Stop Telling Jurors What You Meant to Do
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If you spend enough time reviewing award submissions—especially AIA or ASLA Fellowship portfolios—you begin to notice a secondary tier of lazy prose. Once you strip away the hollow sentimentality of thoughtful, careful, and meaningful, a second, more insidious group of crutch words steps into the vacuum:
Direct. Directly. Intentional. Intentionally. Purposeful. Unique.
After reading perhaps thirty or forty portfolio narratives back-to-back, a juror’s eyes don’t just glaze over when they hit these words, they roll.
The Illusion of Control
These terms are designed to sound decisive. Writers reach for them when they want to emphasize agency, discipline, or originality.
“The team engaged directly with stakeholders.”
“The pathway connects directly to the entry plaza.”
“We were intentional about material selection.”
“A unique structural solution for a complex site.”
Put yourself in the juror’s or client’s shoes. By the fifth submission claiming "intentional" choices and "unique" designs, skepticism sets in.
"Intentional" is perhaps the most glaring culprit. Architecture is a discipline defined by hundreds of thousands of deliberate decisions. Code compliance, structural loads, client briefs, budget constraints—virtually nothing in a built project happens by accident. Declaring that a choice was "intentional" tells the reader nothing about the quality of the decision; it merely confirms that someone was awake during the design process
As for "unique"? If a spatial move or material application is truly singular, then describe that or show evidence in drawings and photos. Labeling your own work "unique" is meaningless. Say what is unique about it compared to other examples of architecture, or it’s not worth writing about.
The Problem with Adverbs
Adverbs like directly and purposefully often function as rhetorical crutches to compensate for a weak verb or vague spatial description.
Saying a you were "directly" involved in an activity just signals you were in the room.
Saying a corridor connects "directly" to a lobby usually just means it goes straight there without a door or turn.
Saying a window was placed "purposefully" implies that without that adverb, the reader might assume you threw a dart at an elevation.
More importantly, jurors do not award points for intention. They recognize outcomes. Proclaiming a design move was "intentional" focuses on what you hoped to achieve rather than what the built environment you created accomplishes.
Show the Mechanics, Not the Intent
When you edit out these words, you force the writing to explain the actual cause-and-effect of your design decisions:
Instead of an “intentional use of daylighting,” state the strategy: “Deep roof overhangs and automated louvers reduce peak summer solar gain by 40 percent.”
Instead of “The promenade connects directly to the river,” describe the spatial experience: “The walkway’s granite pavers slope uninterrupted from the plaza to the water’s edge.”
Instead of calling a canopy “unique,” explain what makes it distinct: “The canopy uses a single-column cantilever to clear the historic foundation below.”
Precision creates interest; generic sentiment breeds suspicion. By abandoning vague adverbs and self-congratulatory adjectives, you invite the reader and their imagination into the design process. You stop asking jurors to trust your intentions and start allowing them to see the results of your work.
If you are interested in creating great and individualize stories about architecture, architects, architectural practice, and your projects or if you’re planning to pursue Fellowship in the AIA College of Fellows, please check out my books at https://www.architectactionresult.com/shop or through your favorite e-bookseller.
