Too Much Stuff?

Do you remember the George Carlin comedy bit about having a place for your “stuff”?

In light of the global economic malaise, a lot has been written lately about our country’s obsession with having a lot of “stuff.” We all have too much of everything, really, and could do just fine with a lot less. For the profession of architecture that may mean fewer new buildings, at least for a while.

The other day Paul Nakazawa, an architectural futurist (among his many other talents), spoke to the Boston Society of Architects Board about the future of our profession in the context of an economy which he believes will recover slowly over several years. He suggested that the demand right now for traditional architectural services – namely the design of new buildings – simply isn’t there. New buildings are increasingly difficult for clients to finance, and like the rest of us they are going to try to make better use of the “stuff” they already have!

Now, perhaps I am a bit more upbeat than Paul, but I believe that as the economy recovers, clients will once again seek competitive advantage through architecture and, like federal and state agencies, they will embrace sustainability as a cornerstone of their business platform and engage those firms, like TRO JungBrannen, passionately committed to the design of carbon-neutral, zero net energy new buildings.

Meanwhile, it seems to me that our firm is coping exceptionally well during this economic transition because we also offer integrated, highly specialized, multi-disciplinary design services that include visionary master planning assessments, strategic repositioning, energy conservation analysis, and a host of other analytical services that transform a client’s business or institution through enhanced efficiency and operational connectivity rather than through new construction.

George Carlin would probably acknowledge that we have the right “stuff.”