an architects responsibility to create money?

[paul cowley]

  suppose someone said to you " i've just spent x dollars[usually millions] on land,and i want to give you x more to create me something[a golf course] that creates me money in return for my investment"........doesn't need , can't really read plans [not beyond the routing phase anyway], just trusts your abilities to pull it off.........i think thats an awesome leap of faith beyond most businesse's venture capital bounds......no real monetary downside for the designer ,except loss of future work if venture fails [actually major downside].

  funny business....but thats how it works...any thoughts?

[Tom_Doak]

Paul:

It's no more of a leap of faith than hiring an architect to build the home you're going to live in, is it?

I thought you were referring to the fundraising aspect of our business.  My clients certainly want more of my time for that part of the process than they did a couple of years ago ... I've done a couple of "meet the members" walk-throughs to try and help our projects in Palm Desert and Melbourne get off the ground, while other clients have asked me to take part of my fees as equity ... and of course practically all of them want to meet my good friend Mike Keiser!

Of course, it's also true that part of the attraction of Tour pro / designers is that many of their clients just want to hang out with them a little bit.

[A_Clay_Man]

Seems like the premise is off. Who would put the onus of fiduciary responsibility on the architect? Someone with more money than sense. Besides, as the game teaches us, focusing on the result is NOT where the mind should go.

The task at hand: Hiring an architect to build the course so that it will be profitable is different than placing the architect in the position you mention. Too many other factors will reflect in the bottomline. Sure, if the archie can create something that will shave maintenace costs by 90% and still be considered a great course, would be awesome, but I guarantee it will be the principle accepting all the accolaids, not the archie.

[paul cowley]

  aclayman....

   there are plenty of courses failing all around us because of people with more money than sense....these are not patrons of the arts saying create me a fine earth sculpture for my enjoyment...

  any architect who doesn't understand the bottom line trust when accepting a project is either naive ,greedy [or both]...

   no , a designer  rarely has to accept fiscal responsibility for a project ,but a good designer spends someone elses money as if it was his own.....and this at times can include telling someone how not to spend it.....

  i have , on more than one occasion ,discouraged parties from pursuing a venture further.

...as i said , funny business......

[A_Clay_Man]

Paul- Diligence in any field seperates the good from the great.

As for the business, I have opined before that the two should not mix, at least from a starting point. In other words, building golf for real estate sales or other peripreal motives, is where the the wrong turn occurred. That was compounded by the wanna out-do's and now with a slight down turn in the economy and the shift in peoples priorities since 9/11 has made glut of the gluttonous.

But, I'll wager places built with the golf first mentality are in no need of any federal bailout soon. RC, WH, PD, etc.

If GCA is an art then having bottomline expectations within the artist's lifetime, is a again, the wrong focal point.

[Mike_Sweeney]

Paul,

I think Tom Doak hit it on the head and I think you are way off base. In our little tiny project which is awaiting the next round of approvals in July, it is me the developer, not Kelly Blake Moran who is responsible for the P&L. Many projects have housing tied into them that the architects have no control over. My partner who is putting up most of the money looks to me for profitability. I have no doubt that Kelly wants the project to work when it hopefully gets off the ground, and his reputation will indeed suffer if it does not work from a profitability viewpoint.

The architect is trying to build the best course possible which means spending money. The developer (a good one) looks to invest wisely and save money where possible. It is this give and take which makes for a successful course/project.

[paul cowley]

...if the owner of bandon and pacific dunes placed his trust in a designer who failed to create his field of dreams and realize the sites potential ,things might not be as rosey as they seem to be....to his credit he took a risk ,not going with the 'big' names.......this is not always the case...

a designer who fails to investigate and understand a new projects viability has his head in the sand ,likewise the owner who puts his trust in a designer without first finding out if he has the capabilities to deliver ........happens more than you would think....this is a gutrisk business at times.....and i am still awed by a new clients faith in our abilities to deliver his product ,without having worked with us before.....

thats why i started this thread........

by the way , our company has always met [or exceeded] expectations.



real estate and private courses are holding thier own ,its the high end daily fee courses that missed the mark...IMHO..

[A_Clay_Man]

Paul- As far as I know, price & timing are still everything.  The case of PD is probably on the edges of the spectrum but it's price tag was, as I understand it, relatively low. Plus Bandon's trend made building PD a little less risky. Don't ya think?  So, throwing money at a design does nothing to guarantee it's acclaim and adds to the pressure you so aptly describe for viability.

[paul cowley]

  aclayman.....agreed  .....thread was really just late night musings of a tired mind.....

[Tom_Doak]

I do agree with Paul to the extent that I think architects should care whether the product we are trying to create is viable.  Some architects I've known don't care about this at all ... if the client wants to spend a bunch of money, they're glad to spend it, even if they know the project is doomed.

Then again, it's hard to truly hold the architect responsible for the viability of the market, or the management of the course.  In my opinion, those two factors have more to do with financial success than the Doak scale rating of a course.

A lot of golf course owners have been convinced by architects or contractors to throw an extra half mil (or more) at their project in order to be the best in the area ... and failed at it.  That extra money is all out the window now.

[Forrest Richardson]

Not many golf course developers spend any significant money on land, so I hardly think the cost of land is usually any way to judge what the architect is supposed to accomplish. Rather, the architect is supposed to create magic that was not evident before — to expound on what is there to the benefit of golfers, and ultimately owners who rely on golfers.

The golf architect is responsible for the magic. Pure and simple.

[DMoriarty]

All interesting comments to me, as I am not involved in the industry and therefor have little idea on how the process actually works.   A few questions:

1.  Don't architects (especially architects who are still making their bones) have an incentive to build golf courses which will be financially successful?  I can't imagine that having one or some of your designs bouncing through multiple bankruptcys engenders much confidence from future investors.  

2. Do architects exploit their reputation for building courses which make money when presenting to prospective clients?

3.  Doesnt the architect's responsibility depend entirely on what the developer expects of the architect?   In other words, wouldn't the architect have very different responsibilities when facing the following absurd examples:
    -- A rancher who knows nothing about golf courses calls architect A and says: "This is my land and I am loaded with cash.  Here is my checkbook, now build me a golf course that will make a profit."
    -- An experienced developer opens his checkbook and says:  "Here is my [marginal] land and I want the best course possible, regardless of cost."  

[paul cowley]

  dmoriaty.....

  1 ) most definately.

  2) exploit is probably too strong a word ,but yes , referencing successfull courses can help an owner decide.

  3a)this is not that unusual ,except the 'i am loaded with cash' part....almost all courses are built to return a direct [or indirect ]profit....matching the anticipated market with dollars spent is the tricky part....

  3b)rare ,but it happens [trump et al]....usually its build me the best course possible for the least amount of money......
thats where competiveness between designers occurs most..

designer A can make a dollar spent look like .75$
designer B can make a dollar spent look like 1.50$

....its all about how one works with the dirt............

[A_Clay_Man]

I would think marching orders would be much more specific than "make a profit". Such as playability,or not. Waterfalls, or not.

I can't get this thought out of my head: The archie comes back to the principle and says "i've designed the best course possible for the site but my work shows that it will not be profitable".  After the reasons why, wouldn't a high percentage of principles be thinking 'this guys an archie what does he know of the long-term economics?'

I know if it were me, I would want Paul's honest opinion and then I would probably ask him to explore the solutions to make it work.

[SB]

From my experience, a few thoughts:

Architects do not have any responsibility for the profits of the course. They are responsible for designing the best possible course with the budget they are building, but the budget is the responsiblity of the developer, as is understanding the revenue and expenses that will produce a profit.  While there financial losers because of a bad course, most are due to missing the mark on the last part.

Most developers do not understand market supply/demand in their own town, so how can architects who cover the entire country/world be expected to?

Golf first projects are probably more likely to fail than other projects.  Sure, name the top projects in the country, and I'm sure they're OK.  But there are hundreds of dream courses behind them that are financial disasters, many of them courses that are often pumped up on this site.  Many of the best financial investments are the ones that the posters here are not fond of (particularly the housing piece).  Build it and they won't always come.