Creating better architectural concepts
…or what architects can learn from Volkswagen
This is the Volkswagen Phaeton. It might seem conspicuous that I’m starting an article directed to architects by talking about a car, but bear with me, the ‘’why’’ will become clear as I go on.
The Phaeton was VW’s attempt at entering the luxury market and they really went for it. The design and engineering team poured their hearts and souls into this and it shows. Riding in this thing will give you one of the smoothest driving experience you can have. The chassis was specifically tuned for this model, all interior leather, wood detailing and almost every other thing you can imagine. Even the name, ‘’Phaeton’’ which comes from Greek mythology (the son of the sun-god Helios, which basically means they named this thing ‘’Son of the Sun’’) was dripping with ‘’luxury high-end-ness’’ The result of this? An amazing car that was in production from 2003 to 2016, which sold for 0 profit and ended up being a pretty big failure for the company. Why did this happen? After they designed it, they had to price it, and this is where the trouble started. In order to be profitable, they had to sell one at 100k and higher. The problem was that no one in their right mind would have paid that much money for a Volkswagen. So they slapped a lower price to recoup the investment, but this didn’t help. At around 80k price point, the Phaeton was in direct competition with BMW and Mercedes-Benz, which spelled disaster. VW’s image is that of the car ‘’you take the kids to school in’’, but, just like BMW and Mercedes-Benz, the Phaeton was trying to be a car ‘’to pull up in front of the club’’. Problem is that no one ever wanted to pull up in front of the club in a VW (there is a reason Eazy-E didn’t rap about ‘’Crusin’ down the street in my Volkswagen’’ and it ain’t because it didn’t sound right). So VW’s enthusiasts didn’t get it and BMW and Mercedes enthusiasts didn’t want it.
The Phaeton is a fantastic lesson for architects. The concept stage is the favorite part of any project, it is the part where you start to design the project, the part where you can show off your creativity and do nice renders. But beyond that, it can also be the most crucial part. When meeting a client for the first time, architects will start talking about beauty, creativity and all the things they can do. Very few architects will ask the crucial question: ‘’How much money you want to pour into this?’’
Almost all of us are familiar with this image, it has become a borderline ubiquitous symbol for the frustration of the architect. Architects look at this and think ‘’Why don’t they understand our project?’’ when they should be asking ‘’Why do clients do this?’’ and the answer is going almost always going to be ‘’Money!’’. The design in the upper left-hand corner is amazing, but it’s also very expensive. But when confronted with this answer, the reply is very often ‘’But the client chose it!’’. No, he didn’t, the client chose a pretty rendering, without almost any knowledge of what it takes to build it. It is the role of the designer to explain all of this to him, give him the breakdown and tune the design accordingly before going full speed to actually drawing the construction. Think of it like this: you go to the doctor and you are presented with 2 or 3 possible treatments which are vaguely explained and then made to chose one. You choose, but then there are some side effects (which you didn’t know about), and the doctor’s reply is ‘’You chose it, don’t complain!’’.
The architect designs something amazing, the client says yes, architect moves to construction drawings, client starts calculating and realizing the cost, comes back and the revision hell starts. All of this could be avoided if the budget is discussed openly and honestly at the start. Not guessing, but actually inquiring. In the case of something simple, the architect can handle the budget information on his own, but what if we’re dealing with something a bit more complicated, like shown in the picture above? Then, the best thing you can do, is to bring in an engineer and a constructor to offer input at the concept stage. An engineer can look at a sketch plan and section and tell you from the start what is difficult to do. A constructor can give you a ballpark assessment of everything (which is all you really need). Let me be clear, you don’t need an exact figure, but an assessment. This also has a side-advantage. When you know how much it costs, you also know how much to charge or if you can offer additional services (like project management). This notion that the building design belongs exclusively to the architect is a modernist notion, and one that needs to die soon. Yes, the architect should be and is a somewhat-central figure in the construction process. But making a building takes a lot of specialists and knowledge. Hell, even God didn’t build something on his own in the Bible, he first made an army of capable employees to help him (I think they are called angels or something).
Working in BIM is very advantageous for this way of working. If your template is good enough you can get even close to having the quantities of materials you need, types of windows and doors, type of structure etc. It’s not the final product, but for creating estimates and budgeting it can be a God-send. It also increases the quality of your service, which then, in turn, let’s you price it accordingly (funny way of saying that it lets you charge more). And all of this can be done with a bit of organization and template work in whatever software you use (Archicad, Revit, Allplan, etc.)
Discussing finances in the beginning phase will simplify the whole process. For starters, fewer revisions mean less work down the line. Less revisions also means that, at least for the most part, the original design is preserved. Knowing the budget beforehand will allow for a much fairer compensation for both parties (client and designer) and will remove any potential money tom-forkery. Architects have a certain aversion to discussing the monetary issue and a strong inclination for overpriced work. If you look at any architectural website you won’t really see too many cheap or average priced projects. Open a Taschen book and things get even more bonkers. But if you don’t work in the high-end market, justifying those budgets is very difficult. There is a place for that kind of concept, though, as they can trickle in other buildings down the line. While the Phaeton car might have failed, the Phaeton project eventually found success, when the Volkswagen D-1 platform was used in another car. But this wasn’t the ‘’car for the whole family’’ that VW traditionally makes, it was the ‘’car you pull up in when you own the club’’, the Bentley Continental.
