Design Manifestos:Mette Aamodt & Andrew Plumbof Aamodt / Plumb Architects

Mette Aamodt & Andrew Plumb (Photograph by Chuck Choi)

Last week Modelo visited the offices of Aamodt / Plumb a Cambridge-

based Architecture firm founded by partners, Mette Aamodt, AIA and

Andrew Plumb, AIA. Mette and Andrew first met in graduate school at

Harvard GSD. After they gained experience working at both boutique

studios and large firms in New York and Boston, they decided to start their

own firm in 2007. Nearly eight years later, the venture has matured into an

award-winning firm focused on creating beautiful modern homes for a

nationwide list of clientele. Despite their busy schedules, the founders took

time to reflect on their approach to design and running a business as well as

their aspirations for the future.

On their projects

Mette: We focus on modern homes and creative work spaces because those are

the places where people spend the majority of their lives. Recently, we completed

the Modern Texas Prefab house that is our new benchmark for a design and

construction process that we think works really well. We’ve tried a lot of different

things in the houses we’ve done and we’re now getting to a place where we have a

really good understanding of how we can merge the needs of our clients with the

design and execution.

Andrew: That project is a good example of our guiding design principles — 

creating rich, beautiful spaces through simple forms, materials, and procedures.

We had this imperative of, “You must complete this project from demo to handing

the keys in twelve months.” It’s a high-end custom home and somewhat large

(6,000 square feet), so it became clear to us that the standard process was not

going to work.

Mette: Twelve months by the way is extremely fast! Twelve months made us

realize, “Okay we really need to think differently about how to do this project.”

Andrew: This led us to design the process before designing the architecture. That

meant identifying who the team would be, what their strengths were, and how

that was going to influence the project. For instance, we found this company,

Bensonwood, they had a process we wanted. They could panelize our design,

deliver it, and install it. We figured out how it was going to work first and then

that set up some constraints of what you could or couldn’t do and within that we

designed the architecture. The end result was that we achieved the schedule and

the budget. The frame went up in two weeks, which would normally take months.

That got us to think about the idea of “parallel processing.”

Texas PreFab (Photograph by Casey Dunn courtesy of Aamodt / Plumb)

Mette: We borrowed this term from IT, “parallel processing”, which is when you

have two servers running at the same time and can get the job done faster. This is

where our process distinguished itself from typical “prefab”. Ours is fully

customizable and not limited by modules. In this model the foundation work is

being done at the same time the panels are being constructed off-site. A typical

build is totally sequential. Any delay in one step causes a snowball effect down the

line. The plumber can’t come in until the framing is done, the framer can’t come

in until the foundation has been poured, so usually it’s just one guy after the next

after the next. What we were able to do was have things running in parallel. The

panels were shipped to Texas and put up in two weeks after the concrete was dry.

That cut out almost two years’ worth of work. That was huge for us and our

clients.

Andrew: One of the interesting byproducts of working that way was we had to

design and coordinate everything before anything was built. It was very front-

loaded in the timeline of a typical project in terms of client and design decisions. It

was all modeled in Revit — all worked out first because once you started building

the panels, you didn’t want to have surprises. Once that was complete, the

construction process was more like an assembly process and everything fit

together perfectly. This was really in contrast to another house we did right next

door which was a typical high-end house with a long design process, and a long

build process. They were both very successful; but in a way they were polar

opposites in terms of the process. Our new process cut all the pain out of the

traditional approach which was this environment of complexity; there were

always things we were constantly working out.

On their roles

Mette: They’re definitely emerging. In the beginning we both did everything and

then over time we’ve gravitated towards the things we liked the most. Those

turned out to be the things we were best at. In the last year I’ve become really

interested in marketing and business, so in addition to high-level design, I am also

responsible for strategic planning, vision setting, marketing and branding.

Andrew: I’ve taken on the role of a technical director. We both work at a high-

level of design and we’re both collaborating to that point. From there we trickle

down in different ways. I’m really interested in the workflow of the office and in

establishing systems of how we work and thinking about how we can improve in

certain ways and how those improvements affect the results of the design process.

I am more involved in the day-to-day project work so that’s where I’m focusing

my energy.

Living Room inside Texas PreFab ((Photograph by Casey Dunn courtesy of Aamodt /

Plumb)

On their unique approach to design

Mette: We’re really influenced by Nordic design and that is in part due to our

backgrounds. I’m Norwegian, I was born in Norway. Andrew’s family is Finnish

and Swedish. We’ve both spent a lot of time in Norway and have many family

and friends there. The basic principles of Nordic design are simple, authentic, and

straightforward. Let your design be inspired by nature and designed for people,

for their happiness and enjoyment. These are all values that are important to us

in the work that we do and also in how we live our lives and in the way we

structure our office and culture. It’s very important to us to have a superior office

work environment. This is a bit unusual in the architecture world but we want

people to work forty hours a week, have a life, benefits and a retirement plan. We

want them to have outside interests, enjoy spending time with their families and

be happy when they come to work. It may be a bit “radical” but we want to do

great work, enjoy our lives, and make money.

Andrew: We really believe that great work comes from happy people, not from

overworked people in a stressful office environment.

Mette: Part of this philosophy is in response to a specific condition. Just before

my graduation from the GSD I was in the middle of thesis and I went blind in my

A new visual identity designed for the firm by TwoPoiints.Net (Courtesy of Aamodt /

Plumb)

right eye. I thought, it was just stress — which was typical for us at the GSD. After

graduation, I was diagnosed with MS (Multiple Sclerosis), which is much more

serious. At the time, I was just starting my career and I didn’t know what path

the disease was going to take. It can be very progressive and very debilitating very

quickly. It can also be something you can live quite well with for a long time if

managed properly. When I was starting out I thought, how am I going to work as

an architect when the expectations at the best firms are to be there eighty hours a

week? From the get-go I had to find opportunities that had more realistic

expectations. As our lives grew together we increasingly decided to make choices

that would allow for a happy, healthy life doing what we want to do without me

getting sick.

Andrew: When you have MS, you can get fatigued very easily and you can’t

recover in a way someone without it might. If I get really tired, I’ll sleep a few

more hours.

Mette: For me, it might take months, or a year to recover from a big charrette.

So I have to be super careful and manage my energy.

Andrew: There’s a proactive approach to managing MS that says, “Ok, what’s

the setup of our daily life and work life that works so you’re not running a deficit

of energy on a day to day basis?” It took us a while to find that but we have. That

has really informed how we want the office to be because you don’t need to drive

people crazy to get your work done. You need to be smart about how you manage

time and your priorities. We don’t do work just for the sake of doing work.

On the future

Mette: We want to grow and we want to have a place where we can foster a

design culture in our office and in our city. In Scandinavia, design is so much

more accessible and appreciated by the general public. There are design shops in

every small town and the public can interact with current design thinking

through small objects and household furniture. We are looking for a new office

space where we can host events and open a Nordic Design Shop alongside our

practice.

Andrew: People are more comfortable interacting with design as a customer, in a

retail environment. The sales process for custom home design is actually horrible

and the value proposition for clients is just awful. You don’t know what you’re

going to get, how much it’s going to cost, or how long it’s going to take. And I

want you to hire me now and start paying me to find out how it’s going to turn

out a few years from now. Imagine you like design but you don’t know much

about it — put yourself in those shoes. The people who do take that on are the type

of people who are willing to embrace the process and trust it, but there’s a lot of

people who don’t want to deal with that or can’t afford the time or the

uncertainty of the cost. There are huge sections of potential markets, huge groups

Hamptons Beach House (Photograph by Jane Messinger courtesy of Aamodt / Plumb)

of people that just don’t have access to design because the standard process is not

made for them.

Mette: The gateway into design and architecture is often through smaller

products — your iPhone or watch. This is an avenue that is underutilized for

architects. Right now we’re thinking about ways that we can create products like

home products, ready-to-build houses, or ready-to-move-into houses, or just

furniture and design objects that set a stage for creating the space around it.

Andrew: Architecture as a service profession works well for certain project types,

but not for the vast majority of homeowners. If you think about architect-

designed homes as a product, there’s suddenly a big shift in how we approach it.

It’s much more accessible to the end user. Then the value proposition is totally

different: here’s what you’re buying, it’s going to take this long, and it’s going to

cost this much. One of the things we’re thinking about at the moment is a semi-

custom home comprised of two volumes, one for the living spaces and the other

for the sleeping spaces. These volumes are designed and worked out based on best

practices and market research. Then there would be a custom space that connects

the two making each home unique to each client, site, and so on. So we’re

designing in a level of flexibility that doesn’t exist anywhere else in the market.

Hamptons Beach House (Photograph by Jane Messinger courtesy of Aamodt / Plumb)

Advice they would give themselves at the start of their careers

Andrew: Architecture is as much a business as it is an art. If you could have

some real exposure to what the business aspect of it is like and ideally some

exposure to how one could have a business that is also allowing you to create

great architecture. Right now there are high-design boutique firms, and there are

larger service firms. I think the advice I would give myself is if you want to

actually build things, there’s more to it than what you’re actually going to learn

in school. People say, “Oh yeah you get that through working.” I don’t think

that’s right. We are gathering that knowledge because we have started a business

and you have to figure those things out.

Mette: I agree with Andrew. I wish I had taken some business classes along the

way. Right now we are teaching ourselves those skills through books, etc. and we

are trying to think about a new model of practice. So many other industries have

co-opted the term “architect” because they understand an architect as someone

who designs the process, system, the infrastructure. We think architects need to

catch up to this re-understanding. In many ways the practice of architecture is

really outdated. There is a romantic notion of the architect as artist toiling away

at their drafting table, building models and sketching ideas for their one-off

showpiece. Custom homes these days are commissioned the same way dresses and

suits were commissioned at the beginning of the 19th century. You tell your tailor

what you have in mind, maybe show him some pictures from magazines and then

he works his “magic” to come up with your design. Pret-a-porter revolutionized

the clothing industry over 100 years ago. So why can’t we catch up?

Design Manifestos delivered weeklysubscribe to our newsletter.

So many other industries have co-opted the term “architect” because they

understand an architect as someone who designs the process, system, the

infrastructure. We think architects need to catch up to this re-understanding.

In many ways the practice of architecture is really outdated.