Home Builder Developer - Interior Renovation and Design

The 50 States Project is a series of candid conversations with interior designers across the country about how theyve built their businesses. This week, New London, New Hampshirebased designer Cicely Beston tells us about how family has shaped her business, why she believes money is only uncomfortable when its not discussed, and the charging formula that saves her time and money.

Did you always know you wanted to be a designer?My mom has really been my guide into this. Shes an interior designer now, but she was a florist and then had a retail store while I was growing up. Then, in a very roundabout way, she was basically given a large, multimillion-dollar commercial project when I was a freshman in college, and it was baptism by fire. I would come home, and we would do design boards together and go down to the Boston Design Center. This was back in the day when we would literally pin fabric and cutouts on big corkboardswhich, ironically, I have gone back to recently with great joy.

So you had a front-row seat to watch her figure that out.Exactly. It was a high-end retirement community. The woman running the project took my mom to High Point Market, and thenyou cant make this stuff upwas like, OK, this project is yours, because she was moving to the Cayman Islands to start an offshore womens bank.

Thats a new one! Did that early experience help you realize this was what you wanted to do professionally?No, it was more roundabout than that. I was an art history major in college. After working for Simon Pearce one summer, I moved down to Greenwich, Connecticut, to open a store for them there. My mom had a big retail store in New Hampshire at the timeit was like Crate & Barrel or Williams-Sonoma before either of those were bigand I moved home to help her. I got really into merchandising, so my mom started to let me do all the buying. I was 22, going to New York four times a year. And one day, a guy walked into the store when I happened to be there, and after looking around, he goes, I just love how everything feels and looks in here. Who put all of this together? And I said, Well, actually, me. He said that he was building a house in Portsmouth, New Hampshire, and asked if he could hire me as his interior designer.

Im a yes girlI always joke that I need no tattooed on my forehead because it doesnt come out of my mouthso next thing I knew, I was working on this new-construction, ground-up interior design project. His then girlfriend, now wife is a very prominent architect in New Hampshire, so I got to know her through the project, and it was wonderfultotally soup to nuts. He was recently divorced, and all he brought to the house was his toothbrush. I helped him design the house, and then all of the interiorseverything down to the dishes. I got lucky, because I got to do high-end, ground-up builds from the get-go.

From that moment, you were hooked?Shortly thereafter, I got engaged and then married, and my then husband sponsored me to do a designer showhouse in New London, New Hampshire. My mom and I did it togetherby then, she was getting more into interior design after that big commercial projectand thats when I started getting phone calls and picking up projects.

What I remember very specificallyand this is what has been really important for me to remember this past monthis knowing that I wanted a job where I could first and foremost be a mom. I had always wanted to be a mom who dropped my kids at school and picked them up every day, and who could take them on every field trip. I knew my job could not take me away from them, and interior design was perfect for that. So I always worked from home, and as my business grew and grew, I took my kids with me. I knew I was in trouble when I took Aiden, my oldest, to a job site right after he learned to walk. It was like, Well, this is dangerous. So after that, I had a nanny for 10 hours a week who would stay home with him when I had to go to job sites. But I always just told my clients, If you want me, Im a package deal. I have a baby strapped to my back. And it worked. For a long time, I did two to three projects on my own every year, and then usually one with my mom.

Did you have separate businesses?Yesher focus was originally retail, and then as she got into design work, it was more decorating, and I dont say that disparagingly. People would come into the store and buy furniture, and she would work with them, whereas I was really learning the construction end of the businessplumbing schedules and lighting and cabinetry and tile layouts and flooring. And then when we came together, I brought that skill set, she brought her great design eye, and we were a good team.

A porch with a cozy seating arrangement and expansive viewsBuddy Sanborn

You mentioned that from the beginning, you were working on high-end new builds. What was the scope of those projects?A few of those early jobs are on my website, but I was always bad about having my work photographed in the beginning. I think the smallest was probably 4,000 square feet, up to an 8,000-square-foot house. For the most part, these were all second homes. There were a few smaller-scale renovation jobs, too, but I didnt start by helping a friend design a powder room or anything like thatit was big stuff from the get-go. I dont think I realized how rare that was at the time. It was just what was there and what I was doing.

Is most of your work still secondary properties? How do you find that those clients needs or wants are different?Very much so. Where we live in New Hampshire was always a sweet spot: We live exactly an hour and a half from Boston, and we have beautiful lakes and mountains here, so a lot of my projects are lake houses and ski homes. When COVID hit I mean, its insane what has happened here with the real estate market.

For me, its so important to focus on how the spaces live. Im a form-follows-function designer anywaythats how I start all my projects. Its really understanding my clients lifestyle and then talking about what its going to look like aesthetically. Whos going to live in the space? How much gathering space do you need? How many bathrooms? Are there dogs in and out? Where do we put wet bathing suits? But having built my own primary residence, its really not that much different. Clients are not more budget-conscious because its their second homeif anything, I think theyre less budget-conscious. The only thing I always try to make them aware of is that these homes should be places where they can come up and not think about their house. Its important to put all that thoughtful infrastructure into place so that this really important quality time is seamless.

What does a full project load look like for you right now?I have a couple. I usually get involved in the preliminary design and development stage with the architect and builder, and have a voice in how everything gets selectedfrom analyzing and editing the floor plans, to understanding the systems of the house and how its going to function, and then building up from there. I specify all of the hard surfaces and always keep in mind the end function of the room: Are the windows too low in case I have to put furniture in front of it? Are the moldings going to work for window treatments? Are my clients left-handed or right-handed when designing a kitchen? Are the countertops high enough? Then it goes all the way through to developing the furniture floor plans and designs and the whole sampling process and purchasing and installing.

Shades of white envelop a comfortable bedroomStephanie Dollof

I know youve had a lot of changes in your personal life in the past month that have changed the way youre thinking about your business. Where are you at right now?Being an entrepreneur, your life and your work life dont separate. I dont want to overshare, and this is quite a lot, but on July 6, I had a mastectomy for breast cancer. That was a big deal. Ironically, my assistant had gone through the same thing and had just finished her treatment in April, so the silver lining in that was that she totally got it. Jackie is also so much more than my assistantI mean, shes like familyand she was like, OK, weve got this. We had it all organized so that we could put the business on hold for two to four weeks.

As I was recovering at home, I was thinking a lot about work and where it fits into my lifeespecially because I have three children of my own, ranging from age 13 to 20, along with two stepchildren. And then, two weeks post-surgery, my ex-husbandwhom I co-parented with very closelydropped dead of a heart attack on his 66th birthday. He died without a will, and its all very complicated, but there isnt anybody else to make arrangements, so it is falling on my shoulders. Ive spent the last three days making all of his service arrangements. Finally, I can talk about it today. The shock has worn off, but its just devastatingand its devastating to see my children going through this, and to know what theyll always go through.

So what Im trying to decide right now is what my business should look like and how many projects I should actually take on. Last year, my project load grew to about 35to the point where I had to categorize them as majors and minors. It was pretty much a 50/50 split. I grew my team, I grew my office, and I actually opened a store in 2020because everyone should have opened a retail store in the pandemic. What it taught me, even before all of this in the past month, is that it was too much for me. I think my sweet spot is four to seven majors and trying to weed out the minorswe all know it takes as much time and energy to design a powder room as it does an entire houseand it may even be fewer these next few years as I find myself a single parent and really needing to be there for my children.

You mentioned growing your firm. What set you on that path, and what does your team look like today?After my divorce, I was actually considering going into medicine. Ive been an EMT, and Id always loved medicineI was a pre-vet major in college before I switched to art historyso I was enrolled in school to become a physician assistant. I was sitting at the kitchen table one day with a design board on one side and my anatomy and physiology books on the other, and my boyfriend, whos now my husband, was looking at me going, What are you doing? You cant do both. And hes like, Youre really good at this, meaning the interior design. Give it a run. So I did.

What did that look like for you?At first, it was going from working out of a small home office to getting an office and a shingle on Main Street. At that time, I was working with a pretty big construction firm on a project here in town, and one day I was giving my paperwork to their in-house assistant when she asked me, So, who helps you? I was like, Me? And she said, We should talk someday. That was Jackie. She had been the assistant to a very prominent local interior designer who had retired a few years earlier. I talked to her, and it felt good. When I first hired her, I remember being like, OK, I think I can afford you four hours a week. And within three weeks, it was full-time and weve never looked back.

What changed?Its just allowed me to grow. In the pandemic, we moved our office a few miles, from Sunapee to New London. Then the building were in had a vacant retail space, and thats when I decided to open the store, which meant I needed to hire someone to help me run that, and I found this incredible young woman who has just been a rock star.

After that, I started working remotely with an interior design graduate student. She was living in Florida at the time and helping me with my CAD work, and then I hired her full-time and she moved to New Hampshire last fall. Unfortunately, that has not worked outshe didnt want to work full-time, and I really, really needed her to. At about the same time, I had hired another woman who had been working for an interior designer, but she only wanted to work remotely. We tried it, and it just wasnt a good fit. So we got as big as five of us, and Ive now scaled it back down to the three. But I get a lot of supplemental support, especially right now, from my mom. Shes now living in New Mexico and running stores there, but she lives in New Hampshire in the summers. And my husband has a very full-time job of his own in development, but he helps me with a lot of my construction projects as a project manager and supports me in my relationships with the subcontractors. Ive found through this time that Im not a good manager. I dont really like delegating, and I was finding that the bigger the team got, the less design work I was doing. And so Ive gotten pretty comfortable with the idea that I only want to scale the business so far.

Does that mean just taking on fewer projects and really choosing to do less?Yes. Well, maybe not doing less, but taking on the right projectsand really taking my time to vet the clients first. Ive gotten a lot more clear about that: We now have minimums for projects that we will take onand those have gone up significantly in the past six monthsso that we can insulate ourselves to only be available for the right big projects.

A gleaming kitchen features a textured backsplash patternStephanie Dollof

What makes a project the right fit these days?Ive gotten really clear about that through COVID. I think before Id have been ashamed to declare it, but Im very clear now that, honestly, it is people like myselfwho are my age, 48 or older, and who are building homes to support their family. They have kids and dogs. Theyre educated and like to travel. They like to be outdoorsy. I understand where theyre coming from, and I feel like I know their lifestylesI may not live it to quite the level that they do, but I get them and they get me. Ive always said my business functions on two key pillars: trust and communication, and the latter begets the first. Having done this for more than 20 years now, I can see that the few clients where weve had to go our separate ways were not my demographic.

How do you start to build that trust with a client?Communicate, communicate, communicate, and then document, document, document. That means making sure theres a long and lengthy intake discussion, and being transparent about pricing and talking about it early. Money is uncomfortable only if its not talked about, so I like to say, OK, this is what it costs. Once weve agreed to that, were going to move forward into design. And then once we get through that initial hiring agreement phase, Jackie takes care of the money. She does all the billing, and if they have a question about an invoice, they talk to Jackie. Thats worked really well, especially right now, and I think having that infrastructure also develops trust. Clients can see that this is a business, and it has the proper formats in place to take care of them.

When you decided not to be the person having conversations about invoices, what changed for you?It gave me freedom. And I shouldnt say I dont talk about moneyI understand they are making huge investments in their family and in their lives, both financially and with their time, and I try to understand what theyre comfortable spending money on and how much. As long as you know your boundaries ahead of time, they trust that youre not going to be bringing $15,000 end tables into the picture if its not appropriate or comfortable for them. Thats something I try to establish early on: Do they value quality? Are they name-brand shoppers? Or do they not care?

Name-brand shoppersthats such an interesting distinction to make. Do clients like that want that cachet, or is it about reassurance because its a brand theyve heard of?It can be both. But either way, those are typically not my ideal clients. Quality is important to me, and not being splashy. So if someone comes to the table [with different values], they usually get weeded out early on.

A lively wallcovering welcomes guests into the foyerCourtesy of Cicely Beston Interiors

How have you approached billing for your work?This is one of the things I think about the mostand this is one of the reasons I try to pick apart your podcasts and these 50 States Project articles! My favorite way to bill is commission: just a flat fee based on the cost of construction, which then gives me a furnishing allowance, and then my design fee is built into that. Right now, my design agreement lays out the scope of work and what they get for my fees, but I do currently offer an hourly fee for the smaller projects. As I try to weed those out of my business, though, Im transitioning back to just a flat fee formula again.

How did you arrive at that model?I hate billing hourly. Youve heard so many designers say the same thing: It might take me four hours to find a piece of trim, but it might take me 20and I dont want to tell you that. Sometimes things just fall into place, and other times youre searching and searching and searching. Years ago, I found this old formula that dictated that the furnishings allowance, excluding mattresses and window treatments, should be 20 percent of the cost of constructionthat allows the figure to scale to the level of the buildand that the interior design fee should be a percentage of that furnishings budget. And Ill tell you, it seems arbitrary, and I dont always explain that thats how Im landing on my numbers, but after using that formula on several very large projects and then trying to keep track of my hours, it works about the same.

Do you also charge a percentage markup on the product?We do. Ill be honest: Before, when I had very low overhead and it was just me working out of my home office, my margins were much lower. Now I have to look at this and go, This is not a hobby job; I have a team to support. So weve just run the numbers and landed on a percentage that keeps us all afloat. I also explain to my clients that my markup on furniture is a little higher than on construction items like tile, plumbing or electrical, because I have true wholesale accounts for the furnishings. Because of my retail store, I have stocking showroom pricing, and my higher markup is only applied to the things were getting at true, deep-discount wholesale. And so I do explain that to them, and I think they get that its different than if I was taking you into the design center and marking up something thats already been marked up.

I used to be a totally open book. Im not going to give clients my wholesale invoices, but again, it goes back to that level of trustthem understanding they have hired me as a trustworthy established professional, and then we go from there and usually the conversation is over.

They just see what its going to cost them.Yes. I know some designers go to retail and then discount it, but I dont. Its just, This is what your stuff will cost. But in the paperwork ahead of time, it is spelled out: Furnishings are marked up X, plumbing is marked up X, cabinetry is marked up X. There are different percentages depending on the cost that I get on that item and what I feel is fair to mark it up.

How does having a retail arm impact how you shop?I go to High Point and try to use all of my own wholesale vendors as much as possible. I havent gone to the Boston Design Center in two yearsand it has really miniaturizedbut I know my showrooms down there. For fabric and wallpaper, it feels like were back to the old model of reps coming to see me or sending me books, and then lots of online memo-ing. Back when I was in retail and doing a lot of buying, this was my favorite thing, so Ill just look endlesslyif I have this image in my mind of this bed that Im looking for, I look through all my wholesale accounts first. Ill just keep looking, and Ill find it. I also do a lot of antiquing, and then I have a lot of custom stuff made. Probably, about 30 percent of what we source is through custom workrooms and craftspeople. One of the nice things of having lived in the same area most of my life and having this be a family business is meeting people and developing very long-term relationships.

An inviting hearth beckons after a long day on the slopesStephanie Dollof

What kind of local design community exists? And what kind of community have you built for yourself?New London is very interior designdense. Where my office and store are located, theres literally another interior designer across the street, and then another one within the building. There are also several established architecture firms right in our town. I think it speaks to the clientele that we have, because were all really busy.

I do a lot of my own construction projects, where I will bring in painters, electricians and plumbers, and having had those relationships for a very long time, I can tell my clients, We trust these guys. My kids go to school with their kids, and theyre going to return your call on Christmas Eve if your boiler goes out. That is the nice part about living in a small community.

Where do you see the opportunity to grow?Well, before this past month, I had actually hired [luxury brand consultant] Rachael Bozsik to help me rebrand my businessI was going to do a virtual two-day intensive, but Ive had to put that on hold until April. The concept, though, was to establish myself as the preeminentmost experienced, most trustworthyinterior designer in New Hampshire. Her way of doing that isnt about getting published in AD, necessarily. Its about getting interviewed in the Sunday edition of The Boston Globe for your knowledge of the construction industrygetting me published in the articles that my clients are actually going to be reading, and establishing my expertise there. Thats where growth is going for me.

Im also changing how my store works. Right before I went in for surgery, I was in the process of moving my office to a new building in town. My property owners were very unfriendly people, and I had the opportunity to move into a gorgeous historic building that was just renovated by the client of a very dear friend. Its three times the square footage for a third less rent, so I get to expand my showroom, expand my design library, and have more office space. And better light!

Wow, thats amazing.Im very excited about putting the showroom back together once I can lift more than 10 pounds. In the process, Im moving away from the retail model, so its going to be more of a showroom. My post-pandemic hours had been Wednesday through Saturday, but now were probably going to be Monday through Fridaymaybe even just Tuesday through Fridayand its not going to be cash and carry. This is going to be about coming to try the sofa, look at the finish of a table, and then you order it. It's more to support the design business.

Is that a more sustainable model than holding inventory for a cash-and-carry store?Yes. Its the same thing as being more patient for the better, bigger projects. Youre not going to be getting those everyday instantaneous sales that are gratifying. Its a little bit slower, but I think its a lot more thoughtful.

The new space came about kind of in conjunction with my cancer diagnosis. I signed the lease on July 1, and my surgery happened on July 6. Then all this happened, and its like, OK, sometimes the universe really is watching after you and pushing you in the right direction. Its the right thing, I think, to support me, my family, my team and the business at this time. Its going to be pretty cool to be in our own building, too, and were really going to be able to graciously host our customers and clients.

What does success look like to you now today?I know more than ever that its taking care of my family and my team. That means running a well-organized business, and it means accepting help. And now, success for me means trusting. I havent stepped foot in my office in a month, and its all fine. Success is having a team, having a family and having my business be a large part of supporting that [balance,] both financially and in the time that I get to spendwhether its taking my daughter to her riding lesson and cooking my family dinner every night, or working late some nights and them understanding that. Its very clear to me now what success is.

That elusive concept of work-life balancewhat does that mean to you?Itll never go away. I like that the business is always in my mind. My family actually embraces that, but I think I do need to have better boundaries. And its probably simply just back to a lot of the other questions, which is taking on the right projects and the right clients, and not saying yes to everything, so that there is a little bit more work-life balance.

Its funnymy husband and I are starting the last little renovation project in our house, and part of it was going to be a pretty big home office, but weve recently decided were not going to do that. Its going to be a screened porch.

Thats such a beautiful representation of that mindset shift.It is. There will still be a little home office, but its tucked in the corner and its not so prominent. The kids know that Im always workingIm always checking emails and talking to clientsand they really love and support me. Theyve all said how proud they are of me, and that means a lot. I became an interior designer to become a mother. And these two major life events have given me a lot of clarity about how important the business is to me, but also how I just have to sort of reprioritize it a little bit. I feel like a good mom that I can show them what it is to run a business, but also be a mom first.

To learn more about Cicely Beston, visit her website or find her on Instagram.

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Why this New Hampshire designer is turning her shop into a showroom - Business of Home

Dana McMahan| Special to the Courier Journal

Im not a real interior designer, I just play one on Instagram.

Kidding. I didn't study design but have designed and renovated around a dozen kitchens over the last few years. Each has been unique, but my favorite project so far has been the complete, to-the-dirt renovation of the kitchen in a big, old Victorian in Beechmont that my best friend and I bought two years ago to "flip." (Thats air quotes because we poured every ounce of love and attention to detail into this kitchen and entire home, for that matter that we would have in either of our own homes.)

There were certainly challenges designing a kitchen with someone else, but the finished space which we wrapped less than 24 hours ago as I write this is truly a dream.

We cooked the inaugural meal there last night (lemon and summer squash risotto with a burrata and carrot salad) and as much as Ilove my own kitchen, I have to admit I have some burning kitchen envy over the one we designed together.So, how did we do it?Here are five tips to help anyone thinking of tackling their own kitchen renovation.

This may break some real estate rules, but we knew that for the look and feel we wanted a nostalgic glam that is luxurious but inviting we had to embrace rich color.

To set the stage for a space where you can't help but feel happy, we chose a vibrant hue from British paint company Farrow & Ball called Scotch Blue. It's a deep, decadent color and every other element from the matte white range to the brick chimney positively pops against it. Yes, it may be a bit unorthodox in a sea of white kitchens, but look: paint is one of the easiest things to change if need be, so we threw caution to the wind and are thrilled with the outcome.

Home of the WeekThis home was named 'Best Farmhouse Remodel' in Louisville. Take a peek inside

Now, a word of caution: with the super saturated walls, things could easily veer overboard. Following Coco Chanels wisdom to look in the mirror and take one thing off, we dialed everything else back, leaning toward warm whites and greys everywhere else with some pops of complementary colors in the marble countertops.

Tell me I'm not the only one with a kitchen where dance parties erupt on the regular. When friends gather at my and my husbands Old Louisville home, it's not uncommon for the night to end with us taking turns yelling at the smart speaker to play our favorite songs. So ensuring there would be room around the island in this kitchen for not just cooking together, but any type of entertaining was a top priority for me.

There are minimum clearances you ought to have between different parts of the kitchen, but I would swap counter space for more generous walk space any day of the week so we very intentionally sized and placed the counters to allow an abundance of space around them that far exceeds requirements.

When I visited the ceramic tile show in Bologna, Italy, last year, large format tiles were all the rage. It was a little intimidating to think about working with massive, two-feet-by-four-feet, tiles for the kitchen floor, and to be honest, the tile installers weren't our biggest fans when they saw these behemoths.

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But the result? They make the kitchen feel spacious and open, where a smaller tile could have felt busy and served to shrink the kitchen visually. We also set them on an angle at the recommendation of the tile designer (who happened to be a friend of my partner on this project), and that unexpected look gives the kitchen a fresh and contemporary feel.

In my home kitchen, I was lucky to find a floor model red Bertazzoni range for half price and was blown away by the impact the racy Italian design had on the space. (Side note: I'm still waiting for someone to explain why such a small country has so much of the world's most beautiful design!). The range was 36-inches, and even though that reduced my counter space, it has been well worth it for the ability to cook up a storm on the six burners.

So I knew it had to be 36-inches for this space, and as the crown jewel of the kitchen, it had to be Bertazzoni, this time in an elegant matte-white finish. Its so sleek yet means business for food lovers with its beefy knobs and heavy-duty grates. In fact, I have loved my experience with my own range so much that I teamed up with them on a brand ambassadorship. But even if I hadn't swapped content creation (watch out for this kitchen on Bertazzonis social media channels!) for a trade price, I'd have made room in the budget for the splurge. A gorgeous range is the single element that, in my mind, takes a kitchen from lovely to absolutely swoon-worthy.

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A fortune cookie I recently opened read "great things are made of little things."

As we were making and sitting down to our dinner at the island the other night, Michael and I both kept finding ourselves delighted with decisions we'd made along the way because we took the time to think about the little things, a lot. Whether that was the placement of light switches, how and where to template the marble counters for the absolute perfect pattern, or little niceties like pull-out drawers in base cabinets to make it easier to access things, we treated even small decisions like they were much bigger.

Use your imagination from early on in the process and really picture yourself using the kitchen. Walk around it. Envision cooking in it and welcoming friends. Ask yourself where will they sit? Where will you put groceries when you come into the house? Where will you mix a drink or peel your vegetables? Where does your phone charge?

Design it for the way you live, for the look you love, and you'll end up with the kitchen of your dreams.

Tell Dana! Send your restaurant Dish to Dana McMahan at thecjdish@gmail.com and follow@bourbonbarbarellaon Instagram.

Courier Journal columnist Dana McMahan and her business partner, Michael Downey, renovated this kitchen inside a sprawling Victorian in Louisville's Beechmont neighborhood. Here's what you can find inside:

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5 kitchen renovation tips to end up with your dream cooking place - Courier Journal

It looks like there's been a slight detour inJennifer Lopez and Ben Affleck's wedding festivities.

On Aug. 19, the couple wereseen accompanying Ben's mother,Chris Anne Boldt, at a local hospital inSavannah, Ga. In photos published by the Daily Mail, Jennifer walked alongside her husband as the Oscar winner's mom was being pushed in a wheelchair by a medical worker.

Pictures taken from earlier in the day also showed an ambulance arriving and leaving the venue where J.Lo and Ben's wedding celebration is to be held this weekend.

A source previously told E! News that the "Marry Me" singer and the Tender Bar actor, who tied the knot in an impromptuLas Vegas ceremonylast month, have been hard at work "putting the final touches on everything" as they prepare to celebrate their recent marriage with friends and family at a lavish bashin Georgia.

A second insider noted that the weekend-long affairis being planned by interior designer and event plannerColin Cowie, with lifestyle guruJay Shettypresiding over the actual ceremony.

Excerpt from:
Jennifer Lopez Visits Hospital With Ben Affleck and His Mom Ahead of Wedding Weekend - E! NEWS

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Eastwing Architects is a firm offering client-focused residential and commercial architectural design services. Based in Baltimore, Maryland, the company works hard to provide high-quality additions, renovations, and new constructions to its clients. You can find out more by visiting the website ateastwingarchitects.com.

Source:https://thenewsfront.com/eastwing-architects-are-helping-residential-and-commercial-clients-to-create-their-dream-spaces/

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Eastwing Architects Are Helping Residential and Commercial Clients to Create their Dream Spaces - GlobeNewswire

Once-in-a-generation advances in commercial technology will fundamentally strengthen the U.S. economic and security posture in space

Policy makers are right to expect the national security establishment to find ways to fully leverage the innovations and investment in commercial space capabilities like launch and imagery.

But far less obvious and yet more profound is a very real revolution that is well underway: the wholesale overhaul of our national security space architecture into a hybrid design that effectively integrates the best of commercial and government investments.

This transformation of our national security space architecture is prompted not only by the amazing and innovative developments in the commercial space sector, but also by the realization that our adversaries are determined to displace the United States leadership in space and target our currently vulnerable space based capabilities if conflict arises on Earth.

These twin motivations are driving a once-in-a-generation series of changes that will fundamentally strengthen the U.S. economic and security posture in space.

Those leading the redesign of our national security space architecture in both the intelligence community and the Department of Defense are quietly but effectively utilizing three distinct approaches to capture the best of commercial space capabilities and adapt them to our national security needs.

The first approach is to augment government developed capabilities with commercial products and services. Recently, the National Reconnaissance Office awarded the largest contracts for commercial imagery in its history. When combined with exquisite imagery provided by government developed sources, this approach will dramatically increase intelligence capacity and provide the U.S. the ability to share with the world what we see from space without disclosing intelligence sources and methods.

Another far less visible approach being employed is to take advantage of the innovation and venture investment in commercial space technologies while adapting them to national security needs. The next generation of intelligence satellites now being developed will use flight proven hardware bought from commercial spacecraft manufacturers and adapt it with government payloads in order to lower cost and speed deployment.

This is not merely a plan. The first of these hybrid satellites are already being tested in space, having gone from idea to orbit in less than three years, a fraction of the traditional timeframe to develop and launch a new capability.

By radically lowering the cost of these hybrid satellites, we can afford many more of them which not only improves the technical performance of the constellation but also dramatically increases architectural resilience. Proliferation of many more hybrid surveillance satellites makes it harder for adversaries to track, target and disrupt or destroy our spacecraft in the event of conflict.

The final hybrid approach being utilized is the incorporation of commercially derived business models by traditional defense firms. The proliferation of commercial space providers has created a highly technical aerospace workforce that operates more like a Silicon Valley startup than a large defense contractor.

In order to fully capitalize on this, we are seeing large defense firms partner with or acquire space startups and allow their commercial best practices to flourish in order to rapidly experiment and develop capabilities, while the established defense firm provides the government with a proven ability to perform classified integration and delivery.

Combining the reliability and the assurance of the cleared defense industrial base with the speed and innovation of our space entrepreneurs is another hybridization approach already showing positive results.

As good as they are, current commercial space capabilities are not a replacement for government developed national security capabilities, nor should the U.S. be content to rely exclusively on commercial solutions for national security. Doing so may save money, but effectively reduces our technical capabilities to what anyone (including our adversaries) can acquire in the marketplace.

However, by quietly and creatively blending the best practices from both commercial and defense sectors in order to produce hybrid space capabilities, we can increase our economic as well as national security.

John Paul (JP) Parker served as U.S. intelligence community space executive from 2018 to 2022, and previously served as a special advisor for space, cyber and intelligence to the Vice President of the United States.

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Op-ed | Why a hybrid space architecture makes sense for economic and national security - SpaceNews

Jamison Properties Jaime Lee and rendering of 3000 Wilshire Boulevard, Koreatown (Jamison Services, USC Lusk, Getty)

Jamison Services is tearing it up in Koreatown.

The Los Angeles neighborhoods most prolific developer has demolished a commercial building near Lafayette Park to build a seven-story apartment building at 3000 Wilshire Boulevard, Urbanize Los Angeles reported.

Plans call for a 188-unit building with 867 square feet for a ground-floor shop or restaurant on the now-vacant lot. An underground parking garage would serve 117 cars on two levels.

Requested approvals include Transit Oriented Communities affordable housing incentives, which allow greater density and reduced parking in exchange for 17 affordable new apartments for extremely low-income households.

The gray-and-white building, designed by DG Architectural Consulting and Gaudet Design Group, would include a rooftop patio deck and inner courtyard.

The upper building facade has been designed to evoke the boulevards classic and elegant residential towers by utilizing vertical window clusters alternating with dark metal and light stucco panels, reads a design narrative included with the projects entitlement package.

The base of the building would include a grand residential entrance portico faced with Calacatta tile, with a warm tile accent at the base of the retail store.

The project is the third Jamison development on Wilshire, between Hoover Street and Wilshire Place, after the 25-story, 644-unit Kurve on Wilshire tower and a 262-unit building proposed at 3020 Wilshire Boulevard

Jamison Services is a unit of Jamison Properties, Koreatowns largest commercial landlord.

Jamison Services just filed plans to convert the 13-story Pierce National Life Building, an office fixture in Koreatown for a half century at 3807-3815 Wilshire Boulevard, into 176 apartments.

It owns other office and residential buildings near Wilshire/Western Station, including the Art Deco Wilshire Professional Building. It just broke ground on a 230-unit apartment building next door.

In June, Jamison Properties won preliminary approval to build a 127-unit, mixed-use tower at 626 Kingsley Drive in Koreatown.

Dana Bartholomew

Contact Dana Bartholomew

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Jamison to raze building for 188 apartments in Koreatown - The Real Deal

Roofing can be a tricky business. Besides the payment setbacks faced by many contractors, the roofing field has its own set of challenges, and some roofers have been under scrutiny during a continually developing property insurance crisis in the Southeast.

However, that hasnt stopped Americas top roofing contractors from thriving as we are well into 2022, with ENRs most recent list of the largest contractors in the U.S. showing that revenues for these companies easily topped $2 billion in the past year. Lets take a look at the top 10 roofing contractors in the U.S. by total revenue.

Total revenue: $700.8 million

Previous years rank: 1

Centimark Corp. is a Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania-based roofer. Outside its basis, it has over 95 offices throughout North America.

The company offers services in reroofing, new construction, protection measures, repairs, and cleaning alongside various other options in commercial asset management.

Alongside offering options for TPO & PVC, EPDM, SPF, metal, and Mod-Bit & BUR roofs, Centimark also provides consultancy for green roofing options such as solar panels or garden roofs.

Centimark also has a respectable recent history when it comes to payment. Its Levelset payment score is a B, with the company earning 83 out of a possible 100 points.

The company also has a history of being at the top of the roofing industry. Besides ranking as the top roofing contractor on ENRs most recent Top 600 Specialty Contractors list, the company has come in at the top spot of these rankings since 2017.

Total revenue: $564.5 million

Previous years rank: 2

Flynn Group is a Winnipeg, Canada-based roofing company that offers not only commercial roofing contracting, but also a range of architectural products and roofing services, including metal paneling, contract glazing and curtain wall. The company does work across North America, employing over 6,000 people.

Flynn offers work in roofing, glazing, and architectural paneling, advertising expertise in government buildings, schools, churches, hospitals, offices, hotels, sports and recreation centers, retail buildings, data centers, and industrial structures.

Total revenue: $254.9 million

Previous years rank: 3

Baker Roofing Company is a roofer based in Wilmington, North Carolina that was founded in 1915. Outside of its basis, the company has locations across the Southeast, with additional offices in Alabama, Georgia, Florida, South Carolina, Tennessee, and Virginia.

The company offers commercial roofing services in roof maintenance, roof repair, reroofing, and new construction, and has a history of working with major companies in the U.S., such as Wal-Mart and Target Corp.

Baker Roofing has an impressive payment history, with the company earning an A payment score from Levelset, with 95 out of a possible 100 points allocated.

Of course, like any big company, Baker has run into its fair share of payment issues, though mainly serving on the side trying to recover payment. Levelset notes eight liens filed involving Baker Roofing during 2020 and 2021, with the company serving as the claimant in seven of them.

Total revenue: $237.5 million

Previous years rank: 4

Nations Roof is a contractor based in Mobile, Alabama that has a strong geographical reach, with 33 additional locations across the United States.

According to the company, its operations have significantly expanded recently, as it claims to have grown over 60% during the past four years.

The company stays busy, too and seems to be especially effective with payment even when doing so. Nations Roof claims to often have projects going on simultaneously in all 50 U.S. states, and Levelset project information connects the contractor to at least 2,664 jobs in the past year.

Additionally, the Nations Roof has an A payment score from Levelset, with the company earning a 93 out of 100.

Recent major roofing projects for Nations Roof include:

Total revenue: $137.8 million

Previous years rank: 5

Kalkreuth Roofing and Sheet Metal is a contractor with locations in Kentucky, Maryland, Ohio, Pennsylvania, and West Virginia.

The company has a wide reach, working in historic restoration, entertainment, retail, government, healthcare, education, and transportation industries.

The company has also earned additional recognition for its speciality work: Other than its ENR ranking of fifth among roofers, Metal Construction News also ranked Kalkreuth as the seventh-best metal roofing contractor in the US.

Its done a fine job with payment along the way, too the company has a B payment score from Levelset, scoring an 81 out of 100.

Kalkreuth has made a significant impact with its work, as well, working on a number of high-profile projects:

Total revenue: $79 million

Previous years rank: 7

With a presence in Detroit, Michigan and Hamilton, Ontario, Canada, Schreiber Corp. is a roofing company founded in 1916.

The company notes that its location matters significantly, saying that the majority of its work comes from Detroit-area organizations: 80% of our business is with repeat customers such as Ford Motor Company, General Motors Corporation, the U.S. Dept. of Energy, Dupont and FCA (Fiat-Chrysler).

Some of the companys most significant recent projects include:

Total revenue: $72.5 million

Previous years rank: 9

Advertising themselves as the largest roofer in Florida, the Pompano Beach-based Latite Roofing has been active for over 75 years. Outside of its headquarters, the company has offices in the Fort Myers-Naples, Tampa-St. Petersburg, and Palm Beach-Treasure Coast areas.

The company has an average payment history, with a current C payment score, earning a 75 out of 100.

With services offered for both residential and commercial projects, Latite Roofing has a portfolio that includes a number of large undertakings:

Total revenue: $66.2 million

Previous years rank: 10

Alpharetta, Georgia-headquartered Roof Depot Inc. is a roofing contractor that focuses on the Southeast United States, with experience in commercial, multi-family, and industrial building projects. Outside its Georgia location, the company additionally has presences in North Carolina, Texas, and Florida.

Roof Depot offers a wide range of services, saying that they have the capability to handle a diverse variety of projects, including single-family residences or multi-building/ multi-type projects with flat, low slope, steep slope, tile, or slate systems.

Its portfolio is heavily focused on hospitality and residential projects, with experience working for companies such as Hilton Brands, Marriott, and Chick-fil-a alongside private residences.

The company has done a fair job of staying on top of its payment responsibilities, as well, earning a B payment score from Levelset with an 81 out of 100.

Total revenue: $53.1 million

Previous years rank: 11

Bulldog Group is a group of independently-operated companies with a common ownership, which includes multiple roofing affiliates. The group operates in the Southeast US, with licenses to operate in 10 states.

The group includes Allied Roofing Company, Applied Roofing Solutions, Reliance Roofing & Waterproofing, CityScape Roofing, Triad Roofing, Coastal Commercial Roofing Company, and Triangle Roofing Services. Those which have a Levelset payment score CityScape, Coastal Commercial, and Triangle all have an average history for payment speed, each earning C payment scores with scores of 75 out of 100.

Bulldog Groups roofing affiliates have taken on some large projects in recent years, as well:

Total revenue: $51.5 million

Previous years rank: 12

The Denver, Colorado-based Douglass Colony Group is a roofing contractor that has three locations in the state, specializing in the Rocky Mountain Region.

The company provides a large range of services, employing over 400 people in sectors offering commercial roofing, solar installation, waterproofing, and metals and FRAMECAD specialization.

Douglass has taken on roofing work for some of the most significant and noticeable projects in the Denver area:

Douglass Google presence is mixed, with a 3.1 star rating from 35 reviews of the company.

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The 10 Biggest Roofing Companies in the U.S. in 2022 - Levelset

GREATER GRAND CROSSING A team of investors has joined forces to bring luxury, energy-efficient container homes to the South Side and neighbors could move in as soon as this winter.

Vincennes Village, a collection of 12 40-foot-long modern, eco-friendly container homes, will be built at 7231 S. Vincennes Ave.

The project is the brainchild of project manager Darryl Burton, owner of Global Financial Services, and developer Anthony Casboni, former owner of the demolished Vincennes Discount Center and a retired firefighter.Onyx Architectural Services, a minority-owned firm, is the lead developer.

The homes built from 8-foot-wide train shipping containers will have ceilings nearly 10 feet high. They will have 1,200-1,800 square feet of space, two stories and three to four bedrooms. The homes will include full appliances, including an indoor washer and dryer, as well as a balcony, a covered patio and car garages.

Each home will also be energy efficient, with motion-activated lights and faucets and state of the art material anyone might find in a traditional wooden house, Burton said. Pricing for the homes will start at $300,000, developers said.

Construction on the container homes will begin in the next few months once the final blueprints are stamped by the Department of Buildings, Burton said.

Vincennes Village will welcome its first families by Christmas, Burton said.

We decided to develop a practical and innovative approach to constructing new homes, Burton said. Everything about the house will be upscale. Were bringing suburban living to a city block.

Vincennes Village was born out of a chance encounter between Burton and Casboni.

Alongside his late brothers, Casboni was the owner of Vincennes Discount Center, a family-owned business that spent more than 60 years in Greater Grand Crossing, Casboni said.

To the north and south of the business were apartment buildings that became dilapidated, Casboni said. When the city demolished the buildings, Casboni and his brothers bought the lots from the city in the early 90s, he said.

As the years went by, the Casbonis decided to semi-retire from their business and tore down Vincennes Discount Center around 2001, Casboni said.

Left with a large patch of land from the store and about 20 vacant lots from the apartment buildings, the Casbonis decided to build eight homes where the store once operated, Casboni said.

When the housing market collapsed in 2008, the brothers took a breather from building the homes, Casboni said.

But as the years trickled on, they struggled to find the right developer to assist in bringing homes to the community, Casboni said.

In April 2021, Casboni met Burton, a mover and a shaker with a creative idea to transform his vacant land, Casboni said.

It interested me because the process seemed fast and innovative, Casboni said. You can build the homes quickly, and theyre secure. Theyre durable, and they have an appealing, modern look.

Casboni and Burton have never built container homes, but theyve traveled throughout the states to look at container home communities, Burton said. What they saw solidified their decision, Casboni said.

Container homes enhance communities, Burton said. Thats what were in the process of doing. The community can be elevated.

Burton said Vincennes Village is an innovative approach to solving two nationwide problems: excess train containers and a housing shortage.

Empty train containers are permeating our planet, Burton said. And there is a delinquency in homeownership, particularly in the wards not normally served by the city, he said.

Their train container homes will repurpose a product that has been dormant and transform it into something a lot more tangible, Burton said.

Container homes can also be rehabbed and sold in half the time and half the costs as a traditional wooden house, Burton said.

Once their permits are approved, all theyll have to do is connect the containers and design the inside, Burton said. The homes will be ready in three to four months, he said.

When you compare a traditional home to a container home, youll come back to the container home, Burton said. The amenities are the same, but it requires less money, maintenance and upkeep. Homeownership becomes practical for everyone involved.

Vincennes Village will appeal to working families living in the community who want to enhance their way of living, developers said.

The homes will be minutes away from the Dan Ryan Expressway, a shopping center and the 75th Street Boardwalk.

And if the $300,000 starting price looks steep, a person paying $1,500 in rent in the neighborhood can afford the house, Burton said.

Vincennes Village will start with 12 homes, but Burton and Casboni hope to add eight more down the line, they said. Commercial development isnt off the table, they said.

The South Side has numerous vacant lots. Our goal is to permeate the communities with an innovative approach to living, Burton said. The idea is taking off. We see this as the future of Chicago.

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$300,000 Luxury Container Homes Are Coming To The South Side This Winter - Block Club Chicago

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By Tina Traster

County Executive Ed Day is mad and hes not mincing his words.

In a sharply worded letter dated Aug. 16 sent to the countys five town supervisors, Day says he is still awaiting information or suggestions on an alternative site to build a new county animal shelter while the deadline for a construction bid for the Hi-Tor Animal Shelter rebuild is set to expire in mid-September.

Despite promising to be part of the solution, to date we have not received any suggestions, calls, follow-up meetings, or promised shovel-ready locations for a new shelter submitted from anyone, Day wrote.

In July, the new shelter project, thought to be on track, stalled when the County Legislature tabled a resolution to fund the project, which called for an additional $10 million to the already earmarked $8 million for building a state-of-the-art 14,000 square-foot facility on site at the shelters current location in Pomona. In delaying the vote, county legislators raised questions over who would head up the shelter, saying they wanted more exploration on the subject.

Subsequently, town supervisors began to suggest that alternative sites should be considered for the purpose of potentially saving taxpayer money and it would be an opportunity to relocate a shelter away from the sound of fireworks at the nearby Clover Stadium. The issue over the fireworks has been going on for several years, but may be moot as officials at Clover Stadium plan to switch to quieter and less disruptive fireworks beginning next season.

This upheaval over whether to fund the shelter or where it should be sited has blown a long-awaited shelter upgrade off course, leading Day to say in this letter: You are all playing with fire by risking precious taxpayer dollars while putting the safety of these animals at risk.

Day in the letter points out that county taxpayers have already invested $524,963 in architectural and engineering services in addition to the hundreds of thousands spent over the years to keep this shelter running.

Concern over Hi-Tors future began nearly a year before the Legislature tabled the vote.

For months, questions have swirled around who will run the shelter, particularly as Rockland Green, the former Rockland County Solid Waste Management Authority, set out to change its mission to control animal management and expressed interest in taking over shelter management when the new shelter is built.

Rockland Greens Chairman Howard Phillips, who is also the Town Supervisor of Haverstraw, has repeatedly said in public forums that Hi-Tor needs new leadership, and more recently hes raised the notion that the shelter rebuild should not necessarily be constructed on the Pomona site, which has been in the making for years. He, along with the other supervisors, have been suggesting alternative sites, though at least one in Orangetown has been rejected.

Town Supervisor Jim Monaghan, who said hes open to all possibilities, said there is no suitable site in Stony Point.

Im not leading the charge but Im open to all options, said Monaghan. Im open to moving forward with current shelter if theres suitable taxpayer savings and if its good for the animals.

Town Supervisor Michael Specht, who also noted that hes not leading this effort, said theres a town-owned site of vacant land in Torne Valley that might be suitable. The remote site in the far western corner of the county, Specht said, is adjacent to Rockland Greens facilities.

Theres a location thats owned by the town thats not far from Rockland Green facility thats one of the options but at this time I have to defer to Phillips, who is taking the lead, who is the most senior of the supervisors, who is acting as the spokesman.

Phillips says the town supervisors are working to find a solution.

The cost of the bids and proposals that came back to the county were exorbitantly high and that as elected officials we needed to further investigate and see whether or not we could reduce the cost to the taxpayer, said Phillips. At the same meeting, it was expressed that there was a petition opposing the new shelter at its current location because of the fireworks from Boulder Stadium affecting the animals. It was obvious to everyone that attended that we needed to look at alternatives. We are continuing to do so and as everyone knows its extremely challenging to get everyone together during the summer.

But the New York Boulders team president Shawn Reilly said the stadium plans to switch up the fireworks for all but two of its shows with explosives that have a lower profile and that are substantially less noisy. These fireworks will be more like shooting off Roman candles as opposed to commercial grade fireworks. We want to be good neighbors, he said.

It is unclear as to whether the supervisors are casting for a plot of vacant land or are contemplating proposals on rehabbing an existing building. Either way, a modern, state-of-the-art shelter is an expensive proposition because it must take into account accommodations for ventilation, interior design, odor and noise control, security, sound buffers, bacterial controls, impermeable floors, and outdoor space for the dogs.

With his hands tied, and the construction bid at risk, Day is urging the supervisors to act.

We have an extension on the construction bid until mid-September, which will need to be reissued if it expires, and given inflationary pressures, I can only assume that would increase the cost yet again and further burden Rockland taxpayers, which must be avoided at all costs.

Responding to concerns from both legislators and town supervisors over who will run the shelter, the countys Department of General Services Purchasing Department on July 19 posted a Request for Information on Bidnet, a statewide municipal bidding website for an entity to provide animal shelter management and operation services.

The county said it was seeking to identify organizations that can either provide services at the existing facility for 24 months beginning Jan. 2023 or one that would be interested in operating a new facility when completed, or both.

Last week, just two entities both in the business of managing animals responded to Rockland Countys invitation to express interest in running the county-owned animal shelter. But only Hi-Tor, which has been running the shelter for 50 years, said it wanted to run the shelter as it exists now, and in the future when and if a new shelter is built.

In contrast, The Hudson Valley Humane Society, also located in Pomona, threw its hat in the ring but only showed an interest in running the long hoped-for but stalled multi-million-dollar shelter that has now become the fulcrum of much tension and controversy.

This recent Request for Information (RFI) underlines something weve said repeatedly, which is Hi-Tor is the only organization willing to utilize that outdated facility, said Day. Day urges the supervisors to either provide detailed alternative solutions or reaffirm their commitment to move forward with the new shelter.

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Ed Day Admonishes Town Supervisors For Inaction On Finding Alternative Site For Animal Shelter Rebuild - Rockland County Business Journal

Key Takeaways

Legacy applications are often stuck in the slow lane: aging and brittle, poorly understood and barely supported, and based on aging technologies, they are often the last applications to benefit from modern concepts like continuous delivery. Yet because of their potential instability, they are actually the applications that benefit most from concepts like a Minimum Viable Product (MVP) and its related Minimum Viable Architecture (MVA).

How can this be true? Most legacy applications are relatively monolithic and defy being released incrementally.

Once you realize that every release is an experiment in value in which the release either improves the value that customers experience or doesnt, you realize that every release, even one of a legacy application, can be thought of in terms of an MVP. Each release is really an MVP that relates to the added value that you are looking to deliver. Therefore each release also has an MVA. Concepts like MVP and MVA provide teams with a laser focus on what is absolutely necessary to test their hypotheses about what changes customers will really value.

Since the MVP concept is most often associated with new products, it might be better to think of each new release of an existing application as a minimum viable increment, or the minimum set of changes that the team thinks will result in an improvement in the value that customers experience. But since the term MVP already has currency, well continue using it.

As we noted in prior articles, an MVA is the minimum amount of architecture needed to ensure that the MVP satisfies its Quality Attribute Requirements or QARs. Since architecture, for us, is primarily about technical decisions, the MVA for a legacy application release represents the minimum set of application changes that the team needs to make to ensure that the release supports its QARs.

The release-readiness MVP criteria are typically focused on whether the release will let the team test its understanding of the desired outcomes for customers; MVPs are not "technical proofs of concept". Similarly, the release readiness of the MVA can be determined by evaluating whether the changes being made to the legacy application will ensure that the release will be able to meet the QARs for the application and, in so doing, sustainably meet customer needs.

Figure 1: MVP & MVA provide a "lens" to look at legacy systems in a new way

Process Challenges:One of the criteria for any release, and especially applications on which the organization depends, is that the application will have passed a set of tests (ideally automated) that validate that the release candidate satisfies its QARs. Running manual tests to evaluate QARs is too cumbersome and error-prone to be reliable. The lack of automated tests to determine whether a release meets its functional requirements and QARs is one of the factors that prevent organizations from delivering value in small increments.

Other factors sometimes prevent organizations from releasing in small increments, leading them to release changes in relatively large, complicated increments. These include:

With the exception of regulatory constraints, these can all be fixed but they take time and concerted effort.

Paying down debt, when you have a chance, sounds like a good thing, right?

Organizations are sometimes tempted to do extra technical work, to modernize, or reduce their technical debt because, as they may rationalize, "were going to be working on that part of the application anyway, so we should clean things up while we are there." While well-intentioned, this is almost always a bad decision that results in unnecessary cost and delay because once started, its very hard to decide to stop.

This is where the concept of the MVA pays dividends: it gives everyone a way to decide what changes must be made, and which changes should not be made, at least not yet. If a change is necessary to deliver the desired customer outcome for a release, then its part of the MVA, otherwise, its out.

Sometimes, a team may look at the changes needed to an application and decide, considering the state of the code, that a complete rewrite is in order. The MVA concept, applied to legacy applications, helps to temper that by questioning whether the changes are really necessary to produce the incremental improvements in customer outcomes that are desired.

The application may, indeed, be too far gone to be extended but, in our experience, "total rewrites" almost never succeed either (weve never seen, or even heard, of one of these projects actually delivering anything.) If youre really going back to the drawing board, dont rewrite the existing system; instead, start from the customers desired outcomes and look for different ways to deliver them.

The MVA has an effect on the MVP, especially for legacy applications. Both MVA and MVP include an important word: viability. If in evaluating the changes that the team needs to make to the application in order to deliver the MVP, they determine that it is too expensive to achieve the MVP in a sustainable way, the MVP needs to be reconsidered and potentially changed.

The Minimum Viable Architecture ("MVA") approach (see our article "A Minimum Viable Product Needs a Minimum Viable Architecture") provides you with a way to decide how much modernization is "good enough" in order to deliver an MVP. Creating an MVA as part of an MVP delivery effort helps you evaluate the technical viability and to provide a stable foundation for the product that can be adapted as the product evolves. Making the MVA architectural decisions transparent helps the organization better understand why certain choices have been made, which helps them make better decisions about how they can adapt the product to changing market conditions and evolving customer needs.

QARs drive your decisions: The most important MVA architectural decisions that you need to make may be to select the minimum amount of architecture components enabling the MVP to handle QARs that are associated with product/system characteristics such as:

For example, lets assume that you are planning to build a mobile app to support the launch of a product in a new market, using open-source or commercial frameworks that help you to quickly deliver an MVP while creating a new interface to legacy system data. In doing so, the legacy application will inevitably be subjected to workloads that it was not designed to handle. Will those increased workloads cause the legacy system to fail? Will the additional workloads threaten the ability of the legacy system to satisfy its QARs for existing users? Does the mobile application change the QARs for the legacy system?

Inevitably, new applications that access data from legacy systems will change the QARs of the legacy system by changing workload, throughput, responsiveness, and security-related requirements, among others. Legacy systems were not built to support the needs of the users of new applications, and those needs must be taken into account when deciding how much and where to modify legacy systems. In some cases, no amount of work will enable the legacy system to meet the new QARs, and in those cases, the legacy system will have to be replaced in order to enable the new applications.

Empiricism is a powerful tool for evaluating these questions, and each release of the new mobile application will, at the very least, create an opportunity to assess whether the architecture of the legacy system can support the new demands being made on it. It is likely that the development team will need to modify the legacy application to meet the new QARs. Considering the legacy application changes as part of an MVA for the mobile application will help the team decide how much change to undertake to accomplish the goals of the mobile applications MVP release.

QARs are a very useful tool for diagnosing areas for potential improvement in a legacy system. Focusing on QARs can help you limit the scope of the change to only what is minimally needed, right now in order to support the MVP. This helps to prevent sliding down the slippery slope to a "total rewrite", which is expensive, time-consuming, prone to failure, and often unnecessary for the MVP.

Limit the scope of the new functionality: Resist the temptation to go beyond the scope of the MVP and turn this effort into a much larger one by including "nice to have" features that are unnecessary for the MVP. Domain-driven design (DDD), which is an extremely powerful approach to software development, is a very efficient technique for identifying the scope of the new functionality that needs to be implemented in support of the MVP and limiting it to precisely what is needed.

Try to decouple and simplify system components. One of the challenges in working with legacy systems is that they lack modularity, many of them having been written at a time when modular code was not encouraged and most code reuse happened through "copy and paste." While it is tempting to refactor all of this redundant code, stay within the bounds of what you need to do to support the MVP. When you do need to refactor or replace code, make the new code modular and reusable. Microservices play well here as well as serverless functions in some cases. Replace code with calls to shared components or services in the applications you need to change, but also make notes for other applications that may have similar opportunities. That way, when other teams have to modify their applications to use similar services, they will have a bit of a head start.

Start shifting new work away from legacy systems. Unless it is dramatically simpler and more sustainable to implement new capabilities in the legacy system, develop new business capabilities associated with the MVP with modern technology, such as cloud-based services. If the new functionality has to be initiated from an older program, write a new component or service for the new work and just call it from the old code. Over time, the decoupling work mentioned above plus moving new code to modern technologies will shrink the amount of legacy code you need to worry about.

Using patterns such as the "strangler pattern", or the "branch by abstraction" pattern, as well as implementing a gateway to route requests to the new MVA components when applicable may be helpful for this migration. Keep in mind that all approaches and tools have limitations. For example, using the "strangler pattern" is appropriate for migrating well-defined functionality chunks from a single application, but may not be the right approach if you need to replace broken infrastructure that affects dozens of applications.

Start identifying "dead code" and opportunistically eliminate it. Use static and dynamic code analysis tools to find out what parts of the legacy system arent used anymore, within the scope of the MVA. Target dead code for elimination (but dont jump right in just yet - beware of scope creep). This can extend to reports - old systems produce a lot of them, and some (or many) may not be useful to anyone anymore; the business may have changed while the system did not. Identifying code that is no longer useful can help a team more easily see whether that code would impact the MVA. The less code you deploy, the more reliable the rest of the code, and the lighter the system use of critical system resources. Even if the team decides not to eliminate the code, they should identify the potential for removal of dead code to help other teams with their future decisions.

Organizational technology standards perpetuate legacy systems. Organizational technology standards are useful to prevent unsupportable configurations and combinations of infrastructural technologies from multiplying, but if retained too long they can keep an organization rooted in the past, unable to adapt to the future. Using the MVA concept can help an organization understand whether a new technology is truly needed to enable a team to deliver a particular MVP. With the proof that the MVA provides, an organization can decide whether the MVP is truly strategic and therefore a change in the technology standards is warranted.

Where should you store MVA data? One of the key MVA decisions is to choose a data store for the data associated with the MVP. Some of this data is likely to already exist in a legacy data store, and in most cases, additional data will need to be captured and stored. That data can either be incorporated into a legacy data store, or a new, more modern DBMS can be implemented to store the new data. The first approach simplifies data aggregation and reporting, at the cost of expanding the use of a technology that may be slated for retirement - for example, IMS/DB. It may be appropriate if a small percentage of the existing MVA legacy data needs to be added to support the MVP. The second approach constrains the use of legacy data stores, at the cost of complicating data aggregation, and should be considered if a large percentage of the existing MVA legacy data needs to be added. A variant of the second approach would be to migrate the existing MVA legacy data to the new DBMS. However, migrating data is much harder than migrating functionality, as that data may be used by multiple legacy applications out of the scope of the MVA. Attempting to do this could result in work beyond the MVA scope.

Legacy systems are a bit like an ancient city that is still a thriving metropolis: their mixture of old and new make it difficult to keep up on needed repairs, let alone substantial renovations to adapt them to rapidly changing needs. But finding a way to continuously adapt legacy systems is essential to evolving the enterprise to a changing world.

The concepts of MVP and MVA dont apply just to new applications; they provide a new and innovative way to look at scoping changes to legacy systems that prevents taking on too much change, too soon. In reality, every new application becomes a kind of "legacy application" after its first major release, and finding ways to limit the scope of change is important as applications evolve.

The MVA approach can help an organization evaluate and amend its technology standards by showing how a new technology is truly essential to supporting an MVP. It allows you to challenge technology standards with real data, rather than with just preferences and opinions.

The process of creating an MVA can help a team to evaluate which parts of a legacy system need to be modernized now, and which parts can wait. Organizations have spent huge sums on failed "total rewrite" modernizations that were, in hindsight, unnecessary. Identifying what parts must be modernized now, and what parts can wait is useful, for it gives an organization a better understanding of their technical debt, while also providing them with a much-needed filter to prevent needless work.

Legacy applications, because they are often mission-critical, need special focus on sustainability. In fact, fear of making the legacy application unstable prevents many organizations from making important and needed incremental improvements to them, making them even more brittle and risk-laden. Focusing on sustainability QARs, including growing the skills that teams need to evolve the applications, helps to make the applications more resilient over time.

Finally, its useful to keep in mind that todays "legacy" applications were, in many cases, shiny and brand new not very many years ago. These arent just applications written 40 years ago; they are also applications written just 10 years ago, or even more recently. As soon as an application is no longer being continuously updated, it starts to decay. Considering an MVA as a part of every new release helps to keep applications fresh.

Read the rest here:
Chipping Away at the Monolith: Applying MVPs and MVAs to Legacy Applications - InfoQ.com