Design Blasted into a New Future

I’ve predicted for years that the 2020s will echo memories of the Roaring ’20s from a century ago, so now let me explain why this is proving truer with each passing day.

Primed Before COVID-19

Architects and engineers worldwide have spent hundreds of millions of dollars over the past 50 years on the hardware and software necessary to change the entire delivery process from paper to totally interconnected electronic delivery of design. In the 1980s, we at PSMJ created and owned the largest computer technology tradeshow (AEC Systems) for design professionals with an annual attendance near 30,000 and over 2000 exhibiting companies, propelling the entire design industry into the 21st century long before COVID-19.

In March, a typical design firm anyplace in the world already delivered design and specifications electronically coupled with project management decisions handled via text and cellphone when COVID-19 shut down offices across the world. So, what happened to those design firms? They simply moved existing hardware and software with people into their home offices and continued further investment into more cloud storage and connectivity.

In fact, our PSMJ Annual Financial Statistics Survey data shows that in 2020 firms spent 23% of revenue on software/hardware, and that because COVID-19 kept people at home working even more, both utilization and productivity in design firms exploded, resulting in incredibly high levels of profitability for nearly all design firms in 2020.

Ready to Explode into a New Normal

One of the biggest side effects of the COVID closedown in fact is the reduced overhead in most design firms in the following areas.

• Less travel time to/from offices
• Less use of vacation/sick time across the board
• Selective layoffs of non-productive and overhead staff
• Less investment in all overhead categories including benefits such as education and training.
• So, today as we hear positive daily reports on COVID-19 vaccines, architects and engineers look to next year and beyond, not in revolutionary ways, but in evolutionary ways.

The Roaring ’20s Ahead

With design firms positioned to work from anyplace and with 2020 now seen as a year in which most have learned to operate more effectively and efficiently without commuting to offices, I predict the next few years will bring:

1. More available cash than ever in the market.

Everyone now knows that with interest rates near zero globally, with businesses operating more efficiently with fewer people, with money shifting into exploding new industries and with low tax rates still in place, the stage is set for economic growth worldwide in the next several years. Each month, PSMJ conducts a Quarterly Market Forecast (QMF) identifying proposal opportunities in all project types and all geographic regions of North America. The PSMJ, QMF for the next year is as optimistic as we have ever seen, driven by the explosion in the housing market.

Here is a chart of our latest QMF results:

Note that market by market nearly all markets for new work proposals show increases next year. Special note to those in the metal architecture design business, there will be a dramatic uptick in industrial warehouse facilities. If owners want to expand in any way a supply of cash will not be a problem in 2021.

2. Design Innovation Revolution

Entering our new-normal society, nearly all design firms will put into their 2021 and beyond design work hundreds of new ways to deal with sustainability, fire proofing, technology and air handling. Every day, we learn about another new way to do things driven by the COVID-19 crisis. We will not go back to the old normal, as buildings, transportation systems, facilities management and all other facets of our industry evolve and drive into our lexicon the language of innovation in design. Just today we learned about a company that has patented a new fireproofing chemical coating for steel that might have prevented the World Trade Center from collapsing. So, watch carefully every innovative technology that will change forever how we build everything.

3. Shift in Society

With every major catastrophe, we observe massive changes in society. World War II gave us the entry of millions of women into the workforce. Our last recession changed all the banking and investment rules, and now COVID-19 gives us the work/shop/play from anyplace society. So, what does this mean for design and construction? Here are my predictions:

1. Continued shift of people out of cities into resort and suburb housing as they work from anyplace.
2. Less business travel.
3. Re-design of nearly all shopping centers and office buildings.
4. Significantly more attention to sustainable design and flexible design with the useful life of buildings being reduced from decades to years to months.
5. Continued triple-digit explosion in technology in all aspects of life.
6. Resurgence of music concerts of all types, major sporting events, tradeshows, conventions and leisure travel starting in as early as June 2021.

Finally

Like the Roaring ’20s, as we come out of COVID-19, expect that our human desire to get back together with other humans will rapidly drive back nearly all of the restaurant/entertainment business worldwide. Bars will once again flourish, and you and I will again look forward (may be even more) to shaking hands (not elbows) at a design/construction industry live event.

Frank A. Stasiowski, FAIA, is an architect, author, futurist and strategy consultant globally. He is CEO of PSMJ Resources Inc., Newton, Mass., a design industry think tank. In 1990, with Sam Milnark, cofounder of Modern Trade Communications, he created the METALCONtradeshow and conference, which is the largest metal architecture tradeshow in the world.