The Beginning of the End
For months? Years? You’ve checked every box, met every challenge, and provided design solutions that satisfy your client and establish trust. It’s easy to lose focus, to grow weary of an old project’s idiosyncrasies and familiar conversations. You’re tired, and there’s a new project that’s shiny and, well, new. But it’s disarmingly simple to destroy all of the trust built up by your success by simply failing to pay attention at the end, to tune things out, and not give the proper focus that this project, itself once shiny and new, definitely deserves.
Venezuelan artist Pablo Kalaka.
This could just be a story about checklists. You have a checklist for the exterior, for the interior, for the plumbing, for the finishes. You’ve got the list that you share with your general contractor, a list for the city, and a list for your team—and you check, and you check, and you check.
Developing a series of checklists that provide a clear framework for success isn’t a bad idea for any organization. But there’s a larger conversation you must engage in, a cultural conversation within the firm to ensure that each and every project gets the attention it deserves when the end is beginning.
Elevations for the Juliet House
Above, construction in progress at the Juliet House.
How do you consistently communicate with clients, contractors, and consultants to emphasize the importance of the end?
How do you ensure that adequate time will be given to all issues?
How do you embrace the sometimes challenging issues surrounding the financial success of all project partners at the end, when the cash flow has ebbed but time and money are still needed?
When it’s so easy to keep checking the same lists week after week, how do you ensure that the work is actually completed? That open issues don’t trail off into oblivion?
The Shed at Crown Center at the beginning…
…and at the end.
“Begin the work of ending as if it’s a brand new project. Begin again!”
When we start a project, we focus on finding clarity. We must define the scope of work, the key players, the schedule, and the ideas that will form the essence of the finished architecture. The beginning of a project can be easy and fun. There’s a certain simplicity at the beginning—before the crush of detail and complexity, and the how-to-make-it-happen of it all.
The end, however, is full of detail and complexity, and sometimes a number of conversations that aren’t fun at all. Working through that crush and providing the entire team with useful communications that make the process easier for everyone, regardless of subjective outcomes and any disagreements, is incredibly valuable. The clarity that guided us at the beginning of the project and as our design developed should not be abandoned at the end.
Simply put, practicing architecture is the art and science of making buildings—and that’s a fair description. But at a deeper level, architecture is the development of the necessary complexity to transform broad concept into useful reality. At the end of a project, we have to flip the script; we must take a complex series of discussions and issues and provide a simple route to resolution. We have an obligation to our clients, our team, ourselves to resolve the project with energy, to mark the inflection point and make the choice to begin the work of ending as if it’s a brand new project—to begin again.
There’s always a beginning to be found, and we’re always looking.