Becker, Dan wrote:

> How to manage people and provide professional services in the client's
> best interest, including educating the client in the design process
> and the implication of their decisions

Yeah, this is it. And I suspect that since this is not seen as a
consciously educable part of becoming an architect that by default
clients, or contractors, may not, in general, perceive that there is a
distinct design process that needs to be negotiated with informed
guidance -- as opposed to often misinformed or self-serving guidance. I
would go to the extent to say that I believe it is a role that
architects should be more forthright to claim as their own, leastways,
from the contracting end of things I would much prefer that someone who
has developed the skill set of helping clients make up their minds being
doing that rather than the contractor/craftsperson getting sucked into
the process without an adequate knowledge of alternatives, and their
further implications (such as an a/c guy not being sensitive to load on
inadequate roof structures), or for those who have them to use their
communication skills to an optimal outcome for all team members.

This is not exactly a trivial inquiry on my part. As chair of the PTN
Education Committee I will point out a few developments that are
occurring towards what is shaping up to be a fairly concentrated vortex
of  intensive focus... 1) that traditional trades communities are
beginning to develop education curriculum (in point the Timber Framers
Guild has developed a quite comprehensive curriculum that is currently
in an advanced phase of review) and 2) there is a substantial and
increased interest in traditional trades education models (international
scope)... and the multiple roles of the architect/engineer in a
conservation project I sense needs to be communicated through a
traditional trades curriculum, leastways an awareness of the importance
and value of the architect/engineer, but same cannot be through the
perspective necessarily of what the architectural/engineering programs
teach internally regarding their own professions, but from a perspective
that makes sense to the traditional trades and that, in fact, may very
well bring in expectations from the trades as to standards of the
ethical behavior for architects and engineers.

Just as it is often difficult for design professionals to distinguish
between competent and ethical contractors and/or traditional trades, a
reverse distinction can be made that traditional trades are not always
clear on the distinction between competent and ethical design
professionals. As there are really lousy contractors, there are also
really lousy architects and in both fields the abuses do not speak well
to the mythology or the public perception of either, and often, I feel,
becomes an added burden for those who are not lousy in either field.

I do not mean to present this trades oriented perspective as hubris, but
if the architectural profession in their education process has neglected
what Dan characterizes as, "...that no sense was conveyed of how huge a
part of professional practice it really is." then I see the need for a
traditional trades initiated distinction as to "good" design
professionals as taking up the default created by a vacume of
non-education not only out of a need for the survival of the
craftspersons, but for the sake of the heritage fabric itself.

Lest anyone feel that I am getting personal and pointing fingers, I do
not associate with, do business with, or consider as a friend any design
professionals who are not, in my estimation, good. What does bother me
though, and PTN has put a great deal of energy into working this
through, is when I meet craftspeople who have been so terribly burnt by
lousy design professionals that they cannot for the life of them see the
good.

][<

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