Tag: California

New President Named at a/e ProNet’s Spring Meeting

By Lynda

Last weekend, a/e ProNet held its annual meeting in San Diego, California. Members from across the country came together to discuss industry trends and best practices.

jefftoddThe meeting also marked the end of Leslie Pancoast‘s two-year term as President of a/e ProNet. She is succeeded by Jeff Todd, President of IMCI.

Jeff grew up in Annapolis, Maryland and after he graduated from High School moved to Charlotte, NC.  He attended Wingate College in Wingate, NC where he graduated with a Bachelor of Science degree in 1994.  Jeff joined IMCI in January of 1994 and specializes in professional liability insurance for Architects and Engineers.  He is a licensed property & liability insurance agent and is currently working on his Certified Risk Management and Registered Professional Liability Underwriter designations.  Jeff is a member of the Board of Directors for a/e ProNet, and formerly of the Board of Visitors for Wingate University and Phoenix Montessori Academy.  He and his wife Cindy reside in Cleveland, NC and have four children, Blake, Mackenzie, Parker and Kendall.

Group picture time! (Don’t forget that you can find an a/e ProNet broker anytime on our website.)

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First Row: Valarie Nunez of Marquis Agency; Mayensi Chavez of Assurance, Ltd.; Cindy King of Professional Underwriters, Inc.; Diane Hoskins of Wortham Insurance & Risk Management; Melissa Roberts of Euclid Insurance Agencies; Debbie Christen of Marquis Agency
Second Row: Rich Standing of Prosurance/Redeker Group; Mike Welbel of M G Welbel & Associates; Terry Lee of PDI; Karen McCabe of IMCI; Lynn Campbell of Assurance, Ltd.; Wendy Arnold of Johnson Insurance; Tom Warner of Walker & Associates; Marsha Bastian of Heffernan Professional Practice Insurance Brokers; Alicia Igram of IOA Insurance Services
Third Row: Leslie Pancoast of IOA Insurance Services; Dave Johnston of a/e ProNet; Jeff Steen of IOA Insurance Services; Jeff Todd of IMCI; Meade Collinsworth of Collinsworth, Alter, Fowler & French, LLC; Mark Jackson of Lykes Insurance; Rob Supple of IOA Insurance Services; John Tenuto of IOA Insurance Services; Kyle Damalouji of Klein Agency; Earleen Thomas of Cornerstone Specialty Insurance Services
Fourth Row: Eric Alderson of ProMark Associated Agencies; Steve Wilder of M G Welbel & Associates; Karen Erger of Lockton Companies; Eric Moore of Moore Insurance Services; Bob Coleman of Professional Underwriters, Inc.; Brett Coleman of Professional Underwriters, Inc.; Greg Kumm, Jr. of Prosurance/Redeker Group; John Feeney of  Heffernan Professional Practice Brokers; Will Leaf of Cobb Strecker Dunphy & Zimmerman; Jeff Gerrick of Professional Underwriters, Inc.; Tom Coghlan of Design Insurance Agency

{ProNet Practice Note} The Collections-Claim Connection: Getting Paid Without Getting Sued

By Lynda

One of the many value added resources a/e ProNet brokers offer is access to our ProNet Practice Notes, in-depth white papers prepared by members of a wide variety of professions related to the design industry. They offer insight and advice on topics like risk management, practice management, and litigation issues for Architects, Engineers, and other Design Professionals.

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Our most recent edition is titled  The Collections-Claim Connection: Getting Paid Without Getting Sued, authored by attorney David A. Ericksen of Severson & Werson in San Francisco, CA. The full PDF version of this excellent paper, including several helpful attachments, is available for download at our website. The following is an excerpt for your review. We hope you find it helpful!

Introduction

While money isn’t everything, it is the measure and fuel of any business, including a design firm. Without payment for services firms suffer, starve, and even die. Payment issues are also often the single greatest warning sign of a project in trouble.

Perhaps there is no greater indicator of the correlation between unpaid fees and troubled projects and relationships than the remarkable frequency with which efforts of design professionals to collect unpaid fees through litigation result in even larger responsive counter-claims from clients alleging professional negligence. 2011 gave the entire industry the most dramatic and alarming example of this pattern. Having already received over $8.2M in fees, the engineering firm Carter & Burgess sued its client the City of Victorville in Southern California for the final $106,196 on a power plant project that the City had been forced to partially abandon mid-project due to cost overruns. The City responded with a counter-claim for professional negligence. When the verdict came in 2011, it was devastating financially and professionally as news, industry, and internet sources widely reported and publicized the award of $52.1M in damages against the engineering firm.

The results of such a counter-claim need not be as dramatic in terms of publicity or financial losses to be devastating to the firm. In addition to the unpaid fees, there are many other impacts of even a “defensive” counter-claim. They frequently include:

  • Deductible payments for legal fees and costs, which may even include the involvement of a second “defense” attorney.
  • Insurance impacts for rating, pricing, and loss history.
  • Lost internal time and resources for purposes of participation in defense.
  • Publicity and required disclosures in future responses to RFPs for claims history.
  • Potential uninsured exposure for prevailing party attorneys’ fees if negligence claims exceed fee claims.
  • Ultimate discounted or waived fees for expediency of resolving and closing claim.

Obviously, avoiding such collection challenges and the potential for responsive claims is critical to good business and project success.

In reality, a proper approach to collections closely resembles a proper regimen for personal health. Firms which get paid become and remain healthy and strong. Firms which do not get paid regularly and on time become malnourished and increasingly susceptible to disease. Just as health is a life-long process, financial success is a project-long process. The following discussion tracks the relevant phases and provides analyses and strategies for those various phases. Those phases are: Continue reading “{ProNet Practice Note} The Collections-Claim Connection: Getting Paid Without Getting Sued”

A Couple Holiday Treats for (and from) Architects & Engineers

By Lynda

Fa-la-la-la-la La-la La LA!

Gingerbread used in architectural engineering competition

Tristen Black makes some repairs on her gingerbread building Thursday at the Tulsa Alliance for Engineering competition. She won first place in adult category. STEPHEN PINGRY/Tulsa World
Tristen Black makes some repairs on her gingerbread building Thursday at the Tulsa Alliance for Engineering competition. She won first place in adult category. STEPHEN PINGRY/Tulsa World

Santa visits the Living Roof at the Cal Academy of Sciences

A pair of reindeer graze on the undulating 2.5-acre living roof that tops the Renzo Piano-designed museum. (In lieu of a chimney, Santa uses an operable skylight.) Photo courtesy of the Cal Academy of Sciences.
Reindeer graze on the undulating 2.5-acre living roof that tops the Renzo Piano-designed museum. (In lieu of a chimney, Santa uses an operable skylight.) Photo courtesy of world-architects eMagazine

Whether you celebrate Christmas, or Hanukkah, or anything else this season, we at a/e ProNet wish you a happy, safe holiday. We hope you spend it with the people you love.

Holiday Gift Guide: Architect Andrew Skurman’s New Book

By Lynda

Homes designed by a/e ProNet client Andrew Skurman have been featured in a wide variety of publications, including Architectural Digest, The New York Times Magazine, Western Interiors, California Homes, San Francisco Magazine, This Old House, Luxe. Interiors + Design, House Beautiful, and Gentry Design. Work by the firm is also included in the books Napa Valley Style (2003) by Kathryn Masson and San Francisco Style (2004) by Diane Dorrans Saeks. And now, Andrew Skurman has a book of his own!

In August, Princeton Architectural Press published Contemporary Classical — The Architecture of Andrew Skurman.

Excerpted from Princeton’s website:

“Skurman draws on an extensive architectural library of European and American design with the precision of an eminent art historian, skillfully adapting timeless design elements to suit today’s lifestyles. Collaborating with well-respected contractors, interior and landscape designers, lighting and audiovisual experts, and other consultants, Skurman blends modern comfort and conveniences into traditional settings. Featuring gorgeous photography and exquisite watercolor studies, Contemporary Classical showcases an exceptional range of residential work, including projects in San Francisco (Nob Hill, Pacific Heights), the Newport Beach coast, and Northern California.”

ProNet first got wind of Skurman’s new publication from lifestyle blogger The Style Saloniste who said, in her “fall preview”:

“San Francisco architect Andrew Skurman’s new book is essential for the collections of architectural students, interior designers, potential clients, and everyone who wants to learn about classical architecture—the real thing.”

And the San Francisco Chronicle’s review of Contemporary Classical was a rave!

“One of the guilty pleasures in reading coffee-table books about stunning residences is trying to determine which homes are pictured. Locals will have fun guessing from among the 20 anonymously featured in a new book by one of San Francisco’s most respected architects. [The book] features 255 pages of colorful photos of residences inspired by his love of French chateaux and classical Greek and Roman forms….”

The book retails for $60.00, but can be purchased now on Amazon for $37.80, and would make an excellent gift for your favorite architect. Happy shopping!

Item contributed by Leslie Pancoast of a/e ProNet Member firm IOA Insurance Services in Pleasanton, California.

Resilient Architecture & the Work of Doris Kim Sung – VIDEO

By Lynda

“My big question for Architecture is, Why do humans have to adapt to buildings? And why can’t Architecture adapt to humans?”

Doris Kim Sung

[youtube=http://www.youtube.com/watch?feature=player_embedded&v=-Ms5qoMO3gQ]

It is in the very nature of a trend to move on past its point of highest enthusiasm and fizzle out in favor of something else. Architecture, like everything else, goes through these periods of interest and inclination. For a long time, Sustainable Architecture–environmentally conscious design–was considered the latest trend. Now that trend is evolving.

Resilient Architecture takes the ideas behind sustainable design a step further. Metal That Breathes is one of the latest evolutionary byproducts of the new trend, and is best evidenced by the work of Architect Doris Kim Sung of the University of Southern California.

Inspired by her original interest and education in Biology, Sung used so-called “smart metal” to design and build her Bloom installation in Los Angeles. As Sung pointed out in her recent TED talk, “[Skin is] the first line of defense for the [human] body… Our building skins should be more similar to human skin.”

One author on the Core77 design blog explained Sung’s work this way:

Sung has been experimenting with thermo-bimetals, two thin layers of metal that expand and contract, in response to temperature, at different rates. Laminating two like-sized sheets of different material together and subjecting them to a temperature change causes the sheet to curl up—and this phenomenon can be exploited to create a building that ingeniously shades itself as needed, requiring no external power.

Sounds crazy, no? And it’s possible that the American market is not yet ready to explore the possibilities of this breathing metal in its regular buildings. But as Sung mentioned in her recent TED talk, at least one Chinese developer is already including the thermo-bimetal screens in its design for a house. The screens “can actually open and close as the sun moves around on that surface,” said Sung. “[This implies] that we don’t need shutters, or drapes, or blinds anymore… we can control the amount of air conditioning you need inside that building.”

Watch Sung’s Metal That Breathes TED Talk (and hear about how the breathing capabilities of grasshoppers factor into her research!) here:

[youtube=http://www.youtube.com/watch?feature=player_embedded&v=wvIyVZf3qZU#!]

And in case you’re wondering about the deeper implications of this kind of beyond-the-basic-sustainability philosophy, I’ll leave you with this quote from a recent Treehugger.com blog post entitled Building Green Is No Longer Enough, It is Time To Build Resilient:

It turns out that many of the strategies needed to achieve resilience–such as really well-insulated homes that will keep their occupants safe if the power goes out or interruptions in heating fuel occur–are exactly the same strategies we have been promoting for years in the green building movement. The solutions are largely the same, but the motivation is one of life-safety, rather than simply doing the right thing. We need to practice green building, because it will keep us safe–a powerful motivation–and this may be the way to finally achieve widespread adoption of such measures. — Alex Wilson, founder of BuildingGreen

Koning Eizenberg Architecture Principals Recognized by AIA/LA

By Lynda

a/e ProNet clients Hank Koning, FAIA, FRAIA, LEED AP and Julie Eizenberg, AIA have been honored by AIA|LA with the gold medal for their significant body of work and lasting influence on the theory and practice of architecture. The Gold Medal is the highest honor the AIA|LA can bestow, and it will be presented at the AIA|LA Design Awards, gala on October 22nd 2012 at the Broad Stage in Santa Monica.

It’s been a good year for Koning Eizenberg Architecture.

Above Photo: “Pico Branch Library broke ground last week at Virginia Avenue Park, Santa Monica… The Pico Branch is slated to be the first LEED Platinum library in Los Angeles when it opens in November 2013. View renderings of the library here.”

Below Photo: “28th Street Apartments historic restoration and addition for Clifford Beers Housing is just about finished! The original YMCA, designed by noted African American architect, Paul Williams in 1926, is being carefully restored and will offer  community services and supportive housing.”

We wish them a very fun time at the gala this evening. Well deserved!

Follow Koning Eizenberg Architecture on Twitter for future announcements. Remember, “Architecture isn’t only for special occasions!”

Item contributed by Alicia Igram of a/e ProNet Member firm IOA Insurance Services in Aliso Viejo, California.

John Lum Architecture featured on 2012 SF AIA Tour

By Lynda

Lovers of architecture (and the city by the bay) will have a special treat this weekend during the 2012 SF AIA Tour. This is the 10th annual San Francisco Living: Home Tours weekend, offered by the AIA “to promote a wide variety of architectural styles, neighborhoods, and residences—all from the architect’s point of view.” Tour participants will visit “some of the city’s latest residential projects from the inside out, meet design teams, explore housing trends, and discover design solutions that inspire unique San Francisco living.”

And we’re excited to announce that a/e ProNet client John Lum Architecture has a house featured on the tour for the second year in a row!

The St. Germain Residence, originally constructed in 1959, is a standout on Saturday’s list. John Lum Architecture kept the “original spirit of the Bay Area modernist aesthetic, while updating and reworking the interior to create an elegant but warm space.”

San Francisco-based John Lum Architecture, founded in 1994, has completed over 500 projects. Recent projects include a vegan shoe store in Berkeley. We love how creative our clients are!

Visit the AIA website for complete tour info and ticket information.

Photo by Sharon Risedorph Photography.

Employee or Independent Contractor?

By Lynda

The differentiation between employees and independent contractors is an issue which comes up regularly for Architects and Engineers, especially with regard to Workers’ Compensation insurance, where the two categories are rated differently, therefore impacting a company’s premium.

So what is the difference between an Employee and an Independent Contractor?

Generally, a person is considered an employee if the employer retains the right to control the manner and means of the work they perform (i.e., provides the work space and tools, controls working hours). An employer only controls an independent contractor with regard to the result of his work and not with regard to the means by which the result is accomplished. It is important to remember, however, that this definition is often left vague in state insurance statutes, and open to the interpretation of the courts. Contact your insurance broker if you need help making this determination about one of your workers. Continue reading “Employee or Independent Contractor?”