive
What We Heard
“The cost prohibitive issue can be problematic. If an idea of budget can be established before design is initiated, that would be helpful.”
How We Responded
At Loft Six Four we employ two main strategies for designer-informed budgeting of the rooftop and outdoor spaces we design:
1. Preliminary Budget Ranges
These are ranges based on the scope and scale of the project, as well as the developer’s vision.
2. Rough Order of Magnitude (ROM) Cost Opinions
These are more detailed cost breakdowns that identify and put a cost to each element of the design using data we’ve collected from previous projects.
2. Lack of creativity
What We Heard
“Landscape architects in general are not a creative bunch. I get frustrated with their lack of creativity and design sensibility toward a project. I have had landscape architects ignore the design directive – whether because of disagreement or simply an inability to actually design.”
How We Responded
Everyone in our design studio is invited to participate in the creative process. From owner to intern, we all gather around the charrette table, pen in hand, to pitch in. We foster the creativity of our team rather than relying on one genius creative designer.
This creates a broader pool of ideas and keeps the team focused on finding the right solution rather than defending one person’s preferred answer.
3. Poor coordination between consultants
What We Heard
“Design sometimes happens in a vacuum, resulting in lack of coordination and sometimes unpleasant surprises.”
How We Responded
We’ve created a coordination checklist outlining each consultant we need to inform based on the design of the outdoor spaces we’re working on. We are proactive in reaching out to the architecture, interiors, structural, mechanical and plumbing, electrical, and civil consultants on a project each time we propose a design feature that will interface with their scope.
This coordination is intended to reduce avoidable city comments, RFIs, and scope gaps while giving the architect earlier visibility into cross-discipline decisions.
4. No specialized expertise
What We Heard
“I’d love to see landscape architects have more expertise with specialized landscape components (living walls, rooftop gardens, pervious paving, stuff like that).”
How We Responded
Our expertise is continually deepening in our focus of helping urban multifamily real estate developers create immersive rooftop amenities and outdoor living experiences. By going deep and narrow with our expertise we’ve continued to learn from experience, gain insights, and build resources that other more generalized firms simply don’t have.
We have a deep understanding of what matters to multifamily developers and ever-evolving technical knowledge about how to design successful rooftop amenity spaces.
5. Unresponsiveness and missed deadlines
What We Heard
“One challenge we have with many of our consultants is keeping commitments. It’s frustrating when drawings are due at a certain time, and they show up 3 hours later or the next morning. I’d rather have trust and confidence in a consultant, and have open dialog about project deadlines then give fake deadlines early because the expectation is that they will be late. Counting on someone to be late is a bad pattern and approach, and an indication that there is a problem, yet this seems to be the attitude more often than not.”
How We Responded
The number one success metric described in this article is whether the design team meets its commitments. The process is built around making deadlines visible and raising conflicts early.
Clear communication should keep the architect informed about deliverables, timing, and anything that could affect the agreed schedule.
Running a successful architecture project is no easy task.
Between the many different things you are managing, the last thing you need to deal with is a frustrating design consultant.
That’s why we’ve done our best to identify the most common pains architects experience and build solutions to them into our design process.
We provide budgeting help, develop creative solutions around the design directive, coordinate closely with other consultants, specialize in rooftop amenity design, and make commitments visible so conflicts can be raised early.
Let’s talk and see if we can remove some frustration from your job. It’s time to start making your life easier. You deserve it.