After 60 years, architects and engineers still duking it out
Hired in 1990 by the Texas Board of Architectural Examiners to investigate complaints against members, Richard Grayum was surprised to learn that one of his first assignments had nothing to do with architects. Instead, he said, he was directed to crack down on engineers who designed buildings instead of sticking to electrical, mechanical or civil engineering. As part of his sleuthing, he was dispatched to meetings of the Texas Board of Professional Engineers to monitor what engineers were saying about architects. "It was the silliest thing I'd ever heard of," he said. Grayum was fired after complaining to a state senator that the architectural board seemed overly fixated on keeping tabs on the engineers — particularly those who designed buildings that architects thought they should be creating. He sued, claiming the board had retaliated against him, and he collected a settlement. But in the two decades since, the long-standing feud between architects and the small handful of engineers who design buildings has persisted — and, recently, intensified. The Texas Board of Professional Engineers says barely two dozen of the state's 50,000 registered engineers even try to design large buildings for human occupation, a regulated undertaking on which the law is nevertheless unclear.The small number belies the time and energy that has poured into the dispute. Architects — about 11,500 are registered in Texas — say permitting engineers to design buildings without their supervision imperils the public, not just its safety and welfare, but also its sensibilities. "The argument that an ugly building is just fine to build with public dollars is not a good one," said Dan Hart, an Odessa architect who also has an engineering license. Engineers, who tend to value efficiency over beauty, respond that the architects just want a corner on design fees, and that an engineer-designed building is a perfectly fine place for humans. Besides, they say, not all structures need a photo spread in Architectural Digest. "I never knew anybody to get killed by an ugly building," said Gerhardt Schulle Jr., the governmental affairs director of the Texas Society of Professional Engineers. The dispute illustrates the struggle of once broadly defined occupations to stake their claims in an increasingly specialized world. Medical doctors have battled podiatrists in court over who has jurisdiction over the ankle. Engineers have watched with growing alarm as electrical and wastewater design work they once performed is handled by nonengineers. The sense that professions need to defend their turf propelled what was once a quiet, white-collar shoving match into the public arena. The dust-up has generated legislative bills, three attorney general opinions and dozens of meetings of a special committee created by elected officials to work out the problem. Last year, the architectural examiners board filed three complaints against engineers for designing buildings it said should have been handled by architects. The Texas Society of Professional Engineers responded by suing the architects in Travis County district court for meddling in engineers' business. "It's like the Middle East," Grayum said. "It goes on forever and ever." Firmness vs. delight People tend to think of the professions in broad — though not entirely inaccurate — strokes. Architects are the creative souls who produce soaring monuments to human ambition. Critics review their work; glossy magazines treat them like movie stars. They wear fashionable glasses. Nerdy in a quadratic-equation sort of way, engineers dress like Kinko's managers and drone on about dimensional stability. With the exception of Dilbert, they remain anonymous until called on to explain why a bridge collapsed. The median income for the professions is comparable, according to regional studies: about $80,000 a year. Within the professions, architects view engineers as technically competent but otherwise underqualified and uninspired. According to the ancient Roman architect Vitruvius, architectural designs embody three traits: firmness (the building stands up), commodity (it accommodates human use) and delight (it looks nice), explained Lawrence Speck, former dean of the University of Texas School of Architecture. "Engineers are reasonably well-trained with firmness. So they're a third of the way there." To engineers, architects are design snobs oblivious to budgets. "Construction is all about 90-degree angles," Schulle said. "Anytime you move away from that, you cut down on efficiency and drive up costs." The state began licensing each profession in 1937. The jostling began soon after. "A case in question has been brought to our attention in which two gentlemen of Abilene entitle themselves Hughes & Olds, Architects-Engineers," the secretary-treasurer of the newly created Board of Architectural Examiners explained to the Texas attorney general in 1941. "We feel that the title they are using is illegal as it implies both are architects and both engineers." A 1989 law limited the practice of architecture to registered architects. It also required architects to be hired to design most large buildings used for human occupancy — with an exception. Acknowledging overlap between the professions, the law seemed to permit engineers to design buildings as long as they didn't call it architecture. Architects responded that the Legislature clearly intended for them alone to design buildings. Instead of settling the dispute, the new law seemed to fuel it, something engineer David Zuniga discovered when he designed an elementary school in Laredo. "As soon as that project hit the newspapers, the architects just went nuts." He fielded calls from irate architects, and the school board received complaints. The school eventually was built. But the skirmish prompted the architectural board to ask the attorney general to weigh in on the matter. His 1991 opinion: Only architects could design most large buildings used for human occupancy — with the exception of properly trained engineers. "No one should be designing ugly buildings, but we all do, so that's beside the point," Zuniga said. "What the architects are trying to do is establish a monopoly." In 2003, the Legislature created a committee comprising members of both professions to work out their differences. It met four times a year. It didn't work. "The meetings have always been cordial," said Hart, the architect/engineer. "Well, not always." "You wouldn't believe the waste of time," said Schulle, the engineer. In April 2005, the committee finally agreed enough to issue a statement. It addressed "the historical disagreement between the respective Boards concerning the statutory authority over comprehensive building design." Two months later, the engineering board issued its own statement. The architects requested another attorney general's opinion. It was released in 2006. This time, Attorney General Greg Abbott said it wasn't up to him to decide. In the past couple of legislative sessions, each profession has tried to slip wording into the state's occupational codes that would decide for good the matter to their advantage. Each has failed. Flurry of complaints Waco engineer James Winton was hired in 2004 to draw up plans for a new fine arts center for the Lorena school district. The 650-seat center was completed in 2006. "It looks real nice," said Scott McClain, the school district's business manager. "It's nothing fancy, like you see in some big school districts. But for a small, 3A school, it's just fine." Not with the architects it wasn't. In May 2007, the Board of Architectural Examiners accused Winton of practicing architecture without a license. On the same day, Burl Richardson, an engineer who in 2003 had designed a county jail in Jasper, received the same warning. So did John Rogers, who in 2006 designed the new South Waco Library. The flurry of complaints signaled an escalation in hostilities. "We'd open cases (against engineers), work on them, investigate," said Scott Gibson, the architectural board's attorney. "Then the boards would talk, there'd be negotiation, which put off the investigations. Then the negotiations would drag on and on, and we'd eventually close the case for being too old, or just send a warning." Two weeks later, the engineers responded. The Texas Society of Professional Engineers sued the architectural board. "We said enough is enough," Schulle said. The architects, according to the lawsuit, had an "unreasonable preoccupation" with engineers who design buildings. Then, in September, the engineering board filed the first complaint against an architect in recent memory, accusing a Sugar Land architect of illegal engineering for including heating, ventilating, air-conditioning and plumbing systems in his design of a dentist's office. Since then, the legal back-and-forth has picked up speed. On April 10, a judge ruled in favor of the architects; the engineering society appealed. On April 14, an administrative law judge found in favor of the engineers; the architectural board appealed. The endless fighting "just doesn't seem rational," Hart said. "And engineers, if they're anything, they're rational." "The architects just keep punching away," Grayum said. "Just like their billing." edexheimer@statesman.com; 445-1774 |