Dissent on Design Plan

While Dirk Sutro’s article, “New Idea Will Help City Hall Shed Old Look,” (Oct. 5) was entertaining, the heroic photograph and laudatory comments about Don Stastny’s proposed process for the design of San Diego’s new civic center are very misleading. In fact, the notion of teaming architect and developers to design the civic center in a limited competition format is a bad idea--one that San Diego would regret for years to come.

While the reasons for this comment are many, the most important are:

1. In a traditional architect-client relationship it is the architect’s job to create designs that meet the client’s needs and dreams while staying within the budget for the project. He/she is directly responsible to the client and has no conflict with that allegiance.

In the proposed format, the architect works for the developer, whose primary motive is profit. This situation places the architect in the position of designing a project that maximizes the difference between construction cost and the budget. That difference goes into the developer’s pocket instead of the city’s building.

2. By limiting the participants to only those architects who can form teams with “sufficient” credentials, the city closes the door on the potential of obtaining a great design from someone who has not yet had the opportunity to establish those credentials. If this process was typically followed, neither Boston nor Escondido would have the exemplary civic centers that they have.

The wrinkle of asking architects to submit an “art board” in order to give “younger, less known” firms a chance to catch the jury’s attention is specious. Even if a few of these firms make the list of “20 or 30” firms, there is little, if any, chance that they will be able to team up with a developer of the stature that will make the final select list.

What Mr. Stastny is saying is that this project needs a developer to ensure high quality and cost control. I find this idea to be inaccurate and laughable. Architects can and do the job of controlling costs every day. The fact that on some of this city’s more recent major projects that the clients wanted more than their budget allowed is not a reason to exchange a workable process for one fraught with potential problems.

As an architect, Mr. Stastny should have a higher regard for his profession. As a newspaperman, Mr. Sutro should dig deeper to find the real story.

DAVID C. THOMPSON

San Diego