• Excellent writing ability, including editing and proofreading; able to turn abstract thoughts and concepts into written material
• Confident and articulate communicator on the phone, in person, and via email
• At ease balancing multiple and changing priorities with diverse ranges in subject matter
• Takes initiative and set priorities; excels at self-management
• Able to anticipate obstacles, adapt to unforeseen circumstances, and propose solutions
• Finds reward in enabling and supporting others
• Comfortable working as a part of a small team comprised of a variety of personalities and work styles
• Demonstrates tact, diplomacy, judgment, and discretion
• Computer literacy in a PC/Windows environment, including MS Word, Excel, and PowerPoint; InDesign, Photoshop, and HTML experience a plus
• Undergraduate degree along with 3-5 years of professional experience in an administrative, program, or executive support role
• An interest in or passion for increasing the social impact of the design of the built environment is preferred but not required

For more details about the core responsibilities of the position and how to apply, click here.

On the evening of May 29, project leads from STUDIOS and Kiva will present the behind-the-scenes making of Kiva’s new office space. The Kiva project is widely celebrated for its thoughtful balance of programmatic needs, organizational culture, and creative solutions that led to substantial cost savings. Yet the project also offers valuable lessons about the design process and the unique partnership between designers and pro bono clients. Together, their collaborative relationship enabled STUDIOS and Kiva to successfully realize a shared vision, build a long-term relationship, and leverage the completed project for mutual benefit.

Register here for this free event, and take advantage of this opportunity to take a closer look at the people, processes, and principles that make pro bono design projects a success.

Data from 2011 Firm Survey

Public Architecture, in collaboration with researchers from the Harvard Business School, launches The 1% Firm Survey–our fifth and most comprehensive to date. The 1% Firm Survey is our most important tool to improve The 1% program and understand the participating architecture and design firms’ experience.

The survey is broken down into six major sections covering pro bono management structure, history and active pursuits, matching and program experience, and firms’ profiles. Now its fifth iteration, the survey history is building a consistent set of firm responses that supports our ability to report changes to pro bono practice over time.

We encourage firms representing every design discipline of the more than 1100 firms participating in The 1% program to respond, including landscape architecture, interior design and architecture. Additionally important will be to represent all firm sizes from sole proprietors to large firms.

If your firm is participating in The 1% program, we want to hear from you. If you are not your firm’s main contact for The 1%, please send this link to the person who is.

Take the survey or copy and paste the URL below into your internet browser: https://qtrial.qualtrics.com/WRQualtricsSurveyEngine/?SID=SV_1QXHRvN2uCjjY3j&Preview=Survey&_=1

As an incentive, our friends at Coalesse have generously donated the stylish Hosu convertible work lounge to be given to one randomly selected survey-taker.

This weekend we had the pleasure of attending the thirteenth annual Structures For Inclusion conference at the University of Minnesota College of Design. This year’s theme—“Dignifying Design”—was a fitting conclusion to the first ever Public Interest Design Week (#PIDWeek) and featured presentations by some of the most inspirational leaders in the field today, including many friends, colleagues, and former Public Architecture staff.

Even though we traded an unusually warm San Francisco weekend for the ice and snow of the Twin Cities, SFI was a welcoming and exciting way to spend the weekend. We especially loved the:

• Inspiring content, including presentations by this year’s SEED Award honorees and keynote speeches by Krista Donaldson (D-Rev) and William Kamkwamba (a Malawian inventor whose story can be found in the bestselling The Boy Who Harnessed The Wind). We were thrilled to be part of the first public screening of William and the Windmill, a new documentary film about William that recently won the Grand Jury Prize at the SXSW Film Festival.

• Engaging workshops about human-centered design (co-led by Public’s former Associate Design Director, Liz Ogbu, and former intern, Marika Shioiri-Clark), affordable housing finance, the Enterprise Rose Fellowship, and the brand-new SEED Evaluator 3.0. Sunday’s Iconathon, a daylong “design hackathon” hosted by The Noun Project, was a unique, hands on opportunity to develop a cohesive visual language for the Hennepin County Department of Environmental Services.

• Great energy and atmosphere. As always, we were energized by the enthusiasm, passion, and commitment of everyone present, whether seasoned practitioners or first year students. Saturday night’s party was an amazing opportunity to tour the Weisman Art Museum after hours and a lovely way to celebrate a successful week!

Visit the SFI website to learn more about the conference and its host, Design Corps. You can also read more about the entire week on the Public Interest Design blog, written by former Public Architecture Executive Director and chair of PID Week, John Cary. Many thanks to John and the rest of the PID Week / SFI team for putting together such an inspiring and informative conference!

Bionic's India Basin Waterfront and Adventure Park

We are pleased to join ASLA-NCC this Thursday March 21 for their pro bono lecture, featuring a talk by our own Amy Ress, The 1% Program Manager, and pecha kucha presentations of pro bono projects from five local landscape firms:

India Basin Waterfront and Adventure Park – Bionic
San Francisco Panhandle Bandshell – CMG Landscape Architecture
Baker Place Recovery Center Healing Garden – SWA Group
Fallen Bridge Park – Miller Company Landscape Architects
Miller Creek School Garden – April Phillips Design Works

The lecture will be at AIA San Francisco, 130 Sutter Street. There is a reception from 6:30-7:00, followed by the presentations and Q&A from 7:00-8:45. The event is $10 for ASLA members, $15 for non-members, and free for students.

We look forward to an interesting and inspiring evening — hope to see you there!

From February 27 to March 1, 2013 at the Headlands Center for the Arts in Sausalito, California, Public Architecture convened leaders from government, design, nonprofit organizations, and philanthropy at the second annual Design Access Summit. Design Access is an opportunity for leaders within the aforementioned sectors to acknowledge the profound impact of the design of the built environment on human and environmental health, economic prosperity, and social justice, as well as to advance our collective ability to leverage the design of the built environment as a tool for social gain.

At Design Access 2013, attendees had the opportunity to listen to, learn from, and build productive, working relationships with like-minded peers committed to the principles of social impact design. A series of five presentations throughout the summit demonstrated how effective, design-oriented thinking can maximize outcomes for communities; from improving access to healthcare to revitalizing the economic and cultural identity of a city and even informing practical solutions to societal challenges in the developing world. Interspersed with real life stories about how communities respond to and engage with design, these presentations provided an inspiring and informative foundation for the summit.

Design Access 2013 also placed a special emphasis on the significance of ongoing cross-sector relationships based on lessons learned from our previous summit, where the relative infrequency of those partnerships outside of the traditional conference setting became increasingly evident. This year’s event fostered long-term collaboration and innovation across disciplines by asking attendees to form small working groups in order to: 1) identify real problems in the built environment, 2) develop a set of design-oriented solutions, and 3) present their idea to a panel of judges and the rest of their peers. Each group included a diverse array of professional skills—from management consulting and law to community development and city planning—as well as various levels of familiarity with design concepts and thinking. To win, each group would have to balance and incorporate a wide range of perspectives while developing a cohesive strategy for addressing their selected issue. At stake this year was more than just bragging rights—each member of the winning group will receive a brand-new Responsive Back Technology task chair courtesy of Public Architecture’s longtime partner and repeat Design Access sponsor, Teknion.

After two days, this part-charrette, part-pitch competition approach culminated in five small group presentations, each centered on one of two main themes: a) how design interventions can address and ameliorate social and environmental issues and b) how to increase the value and significance of design in the public eye:

• People Matter: A public awareness project that leverages the versatility and mobility of the iconic food truck to encourage community members to share design ideas in and around their own neighborhoods.

• Waste Watchers: A greening program that measures one household’s waste production against that of neighboring households, offering real-time, publicly available data to encourage recycling and composting efforts within communities.

• Now You See It: A social network dedicated to design that empowers the public to share, rate, and comment on design in their own communities, while encouraging the further exchange of stories, opinions, and information about the design process and its outcomes.

• P.I.M.P.: Also known as “Prostitution Intervention Mobile Patrol,” a provocative proposal to increase awareness of and draw attention to the surprisingly prominent sex trafficking trade in Oakland, CA.

• Design Thinking For Kids: An education initiative that teaches students to apply critical thinking and design strategies in order to develop solutions to issues—design-based or otherwise—in their own communities.

And the winner was…the Waste Watchers group, whose waste reduction strategy impressed our panel of visiting judges with its attention to detail and scalability.

Yet the most exciting outcome of Design Access 2013 may be what unfolds in the months ahead, as attendees build upon the relationships and projects generated at Design Access to formulate new ideas, strategies, and partnerships for effective social impact design. At least two of the pitch ideas are being further explored by attendees. Public Architecture will share more on the evolution of these ideas, as well as additional videos, presentations, and content from Design Access 2013, in the months to come—stay tuned!

We’d like to give a special thanks to our partners, including:

Presenters: Brent Brown, bcWORKSHOP; Andrew Moddrell, PORT Architecture + Urbanism; Alex Briscoe, Alameda County Health Care Services Agency; Chris Guillard, CMG Landscape Architecture; Liz Ogbu, California College of the Arts; Roman Mars, 99% Invisible.

Facilitators: Ashley Marsh, Cannon Design; John Stephens, Shaw Contract Group; Randy Fiser, ASID; Beth Rattner, Biomimicry 3.8; Meg Lee Weir, Citrix / Design Matters; Tim Culvahouse, Culvahouse Consulting.

Panelists: Reed Kroloff, Cranbrook Academy of Art; Lawrence Wilkinson, Heminge & Condell; Peter Busby, Perkins+Will; Rob Forbes, PUBLIC Bikes.

Sponsors: Teknion, Holcim, Shaw Contract Group, Coalesse, Perkins+Will, HKS, Cannon Design, Trinchero Family Estates, Left Coast Cellars.

Hosts: Headlands Center for the Arts, Acqua Hotel, Cavallo Point.

The Public Interest Design Program at the University of Texas at Austin (UTPID) is a summer program that is supported by the Center for Sustainable Development within the School of Architecture. The primary aim of the Public Interest Design Program is to connect students from a myriad of disciplines interested in the relationship between public service and the built environment to projects that address real community needs. Through rigorous exploration of how each of these terms affects design, UTPID challenges students to develop theoretical and practical skills to respond to the ethical complications of engaging the public and its spaces.

The 2013 PID program offers three separate elements: a five-day student leadership summit held at the beginning of the summer, and two summer course options. Students interested in summer coursework can earn credit through a ten-week design/build practicum or a student research seminar measuring the social impacts of public interest design projects. The summit is not a prerequisite to the coursework.

Public Architecture will again be hosting students for the externship part of the research seminar summer coursework option. Student will spend 5 weeks learning the analytic techniques of post-occupancy analysis and then spend a second 5 week period collecting and interpreting data related to selected projects based out of our office in San Francisco. Students will author a report that adopts the SEED Network metric as a process and outcome evaluation tool, measures the degree to which there is a gap between intention and reception, and contributes new data to a growing body of empirical knowledge about the built world.

Applications are being accepted to the externship program until April 1, 2013. To apply, click here. For more information, visit www.soa.utexas.edu/csd/PID.

Public Architecture is pleased to release Kiva Headquarters, the second of an on-going series of case studies that feature projects by the American Institute of Architects members participating in The 1% program who are making pro bono service an integral part of design practice. The San Francisco-based international nonprofit, Kiva, has the mission to connect people through lending to alleviate poverty. STUDIOS Architecture provided Kiva with a new workspace that supports both their mission and their culture within the constraints of a limited budget.

As a strategic alliance, Public Architecture is one of several organizations supporting the architectural profession that the AIA confers with to obtain and share information to assist members. Click here to find out more information on The 1% program and the AIA partnership. 

Are you an architect member of the AIA, but not a part of The 1% network that is making a difference? Join now.

If your firm already signed on to The 1% and you have been involved in a pro bono project, the AIA and Public Architecture would like to know more. Tell us about it!

Between now and February 25^th, all you need to do is share, love, and retweet stories with the everyONE logo and/or hashtag (#IFeveryONE) to make the equivalent of a $2 donation to Public Architecture. With a simple click, you can help us show the world how everyONE in the design community can make a difference.

Check out the everyONE campaign images below for a dose of inspiration and the chance to help us expand pro bono design resources and opportunities. Whether one image stands out—or you love all six—simply click the images below to start sharing and help us reach our $20,000 goal!

Public Architecture’s pro bono legal counsel, Steven Sharafian, Esq. of Long & Levit LLP, recently brought to our attention a potentially alarming issue for architects and designers practicing in California. We recall him saying that the legal changes initiated by a series of recent California court cases could have a dramatic impact upon design professionals. We quickly became aware that language in The 1% pro bono design program’s own Hold Harmless and Release Agreement had taken on a new—and in the case of our agreement—unintended meaning. To relieve firms of this legal burden Public Architecture amended and reissued its agreement to over 1100 participating firms across the country.  The following article explores this indemnification and duty to defend issue deeper.

The design and construction industry has a long history of evaluating and managing risk.  Design service agreements typically contain contract provisions that address the potential of loss or damage present on most projects.  One such clause, indemnity, has received national attention of late in an insightful 8 December 2012 New York Times Opinion article entitled “Those Crazy Indemnity Forms We All Sign.”  Here in California, where Long & Levit provides legal services to architects, engineers, and landscape architects, indemnity has recently taken on a potentially dangerous new meaning.  The implications raised by this California development have nationwide significance related to the interrelationship between the obligation to indemnify and the duty to defend.  This article explores this recent development and offers language to help mitigate the risk posed by indemnification clauses.

In California, a 2008 state Supreme Court case, Crawford v. Weather Shield Mfg., Inc., established that, under current law, every indemnity agreement includes an immediate, independent duty to defend absent contractual language to the contrary.  Here is how this might play out. A design professional agrees in its contract to indemnify its client from losses caused by the design professional’s negligence. During or after the project, a third party—perhaps the project’s contractor or another party—makes a claim against the client alleging that the design professional’s negligence might be the reason that the third party suffered a loss. Even though this claim is unsubstantiated and may ultimately prove to be without merit, under Crawford’s holding the design professional may be obligated to pay for the client’s defense during the adjudication of this claim. Worse, even if a court finds that the design professional was not negligent, the design professional remains responsible for covering its client’s defense costs. Based upon the Crawford holding, unless a design professional (in this case the indemnitor) and client (the indemnitee) provide otherwise in their agreement, the duty to defend stands separate and apart from the duty to indemnify.

Few design professionals have the resources to, in essence, insure their clients against the risk of claims. Will a design professional’s errors and omissions policy insurance cover this risk? Although errors and omissions policies defend the insured (i.e., the design professional) against unsubstantiated claims, these polices generally will not provide a defense to non-insureds (in this case, the design professional’s client). In fact, errors and omissions policies generally exclude contractually-assumed liability from coverage unless such liability exists in the absence of an agreement.  Because a design professional would not have an obligation to defend a third party absent an agreement to indemnify, error and omission polices would likely not pay for a client’s defense without a finding of negligence. Even if a design professional fronts the defense costs for their client, it seems unlikely that an errors and omissions policy will reimburse the design professional for the cost to provide the professional’s client a defense.

This default duty to defend against all claims embraced by an indemnity agreement, whether or not the claims have merit, is generally not within the plain meaning of the contract.  Accordingly, design professionals must be aware of this hidden obligation and try to negotiate contract language to avoid this burden.  To date, courts have not provided much guidance on the exact language to avoid the duty to defend. The rule in California is the duty to defend exists unless a contrary intention appears. Simply deleting the word “defend” from an indemnification clause may not be enough (because by definition “indemnify” includes the duty to defend).  Compare the following to simply deleting the word “defend”:

“The duty to indemnify includes the duty to reimburse reasonable attorneys fees to the extent caused by the Architect’s negligence, but this duty does not include the obligation to pay for or to provide an upfront defense against claims or allegations arising out of the subject matter of this indemnification clause.”

Because design professional agreements, including pro bono agreements, often contain indemnification clauses, Public Architecture believes it is important to be aware of this development in California, which often serves as a bellwether for legal trends. The Crawford holding applies to all indemnification agreements—not just those in construction industry contracts—so the risks involved have far reaching implications for consumers and professionals alike. Until such time as this worrisome legal development is addressed, pay special attention to these clauses and what they mean to your practice.