25
Years of Design • Build • Use |
A
Presentation @ the San Francisco Institute of Architecture |
April
13, 2000 • Part
1 of 3 |
Note:
These
notes were compiled in support of a presentation
that Fred Stitt asked me to make at the school.
I subsequently added to the notes after the
presentation. Fred’s theme was the future
of Architecture and
how the
Internet
will
augment
and effect
architectural practice.
I
decided to talk about the last 25 years of
MG Taylor, from the perspective of my practice
of architecture. I did this because we deliberately
set in motion, years ago, ideas and solutions
that we projected would form the foundation
of a 21st Century, postindustrial, economy.
We did not set out to build for the 1980s
0r 90s - we build, then as we do now, for
a new reality - a reality that is just coming
into being.
Because
of this, the story of these years is really
a story about a future that is just beginning
to unfold. The past “as prolog” is
the theme of this presentation.
This,
then, is an experienced-based story that
comes from the past and informs the future
- a round about way of addressing Fred’s
questions which I dealt with, directly, at
the very end of the evening. |
|
|
| I
had nearly 20 years of work behind me before this
story began. During these years, I predominately
invested my time learning to design and to build.
Since then, I have worked to pass these skills on
and to institutionalize a processes that enable
individuals and organizations to do the same. |
| The
story itself, is divided into four phases: The nascent stage: 1975 to 1985;
The capacity building stage: 1985 to 1995;
The business building stage: 1995 to 2000;
And now, the proliferation stage. |
| This
is the story of several different threads coming
together: The idea of designing and building - and
creating a closely coupled feedback between the two;
The idea of flexible, adaptable workplaces and why
they are necessary to a whole new way of working;
The idea of compact, multi-use spaces that make more
economic sense; The idea of Rapid Prototyping and
Lean Production and how to get the 30% to 70% of
the non-value-added waste out of the production process;
The idea of sustainable life-cycle economics - and
Earth-friendly economics; The idea of very rapid
time-to-value design-build-use process and factoring
the value of time into the cost equation; The idea
of personal creativity and collaborative design becoming
Group Genius and “lifting” the result to
a much higher “emergent” order; The idea
of a global-village marketplace and the “Brand
Called You” resulting in ad-hoc ValueWebs that
ebb and flow with opportunity and work; The idea
of the tight integration between environment, tooling
and work-processes to make engines of creation
- workplaces that are healthy, exciting, productive
and sustainable; The idea of fusing physical and
virtual places with intelligent agents and technologies
so that time and distance are a positive factor -
not a detriment - in both personal and collaborative
work. The idea of building mind-like processes into
everyday environments and tools. |
| The
sum of all this makes environments where
transformation is the norm - because that
will be the reality of the 21st Century -
no matter what specific focus, product or service
a workplace is about. |
| There
have been many punctuation points along this path
of discovery. Some of these are highlighted in the
text that follows. The story, itself, weaves in and
out of these “moments” and involves many
people. These players are an integral part of this
story, and in another way, have a story of their
own that is larger and different than my own. Their
part of the story is one that they have to tell themselves. |
| The
story draws experience from product design, research,
architecture, building, manufacturing, education,
business, retailing, consulting, invention, intellectual
property protection and licensing, software development,
technology configuration, futures research - all
fields that I, and our various organizations, work
in on a daily basis. |
| The
main idea is how all of these become - together -
a new way of working that changes the rules
of how things are designed, built, transported, accounted
for and used. |
| Starting
20 years ago, with the creation of MG Taylor Corporation,
we undertook several tightly integrated efforts:
The development and marketing of environments that
were specifically designed to augment creativity
and Group Genius. We organized ourselves to do this
as a self-financed for-profit organization to design,
develop, manufacture and operate all the necessary
components that make up these environments, as well
as, provide support technology configuration and
new work processes. In short, we set out to create
the environments required to make the environments
we envisioned. A bootstrap process. |
| In
addition, we took on the task of being an exemplar of
this new way of organizing and working. We organize
our business, our own environment and way-of-doing
business as if we were already in the
imagined future-state. This is, of course, a dangerous
path but the only one that leads to our goal. |
| This
experience has been one of moving from: |
| We
started with no affiliations, customers or
capital - We had a vision, some experience
that supported it and many ideas of how to
bring it about. |
| Now,
several hundred people use our environments
and employ our way-of-working every day. Over
the last 20 years, thousands have. |
| We
have over 20 years of Documentations of groups
of people, from 25 to 150, working in our environments,
using work processes and technology configured
by us. This is, perhaps, one of the most comprehensive
archives of the creative process that exists. |
| How
environment effects productivity and the creative
potential of individuals, teams and groups
is not a theory with us - it is a practice. |
| Philosophy to Practiced
System and Method |
| A
philosophy, and some processes useful for applying
it, is often confused with a System and Method
- which it is not. |
| And,
even a System and Method has to be transferred
to recreated and practiced by a Community
of Work. |
| Otherwise
is is just a body of ideas - good ideas, perhaps,
but of limited utility and range of use. |
| One
reason for writing a Patent is that the entire
work has to be codified in systematic language.
In our case, we even had to invent a language to
describe, accurately, many of the aspects of
the process. |
| Techniques,
skills and knowledge are prerequisites to making
a formal Method. However, if that Method is
not embodied in a System and “installed” in
a working community, it will never become robust
and what is made real will fade with time. |
| In
this context, what we have done is invent an “OS” for
the process of taking ideas and transforming
them into useful Intellectual Capital of an
organization’s ValueWeb. |
| Our
starting position was one of total customization.
Everything had to be designed and built from
scratch. Personal computer systems and media
equipment were expensive and primitive.
We were absolutely delighted when we were able
to buy a special card that, when inserted into
our first computer, an Apple II, gave us upper
and lower case! |
| We
can build an environment, today, floor-to-ceiling,
wall-to-wall entirely out of manufactured goods.
We can equip it - off-the-shelf - with sophisticated
computer and multimedia capability. |
| We
can do in days what used to take months. Yet,
we have, in practical terms, more variety of
solutions at our disposal than when we started. |
| Our
clients have always liked our environments
and processes and they have always been fascinated
with the technologies we employed. Nevertheless,
they did not consider them mainstream. Most,
who at first came to visit, could not understand: “what
do you do here?” |
| This
work is now accepted. It is no longer strange.
It is desired. The procurement system of
large organizations still makes getting it,
however, very difficult. The battle has shifted
from selling the idea to easing the acquisition
path. |
| The
market has been created but it is not mature.
The “architecture” is liked and desired
because of the productivity it provides when
coupled with Technology and new work-processes. |
| When
users first come into our environments they
regard them as special and different. In a
matter of hours, their perspective shifts.
They soon regard these workplaces as normal
- which they are! |
| They
start to regard their existing environments
as abnormal and unnecessarily restricting -
which they are! |
| Today,
the response is very binary: most “get
it.” Some do not. Those that do not cannot
be convinced. There is still a hard core that
regards the environment as having nothing to
do with human values, health, productivity
or sense of well being. |
| The
vast majority that are exposed to it, however, want this
kind of work environment to be their normal
experience. |
| This
work is still not inexpensive but it is no
longer cost prohibitive. It is affordable if
life-cycle costs are considered and if productivity and the
quality of the work is factored in. |
| There
are not, yet, good measures for this. However,
the differences are so blatant that simple
observation serves. |
| The
old financial paradigm still owns the territory
and it takes careful thinking for decision
makers to understand how upside
down and inside out their traditional financial
models are. |
| Architecture,
as a process, has no systematic R&D program.
It also has virtually no IP protection. This
drives a practice economics based on the labor
of producing the work instead earning from
the value of it. This makes a positive
feedback loop that eliminates the possibility
of money for R&D. The lack of real IP reinforces
this because there are no financial returns
for Trade Dress, most inventions and work processes.
Time is the only criteria - not value. |
| We
have bucked this trend and created a strong
foundation of IP. With this, and with our participation
in the complete design-build-use process, we
have established an economy more conducive
to a long-term systematic development of affordable
alternatives. |
| The
IP of the entire ValueWeb is what has to be
protected - not just of MG Taylor and the various
affiliate Business Units. |
| This
creates a basis of a different economy for
the practice of architecture. |
| Well...
Maybe it is still rare but the idea-of-it is
fairly broadly distributed and the movement
toward ubiquity is now at a rapid pace. |
| Our
society implements quickly once an idea gains
acceptance. The ValueWeb necessary to do this
is yet to be fully developed on the necessary
scale. There are issues of very-large-scale
that have to be worked out. Ubiquity has
been part of the mission from
the very beginning. |
| At
MG Taylor, we set out to change the way people
work. We set out to do this on a very large
scale. We believed - and still do - that it
was inadequate work processes that drove poor
decisions - not bad people. In a different
environment, with different work-processes,
supported with a different tool-kit, people
make different results - better results. We
see this over and over. Until the work is ubiquitous,
however, the accumulative effect will not be adequate
to facilitate the scale of transformation required
if our society is to avoid. |
| Working
for clients to Partnering with them |
| We
consider clients/users to be part of the ValueWeb.
We consider the traditional producer-client
relationship roles to be passive-aggressive
in nature and basically unproductive. |
| We
do not work “for” anyone. We seek
to “partner” with all members of
the ValueWeb. This is a different model and
one that has been difficult to bring about
because of in-place habits and the existing
contractual environment which is adversarial
in nature and practice. |
| It is coming
about and, in the last two years, we have experienced
a remarkable shift in the nature of our “client/user” relationships.
Again, we find the response binary - there
are those who will not form an equal-to-equal
relationship for any possible gain. There are
those who seek this kind of relationship. We
choose to work with those who are willing to
change the game. |
| We
find that this is what determines our “sales” far
more than the general acceptance of our work.
It is interesting to note that those who choose
to play the old “who is on top” game
say that we are “impossible” to work
with. |
| Slow
realization to fast implementation |
| We
started out building very fast because the
projects were small and everything was custom
and within our own “production” capability.
Then, over time, the projects became larger
and more complex. They involved a greater number
of the “traditional” design-build
producers. The costs and time-to-value increased
greatly. |
| Now,
the trend is going the other way. This varies
from project to project. We can - and do -
get the users working much faster than the
typical build out. This is key to effectiveness
in today’s work environment. |
| You
are not adaptable if you cannot reconfigure
your work environment - quickly and economically
- to fit the specific work you are doing.
Existing systems and build processes do not
allow this. |
| It
takes lean production methods to do
it. |
| Centrally
located Teams (only) to RemoteCollaboration |
| Of
course a big part of our work is creating environments
for Teams to work in. This has been the easier “half” of
the task. We are just getting the tool kit
in place for effective remote work. |
| Our
own organization is highly disbursed. The 15
or so that make up our core team live and work
in seven cities and - right now - two countries.
Our NetWork of several hundred is even more
spread out. |
| Today
we use various combinations of F2F and virtual
techniques. Soon, our own products will be
facilitating our work processes in a fuller
expression of Remote Presence and Collaboration. |
| There
is a false notion that there is a basic difference
between the physical work environment and the
virtual. Nonsense. Every virtual hub is somewhere.
When you are talking “virtual” you
are talking about how you connect physical
places - even if some of those places are moving.
The processes, however, required to
do this are different. |
|
| Each
step along this path involved passionate commitment
to the idea of a fundamentally new working environment.
As I look back on it, I am of two minds. One is wonderment
that it took so long to do what was so clearly needed
- and obvious. The other is that we managed to to
get it done at all. |
| This
was not, and still is not, the task of finding out
what the market wanted and providing it - we had
to create the requirements, design the solutions,
deliver the products and services and make the
market for them. Then, we had to learn how to turn
it into a profitable business - this part we have
learned how to do in the last couple of years. In
the end, it is not about making a market in the conventional
sense at all - it is about building ValueWeb organizations
that are a market. |
| It
is a strange feeling to look back on a quarter of
a century with such a mixture of pride and loss.
Pride of what has been done and a sense of failure
that so little has be accomplished when so
much more is possible. Level I, that point
when the full System and Method is working
- as a system - on a continuous basis - is
still before us. It is now within sight, but still
some steps down the road. |
| The
projects that follow are “places” along
the path - they are moments, snapshots, to remember;
they are times when something happened that made
value
for
that present and referenced the future still ahead.
They do not make up the whole story - they are one telling
of it. They are only the beginning of the path that is
still ahead. |
|
 |
1980
Anticipatory Management Center
Boulder,
Colorado
|
|
| Our
first environment was put together in less than two
weeks. We used it for nearly three years. It was
here that we established the basis for the work we
are doing today. In many respects, it is one of the
best environments we have ever built. |
| It
was about 3,500 square feet of open space that was
divided by several long floor-to-ceiling overlapping
WorkWalls with no doors between the spaces. Sort
of a wood version of the Barcelona Pavilion by Meis.
It was built in on a shoe string in Boulder, Colorado
- just off the Boulder Mall - a great place to start
a new venture. Our design-manufacture-build Business
Unit, AI,
is still centered in Boulder although it now manufactures
in Kentucky. Reflecting the Internet age, four the
of five of us, who presently make up the AI core
design team, live in different cites in the United
States and Mexico. This is not how we started although
we imagined RemoteCollaboration and Presence from
the beginning. |
| At
the Anticipatory Management Center, the DesignShop
process was invented and refined, the Modeling Language
created, our technical systems vision designed, our
first client NavCenter conceived and built, the first
RDS deployed. Virtually everything we do now at MG
Taylor,
AI and the KnOwhere Stores emanated from this one
space in less than a three year period. It was a period
of raw invention. |
| Over
20 years later - of the 7 members of this first team
- four are still working with the Enterprise. This
was a seminal experience and one that lives with
us to this day. |
| Build
fast and take the design through several
iterations of upgrade. Multiple iterations
amplify results and out perform lengthy
cycles of work. |
| Use
time and economic constraints as a stimulus
to creativity not a barrier. |
| Use “run-walk-run” -
find some way to do (in “walk” mode)
what is beyond present technology. This
simulation will give you practical experience
about what you want to become - not what
you are. |
| If
you want to lean how to ski go where there
is snow. Don’t go where it is merely
convenient or affordable if that does not
provide experience about your goal. In the
conventional definition, there is nothing
“practical” about this. |
| Start
now - not when you are ready. Your are never ready. |
| Don’t
get seduced with the idea that you can
take any work which takes you away from
your goal. Too many do this with the intent
to get back to the vision when they have
money - “show me one” - Jubal
Troop. Make all the work you get include
your “End State” - be willing
to stretch and risk but have the connection
to your vision firmly in your mind. |
|
|
| What
made this environment work so well was it’s
clarity of message. Two steps in the door and you
knew that this was a different kind of space based
on a different way of working. The message was not
confused with a lot of architectural tricks and distractions.
It was not trying to be anything other than itself.
Too often, a false drive for originality forces a
result that self-consciously draws attention to itself
rather than to the life lived and the work done inside
the place. |
Designer
|
Matt
Taylor |
| Sponsors |
Matt
Taylor, Gail Taylor, Langdon Morris |
| Design
Team |
Matt
Taylor, Langdon Morris |
| User/Owner |
Taylor
Associates, Inc. - Now MG Taylor Corporation |
| Architect |
none |
| Builder |
self |
| PM |
Langdon
Morris |
| System |
none |
| Location |
Boulder,
Colorado off the Mall |
| Year |
1980 |
|
|
| We
continued to develop this space the three years we
were in it. This is where we learned that no matter
how will you conceive and build a space it takes
a few years of extensive use before the many latent
opportunities can be found and developed. At the
end, the AMC supported DesignShop events of over
50 participants and 15 KnowledgeWorkes - and between
events - a team of 12. A lot going on in 3,500 feet. |
|
 |
|
| This
illustration is the cover of our 1982 Business Plan. |
| Jim
Toohey threw this sketch together in less than a
couple of hours. We keep it because it still represents
the “THERE” that
is now becoming technically possible we are just
beginning to build today. |
| This
is our vision of environment, technology and work
processes working in harmony. Built today, it would
be one of the most sophisticated work environments
on the planet. We have built, since 1982, about 20
environments that were - to the best of our ability
and our client’s capability - aimed at facilitating
and accomplishing the kind of work shown in this
sketch. Each of these projects have progressively
achieved more
of
this
vision and each has progressively increased our ability
to make these kinds of environments cost less
in capital required and design-to-move-in time. |
| This
concept sketch shows two teams working together remotely.
We call this RemotePresense which goes far beyond
video-conferencing - it implies a full time, full
size, high fidelity living presence one site
to the other. Just go up to the wall and start talking
as is happening at the back of the room in the sketch.
The tool kit is composed of large read-write walls,
wireless laptop computers and PDAs. There is a documentor’s
station that performs the 10
Step Process using the
CyberCon Intelligent Agent system. It can run on
automatic or in concert with and augmenting a Human partner. |
| The
import thing about this sketch is to note that everyone
is working together but each are parallel processing
and working in many different modalities. It can
be inferred that there are others “joining” and
leaving the teams on an ad-hoc basis. As they work
through the Creative Process, they are moving their
work product through iterations of the Design
Formation Model. They are receiving feedback
from appropriate “Nodes” in the ValueWeb system.
They are self-documenting - with help from CyberCon -
as they move through iterations of creativity. They are
in a habitat that practices creative
habits. |
| In
this scenario, work progresses freely - and systematically
- through multiple complete cycles that becomes product
that is “shipped,” real time, each work
session. This is not your father’s meeting. |
| This
drawing illustrates what I call “Level I.” Level
I is the minimum scope of the work that constitutes
the full expression of an Invention process
that goes back to the early 1960s. |
| Create
an archetypal “THERE” and
bring some part of it to each “HERE” that
you build. Every time. |
| Always
build a balance between the environment,
tools and the work processes. It does not
help to have one far in advance of the
other. In fact, it creates a distortion
and sets you back. The function of
architecture is to shelter, provide appropriate
utility and express human values. These
attributes have to be kept in harmony. |
| Practice,
on yourself, the system and enviornments
you are providing your ValueWeb members.
You can only produce what your are - and,
what you do produce determines what
you become. |
| Push
the state-of-the-art. Environments are
far behind the demand curve in regards
productivity, affordability and sustain-ability -
and beauty. Few, built today, meet the criteria necessary
for human habitation. |
| Remember, all media
is multimedia. This means pencil and paper,
white boards, film, CD disks, tape, sound,
even smell, computers graphics - everything.
Each has a special character and place.
There is a tendency to think of multimedia
as a Power Point sit-and-get presentation.
All these media can be mixed and displayed
on walls, in pda hand-helds, on projection
screens, in computers. All media modes
are biased - there is no such thing as
a neutral technology. Each brings out a special
aspect of potential reality. |
|
|
Designer
|
Matt
Taylor |
| Sponsor |
Matt
Taylor |
| Design
Team |
Matt
Taylor, Bill Blackburn |
| User/Owner |
Taylor
Associates, Inc. - Now MG Taylor Corporation |
| Architect |
Jim
Toohey |
| Builder |
none |
| PM |
Matt
Taylor |
| System |
Taylor System
and Method |
| Location |
generic |
| Year |
1982 |
|
|
|
 |
1984
Acacia Management Center
Washington,
DC |
|
| In
late 1983 we were purchased by one of our clients
who wanted our undivided attention for a few years
- which they got. The deal was that we were to concentrate
on their transformation and they would then take
us to the market to achieve our own development -
this part never happened and we reestablished our
independent enterprise in late 1985. |
| However,
the Acacia years were seminal in the development
of our work. They provided financial stability and
an “in house” large corporate client which
provided challenging work. |
| We
created a wonderful 5,000 square foot environment
across the street form the US Capital in Washington
DC. From the 7th floor the work areas looked out
over Congress and the Mall. The space we had was
an old Masonic room built of sold teak planking and
joinery. We preserved the room as it was and built
within it. Not one nail went into the existing structure.
Our system sat inside - integrated but completely
independent. |
| Gail
and I lived in a turn-of-the-century 4 story just
a few blocks behind the Library of Congress where
we would go to read and hear concerts. |
| This
gave me the experience of what it was like to be
a Vice-president of a large Financial Institution
- an experience that everyone should have once -
but not for too long. |
| Part
of our business, which is now AI, stayed in Boulder
and continued the development of the environmental
systems. |
| We
built our environment at Acacia in about 6 weeks
and launched its use with a 30 day DesignShop process
that took several hundred members of the organization
(in groups of 40 to 50 and two to four day segments)
through a complete redesign of the Company - strategy
to systems to field implementation. Years later this
was called “re-engineering.” |
| Many
of the documentation processes we use today were
developed in support of those 30 days. The print
version of the documentation stretched over 12 feet.
The hottest piece of technology available was the
first iteration of the IBM pc, and shortly thereafter,
the 128k Mac. By 1984, we shipped our first real-time
documentation of a DesignShop (for the FAA). We made
our first InfoLog system data base which completely
pushed the PC and D-Base 2 beyond their limits. |
| The
FAA DesignShop event was the first large-scale systemic
problem that our process was applied to. Notes from
my Notebook, made the week before this event, describe
the Management Center environment/system as an Information
Factory. |
| It
was an environment of invent invent invent - for
us, and for our corporate client. |
| Take
big bites. Not so big that it is totally
impossible to get someplace solid but big
enough to force innovation. Make the challenge compelling. |
| Go
where the work is. We did not want to move
to Washington DC but that was where our
next best opportunity was found. |
| Always,
keep your ideas focussed in the real word
of organizations and people as they are
- and in concert with how they are changing.
Do not let it become an abstract dialog
with a few and a practice for even fewer.
Develop architecture that solves real world
problems (not accepts them) and houses
real word activities - do this and make
it art. |
| Respect
the work prior to your own. Employ it without
compromise to it or what you are doing.
Innovation does not mean tearing down everything
that came before. The best architecture
is based on deep patterns that serve for
a long time - technologies, materials,
viewpoints and individual expression evolve
- essence remains. |
|
|
Designer
|
Matt
Taylor, Jim Toohey |
| Sponsor |
Matt
Taylor , Gail Taylor |
| Design
Team |
Jim
Toohey, Matt Taylor, Bill Blackburn |
| User/Owner |
Acacia
Mutual Life |
| Architect |
Jim
Toohey |
| Builder |
|
| PM |
|
| System |
Early
prototypes of AI (then Iris) WorkWalls
and WorkFurniture |
| Location |
Orlando,
Florida |
| Year |
1984 |
|
|
|
Matt
Taylor
San Francisco
April 13, 2000
|
SolutionBox
voice of this document:
VISION • STRATEGY • EVALUATION
|
posted:
April 13, 2000
revised:
Februrary 13, 2003
• 20000413.162817.m | | |
