The life of a landscape architect inevitably involves making presentations. Open Forum has a helpful blog post from Guy Kawasaki of How to Change the World. In it, he interviews Nancy Duarte, author of slide:ology: The Art and Science of Creating Great Presentations. A few tips I particularly liked were to to develop your ideas before creating your slides and to design slides to help people remember the content of the presentation and not for you to remember what to say. We have all hated listening to a presenter read their slides. Slides should only reinforce the message. In addition, she adds that you need to put yourself in your audience's shoes and understand their needs. This seems like common sense, but it is easier said than done. She offers a series of questions to ask yourself to help you better understand your audience's needs. The book looks interesting. I plan on checking it out. Between using Sitephocus' photos and this book, I hope to improve my presentations. Since incorporating beautiful photography and reducing the text, I feel my presentations have improved immensly. My hope is that this book will help fine tune the message and better meet the needs of my audiences.
Sunday, September 21, 2008
Making Better Presentations
Wednesday, September 3, 2008
More on Construction Cost
CoStar.com has an informative interview with Kenneth Simonson, Chief Economist for Associated General Contractors of America. He was not optimistic about construction cost coming down particularly because of the sustained growth in developing countries like China and India. He stated steel and asphalt are the two main materials busting commercial budgets.
Source: CoStar.com
Coping with Higher Construction Cost
A recent CoStar article titled “Building Smarter: Strategies for Brokers and Developers on Managing Spiraling Construction Cost” discussed the potential that the dip in oil and commodity prices and the stronger dollar might lower construction cost in the short term. The article concluded that we should not expect this trend to continue and will likely foresee continued volatility in the markets. The article also addressed strategies for coping with higher construction cost. They included the following:
- Avoid project 'scope creep,' and build lighter
- Purchase materials smarter and in bulk
- Know where the dollars are spent
- Change the palette of materials
- Build green and reap the benefits
- Integrate more revenue-generating space and features
- Leverage the contractor as a development partner
- Bring the builder onboard early and consider design-build as an option
- Fast track it
- Build smart, energy producing or self-powered projects
Despite ample publicity about the rising price of materials and cost overruns, "these issues still fly under the radar until too late in the project on at least 30% to 40% of the projects we’re working on," Cowart said. "When we get involved later in the process, it costs more to make adjustments to the project scope."Here is a link to Leopardo Construction's white paper titled "Smart Construction:
Economical Building Solutions to Offset Soaring Material Prices". Great Resource!
Source: CoStar.com
Construction Spending Up In July in Some Categories
Overall construction spending last month inch down 0.6%. However, while construction spending was down in residential and commercial categories, there were a few bright spots in their report . Particularly in Public and Transportation related construction. Any growth in good news. I was surprised but happy to see it. Investment News had a great summary article reporting on the news. See the following list below. See the following list below.
Construction Spending
Source: Investment News
Residential..................... -2.1% from June 2008
.......................................-27.1% from July 2007
Office..............................+2.1% from June 2008
.......................................+16.8% from July 2007
Health Care....................+0.1% from June 2008
.......................................+6.3% from July 2007
Education.......................+1.7% from June 2008
.......................................+6.3% from July 2007
Transportation...............+3.8% from June 2008
.......................................+11.5% from July 2007
Public Construction.......+1.4% from June 2008
.......................................+8.1% from July 2007
Monday, September 1, 2008
September 2008 Update: Portland
Our September's update is available. The photo update includes our final installment of Portland, Oregon. Sites include The South Waterfront District (Atwater Place, The John Ross, The Meriwether), Tom McCall Waterfront Park, 21st Avenue and Tibbetts Green Street, The Columbia River Gorge National Scenic area and many more. We now have over 19,000 images. You can see more sample Portland photos on our Flickr gallery.
