“It’s 95 degrees and the humidity is 80%. People don’t understand that. People see a man with a shovel in his hand working on a job site and think he’s lazy because he’s just standing there. What they don’t see is the struggle going on inside your brain. The part of you that has lived in the wild for millions of years is saying it’s too exhausting, it’s too hot, why don’t you go lay in the shade for a while. That part of your brain sees the shovel, sees the ditch, sees the pipe to be laid, and it doesn’t see how this is getting you food or sex. That other civilized part of you is saying, there is food and sex to be found in that ditch. You just need to hunch over that pipe for another 5 hours, and then for another three days, and then it’ll be this made up thing, Friday, and you’ll have this other made up thing, money. Then you can go out and eat and try to procure a mate.

You just need to clinch that shovel tightly for a little longer and you can get what you want. The little tribesman in your mind doesn’t understand this. Things were easier in his time. Sure you only lived to be 26, but if it was too hot you didn’t move, if some bit of fruit was too hard to reach you walked to the next tree and looked for lower fruit. There is no low hanging fruit left in this world though.

You hold that shovel and think if only I could bludgeon that little tribesman in my brain. Then I could be free to give myself to wage labor, free to force my body to do what it doesn’t want to. So when you see a man on the side of the road not moving just watching some machine manipulate earth, know that he may not be lazy, but just engaged in a struggle between a past that shaped us and a present that was made by us but not for us.”

What if I instead told you that our business’ financial margin was secondary to the well-being of others? Or that the concerns for a community were a non-negotiable requirement of a potential joint-venture. Your margin is going to fall by, say, 5% because of your required donation back to the community. Would people scoff? Would you?

Let me tell you first hand, today – people do. People refuse to believe that we could put aside our personal, financial gain for an unknown third-parties’ financial gain. Why have people become so hard – so cold? Is this merely the ebb and flow of humanity? My guess is that it is. Seriously think about it – we forgot about concrete. The Romans could build magnificent structures for centuries and then, poof, the technology was forgotten. The cold-hardness kills innovation and makes you forget why it is you’re working these long days for and for whom. The focus becomes so tight on your money purse that suddenly, poof, you’re lost. Lost and out of touch with what matters. Your family and friends, exploring the world, enjoying good music and your golden retriever.

So how do you bring people from the brittle edge and back into having concern for the fellow woman – or man? I sit and ponder this question and am suddenly given the answer in music. Music, rather, is the answer. Or maybe it’s art. Could possibly be an amazing meal but whatever ‘it’ is – ‘it’ is inspiration. A persons’ simple belief that their words and actions have meaning will lift them to dream, create, succeed and then inspire others.

Inspiration can’t even use money. It doesn’t care about recessions or bank accounts but interestingly enough, inspiration will actually cause you to give money. Inspiration will open your checkbook and write a number that you couldn’t imagine strictly to help someone else. It is the cycle breaker.  It is consumer confidence & housing starts.  It is concrete.  Build our world – close your eyes and dream of what could be.

Now go do it.

LaurelHouse Studio

Demand More Better

This $80+ dollar book is supposed prepare you for a test that will thrust you on a path leading, ultimately, to some kind of sustainable design nirvana. But before you get there you’ll spend more money than you can possibly imagine on books, workshops and let’s not forget the actual exam. Then you’ll have to maintain your certification with 30 hours a year of continuing education classes and of course, a fee.

In my humble opinion I think the entire notion of LEED accreditation/certification for a person or a building is an enormous waste of money, resources and time. I have read a 2003 report stating that the soft cost alone of choosing to certify your building will run from 1.3% to 3.1% of the cost of your building. I don’t know how many architects will actually read this but we are talking about a figure that approaches almost HALF of a standard architectural and engineering fee for the building! That was 2003 when LEED was young. Now it’s older, wiser – and charges more.

Before I digress into an absurd rant I need to get back to topic. Architects – design sustainably. Do it because you love the Earth. Do it because you’re going to now add the 3.1% to your fee and NOT give it to the non-profit USGBC for their “certification” of your ability to design. Do it because it’s how we, as Architects, should see all design. In harmony with nature, people and our surroundings.

LaurelHouse Studio

Demand More Better

Someone recently mentioned to us that there is no way to measure the success of a business model based on “doing good”.  This person, of whom we won’t throw around any names, is a professional (and professor) who helps business focus and become more successful.

I instantly felt better about our chances.  I mean – you can’t exactly fail if you can’t measure success.

So today I really just want to push a company that has everyone else’s well-being at heart, GOOD.  GOOD publishes a monthly magazine dedicated at giving 100% of users’ subscription money to charities or social causes.

GOOD Magazine spreads across the information highway.  For instance, a nice little video production from GOOD about the overwhelming imports from China this Christmas, one about Cornography, and finally a little diddy about internet porn.

So this holiday season, give GOOD to someone.

Disclaimer: we don’t get a dime from GOOD.  They have no affiliate programs.  No cash for subscriptions.  And you won’t be “helping me get to Europe next semester because my parents won’t help pay for a class trip“.

LaurelHouse Studio

Demand More Better

I won’t mention the name of any custom home builders in this diatribe.  But you should note that the word ‘builder’ was just added to the phrase.  Interesting.  Maybe this is because custom homes AREN’T ACTUALLY CUSTOM HOMES but rather a pre-designed shell, designed (i use the term lightly) by a builder/contractor.  You, as the consumer, get to choose little amendments that the builder offers and poof, your customized.

I recently visited a home in custom home central – suburbia - that had ‘shuttered’ windows (since real shutters would be too much work – they were fake shutters screwed into the brick).  But upstairs, two sets of shutters were closed.  Upon entering the house I immediately walked up to inspect the closed shutters.  In both locations – no windows.  The home builder actually put up fake shutters to cover up fake windows!  Now consider that actual shutters, here in Houston, could save a pretty penny the next hurricane that roles through…

Sigh.

Herein lies the problem.  People are satisfied with fake.  They simply do not care if anything is real as long as it looks real.  They will subsitute size for quality any day of the week.  Think, um, plastic surgeons.  You can have a four bedroom, four bath house with two living areas, two dinning areas, a game room and a home theatre room for you, your wife and kid and NO ONE will tell you, “That’s ridiculous.”

comparison of engineered Fake wood flooring

Well – I’m telling you, it’s ridiculous.  More does not equal better.  Every square foot extra, that is wasted, you are paying for.  Why not design a house that’s efficeint, saves square feet and put that money you were about to spend into quality?  Maybe you don’t need 1,000 square feet of hallway space, or rather, $100,000 in hallway space.

Did your home builder/custom home designer ask you anything about your life?  About your family?  Did they ask you about the feeling you wanted from your home?  Do your kids play sports?  What kind of hobbies do you have?

Did they care that in five years your home will start falling apart because you chose more over quality? 

Do you care?

I end with this; would you like your house to be around longer than your mortgage?  Wouldn’t it be nice if your kids’ kids were still passing down the property AND home to their heirs..? 

It’s called the life-cycle cost (pdf in the link).

Stop living in the moment people.

LaurelHouse Studio

Demand More Better

It’s a material world and I’m a material, um, guy. So let’s analyze all these green-freak environmentalistic ideas from a different angle – you’re wallet. Times are tough so why not? Realistically, is your selected representative doing anything for YOU? So screw ‘em!

Green energy technologies are good for your pocketbook. It’s that simple. The classic example that seems to pass thru the heads of so many quicker than the Pale Riders right hand; the Compact Fluorescent Bulb or CFL as we Architects like to pompously call them.”

“But they are five times more expensive!”, you scream at me.

“Yes, they are.”, I calmly retort.  “And they last 10 times longer on average (US government says 35x longer), thus saving you, um…”, calculator pause, “twice the money!”, I slyly add.

“Not to mention the 75% savings on energy across that 10 YEARS!”

Yes, they contain traces amounts of Mercury. But for non-greenies/conservatives that should be a plus as you now have the potential to poison more people, yeah!  And for you tree-huggers/liberals you have saved yet another sq. inch of our 7.9 x 10¹⁷ square inches here on Mother Earth, sleep well tonite.

But in the end you have both saved money. Real money. If you changed out EVERY lightbulb in your house your saving 75% of your MONEY… not energy. Makes more sense that way. LED’s will save you even more money as they become widely available.

We architects refer to this notion as Life-Cycle-Costing.

The rest of the world just calls it common sense but, sadly, the rest of the world seems to be losing theirs.

LaurelHouse Studio

Demand More Better

a new way of business

we don’t want your money

(but we do need some of it.)

we were sitting around talking the other day and decided that it was time to come up with a business model – so we did; and you just read it above. “no”, we’re not naive and we are certainly not stupid.  in our discussion on the topic we concluded that the majority of businesses on earth have, as their almost singularly top goal, profit.

how much money can that business increase in their business over the same quarter, last year? how much money do they have in reserves? how much money are they paying their stockholders?

so we asked ourself different questions.  how much human capital do we have? how many people can we help with the knowledge we possess?  and what the hell are we going to do with the buckets of money we’re going to make, anyway???

it turns out that the answer to the last question was, “well – we’ll just give it away to those that need it.”

So, in sum and balance, we want to help people.  People that need a leg up, people who want to invest in the human capital of their business, people who want to make a difference.  We hope to make a dollar or two in the process but that desire is far from top of the list in our new business model.

Give me your tired, your poor,
Your huddled masses yearning to breathe free,
The wretched refuse of your teeming shore.

It’s time for a change in the way people think about, approach and “do” business.

René Graham & Chris Lawrence
LaurelHouse Studio