AND MORE AGONY, ANGUISH AND DEALINGS WITH THE CITY, PART 2

April 14, 2017

Art of red tape (source unknown)

(Continuing on my rant from a previous post.)

In the not-so-far past, city approvals for a project were provided by a small handful of departments. Today, even for the tiniest of projects, approvals are necessary from over a dozen different agencies like Bureau of Sanitation, Green Building, Community Plan Injunction Compliance, and WTF Department.

With the ever-changing and self-contradictory city requirements, even the most experienced architect has trouble getting his client’s project approved for construction. Additionally, if the city employees don’t know what they themselves are doing, how can any architect? Maybe intentionally created to torment, getting a permit is an inexplicable mishmash of unfathomable cruelty and perversion.

Torture scene from A Clockwork Orange, 1971

My project consisted of adding a mere 750 square feet to an existing small house from 1957. I will only hash out two crazy situations of the twenty that I confronted during the nine months of the city process. Note that in this time frame, a contractor could actually construct my entire addition.

CRAZY EXAMPLE ONE OF TWENTY

The city Plan Checker determined that my design was above the height limit. But he stated with a straight face, “If I made the design taller, he would approve the project.”

You did not read this wrong.

The city code had an obscure loophole. If a certain roof shape was added on top of my design, then it would be allowed to be taller than the limit. Though none of this made sense, I proceeded with a revised taller version, and was now found to have an approved design.

Sketches for the house renovation and addition

CRAZY EXAMPLE TWO OF TWENTY

Due to my project’s new square footage, the city required one additional parking space.

The city recommended that this new parking space be located at the bottom of the hill. A peculiar suggestion: Such a parking spot would be 100 feet lower than the existing house, and the distance between the spot and the house would be a half a mile walk.

Even worse, to add such a parking space would require a 15-foot tall retaining wall to hold back the hill. And such a wall was not allowed by the city. Not only that, but the cost for this wall and the associated hillside work would be $300,000.00!

A most expensive eyesore: the neighbor’s city-required retaining wall, (photo by Anthony Poon)

Plan B. The city’s Planning Department stated that the new spot could be added at the front of the house. A great idea. But the city’s Bureau of Engineering would not allow a new driveway to get to this spot. This made my new parking space unreachable, thereby making Plan B a stupid idea.

Victim and government, from Nineteen Eighty-Four (1984)

EPILOGUE: The joy of being an architect can easily be compromised by employees of a city—sometimes just doing their jobs, sometimes looking to not say “yes,” since it is safer to say “no.”

One might believe that these tales are exaggerated by blending a heavy dose of artistic flair to the small amount of truth. One might assume that such stories only occur once in a while. But here is the frightening fact: Such events happen most of the time. And it gets worse every year.

EIGHT THINGS I DISLIKE ABOUT ARCHITECTURE

September 2, 2016

1893 Chicago's World Fair, Illinois

ONE

Clients who change their minds every other day. I get it; it’s their project and it’s their money. They are the customers, and I would not have a business without them. But I am hired to be the design authority. So why is all my expertise cast aside, only to have me arbitrarily move a wall six inches in one direction, then three inches in another direction, then back to the original position—and then, do this again 20 more times over months?

TWO

The business of architecture. To have work, I have to market the company— promote, promote, promote. I also bill clients, pay insurance and rent, manage finances, execute contracts, and take care of payroll and taxes. Being an entrepreneur and sole proprietor, such are mandatory activities, but they interfere with doing what I love: to draw, design and create.

THREE

Technology that has overtaken artistry and imagination. Computers are powerful and convenient. I can’t imagine my business without them, but they are just one of many tools. Some architects have forgotten how to use their hands, their eyes, and their souls. And some clients believe (incorrectly) that simply with the use of a computer, architects should be able to do more work and do it faster.

Revit file for mixed-use project, Los Angeles, California, by Poon Design

FOUR

The frightening responsibility of what I do. Poorly selected kitchen cabinets might compromise the aesthetics of a house, but an incompetent design of fire exits for 10-story student dormitories is a life and death matter.

Northwest Campus Student Housing, University of California, Los Angeles, by Anthony Poon (w/ HHPA, photo by Michael Moran)

FIVE

Interior decorators who call themselves interior designers, as if to suggest these decorators shape architectural space, structure and light. Whether decorator or designer, why is it that they (alas, many of my friends are interior decorators/designers) garner higher pay than architects? Is selecting the right hue for a pillow sham as significant as my design for a high school?

Pacifica Christian High School, Culver City, California, by Poon Design

SIX

Red Tape: working with the bureaucracy of city agencies to obtain approvals, even for the simplest of things. I do appreciate the need for the Department of Building and Safety to protect us against the unscrupulous and derelict, but I am neither unscrupulous nor derelict. I have better things to do than spend hundreds of hours waiting in line to submit a soils report, only to be rejected because today is the staff party for their July birthdays, and the counter has abruptly closed.

SEVEN

Bleeding for the art. Architecture is a struggle, and if it was easy, we probably wouldn’t be interesting in doing it. But most architects work way too hard, struggle too much. Pritzker-awarded Rafael Moneo once told our class not to worry. Without missing a beat and in all seriousness, this head of Harvard’s architecture school declared, “You have more than the five calendar days left to complete the project; you have ten days. Five days and five nights. Do not sleep!”

Murcia Town Hall, Spain, by Rafael Moneo (photo from metalocus.es)

EIGHT

The ego of some architects with their overly curated philosophical platforms laced with intellectual superiority. Architects, charged with solving design challenges with innovation and efficiency, do have a vital role in society. But are we rock stars? Are we “Starchitects?” I often wonder whether Ayn Rand was serious about the greatness of architects, or was she simply elbow jabbing the profession, slyly mocking us.

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