To be a design professional is to navigate ethical territory that is rarely black or white, but some shade of gray. What compromises are and are not acceptable in this world?

Mark, you have asked a nearly unanswerable question. So , what the hell, let’s try to answer it.

My brain’s internal (and ridiculous) parlor game, played on occasion, presents a scenario in which I have received a phone call from our current former Vice-President, who wants to build a responsible, humble home for his family. His program is not extravagant, and he has both a solid budget for construction and a willingness to pay for good design (like I said, it’s ridiculous). The dilemma, fictional at least, is what to do. Call the person back? Take the job, ultimately? Set to ignore?

Part of me, the bleeding heart liberal with a conscience and some artistic freedom, tells me that I shouldn’t ever engage this type of person. But, this client is someone who gives me latitude, who wants a smart, thoughtful project, and will pay for it. But this client is also someone whose morality I abhor. This client gives me the chance to make a responsible and potentially educational project, but this client is someone whose wealth was earned at the expense of multitudes of others far less fortunate. This person has done little good – more likely, they have done much that is bad, but this person is also giving ME the opportunity to do something good, and on their dime. At the end of the exercise, I less than graciously tell the potential client to stick their future plans somewhere dark, I don’t need the moral dilemma and can get my artistic jollies elsewhere while maintaining my own integrity.

But, in reality, I have actually purchased tickets to go visit a (supposed) developer in China, a country with a miserable human rights record, a lack of civil rights and basically no press freedoms. I have designed weekend homes for people with political views with which I disagree. I have, repeatedly, made luxury items of dubious environmental value. And while I hope that all these things are recognized for having some level of beauty and intelligence, I am under no delusions that they are vital, indisposable. I also hope that some think I have also done some good, but that, in the end, isn’t entirely up to me.

I guess this is a too-long and inarticulate way of saying that clients are judged in the moment and in the context of a business and relative to a whole host of other issues related to art, aesthetic opportunity, and even family. For example, if I take on a client whose views I detest, might the fee for that job make it possible to keep a staffer employed in a down economy and therefore help them support their (and also my own) loved ones? Daniel Libeskind announced, quite admirably, his unwillingness to do any work in China based on the human rights record of that nation, but if my firm’s solvency relied on a project there what would I do? It isn’t that the ethical stance that Libeskind has taken should ever be a luxury, but there are times when I can imagine it being just that.

If and when if I have to make an impactful decision related to the questions you ask, I hope that it will be one of clear and unhesitating “morality”. The hitch is that this “morality” can never be fixed by any one person, maybe not even myself, and that morality will likely be defined by a much larger context which ultimately surrounds me. I trust that this morality is always somewhat bracketed, and the idealist in me thinks that those brackets are relatively close together.

Sunday, March 6 at 10:31pm

I’m afraid that architects have largely accepted the cynical position of Johnson and Richardson (by the way—why do you say Johnson wasn’t willing to work for the mafia? he set out to design a casino for Meyer Lansky in Cuba and reputedly only walked out when he disagreed with Lansky’s position on the design…but perhaps you know something I don’t?). To shed light on how architects deal with evil, a couple of years ago I taught a studio on the topic of evil (see here: http://varnelis.net/blog/evil).

I’m an existentialist at heart and I’ve got two kids. It’s up to me to set an example and to make the choices that I would want anyone else to make. Designing for Meyer Lansky or for CCTV is wrong. We don’t have to play those games. None of this is very difficult really, unless you’re after a quick buck. Alas, too often that is just what architects want these days.

Monday, March 7 at 1:48am

Architects in particular, because they rely on clients with excess money and clout to achieve their artistic and professional goals, are susceptible to temptation and moral failure. (See: Faust.)

Two examples come to mind:

1) Historian Elaine Hochman, in her 1990 book “Architects of Fortune” wrote that Mies van der Rohe’s problem with Hitler was not so much the Fuhrer’s policies but his taste in architecture. Hitler erected pointy-roofed houses across the street from the Bauhaus as a rebuke to the Modernists. Mies had to leave Nazi Germany because he couldn’t get work…but it was NOT for lack of trying. I believe Hochman’s fairly controversial conclusion was that Mies would happily have built for the Nazis if they could have embraced his sense of style. (I would offer up a quote or two, but my copy of the book is currently in a box. I just moved and am unpacking slowly.)

2) Frank Gehry and Bruce Ratner. To the many opponents of the Atlantic Yards project, this seemed like an unholy alliance. All I could figure was that Gehry was, for a very long time, blind to the politics of this gig because it gave him something he badly wanted: the chance to design an entire high-rise urban neighborhood. And because it promised to keep his firm in black-ink for a long, long time. I’m not convinced that morality had anything to do with Gehry’s exit from the deal. I just think that Ratner, ultimately, couldn’t afford to build Gehry’s dream neighborhood. The money and the clout had diminished.

(P.S. I’m really, really not suggesting moral equivalence here. Ratner isn’t Hitler. Gehry isn’t Mies.)

Monday, March 7 at 7:57am

kazys: i was referring to the lansky commission. i don’t think johnson really understood what he was getting himself into when he took that job (it came through the seagram liquor people), and when he started to figure out the score, and what it meant for the office (and, absolutely, his design), he walked away. so perhaps that was a bad example on my part.

as karrie notes, mies, mentor to pj, was notoriously apolitical, and did work for the nazis before coming to terms with the fact that there was no future for him in it. here’s an irony: when pj mounted his mies show at moma, just after the war in 1947, the museum received letters of objection, presuming that the architect of the liebknecht-luxembourg memorial must be a communist.

Monday, March 7 at 9:38am

Would it make a difference if that figure/government was currently in a position of authority and that the project was effectively an instrument of control (e.g. CCTV HQ), or gained at the expense of the public they act over? A difference of political opinion could be a deal-breaker (e.g. a house for Mr. Beck or Mr. Koch), but the two biggest construction sites in the world just now are posing a different kind of challenge to architects with regards to complicity with a regime, revisionist histories, environmental stewardship and suppression of identities. How does one justify designing a place like Dongtan on Chongming Island? This is perhaps only underlining the greyness of Mark’s question.

Nicolai Ouroussoff’s recent video piece at NYTimes interviewed four architects on their recent work for cultural projects in Doha and Abu Dhabi, and though it’s not overtly stated, Gehry’s response suggests at least some discomfort with the history and the fabricated site he’s been asked to address with the building.

http://www.nytimes.com/interactive/2010/11/27/arts/design/museums.html?ref=architecture

Can you design around your client in a situation like this and take a longer view of the impact your building has (as Nouvel appears to)? Can some component of the design effectively frustrate attempts at control (e.g. CCTV HQ)? Does that put you at odds with your client if every other part of their brief has been addressed? Somehow these challenges seem worthwhile.

Monday, March 7 at 9:52am

The key word here is “Imperative”.

I studied under a professor of Professional Practice who, on coming in to class each time, would write down three rules on the chalk board.
1: Get the job
2: Get the job
3: Get the job

While this may be an overly simplified view on the ethos of any practitioner, (especially in my profession of architecture), it highlights the fact that most architects rarely have the luxury to pick and choose the projects or clients that they decide to work with or for. It is difficult enough to keep a steady stream of projects coming in to the office to keep the doors open and pay the bills. In good times, yes – you can turn away a couple of clients that may be hopefully standing in the long line of people at your front door, but in bad times like we have the misfortune of finding ourselves in every few years, you cannot do that.

You could flip the coin of this conversation around and think about when it comes to the choice between taking on a client (any client) and either laying the employee who has shed blood sweat and tears next to you in the pursuit of design excellence, or worse shutting your practice down, to take the moral high-ground in your work.

Monday, March 7 at 3:35pm

I’d stick to old and wise words spoken by Confusius: “What you do not want done to yourself, do not do to others.”

To me the only way to deal with this question is by awareness and honesty. So can you look in the mirror and explain yourself why. And how would the answer be if you are the other one Confusius is talking about.

I didn’t say it would be easy…

Monday, March 7 at 4:16pm

Another truism that might be worth testing here: do the kind of clients you take beget more of the same kind of clients? How do you around the danger of constantly working out of the same box?

Monday, March 7 at 7:33pm

Some shade of gray… These are the words of wisdom. Other than in a James Bond movie, there is hardly a client who’d represent an absolute evil. Yesterday I ran into one example: Roman Abramovich, one of the wealthiest Russian oligarchs, best known in the West as the owner of Chelsea football team. History of people like him – how they made their fortune, and how they maintain it – is well known, and there is hardly anything moral about it. Enough said. And yet, Abramovich is involved in rebuilding Russian culture and contemporary art, he financed restoration of Melnikov’s buildings in Moscow. Now he is soliciting architects for establishing an art zone in the long-abandoned New Holland district in St. Petersburg. Along with usual heavyweights, some Russian names from the architectural fringe are on the shortlist…

Would you say ‘no’ to such opportunity? Ultimately, I do not think there is a universal prescription. These situations are always decided on a case-to-case basis. It is one’s personal moral beliefs, and that gut sense which sometimes tells you to walk away, that should guide you.

Tuesday, March 8 at 12:54am

If you do refuse to take a job with an unsustainable client, make sure to publicize the fact. There is no such thing as silent or individualistic politics. If someone doesn’t know that you’re snubbing them, you’re not really snubbing them.

I want a website where I can say, ‘Whilst I would probably never have got this job, I would never have applied for it anyway, because your company is creating unsustainable value for only a few.’

Tuesday, March 8 at 11:39am

Ask yourself, “Will working for this client make me more money?”

Think about your answer. Consider the big picture. Think about both your financial needs and your mental health. Don’t externalize the decision, ie; think about what your family and friends will say.

Then stick with your decision and move on.

Tuesday, March 8 at 12:23pm

The question reminds me of an anecdote – a predominantly Jewish motorcycle club attends an event where a booth is selling items including neo-Nazi paraphernalia. The club decides to buy all the material from the vendor and publicly burns it at the event. One might argue that in purchasing the items that they were supporting, and in this case, financing a reprehensible ideology. However, the club by its actions makes a perhaps greater statement.

Who benefits most in this scenario?

Does this relate to architecture? As professionals engaging in a project, we have the legal obligation to provide services with diligence and care. I would also argue that architects practicing within the public realm engage in a social contract – that our work resides within society and as such, architects have an obligation to state positions on issues vis-à-vis our work – built, un-built, written or otherwise. Can both of these ideas co-exist if they are in conflict? Can a work of architecture, while meeting its professional and programmatic requirements subvert the issues of its users? It is a complex question that I feel there is no single answer to. I do believe that architects should find ways to engage the challenge when presented, if and when possible.

Tuesday, March 8 at 2:18pm

I think there is a lot to be said for having your own motivations and passions, and bringing that to the table when you’re interacting with clients. Even though a client may be completely un-sustainable (or eco friendly), that client may provide the largest opportunity for you to make a huge impact. The trick there is understanding if a particular client is willing to be nudged in the direction you’re wanting to go.

The compromises each individual design professional is willing to make has got to be dictated by that individual’s own moral compass. There’s an interesting back and forth here. Design, and creative pursuits in general, tend to be ‘blue sky endeavors.’ Designers, and particularly design students, want to push projects forward because they’re beautiful, or they make sense. The reality is that design and architecture are businesses. While creative pursuits should remain creative, business ventures should be viewed as such. At the end of the day, stuff has to sell and money needs to change hands. That is how business works.

At the most fundamental level, though, compromises that put human life at risk should absolutely be avoided. Design professionals should do everything reasonable to avoid putting others lives at risk.

In regards to your second question, I do absolutely think that the kind of clients you take beget more of the same kind of clients. For product designers in particular, this can be hard to escape. You’re either a toy person, or a corporate person, or a shoe person, or a consultancy person. It can take a very forward thinking manager to see past your prior experience- and clients.

I’ve always found that staying engaged outside of work helps me avoid constant ‘working out of the same box.’ When I’m working on a research project, I’m reading toy design blogs. When I’m working on toys, I’m staying up to date with business news in Fast Company. All of these things let me have candid conversations with all different sorts of clients (and the girl who cuts my hair, servers in restaurants, bartenders, etc.)

Tuesday, March 8 at 7:17pm

“Get the job, get the job, get the job!”

At some point it’s not true anymore. You know, when the job does not actually qualify as a design job.

It seems that nearly 8/10 times clients come to me with their own pre-cooked solution. And boy! they are so narrow-mindedly clinging to it, it’s almost impossible to design anything at all!

80% of the time, clients ask designers to do styling and decoration. 80% of the time, I end up recommanding them unlimitedly skilled professionals in those capacities.

Among the 20% design jobs I eventualy end up accepting, a good half are really challenging my ethics. Why? Because I find my-self trying to explain my clients that I don’t really work for them. I think in his “Inmates…” (Cooper, 1999) A. Cooper has a funny way to put it. It goes a little somthing like: “when making our clients’ clients happy, we make our clients happy and they gladly pay us money”.

On those occasions then, I end up explaining these clients that they pay me to think in the best interest of their clients, which sometimes leads up to conflicting positions with their own interests, which eventualy does not help in making them happy. These clients, I know, I won’t hear from them again – the feeling is mutual.

The last 10% of the time, I do exactly the same thing but I’m faced with clients that are apt to change their stance and embrace evolution. Good creative work is done then and we end up collaborating on a regular basis.

I think there is some kind of a ‘natural selection’ going on when you state to clients that you don’t do design for them, but rather for their audience. If they don’t get it right away, prepare for a painful design propaganda marathon, or just don’t get the job.

Thursday, March 10 at 11:07am

As someone from a politically leftist, low income family, I have been struggling with this dilemma since my earliest jobs for wealthy clients when I began to think about where their money came from. In discussing this with my father, a sculptor, a humanist and socialist, he dismissed my concerns and reminded me that as an architect it was only my job to practice my artistic skills to the best of my ability. As an example he told me the story about his grandfather, a woodcarver to whom he was apprenticed as a boy in Romania in the late 1800′s. My great grandfather, a Jew, was severely criticized by the community for providing the Christian church with his beautiful woodwork. He also worked on the Sabbath and on those days even rode in a horse drawn cart to get there. He believed that his function in life as a woodcarver was to work with his hands to support his family.
So I have designed houses for people whose politics, religion and societal values differed vastly from mine in order to create something beautiful. And I have remained uncomfortably silent at their dinner table, opting for social etiquette rather than to challenge them and sometimes endured bigoted remarks.
I do see my job as an architect to beautify and better the built environment whether it be a private house or a public building more for the benefit of everyone rather than the individual client and hopefully to make a contribution to the evolution of new ideas in architecture. However, I do have ethical standards which I will not compromise and some misgivings based on recent experiences in my world travels.
I agree with Andrew Bernheimer, I would not build a house for Dick Cheney, nor would I build a palace for Charles Taylor,
men who are guilty of human rights abuses and war crimes. Nor would I build an office building for Monsanto or Lockheed Martin or any corporation producing any product detrimental to the environment. Would I design a clothing store which sells products made in sweatshops , maybe, but I wouldn’t design the sweatshop.
I live in Vermont and my practice certainly benefits from commissions from wealthy people who build vacation homes. This gives me excellent design opportunities and often a chance to incorporate new ideas in green building and solar applications,
but there are sometimes excesses of luxury which make me uncomfortable and more recently I have been wondering if it is morally right for anyone to have more than one home when millions in the world live in poverty and are homeless. I know this may sound simplistic and naive but it is something we as architects should think about. We have skills which could be of enormous benefit to humanity. Maybe my father didn’t give me the best advice.

Thursday, March 10 at 2:59pm

To emphasize my earlier point about moving beyond binaries of good and bad, left and right, black and white, moral and immoral, I’d like to quote a few lines from an article David Brooks wrote last year for the NY Times about President Obama, in which the author described the president as a “network liberal”. I think Brooks’ descriptions of the term can offer a model of how designers might start to navigate the politics involved in client work:

“[Network liberals] tend to believe — the nation being as diverse at is and the Constitution saying what it does — that politics is a complex jockeying of ideas and interests. They believe progress is achieved by leaders savvy enough to build coalitions. Psychologically, network liberals are comfortable with weak ties; they are comfortable building relationships with people they disagree with…

“It’s standing at one spot in the political universe and trying to build temporary alliances with people at other spots in the political universe. You don’t have to abandon your principles to cut a deal. You just have to acknowledge that there are other people in the world and even a president doesn’t get to stamp his foot and have his way…

“It is entirely consistent to support a policy and be willing to move off of it in exchange for a greater good or a necessary accommodation. That’s called real life.” (source).

Thursday, March 10 at 11:17pm

This question is one we often confront as an ethical graphic design agency – a description we use as much an effort to attract like-minded clients as to continually reinforce in ourselves the standards we’ve chosen to try and adhere to.

Ethics are highly personal even in light of factual information about clients and projects. We believe they also have to be adaptable, but never shaped by financial desires, however modest.

The internet and social media helps make the details of organisations’ histories and affiliations accessible and their influence all the more transparent, although the available information must always be treated with care. In this environment, designers have an improved opportunity to understand their contribution and place within the social and political landscapes we all occupy. Questioning the subject of professional ethical compromise is important, but having access to good information is vital to realising the possibility of being compromised in the first place.

As Paula Scher points out, many organisations have influences and relationships that are not immediately obvious, despite their positioning or objectives. Cultural institutions that accept big oil sponsorship, or ‘artisan’ food brands owned by monolithic corporations with poor standards of environmental and social performance are easy examples. From experience, some organisations change so rapidly and unexpectedly that it’s impossible to know their character with absolute certainty; we’ve had to extract ourselves professionally (we hope) from projects with a seemingly-innocuous client after learning of a buy-out by a corporation who is, in turn, owned by another who’s behaviour we find troubling.

It is important to scratch at the veneer of a client, brand or specific project. Who benefits from their financial performance, for example? If you believe in the power of your work as a designer, then you must acknowledge your contribution to the growth and influence of the clients you work for. Is it then, for example, acceptable to contribute to the success of a business with proud social and environmental values if it is owned by and financially benefits another with a reputation for oppositional behaviour? Design promotional materials for a sustainability programme of a persistent global polluter?

Ultimately, ethics are complicated and it’s not fair to quickly condemn those who exercise other choices and approaches – it’s a complex world and a difficult financial time for many. Our choices are relatively militant and have certainly made life and business more financially difficult than it would be under other circumstances, and that’s not acceptable or possible for everyone. We would love to see more designers of all disciplines increasingly question their relationships with clients and decisions regarding if and how to undertake certain projects. We’ve certainly been happy to see a marked increase in the ethical awarenesss of students and young designers over the last five years.

We are concerned by ongoing conflation of ‘sustainable’ with ‘ethical’ – the notion that environmentally-responsible production or themes somehow automatically offset any other form of waste or unacceptable activity. That, in its own right, seems to be an unacceptable, implicit compromise if it assuages consciences enough that more thorough ethical enquiry can be comfortably denied by designers and clients alike.

Finally, it’s neither realistic or possible that the design industry can be formed solely of practitioners who refuse to work with many traditional clients and industries. It would, however, be wonderful if the best designers were known for doing so, though.

Friday, March 11 at 1:04pm

The prelude to the question is correct to cite ethics, which are situational and relative. They are not to be confused with morals, which are universal and absolute. It is an important distinction that should not be conflated, although it often is.

“What compromises are and are not acceptable in this world?” was at the core of a talk I gave at the Interaction Design Association Interaction’11 conference exactly one month ago, titled Design for Evil: Ethical Design. It was a strange coincidence that the question should be posed here as so many of us are still discussing following the conference.

With few exceptions, designers are not trained to address ethical issues although they face them on a regular basis in executing their responsibilities. We are all asked to make compromises and a compromise in and of itself is not a bad thing. It is a negotiated agreement that lets us find a common way forward and is at the bedrock of our society and civilization. The problems arise when that common way forward violates one’s ethics, or personal values. Compromises are rarely black and white or framed in terms of good and evil. The most common compromises that most of us encounter in the course of our work are small ones that have a cumulative effect over time. And that is what makes each one fraught with peril.

At the heart of this is another question: “Where do your responsibilities begin and end?” Do you think about the upstream and downstream effects of your actions? Do you think in a systemic way that includes elements and actors beyond the design brief and its goals? Do you think of ecosystems and how they interact with one another? The interplay of design with art, technology, economic imperatives, political motivations, distributive justice, social interactions and effects, history, and more, all affect what we do as designers just as we affect each of those spheres.

Design is not neutral. We need to keep this in mind when we make choices. We shape the futures of our families, friends, communities, people we will never meet and — for some of us — even future generations. So before we make those compromises we need to seriously consider the effects of our decisions as best we can.

Individualism, capitalism and consumerism is the holy trinity of our society. As designers we value what is cool and beautiful. But without an ethical imperative, is our work beautiful? Yves Behar doesn’t think so. He said, “If it’s not ethical, it cannot be beautiful. But if it cannot be beautiful, it probably should not be at all.”

If we do not think about these questions, who will? If we do not think about these questions before we make a decision and before we act, we are failing as designers. As a forward-looking profession, the artifacts we create become the realities of the people and societies that we belong to. But our behavior and the behaviors that our designs engender also become part and create society. What kind of society are you designing?

Ethics are deeply personal and highly complex. They require personal struggle, deep introspection and ongoing reflection.

What compromises are and are not acceptable in this world? I know my answer to that question.

Only you can decide yours.

— Kaleem Khan

“Integrity is the essence of everything successful.” — R. Buckminster Fuller

Friday, March 11 at 11:43pm