Do architects design features knowing that they'll

[Patrick_Mucci]

be altered ?

Is there a gap or conflict between the conceptual, the artistic eye and the practical eye, that of the end user  ?

Do architects create special features, the product of their inate talent, knowing that the less artistically inclined will alter them after opening day ?

Severe greens, deep bunkers and earthworks blocking vision might be some of the features doomed to alteration.

Put another way, would NGLA survive as a public facility ?

[Tony_Muldoon]

Pat have you read the Castle Course thread?  It seems to me, (Shock Horror I've not been to the course) Kidd put ''grass eyebrows in all o,ver the place knowing that some would get the full "Brazilian" treatment.  Compared to the features you describe these changes will be very cheap.

[Kirk Gill]

Pat, I've read about film directors who don't have "final cut" priveleges purposefully leaving a scene in their movie that they don't really want, figuring that the studio people are going to want to cut SOMETHING, so if he leaves them an obvious cut, they'll leave what he really wants alone.

Is what you're suggesting the same sort of thing?

[Ken Moum]

Pat, I've read about film directors who don't have "final cut" priveleges purposefully leaving a scene in their movie that they don't really want, figuring that the studio people are going to want to cut SOMETHING, so if he leaves them an obvious cut, they'll leave what he really wants alone.

Is what you're suggesting the same sort of thing?

In a former life, my writiing often had to be approved by someone who was very much a political animal. I confess that sometimes I brought him copy with enough errors to keep him occupied, lest he make major changes in the copy.

It only worked some of the time.

Ken

[Tom_Doak]

I know that it's inevitable that most of our courses will be altered over time.  But I don't build anything with the intention of it being altered later, other than bunker depths.  We figured at Ballyneal that the bunkers were going to evolve and become deeper over time, so it would be counterproductive to dig them out to the desired depth a year before opening.

[Jim Nugent]

Tom, do bunkers typically get deeper at new courses as time passes? 

[Tom_Doak]

Jim:

No, bunkers usually get shallower -- the sand hardens or gets contaminated, and committees add sand to freshen them up.  When they restored Seminole in the 1990's, they dug up something like six layers of old bunker sand, plus a layer of topsoil where the club had grown tomatoes during WW II.

On heavier soils, bunkers have a bottom and no one ever digs down past it.  On sandy soils, though, it's possible for bunkers to get deeper, and on windy sites such as Bandon or in the sand hills it is an ongoing maintenance issue, although Sand Hills and Ballyneal have both adopted clever measures to reduce the sand loss over the winter months.

[Mike Hendren]

Patrick,

For the highly talented architect, it is reasonable to assume there is some tension between artistic license (Polonius' advice to Laertes: "This above all to thine own self be true.") and fulfilling their contractual obligation in the most economically efficient manner possible. 

Seems to me the owner should carefully select an architect based upon which side of this fence the architect has demonstrated a preference for.  In other words you should get what you pay for. 

Those architects who stick close to the vest and deliver exactly what is expected are true professionals - even if that means getting dissed on GCA.

Mike

[Tom_Doak]

Mike H:

I've seen all sides of that equation in the past.  Which is better?

a)  An architect who waves his arms around to make expensive changes to improve the design -- even though he should have had it figured out beforehand?

b)  An architect who keeps his hands in his pockets, even though he knows a hole really isn't good and he has a better idea -- but he's afraid to say so because he doesn't want to fight the contractor, or be accused of fiscal irresponsibility by the client?

There is a reason that Pete Dye loved his reputation as being fiscally irresponsible, even though he really wasn't.  It scared off the type of clients who might have prevented him from making an improvement to his design mid-stream.