Can do, will do: overseas architects are helping turn America's construction industry from can't do to can do.

If you have ever tuned into a home improvement channel on American cable TV, you would know it is wrong to suggest that Americans can't build. Equipped, bearded and ready to rock, what Chuck Key can't do with his supercharged carbide and titanium tipped router is not worth knowing. With ample space, bountiful stock piles, and power tools on steroids, even the humble self-builder is equipped to complete ambitious projects. What can be said, however, and what the process of putting together this issue has revealed, is that America's enthusiastic, energetic and optimistic can-do altitude has in recent years been stifled by negative, risk averse forces that haunt both the clients that commission buildings and the construction industry that builds them.

Writing recently in the New York Times, Nicolai Ouroussoff highlighted the contradictory opinions that exist. Speaking specifically about New York's stilled condition, while for decades many have complained about the 'soul-sapping buildings churned out by anonymous corporate offices', there are also those who seem hell bent on making the so-called 'starchitect' an object of ridicule, jumping on and amplifying beyond any reason bad news stories of cost overruns and contractual difficulties that on more anonymous projects would be overlooked. While on occasion it is justifiable to stamp out cynical architectural egomania, as seen in the New York Times' criticism of Calatrava's design for the Ground Zero transport hub, described as 'a monument to the architect's ego', this month the AR features projects that make the most of the skills and interests of their overseas designers. These include Renzo Piano, whose New York Times building successfully challenges the conventions of high-rise office development (p42); SANAA's New Museum, that brings a bit of Japanese asceticism to the Bowery (p52); David Adjaye's Museum of Contemporary Art in Denver (p60), that is as radical as the art it houses; and four university buildings by Hopkins Architects (p78) that demonstrate the curious feedback loop, whereby the doyen of English High-Tech repatriates lessons learnt from Louis Kahn and Mies van der Rohe.

Without exception, when discussing each of the featured projects with the principal architects on the ground, consistent concerns emerge. Unless challenged, clients and contractors will tend to revert to standard details, tried and tested techniques, and conventional products. Finesse is often ruled out if robust, durable and maintenance-free items can be specified, with the ubiquitous American washroom, even in the most exclusive establishments, being fitted out with robust sanitaryware and chrome pipes, valves and cisterns, of such size and weight that they look as though they would survive a nuclear war. Bespoke is almost a swear word.

What is universally praised, however, is the role of the architect of record, who facilitates and streamlines the process of working in a foreign context. This not only means that architects like SANAA can relieve themselves of the need to trawl through local building regulation documents, but on a more practical level, it also allows them to operate on the ground with incredibly streamlined teams. The New Museum, for instance, was run by two relatively young architects working out of their Manhattan apartment. On both this project and the Glass Museum in Toledo (AR November 2006), Gensler provided the executive muscle, as clients often specify and propose architects who have a proven track record in the production of construction documentation and working behind the scenes.

In conversation with Toshihiro Oki, the project architect of SANAA, criticisms were levelled against contractors who often try to dumb down the original design. In the New Museum, the architect had to explain that the light fittings were positioned above the ceiling panels in order to create an uncluttered soffit, when the contractor suggested it would be more practical to have the fluorescent tubes hanging beneath. God really is in the details, as Mies wryly noted (another famous emigre who redefined the American architectural scene).

At the Museum of Comtemporary Art in Denver, David Adjaye had to work hard to convince the local mindset of the viability and desirability of (actually quite modest) technical innovation. His use of a proprietary insulation panel as light transmitting inner wall (mimicking Japanese rice paper) had, needless to say, never been done before and so did not compute with local building codes. Likewise the simple idea of the public being able to walk on a rooflight. But Adjaye's quiet persistence, together with the backing of Davis Partnership, his local architectural team, who had cut their teeth on Deniel libeskind's Denver Art Museum, eventually won round the sceptics and achieved the desired effect. Client support was also crucial. It's notable that most of the projects in this issue are for cultural institutions, where a more open-minded approach and willingness to take risks acts as a spur to architectural imagination. Never underestimate the importance of enlightened patronage.

Another key issue is environmental sustainability. The American LEED programme sets targets and benchmarks, but this reactive, box-ticking culture does not encourage architecture to he rethought' in a more fundamental way, from first principles. The US still has space to build, cheap energy, and a historic sense of omnipotence, so why should it change? It might appear an insurmountable task, turning around this massive and self-satisfied tanker, but if the world's largest and most voracious consumer can't reprioritise, then we're all heading for hell in a handcart.

Brit Probst of Davis Partnership, who worked with Adjaye on the MCA, is optimistic that the effect of foreign architects working in the US will ultimately prove to be a positive one, changing preconceptions and gradually raising the bar for both architects and contractors. "At present, the American construction industry is one giant builder's merchants', he says, perhaps subconsciously thinking of Chuck and his power tools. Only by challenging existing notions of pre-packaged design, unimaginative construction techniques and complacent attitudes to sustainability, can things hope to move forward, and may be outsiders are the right people to shake things up. As Paul Finch notes (p31), it is a tribute to America's political and cultural maturity that it can entertain and encourage architects from Europe and Japan, but it must also be hoped that beyond the sprinkling of superstar fairydust, this reciprocity has more profound repercussions. THE EDITORS