Course #: ARCC4500

Title: Design Economics

Credits: 0.5

Instructor: Dr. Bruce M. Firestone, B. Eng. (Civil), M.Eng.-Sci., Ph.D.

Prerequisite: Core Course

Term: Fall

Course Description:

There is an unspoken crisis in the architectural profession. Architects are expected to lead project teams in an increasingly complex development process sometimes without first having studied and mastered the underlying municipal processes and, second, under a fee structure that is increasingly unrealistic. Margins in the profession are being squeezed at the same time as the expectations and needs of clients, municipal planners and politicians, approval agencies and community activists are soaring. Young professional architects feel that they are exploited by the system and that it is financially unrewarding to establish their own practice. The Design Economics course is aimed at giving students the skills they need to survive and thrive in a tough, competitive world; to obtain fair value for themselves and for their profession and to meet the needs of their clients, patrons and, indeed, all stakeholders.

In this course, we examine the needs of today's architectural practice, the challenges that the profession faces and look at some solutions for the financial challenges faced in architectural practice. We will look at the ethics of becoming an architect/developer potentially coming into competition with one's own clients; ownership of intellectual property; product extensions into non-traditional areas including, for example, the architect's evolving role in construction and design in cyberspace, data mining, data graphics and architectural signage. We will ask whether there are other extensions of the architect's skill set that can further enhance the profession.

We will see that there are ways and means for architects to increase their value to clients (and, hence, their fees) by understanding better the creation of value through design and the design program. We will understand the link between quality design and creativity, on the one hand, and the overall return of a project for a client. We will refocus the professional architect away from an exclusive reliance on cost reduction and cost control to reach a better balance between economic inputs and economic outputs. Students will learn to justify their designs using cost/benefit analysis; they will be able to demonstrate to their clients that higher design costs are more than offset by greater benefits.

Over-reliance on costs means that architects are constantly being forced to cut budgets and their fees too. By demonstrating that our designs increase benefits (whether measured in revenue dollars or, say, by an increased visitor count for a museum), then we can generate increased value for our clients and customers and ourselves.

Because of the importance of the Internet, we will look at the use of the Internet to support an architectural practice. We will learn simple web design and students will be expected to put up their own personal web sites and post their assignments there.

The student will be expected to learn some of the fundamentals of the professional office practice including:

• concept planning, functional programming, highest and best use, due diligence
• market research, design program and the use of statistics, probability theory and regression analysis in the practice of architecture,
• cost estimating and quantity surveying,
• value engineering, cost/benefit analysis, time value of money, internal rates of return,
• critical path methodology, project scheduling, externalities, benefits from crashing the schedule,
• team co-ordination, management and leadership,
• Zoning, Master Planning, Official Plans, Ontario Municipal Board, Divisional Court Appeals, Performance Zoning, Building code, Fire code, Health code,
• By-laws and land use planning controls,
• Re-engineering City Processes- Channeling the Building Permit Process and Allowing Architects and Engineers to Self Certify Certain Types of Building Permits, de-regulation of zoning by-laws, special interest groups, nimby behaviour, anti globalization- their impact on city and building design
• expropriations, legal issues, lien act (can an architect lien, Land Titles, Deeds, Transfers, Liens, Slander on Title, Privacy of Information),
• defending your project in public—on making presentations,
• preparing design drawings,
• construction certification and payment certificates,
• design documentation and construction contracts, tendering,
• design/build process, other types of contractual processes, gross maximum price, project delivery process,
• financial management,
• office automation for architects, professional practice (start your own practice versus getting a job),
• setting pricing schedules, marketing your practice, negotiating a contract,
• professional ethics, intellectual property and the role of creativity in creating value
• bankruptcy laws,
• risk assessment (title insurance),
• personal web site design, utility and data backup,
• marketing your practice, marketing real estate,
• brand extensions for the architect (for example, how one firm reinvented its practice),
• Consulting Architecture (assisting clients with due diligence and feasibility studies in purchase of property, highest and best use determination, selecting possible uses, preliminary sketch plans and yields, first order approximations of costs and benefits and returns).

http://www.dramatispersonae.org/DesignEconomicsFrontPage.htm

www.DramatisPersonae.org

www.Exploriem.org