Flying back from a series of meetings regarding the design of a new project in upstate New York, I realized that designing concrete domes is an occupation which always places me behind the count at the start of every meeting. I had met with the client’s mechanical engineer, civil engineer, general contractor, excavation contractor and radiant floor contractor. I began each meeting with 4 strikes against me.

Strike 1: What is this balloon business? Do I really expect to be taken seriously? Ninety-nine out of a hundred people have never heard of designing a balloon to inflate to the size and shape of the desired building, spraying rigid foam insulation onthe inside surface of the inflated form, pinning steel rebar like latitude and longitude lines to the foam, spraying concrete to cover the steel armature, creating openings in the shell by where you choose not to place the steel and not to spray the concrete, while doing all of this from inside of the inflated balloon. Without having heard of it or having seen it before, it sounds pretty crazy!

Strike 2: All of the consultants were concerned for the welfare of their client, who is a widow investing all of her resources into this new home. Do I really think they are going to let their client be exploited by some wild-eyed domaniac?

Strike 3: I am an architect. In many circles, architects are perceived as arrogant know-it-alls whose egos do not allow anyone else to have a good idea and who consider anyone who is not an architect too low on the food chain to have an opinion worth hearing. Many contractors complain that architects only draw pretty pictures of things that can’t be built, because they really don’t understand structure and construction methods.

Strike 4: I am a California architect. Frank Lloyd Wright said that they took the continental United States, tilted it toward the left, and everything that was loose ended up in California. How can anyone from the land of hyper self-aggrandizement, tofu burgers and peacock feathers be taken seriously?

Fortunately, I have been doing this for 30 years, have hands-on construction experience and have enjoyed the benefits of heeding the advice of those who work with their hands. The minute you are willing to credit others for what they know -- willing explain what you are doing and why and exhibit a sense of humor -- skepticism and animosities tend to evaporate.

In conversation with both clients and contractors, it is always wise to avoid the tyranny of expertise. This means that you explain things without jargon, $64 words and phrases calculated to show off your education, while trying to impress and confuse others. In other words, avoid “Talkitecture” at all costs.

Architecture has been called “The Mother of the Arts”. It is really a combination of many things. It is an amalgam of art, science, construction technologies and philosophies of design. Above all, architecture is a service profession. This is the architect's Prime Directive! In order to achieve this, the architect must make sure that the client's needs are crystal clear.

In my practice, I require that clients write down what they want. This is called a word picture or design program. I want to know how many rooms, what amenities, what needs to be near what, what needs to be far away from what, and the approximate square footage requirements for all rooms. A factor of about 12 percent needs to be added, because we have to allow space for circulation. Most people forget that we need corridors and stairways to get from one place to another.

Whenever a project is to be occupied by more than one person, the written program provides not only my marching orders, but also the means to achieve consensus. This means that by the time the written program gets to me, agreements have already been reached among the clients themselves. This allows me to be an architect instead of a marriage counselor.

The written program also provides the means to evaluate a preliminary design. No matter how pretty the design is, it is no good if required rooms are left out. The preliminary design is the dart board and the client's job is to throw darts at it. It is easy to make changes in the preliminary design and design development stages of the work, but changes in the design during the construction documents phase can be costly. Design changes during construction can be prohibitively expensive or downright impossible. This is why what they told us in school, during the last Ice Age, still holds true: “Problems well defined are half designed”.

There are many concrete dome builders now. This is a far cry from the 1970’s when the real pioneering and research and development of this technology was accomplished….another reason for me not to wish for a return to my youth. The builders with whom I like to work or ask to bid on my jobs are those with whom I have worked before or know by reputation. I am, frankly, not interested in allowing new builders to practice on my clients, unless the client insists on it.

Just like everything else, the cast of characters needs to know what they are doing. It all goes back to the prime directive of making sure that the client, who is making perhaps the biggest personal investment of his life, gets what he wants. The way to keep from striking out is to make sure that when the project is all done, the client is glad he did it.

* Editor's note: Jonathan Zimmerman is a California architect and the premier designer of "dome" architecture. He is also the architect of the Pensacola Beach "dome home" of Mark and Valerie Sigler.

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