How To Renew Your Creativity As An Architect

How to Renew Your Creativity As an Architect



Any architectural firm needs to take regular breaks from the daily grind of meetings with clients, drawing up plans, and the endless load of paperwork involved in designing buildings for the modern world. However, the company retreat usually reminds you of stuffy meetings, boring buffets, and dull conferences. Employees at company retreats usually see the same kinds of flip charts, and PowerPoint presentations. Lately, there have been trends designed to shake things up and promote teamwork among employees. On retreat now, you may be required to swing someone over a sandpit or get splattered with paint. These retreats are enough to scare the hard-working employee who'd rather be doing something productive that playing silly games just because the boss is making them. Many architects are finding ways to inject energy and productivity into their off-site retreats in more creative and subtle ways.



One such company is SALA Architects. Recently, the architects and staff of this firm attended a retreat on an island in northern Minnesota. While there, the firm's 45 employees watched a documentary, "Rivers and Tides." The film follows the British environmental artist, Andy Goldsworthy as he works with found objects in nature to make his art: sheep's wool, icicle shards, random sticks and stones, red clay dust. The movie is about the artistic process and how trial and error can create beauty. The the architects watching, this process is familiar. After the film, the architects went outside, collected found objects, and made their own Goldsworthy-type art. Most of the architects found the project fun and creative, not too much like what they do everyday, but not totally unrelated either.



While company retreats are often billed as part strategic planning, part inspiration, and part problem solving, they are widely criticized as at the least, awkward and at the worst, a waste of time. However, it seems as if in the best run architectural firms, there is a need to periodically check in with the employees, for the well-being of the individuals and the firm. The questions remains of whether or not these retreats are necessary. Management consultants tend to agree that whether the retreat is large and lavishly planned or low-budget and only for the senior staff, there should be a specific goal for the retreat, even if that goal is to just have fun together.



Seattle architect and business consultant, Rena Klein, FAIA, says that "In my experience, retreats are useful for both assessment and planning, and I think annually if a good place to start." Her job at her firm in Seattle often has her helping the principals plan the future, so she needs to involve the entire staff. Annual retreats are often ways to delve into the firm's strengths and weaknesses in a safe environment, away from the pressure of everyday business. If a full retreat is unavailable or as the need arises, Klein suggests that the participants get away together, even if it is just for a nice dinner or an afternoon picnic in the park. She says, "It's hard enough to tell the truth without blame or judgment. Being in a different circumstance allows that to come out a little bit easier."