Rudy Christian wrote:
>I think the ethics in this situation have to be based on the willingness on both sides to admit one's lack of competence.
>
Rudy,
Good morning... is it snowing yet?
What is obvious is what I find usually the most difficult for myself to
see... and that is one reason for our open dialogue. I may question the
judgements of architects/engineers, I do it a little less briskly than
when I was younger, but I also find myself disengaging from design
professionals that are intransigent in their perspectives and who do not
encourage a convergence of talents on projects. Though I must admit the
first architect who asked me what I thought of his suggestion that we
use a particular screw anchor in masonry set me on a career long
awareness of those who sincerely want to do the best by the structure,
and their client, and those who are more full of themselves. I think it
is not solely a situation of recognition of one' s lack of competence
(which sometimes internally can be over rated... it being that we may
not be as incompetent as we allow ourselves to imagine... and I have
often considered a lack of self confidence an indulgence -- being that
for survival we cannot all of us afford to wallow in our inability), but
also one of recognition of an appropriate competence of others, and of
working as a project team towards a common set of goals. In this I
believe we may agree?
I have had several projects in the past, small and large, where an
architect was expressly NOT wanted by the client. I have found my way
through them with my honor intact -- and in some cases I have asked that
a design professional be consulted where I could see clearly that an
issue was beyond our competence. What specifially interests me here in
this thread is figuring out a distinction where as trades we would
always desire to insist, short of legal considerations as you say exist
in Ohio, on there being a design professional on board. Two recent small
projects that we have completed in neither case was an architect
involved, and to do so would have been an inapppropriate expense, and
not our call to make, and in neither case did I at any time feel that I
was walking into a trap by making aesthetic decisions in the field. But
it depends, in this case at least, greatly upon the good character of
the client and a good relationship of everyone working to look out for
each other... we are back to trust relationships I suppose.
I also am aware of a lighthouse project in which the client was raked
over by a contractor, and that the best advice to them that I could give
was to seek out and procure the services of an architect that would do
the right thing by them and for them -- and NOT to rely on me. I have
since lost touch with the project, but on occasion I get a call asking
what I think of a particular problem and/or methodology for solution.
][<
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