Recently at our SCIP meeting in Baltimore the question was asked; “where are all the young architects willing to do specifications?” And; “How do we replace ourselves?” We had a discussion that one of the weak points is education at the college level. Others suggested we need to educate the young professionals already graduated. Even others thought to expand this into the community colleges and high schools. All have valid points.
I was fool enough to voice a suggestion as to creating syllabus sponsored by our organization and follow that on with a education program. So guess who got volunteered to head a committee on this! A few did also volunteer to assist this group. I think we’ll have a great crew.
The resulting suggestions ranged in multiple solutions:
Develop a post graduate seminar program for young professionals working in offices.
Develop a university architectural program where the technical education is weakest. I had a brief discussion with a local professor who agrees wholeheartedly.
Develop a program for community colleges. Many students now are going to theses two year schools and transferring into the professional programs.
Create a program for Construction Management degree programs. This is where the technical interest may come from. (Unfortunately)
How does all this get out? There will be a few ways.
Seminars hosted by SCIP members and local Specifiers (affiliate members). This can be one-day Saturday events, or more appropriately a few Saturdays and/or evenings to give it enough depth.
A written syllabus and program for academia.
YouTube webinars with a single or even multiple SCIP members doing particular subjects. But are we pretty enough…?
So the first step is to collect as much material has already been generated. I recall from earlier discussions on this 4specs forum that many here had developed a variety of educational programs that they were willing to share. So if you could be so inclined to kick off those dust bunnies and send those tools my way that would be great.
We will take these tools and distribute them in our committee and work on consolidating them into a cohesive whole. Then we can work on identifying possible gaps and updating elements into a complete program. From all this information, the committee can work on creating the class support materials. And finally, we can figure out the best way to disseminate it.
As always in this forum, all ideas are welcome.
You can send to me directly at:
SpecStudio_at_verizon.net
Rich, I forget what year it was (maybe 10-12 years ago) but I worked on a national CSI committee to develop a curriculum for teaching specification writing. Is there any interest in working with Institute to update that program in a joint effort?
Depending on your timeline, I would be happy to help you out.
Nothing new here; the question “Where will new specifiers come from?” has been with us since specifying was recognized as a separate job.
I doubt that many design students (architecture, engineering, or interior design) would be interested, and the colleges even less so. However, getting something, anything, about specifications into the college curriculum can only help.
As Curt notes, CSI has considered this sort of thing before, but I don’t know if anything was produced.
My chapter has offered educational programs every year as long as I can remember. For a long time, we had two: one for those who simply want to learn about construction documents; the other a refresher for those preparing to take certification exams. Different formats have been used, from a single all-day presentation to a six-week series of evening seminars. I like the YouTube idea. Videos can be used in class or by individuals at any time.
This is an interesting time attempt this, as the role of the specifier may well change in the coming years, from word-pusher to database populator.
As we have discussed in at least one recent LinkedIn string, architecture schools don’t even want to teach serious building sciences because it would impinge on the kinds of course work that they already believe is too important. Yes, there are occasional exceptions with individual professors, but trying to get to architectural schools is a fool’s errand in my view. There are construction management programs that would be better suited to this activity but there is still too little knowledge of the construction world embodied in much of the CSI literature and it is too highly biased towards a worship of design and AIA. The importance of specifications is both real and crucial but this cannot be fulfilled until the organizations (CSI and SCIP) become bastions of real neutrality and objectivity for the good of the project as a whole. This means actually understanding the risks and realities of all the stakeholders equally so that the specifier’s judgment can be exercised to the benefit of the project. A very difficult task indeed, but one worth pursuing and like the truth, the chips have to fall where they may without recourse to the shibboleths of the industry. It might be worth considering that specifiers in the future don’t come at all from the realm of design in the same way that long ago a few doctors decided that repeating the current mumbo-jumbo needed to be replaced with the hard task of engaging a science-based medicine.
Sheldon is correct. Until the schools of architecture (and engineering) place greater emphasis on specifications in their accreditation requirements, the schools won’t add it to their curricula.
As it currently stands, the only requirement per NAAB is the ability to prepare outline specifications, which, even by CSI standards, is loosely defined.
On a brighter note, though, I teach specifications at Taliesin in my CDT course and was taken aback when NAAB listed preparing specifications as a shortcoming in our program during a past visit. When I asked about it, they said that the failure was not due to my course, but the lack of implementation of specifications in the comprehensive design studio. The comprehensive design studio is where students are to take what they have learned throughout their studies and integrate them into a single design project. Thus, our failure to require students to prepare outline specs for their comprehensive design studio projects was seen as noncompliance. We have since integrated outline specifications into our comprehensive design studio.
Let’s not lose sight of the fact that teaching specifications in school can not be done with the intent of students graduating and immediately becoming specifiers. Students can learn how specifications are organized, and the place of specifications in the design and construction process; but without professional experience it’s teaching in a vacuum, there is no context to really understand anything more than general concepts; certainly not the finer points of the profession. This is why SCIP members are mostly gray-hairs–specifying is an older person’s profession. One needs years of experience, with design and construction contract administration, as a background before they can be a good specifier.
Specifiers need to understand the design process in order to become good specifiers. This doesn’t need to imply a “worship” of design, but neither can it mean a denigration of design. Similarly, designers need to understand the technical (both constructability and building science) aspects of design in order to become good designers. If a building design has to be “compromised” in order to be buildable, that is the fault of the designer, not the specifier and engineers.
Hence, the reason why “outline” specifications are the only NAAB requirement. I don’t try to make specifiers out of my students, but I do emphasize the need to understand why we have specifications, how to find information in them, and how to interpret their requirements.
Writing outline specifications gives the students a basic understanding of what information is critical, and that “color and pattern” are not the only criteria to consider when selecting products and materials.
You can’t learn everything about design and construction in arch school. Few students envision life as a specifier. It’s not until they have experienced the rough-and-tumble of the business for a few years, that they realize they need marketable skills and start considering alternatives to the mental “self-satisfying” that is emphasized in school. Learning form, color, contrast and scale, and all that similar stuff fed to them at school isn’t objectionable, because if they don’t learn to think of these things in school, they’re unlikely to while working at a job. And, they can’t study detailed technology without overall context. One of my profs, when asked, What’s the purpose of arch school, replied It’s to learn what architecture can be.
Our chapter every year conducts a scholarship competition program for senior students in one school. It’s difficult to get more than 10 entries. And I don’t think it’s ever yielded a specifier or even a CSI member. Now its but a tradition of the chapter.
Bottom line: I believe we should focus on the young professional, conducting a competitive grants program for in-depth construction technology research. The best proposals would be given money to produce research. It doesn’t have the same cache as “scholarship” but it’s more aligned with how the world works.
Tony, I doubt that anyone went to school to become a specifier; I certainly didn’t. And, as Dave said, the experience required to do the job pretty much precludes anyone from doing it right away. It’s not impossible, though; I have met a couple of very young specifiers who seem to know what they’re doing. Or maybe they just look very young from my perspective…
In one forum or another, it may have been LinkedIn, I suggested having two types of architecture schools. One would be for the big-D designers, who think only at the big picture level. The other would be for the architects who will actually get things done, and want to know how things work, how they go together, how they perform, and all the other things that transform art to reality.
By the way, those who graduate from the first school would not be eligible for licensure. They, as so many architects today, learn only planning and presentation, and deserve to be licensed no more than any artist. It’s not that they aren’t important, but building codes exist to protect life safety, not art.
When I was selling products I could generally spot a CalPoly trained architect or engineer. They asked me the right questions about code issues and how the product worked.
And another country heard from. True nobody goes to architecture school dreaming of becoming a specifier.
However I do not think that there should be two tracks/types of architectural training.
Big D design that does not perform in all of the technical ways it needs to, to be habitable, of the time, and moving is not worthy of the big D label.
Designers need to understand materials, fabrication, construction, building science, as well as have big D IDEAS.
One of the reasons I did go to architecture school (didn’t know I would be a specifier) was that it appeared that there were many ways to practice/participate in the field. We need all kinds of thinkers and we need to respect and cultivate our different strengths.
Specifiers are interested in how things work, young designers do not know about the importance of specifications until they have to administer a job. Fertile ground for new young specifiers age 28-38, JMO. And I have taught design at the Boston Architectural College for 20 years.
Cynie, I don’t think there should be two schools, either, but most US schools focus almost entirely on big-D issues, with little attention given to the more mundane things, like codes, constructability, and keeping the water out. Instead, they rely on on-the-job training to supply those things - which I consider far more important than appearance - after graduation.
The result, of course, is that people who didn’t learn about how buildings work are teaching people who didn’t learn about how buildings work.
It makes more sense to me that schools teach the practical aspects of architecture, and let the students learn design philosophy on the job. Start with what the client needs, add structure, then make it beautiful. Ideally, those things would be developed concurrently, at the same time keeping the weather out and using materials efficiently. I’m not saying design should be ignored, but working from the outside in is art, not architecture.
Vitruvius said good architecture requires three things: firmitas, utilitas, venustas - strength, usefulness, and beauty. Assuming we agree that is a fair assessment of what architecture is, doesn’t it seem reasonable that schools would have a balanced approach, rather than concentrating on design theory and pretty pictures?
I’m going to go ahead and assume that as someone in my early thirties I’m one of the younger members of this board. Bear with me a bit as it involves some personal history, is mostly engineering related, and a soapbox…After 12 years in engineering, including a couple in the field running projects, I could have written all I knew about specifications on a page. Then I started working at MasterSpec and it’s been humbling. I even went to a school that had (it’s since been discontinued or replaced) an engineering curriculum that had a year of required English and other non-technical courses that were aimed at making the engineering graduate more well-rounded. We didn’t talk about specifications once.
It wasn’t until I got to a Master’s program in Engineering Management that specifications were even discussed, and that was in Engineering Law, taught by a PE/JD. From a quick survey of MEM programs and engineering law courses, most engineering law courses taught by JD’s and that’s the only place specifications are taught.
This brings me to three of my soapboxes: (1) engineers and architects have historically done a terrible job at protecting the profession and are commoditizing themselves in a desperate race to the bottom, which drags along the attached professions; (2) schools and students are more interested in teaching the next engineer how to make the next Facebook than the next great piece of architecture, because that engineer is going to give them millions instead of a maybe a couple hundred; (3) lawyers have been all to quick to recognize a business opportunity and insert themselves into the engineering process (ever heard of “law review” or lawyers writing the specs? Its happening) and have set a legal precedent that the specifications override the drawings (FAR and “Contracts and the Legal Environment for Engineers and Architects,” Bockrath and Plotnick, pg. 391).
Not to mention most engineers don’t like to write.
That being said, there are a lot of engineers out there that are starting to “get it,” especially as firms are getting more competitive for work and trying to hold on to employees. I’ve done some work with engineering firms who are interested in getting their employees up to speed on specifications, and I agree wholeheartedly with Cynie - you need to go after the 28-38 year old licensed professional. They get it, and understand how important it is, and most importantly, are going to be the future leaders of their architectural firms. They also have CEU requirements, and free webinars on specifications (sorry, while webinars are a great revenue source, free attracts significantly more people), such as a specification 101 is something that isn’t out there, unless you are a MasterSpec client, to the best of my knowledge, and is something that should be.
Offered without comment from The Contractors Guide to Change Orders by attorney Andrew Civitello:
5.2 DEFECTIVE SPECIFICATIONS
Two factors increase the probability of errors in the documents:
The technical specifications are an architects secondary priority. Throughout the process of design development, specific thought had been given to the precise materials desired and their configuration. The design process is what the architect is best at. It is the process of bringing the initiated concept through detailed design that gives the architect the greatest satisfaction. It is only when the design is complete that the technical specifications and the contracts themselves are finally assembled. It is not the priority, but an unfortunate, tedious necessity, as far as the architect is concerned. Its a second effort. It is for this reason that cut-and-paste is looked to not as the most effective method of comprehensive preparation of an important legal document, but as a fast, cheap way to get it over with.
The technical specifications and the front-end documents are assembled at the eleventh hour. The design process itself usually continues until the last possible moment. It is only when the deadline of the bid solicitation date looms that serious attention is diverted to completing the specification. The specifications then become likely to be fit in between the real design work. What is worse, junior architects and even clerks may be enlisted to prepare certain portions of the documents.
[I cheated and read the opposing team’s playbook ;->]
When I was teaching Specification Writing at the community college level, by far most of my students worked for contractors. When I took classes on how to avoid change orders, aimed at the A/E community, I was the only one from the design side. Everyone else was from the construction side.
I know you didn’t mean it ‘that way’ but I consider the contractors worth working with on my side. The ones that do partner, and there are those that do, realize the benefits of a symbiotic relationship. The others get to feel the wrath of bad relationships during punch list.