For anyone who has watched a design decision lose a budget meeting: a framework that shows what the cut will cost over the life of the building.
A project needs to come in lower on upfront cost, so a high-performance insulation package comes out. On paper the cut looks minor. Then the building goes into use. Annual energy consumption rises and thermal comfort falls. The heating and cooling equipment wears faster. The client is less satisfied, the resale premium is measurably lower, and the building may lease up more slowly than comparable ones.
The first item on that list is the easiest to check. The U.S. Environmental Protection Agency estimates that air sealing and added insulation save homeowners an average of 15% on heating and cooling costs.
The project is a representative example given by William J. Martin, founder and principal architect of WJM Architect, a multidisciplinary practice based in the New York City metropolitan area. “The decision optimized the wrong variable,” he says. His answer is E-FABism, short for Econo-Functional Aesthetic Balance: a framework set out in a 63-page white paper, with a digital mathematical toolkit, that puts the long-term consequences of a design choice in front of architects, builders and clients before the choice is made. It’s in early pilot use on five residential and commercial projects.
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Why the Cut Looks Minor
Bill’s explanation of how this happens fits in one sentence.
“Budget decisions fail because they are made with short-term cost visibility and long-term cost blindness.”
William J. Martin, Founder and Principal Architect, WJM Architect
When a project team focuses solely on initial expenditure, he says, it overlooks “the operational, maintenance, aesthetics, and market impacts that define the building’s actual value.” The upfront figure is the one on the table. The others arrive later.
The market end of that list has been measured. A 2022 CBRE analysis of about 20,000 U.S. office buildings found that LEED-certified buildings earned a 3.7% rent premium over their non-certified peers after controlling for age, size, renovation and location. Bill’s own record includes a 2011 Top Ten Green Project Merit Award from the American Institute of Architects, New Jersey Chapter, for a LEED Platinum certified project.
E-FABism, he says, “is designed to prevent this outcome by quantifying lifecycle implications before a cut is made.” It does that by putting three things side by side.
Money, Purpose, Looks
In Bill’s description, every building project is shaped by three competing forces. Money is the economic reality and the budget. Purpose is how well the building functions and performs. Looks is the artistic and visual design. “Instead of people just guessing or arguing about which force is more important,” he says, “E-FABism organizes these three factors into a clear structure so they can be more easily compared.”
What it provides, by his account, is five things: side-by-side comparisons of different design options, projections of what a building will cost to maintain over its lifetime, evidence of whether better-performing or more aesthetic materials are worth the extra price, a reading of whether and how a specific look and feel will increase value, and a balanced visual map that weighs budget, function and style. He has written that the framework “creates a shared language between architects, clients, developers, and financiers.”
He’s equally clear about where it stops.
“E-FABism does not dictate design style, meaning or tell you what your building should look like. Instead, it simply shows you how each of your choices will affect the others.”
Bill, Founder and Principal Architect, WJM Architect
The end result he describes is clarity: less confusion, fewer stressful arguments, and tense budget meetings turned into “productive, collaborative, creative conversations.” How far along that is, he states just as plainly.
Sixty-Three Pages and Five Pilots
E-FABism exists today as a document and a set of reports. The white paper runs to 63 pages, with a five-page executive summary. Five active pilot projects, residential and commercial, are using what Bill calls EFAB Balance Reports, to validate the econometric model and refine the reporting structure. The methodology is being reviewed for workflow integration and assessed for feasibility and project planning, and he describes interest developing among practitioners who want structured decision support.
He’s exact about the stage. “The framework is established,” he says. “The next phase is refinement, formalized partnerships and software.”
The economics in it didn’t arrive late.
A Practice Since 1991
Bill studied architecture and managerial economics at Carnegie Mellon University from 1981, transferred to Pratt Institute in 1984 and graduated in 1988 with a B.Arch with honors. Both entries on his record carry the same description: architecture and the economics of design. He has owned WJM Architect since December 1991 and has been a member of the American Institute of Architects since 1991.
In 2021 he received the Anton Vegliante Award from the AIA Architects League of Northern New Jersey, which he describes as the League’s highest honor, presented to architects who distinguish themselves for their contributions to the advancement of the profession. Since May 2012 he has co-chaired the AIA New Jersey Public Awareness Committee. He has appeared on CNBC, in a segment on aging in place, and on Fox News, to discuss the origin of the “Pittsburgh Potty.”
Alongside the practice, he collected licenses most architects don’t hold.
Both Sides of the Approval Process
Bill is a licensed architect in five states: New York, New Jersey, Connecticut, Pennsylvania and Massachusetts. He is a licensed New Jersey Professional Planner who appears frequently before planning and zoning boards on behalf of clients. He also holds New Jersey licenses as a building inspector (HHS Class 1), a building subcode official and a construction official, which is what he means by standing on both sides.
“Standing on both sides of a building approval process teaches you humility. It teaches you that a building is not just a design, it is a promise, to the public, to the code, to the future occupants, and to the people who will maintain it long after the ribbon-cutting.”
Bill, Founder and Principal Architect, WJM Architect
A designer who has only designed, he says, may not see how small decisions cascade into regulatory consequences, how materials behave “after ten winters, not just on opening day,” how construction sequencing affects the viability of a detail, how planning constraints shape the economic reality of a project, or how inspectors read drawings differently than architects do.
He tells one story from a job site.
A Hand Calculator in a Snowstorm
Asked for a hard moment, Bill gives it in a single sentence. A contractor had installed the wrong structural member. Instead of escalating, the member was redesigned on site, “with a hand calculator, no internet, during a snowstorm, and the project kept moving forward.”
Asked about the person behind the work, he names his father. “My father taught me that hard work is a form of respect, for the work, for the client, and for yourself,” he says.
His habit, he says, is to document everything, and he calls clarity the most underrated tool in architecture. E-FABism asks a project team for the same thing: the consequences written down before the decision.
Where Bill Is Now
This year the work is the pilots: five projects, with the model being validated and the reports refined. The practice continues alongside them. WJM Architect’s work spans residential sustainable design, commercial office and workplace projects, retail stores and strip centers, and commercial and industrial buildings.
What comes next, in his words, is scaling EFABism into “a national decision-support framework” for architects, engineers and developers.
He’s specific about who he wants reading. Architects “who are tired of watching good design get cut without evidence.” Developers “who want predictable performance and fewer budget surprises.” Clients “who want to invest wisely, not reactively.” Students who need a modern framework for understanding value in architecture, and government agencies that need data to support approval decisions and understand the impact of projects in their jurisdictions.
Outside work, the subject doesn’t change much. “I trace the economics that shapes everyday objects,” he says, “how value, utility, and beauty coexist in things people barely notice.”
His measure of success is that E-FABism becomes a reference point, “data people cite when defending a design choice or evaluating an investment.” If it does, he says, “then this framework has done its job.”
The line he gives as his own is about the whole profession: “Architecture is the long negotiation between what a building wants to be and what the world will allow.”
Five Lines from Bill’s Diary
- “The decision optimized the wrong variable.”
- “Simply put, E-FABism replaces guesswork and opinion with definable data.”
- “Holding all four licenses forces you to reconcile intention with reality.”
- “It gives you a 360-degree view of the building, not just how it looks, but how it lives.”
- “I document everything; clarity is the most underrated tool in architecture.”
From the Diary of William J. Martin
William J. Martin is an architect based in the New York City metropolitan area and the founder and principal architect of WJM Architect.
| Role | Founder and Principal Architect, WJM Architect |
| Based in | New York City metropolitan area |
| Also | Co-Chairperson, AIA New Jersey Public Awareness Committee |
“Architecture is the long negotiation between what a building wants to be and what the world will allow.”
Editor’s Note
William J. Martin holds the licenses of the people who design buildings and of the people who approve them, and he has written his framework down: 63 pages, with pilots under way. What convinces the editors is that he states plainly what E-FABism does not do and what stage it is at. The argument that a budget cut should be costed over the life of the building before it is made is one that architects, developers and clients can each test against their own projects.
Executives Diary, Editorial
