Professional Studies Adam Jones 2014 / 15
contents introduction 5 part 01 professional scenario - letters 7 - reflective essay 47 part 02 reflective essay - “us and them� 67 bibliography 107
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Professional Studies - Adam Jones
introduction The Professional Studies course we have undertaken, which has included lectures, weekly tasks, a marvellous symposium, and this particular piece of work, has been an extremely thought-provoking exercise. Part 1 deals with a fictional building project scenario. Through a series of letters, I have explored the process of how to build a trustworthy relationship with a client whilst of course providing accurate and concise information. The small essay following the letters has allowed me to reflect on how the process has informed wider critical thinking. The Reflective Essay in Part 2 has allowed me to explore ideas that are important to me. In doing so, I hope to use the piece of work as a tool to explore the professional trajectory I think (at this moment anyway) I want to embark on.
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part 01 - professional scenario
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letters Brief “Your client is a family businesswoman who has inherited a significant heritage asset as part of her business. Due to expansion and modernisation this building is no longer fit for her purposes. She is keen to see that something which has served her family well over the generations should be used to benefit the families of her workforce. She therefore plans to convert it into a community facility. The building is a traditional 1900’s office building with cellular load-bearing walls, structural timber floors and a slated pitched roof. It has been well-maintained but never upgraded to current standards. Her intentions for its use will include a craft shop, committee and meeting rooms, teaching spaces and will include concerts and indoor sports. There will be a need for a large hall built as an extension of 100m2 on available space at the rear of the building. Separate access will be needed for special events such as weddings, etc. She would like this part of the facility open as quickly as possible and will be happy to consider modern methods of construction. She has made provision for a maximum capital budget of £500k which should include all costs including building extensions, alterations and upgrade, fixtures, furniture, fees, surveys, application charges and legal & design team fees. She has put into trust enough money to pay for the maintenance and upkeep of the complex and therefore requires a low cost in use. The Grade 2 Edgar Wood building sits within the Reddish Park conservation area of Madchester close to the local centre of Reddish.”
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Tasks
Core Objectives
Procurement *Variable task bar
Programme *Variable task bar
(Town) Planning *Variable task bar
Suggested Key Support Tasks
Sustainability Checkpoints Information Exchanges (at stage completion)
The RIBA Plan of Work 2013 organises the process of briefing, designing, constructing, maintaining, operating and using building projects into a number of key stages. The content of stages may vary or overlap to suit specific project requirements. The RIBA Plan of Work 2013 should be used solely as guidance for the preparation of detailed professional services contracts and building contracts.
www.ribaplanofwork.com
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In Use
Developed Design
Handover and Close Out
Concept Design
Prepare Technical Design in accordance with Design Responsibility Matrix and Project Strategies to include all architectural, structural and building services information, specialist subcontractor design and specifications, in accordance with Design Programme.
Construction
Preparation and Brief Prepare Developed Design, including coordinated and updated proposals for structural design, building services systems, outline specifications, Cost Information and Project Strategies in accordance with Design Programme.
Carry out activities listed in Handover Strategy including Feedback for use during the future life of the building or on future projects.
Sustainability Checkpoint — 6
Sustainability Checkpoint — 7
Updating of Project Information as required.
Sustainability Checkpoint — 5
Updated ‘As-constructed’ Information.
‘As-constructed’ Information updated in response to ongoing client Feedback and maintenance or operational developments.
Updating of Project Information, as required, in response to ongoing client Feedback until the end of the building’s life.
‘As-constructed’ Information.
As required.
Not required.
© RIBA
Required.
Update Construction and Health and Safety Strategies.
Conclude administration of Building Contract.
Technical Design
Strategic Definition Prepare Concept Design, including outline proposals for structural design, building services systems, outline specifications and preliminary Cost Information along with relevant Project Strategies in accordance with Design Programme. Agree alterations to brief and issue Final Project Brief.
Administration of Building Contract, including regular site inspections and review of progress.
Undertake In Use services in accordance with Schedule of Services.
Identify client’s Business Case and Strategic Brief and other core project requirements.
Develop Project Objectives, including Quality Objectives and Project Outcomes, Sustainability Aspirations, Project Budget, other parameters or constraints and develop Initial Project Brief. Undertake Feasibility Studies and review of Site Information.
Review Project Programme.
Review and update Sustainability, Maintenance and Operational and Handover Strategies and Risk Assessments.
Sustainability Checkpoint — 4
Review and update Sustainability Strategy and implement Handover Strategy, including agreement of information required for commissioning, training, handover, asset management, future monitoring and maintenance and ongoing compilation of ‘Asconstructed’ Information.
The procurement route may dictate the Project Programme and may result in certain stages overlapping or being undertaken concurrently. A bespoke RIBA Plan of Work 2013 will clarify the stage overlaps. The Project Programme will set out the specific stage dates and detailed programme durations.
Review and update Sustainability, Maintenance and Operational and Handover Strategies and Risk Assessments.
Prepare and submit Building Regulations submission and any other third party submissions requiring consent.
Planning applications are typically made using the Stage 3 output. A bespoke RIBA Plan of Work 2013 will identify when the planning application is to be made. Prepare Sustainability Strategy, Maintenance and Operational Strategy and review Handover Strategy and Risk Assessments.
Undertake third party consultations as required and conclude Research and Development aspects.
Sustainability Checkpoint — 3
Completed Technical Design of the project.
Conclude activities listed in Handover Strategy including Post-occupancy Evaluation, review of Project Performance, Project Outcomes and Research and Development aspects.
Offsite manufacturing and Handover of building and onsite Construction in conclusion of Building accordance with Construction Contract. Programme and resolution of Design Queries from site as they arise.
Initial considerations for assembling the project team.
Pre-application discussions.
The procurement strategy does not fundamentally alter the progression of the design or the level of detail prepared at a given stage. However, Information Exchanges will vary depending on the selected procurement route and Building Contract. A bespoke RIBA Plan of Work 2013 will set out the specific tendering and procurement activities that will occur at each stage in relation to the chosen procurement route.
Prepare Project Roles Table and Contractual Tree and continue assembling the project team.
Pre-application discussions.
Prepare Handover Strategy and Risk Assessments.
Establish Project Programme. Review Project Programme.
Review Feedback from previous projects.
Undertake third party consultations as required and any Research and Development aspects.
Review and update Project Execution Plan.
Sustainability Checkpoint — 2
Developed Design, including the coordinated architectural, structural and building services design and updated Cost Information.
Agree Schedule of Services, Design Responsibility Matrix and Information Exchanges and prepare Project Execution Plan including Technology and Communication Strategies and consideration of Common Standards to be used.
Sustainability Checkpoint — 1
Required.
Review Construction Strategy, including sequencing, and update Health and Safety Strategy.
Sustainability Checkpoint — 0
Initial Project Brief.
Concept Design including outline structural and building services design, associated Project Strategies, preliminary Cost Information and Final Project Brief.
Review and update Project Review and update Project Execution Plan. Execution Plan, including Change Control Procedures. Consider Construction Strategy, including offsite Review and update fabrication, and develop Health Construction and Health and and Safety Strategy. Safety Strategies.
Strategic Brief.
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Not required.
Required. Not required.
*Variable task bar – in creating a bespoke project or practice specific RIBA Plan of Work 2013 via www.ribaplanofwork.com a specific bar is selected from a number of options.
UK Government Information Exchanges
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part 01 - professional scenario
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reflective essay introduction 49 administration, organization and practice management
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RIBA Plan of Work 2013 53 ARB Code 57 fees and value 59 BIM and beyond 61
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“I despair at young architects who are caught up in spectacle but have never learned the rules they are merrily breaking. Being an architect isn’t simply an acquisition of knowledge at university – it’s a process that needs to be absorbed, a weight of history that should be observed... Our profession is an old language and it has a grammar. And about this people don’t know anything. So how is it they can do a building if they do not know the grammar?” - Peter Märkli
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introduction
The Professional Studies course we have undertaken, including lectures, weekly tasks, symposiums, and the previous process of progressing a theoretical project through the RIBA Plan of Work 2013 via a professional relationship with a client has been an extremely thought-provoking exercise. As a forthcoming MArch graduate with exposure to this course, I have become aware of the recent upsurge in concern surrounding the environment we are due to enter. The global recession has called for renewed reflection on the practice of architecture and the timing of this could not be more significant as I look to build a career within the construction industry This undertaking has uncovered a number of topics worthy of discussion, both in relation to this task and the operation of an architect in the wider sense. Some of these are mere thoughts, whilst I will expand on some deeper topics in the latter section.
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“I don’t know why people hire architects and then tell them what to do.” - Frank Gehry
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administration, organization and practice management
Sir Hugh Casson (1910 - 1999), a British architect and writer expressed a concern for the profession’s apparent reluctance or inability to face up to its administrative responsibilities. Throughout the modern architectural profession there has been a misconception that good art and good administration are incompatible, and this may not be wholly untrue. In the layman’s eyes especially, an architect may be a figure who cannot be trusted to keep to a budget or programme. Yet architecture is undoubtedly a mix of science and art, and the truth is that designing and administration are both integral parts of the work of an architect. The architect has a duty to the client, to run a job efficiently in an organized and effective manner, with commonsense.
“Is ego compatible with trusted advisor status? Is the shift away from a broadbased model of practice to a ‘design focus’ a true or the only reflection of ‘value adding’? And is the emphasis on design above all else in architectural education encouraging de-skilling at a later stage of architects careers? Design and practical application are not either/or – they are two sides of the same skill set. Most of the ‘design’ architects I admire are just as knowledgeable about intricate construction details and methodology as grand visions of architecture. On so many projects architects are the first on board and the last to leave – and often the only people at the end who were there at the beginning. If that is the case, and that project knowledge and professional expertise is valued and utilised, how can documentation and contract administration be regarded as ‘commodities’? They become valuable parts of the architect’s contribution”
Tamsyn Curley is a director of a successful architectural employment practice, based in London with clients across the UK and abroad. In a recent AJ article she commented that since the recession and as the industry has begun to pick up, her clients have been able to improve practice infrastructure. She noted a clear trend in the operation and transformations taking place throughout practices, with smaller and medium-sized practices allowing directors to raise salaries and train their current staff in becoming more ‘complete’ architects (Dave McCall, 2015), able to run jobs, immerse in client interaction and deal with contracts. Larger practices with lower staff turnovers have developed more personal benefit packages and developed programmes to help employees thrive. She’s noticed a trend in jobseekers are more attracted to larger practices that promote a collaborative work ethic. Such practices, she noted, also share competition entries with smaller or medium practices, making for a richer collaborative effort (Curley, 2015).
“With the de-pedestalisation of the architect, will also have to go the amateurish management that traditionally characterized most professions. Architectural practices, whatever else they are, are businesses, and efficient management, continuity of cash flow and meticulous accounting and forecasting of cash, profits and growrth, have all become much more critical in the cut throat world of competitive fee tendering” - Buchanan, 1989
- Held, 2014
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“Think, analyze and build your conceptual framework. Just like in science, architecture is a hypothetical deductive experimentation. You use your thinking to analyze and suggest and build up a conceptual framework. And when you can’t reach any higher, you can make an intuitive jump, a guess. You can suggest things and test them. But the higher you build before you jump, the higher you can reach.” - Bjark Ingels
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RIBA Plan of Work 2013
“UK architects attempt to exert the same control over their unruly practice in many ways, one of which is by constricting them to the linear procedures of the “RIBA Plan of Work”, a document that divides the briefing, design and construction of buildings into neat stages. The outline document cleverly manages to combine on a single page the setting of problems associated with each stage together with the tasks needed to find solutions to each problem. In the final column the people involved are identified; in all but one of the twelve stages architects are required. Well, one might say, they would be: it is they who have set the tasks.” - Jeremy Till, 2009, p157
The RIBA Plan of Work 2013 (superseding the previous 2007 edition) reflects and acknowledges a number of key transformations within the profession. It reflects the wider scope of the architect’s engagement. The added ‘Stage 0’ underlines the need to strategically appraise and define a project prior to developing an Initial Project Brief. This extends the front end of the RIBA Plan of Work to include engagement with the development of the initial business case for the project, and provides opportunities for architects to act as Client Advisers and trusted business consultants for clients, ensuring the Initial Project Brief is informed by design expertise. In addition, the introduction of Stage 7 acknowledges the architect’s invaluable involvement after formal “completion”. This aligns closely with the additional services offered by BIM, with regard to the future life of a building (maintenance, repair, refurbishment, alteration, etc). It encompasses activities beyond the handover and initial occupation of the building including services such as staff training, post-occupancy evaluation and
energy audit, and may enable architects, designers and constructors to continue their relationships with their clients beyond the traditional project lifecycle and enhance the range of services they offer. Developments in BIM will bring additional opportunities for architects to engage more closely with facilities management activities. Architects should recognise that architecture is subjected to the elemental forces of time. Not just physical, but social. The architect only starts what time and others continue. To accept this collaboration demands a change in architectural priorities away from architecture as a frozen moment of “completion”. The RIBA Plan of Work has gone one small step in tackling this issue by acknowledging the task of “postoccupancy” in buildings, but the idea of lifespan and an architect’s responsibility to that, beyond the RIBA Stages needs addressing. Architect’s add invaluable value way past what the RIBA Plan of Work sets out, but this is not acknowledged, either in process or pay or reward. The practice Bauman Lyons Architects has stopped submitting proposals for awards and instead revisits projects to ask users and clients for formal feedback. For them,
“it has made us question the very basis of architectural education and practice. The lessons from the feedback are multiple and diverse; in the context of this publication two related issues have come to light that pose the most immediate questions.” (Irena Bauman, 2013).
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“First, if you only think in architectural terms, only architecture will come out. Secondly, it’s a quote (again from Bob Dylan), ‘Don’t follow leaders, watch the parking meters’. and the third is, you don’t need the weatherman to know how the wind blows.” - Wolf D Prix
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A number of lessons were learned. Firstly, they realized that all architectural briefs are temporal. Secondly, buildings require modifications, and will continue to change. The dimension of time and evolution of form is not often taught in schools of architecture and it’s rare to find refurbishment / conservation projects in studio environments. Thirdly, architecture is mainly taught as a static object, an optimum snapshot in time. Hence, studio projects tend to focus on new-build schemes within a single static brief. The future of the architects work will predominantly reside in the remodelling, restoration and preservation of our existing building stock. This needs to be acknowledged in academic environments. Fourthly, problems in the design studio generally start with the abandonment of carefully formulated briefs which are replaced by fancifully elaborated scenarios - a tactic that severs contact with any reality which is dismissed as too mundane and demeaning to stimulate student’s creativity.
Overall the RIBA Plan of Work 2013 both reflects existing changes in contemporary practice and anticipates the future direction of travel of architectural practice. It prepares the ground for a future in which BIM processes are at the heart of a more collaborative design and construction process, and in which clients, designers and constructors work in a more integrated way. It places emphasis on assembling the right team, including sub-consultants and specialist sub-contractors and suppliers, and making the right early decisions. It seeks to broaden the engagement of the design team with clients and end users in both the development of the business case for projects and the occupation and use of completed buildings. The detailed sustainability checkpoints act as signposts for a route to a truly carbon neutral approach to building. Building on the rich heritage of the RIBA Plan of Work, this latest iteration of this important standard offers innovation through evolution.
This process of continual evaluation, not just of built works but of the role of the architect is vital in the development and improvement of our profession. Equally, the challenge / burden of environmental sustainability has brought with it the necessary obligation that buildings perform as designed, requiring new competencies of strategy, implementation and long-term evaluation (Hyde, 2011), without, let’s say, the joyous chance of spontaneity, happy accident and chance.
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“I like Snozzi’s reply to a question about the responsibility of an architect. It is “to replace the value of the land in which he or she is intervening on”. To first recognise what that value is, needs guidance and study.” - Stephen Bates
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ARB Code
One of the most commonly made mistakes is to confuse professional propriety with an ethical position. as if acting in accordance with the codes of professional conduct will ensure ethical behaviour. The Code states that it “should be central to the life of an architect, not only as a source of ethical guidance but also as a commonsense indicator to the principles of good practice.” However the twelve standards to be followed are so scarce and ‘basic’, that quite frankly, a hairdresser could meet the same standards. There is no specificity that intensifies our stance as professionals. For me, the commonsensical nature of it is somewhat undermining. The point, as Tom Spector notes, is that these standards are aimed at “clarifying the architect’s responsibilities to the client,” and nothing more. The client is seen as primary, and the responsibility for anything beyond framed as a secondary environmental, not social, issue. The user is suppressed (Till, 2009). As I will come onto, rarely is public opinion or use acknowledged in these codes.
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“You have to be very focused and work very hard, but it is not about working hard without knowing what your aim is! You really have to have a goal. the goal posts might shift, but you should have a goal. Know what it is that you are trying to find out� - Zaha Hadid
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fees and value
Since the 1980s and the abolishment of the architect’s fee scale, architects have seen their fees decline. The ubiquitous challenge is to raise client expectations so fees return to something resembling equity. This critical task is beholden on the whole profession - a collective explanation and justification that architects bring value is long overdue (Cole, 2015).
“Regarding fees, as with selling any set of ideas or any product, it is about having a value-based argument. I think there’s very little value in either the RIBA or architects metaphorically banging the table and saying “pay architects more because we represent and we’re good people”, that’s just not going to wash. [Instead] What we need to do is to work with practitioners and equip them with the argument that shows that effective, well-designed buildings, places and spaces make people’s lives happier and better.”
For example, if an architect offers a service of plan-drawing, then the only conversation that person may have with the client is about price of that service. Yet, with conversations about value, specifically to existing buildings (which may relate to how to make an existing home more effective and comfortable or commercial property more efficient), the architect can continue to operate and make a difference.
- Harry Rich (2010)
At the same time, the recent years of recession have brought radical changes. For example, practices now specialize by work stage, resulting in other firms delivering other architects’ designs is increasing (a further sign of collaboration). Another example: global markets have become embedded in the psyche of even small practices, which brings with it a sense of international collaboration and interdisciplinarity. In short, success no longer depends just on the quality of a design idea or building but equally (or more so) on the business model that brings it into fruition (Cole, 2015), generating a certain shrewdness within the profession which we may have neglected in years of energetic construction.
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“I’ve said goodbye to the overworked notion that architecture has to save the world.” - Peter Zumthor
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BIM and beyond
Whilst CAD has been commonplace in our profession, BIM continues to make leaps forward. It’s transformed how design data is generated and the sharing and integration of that data, which in turn creates requirement for new protocols, activities and definitions. This has heightened both the mindset approach and the actuality of collaboration between architect and the wider team. In simple terms, BIM is a collaborative working process for the creation and life of a building. Its sophisticated software can bring geometric and other data together in a useful and usable way (Malleson, 2015, p28). An understanding of true nature of the BIM process shows that it is not about technology or specific software, but a different way of working. Being able to truly collaborate with other professionals and building team members from early design through to well past handover of the building changes behaviours, programs, briefing and cost control. It demands better resolved briefs, structured decisionmaking, better design resolution, and a better grasp of construction. There is no longer an excuse for a lack of coordination, shoddy documentation and an attitude that someone else will sort it out later. (Held, 2014)
It has even been argued that there is a common perception that BIM was not for smaller and medium-sized practices, because of a lack of client demand and concerns for initial capital cost of BIM implementation. Surprisingly, it has been found that the larger, more established practices that struggle to adapt whereas the smaller companies are best suited for innovation, versatility and change.
“BIM drawings put more of a building together than we’d ever seen before. [Alvaro] Siza says just the reverse prompts creative work. Those vestiges, those devices, give rise to new possibilities.” - David Leatherbarrow (2013)
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By 2016 every centrally-funded project will have to be completed using Level 2 BIM(currently only 40% of professionals use it). Though networking is increasingly popular with larger firms already, it would be revolutionary for smaller firms or individuals to interact with others on a far greater scale than ever before. Networking would make practices more readily available to adopt the newest industry advancements, and flexible to gain resilience against future challenges of the industry.
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“I don’t want to be interesting. I want to be good.” - Mies van der Rohe
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Professional Studies - Adam Jones
BIM in university For many students, BIM occurs abruptly once joining practice. Yet within architectural schools, some of the most collaborative educational environments, surely there is a space for training, in-turn making the transition to practice more seamless. Rather than individuals working along we will begin to see buildings created by innovative collaboration. Each individual will have their own specialisms and skills but together, they combine to efficiently create a building that meets the clients’ needs and aspirations. There is clearly a lack of dialogue between education and practice about BIM skill requirements. Perhaps this is a reluctance by universities to admit to or succumb to the realities of practice - BIM may still be seen as a hindrance to free-thinking creativity and indulgence. We need architecture schools to teach BIM tool use, but in a collaborative context - it’s a mistake to think tool training is BIM training, “Training should focus on collaborative scenarios - once you get that, you get BIM” (Malleson, 2015, p28). How to collaborate in 3D needs to be taught, but this isn’t about software but process, tools and up-skilling. It has been argued also that as we are the young “digital natives” (Malleson, 2015) we are the leaders of digital culture and are the ones to release the full potential of BIM.
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“Unless you are really committed to being an architect in the true sense of the word, its a terrible business and I wouldn’t recommend it for anybody, unless you need to do it for some personal reason. I would go into business, go into law, medicine, but don’t be an architect.” - Peter Eisenman
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competitions as procurement
In the Anglo-Saxon culture, it seems we don’t protect young talent and young professional talent particular well (Chipperfield, 2011). The competition system needs to be discussed as an alternative means of procurement. Being a young architect in this country is very difficult. The competition system is very important to the quality of architecture and for the ability of young architects to develop from doing small projects into medium projects, to develop their craft. In 2010 there was 5 design competitions in England, 190 in Germany and nearly 2000 in France. This is extremely worrying as a young aspiring architect - how am I meant to progress a body of work under these circumstances? Competition is not the answer to everything but it is one way in which we can give some protection to young architects.
The more specific and pragmatic system adopted in Switzerland seems a much better model. No two competitions are ever the same and each case should be considered on its own terms. Currently, it seems to me that a younger generation of architects are being denied the opportunity to enter anything other than ‘ideas’ competitions. While competitions require time, energy and resources, they are welcomed by architects as a way of winning work, but also for the creative freedom they allow, which direct commissions do not so readily afford. Younger architects might lack experience but they often offer new insights and a degree of experimentation. Right now in the UK one can see the same established architects churning out the same sort of work in an unchallenged and uncritical manner.
“We have stopped looking at competitions that are run by the RIBA. The conditions are so poor at every level and we really feel it is not worth wasting our time on them. It has been this way for about ten years or so. I remember a time when RIBA competitions produced interesting results. They were generally organised as open competitions that were well judged. Many successful and established practices benefited from this situation. Today it is rare to find an open competition where there is a serious intention to build the winning entry. Instead priority is given to a two-stage structure where architectural practices need to demonstrate experience in building the kind of programme required by the competition.” - Jonathan Sergison (2012)
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part 02 - reflective essay Brief “To fail to plan is to plan to fail - survival belongs not to the biggest, strongest or best in any field, but to the most adaptable in the context which constant changes in: • • • • •
society’s attitudes – cultural/economic/ political environmental context, the structure of the property and construction industries, the commercial viability of traditional architectural practice, the demands for high professional standards, the education process in terms of suitability time and cost
Reflect on the historic, current and future role, and the definition of the architect, and how architecture might be produced in the short middle and long term future. It is important that this work considers the available options whether based on existing structures or not, historic and geographic variances of approach should be considered and used to reach your conclusions and guide your proposition for the future but there is no requirement to follow established structures.”
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“us and them” introduction 69 our place in time 71 architecture and architects 73 speaking society’s language 75 finding a common language 79 “we’re not buried next to the king anymore”
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invaluable value 87 photoshopping ourselves into a corner 89 school vs practice 93 inside school 95 outside school 101 conclusion?... 105
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Michael Gove. Source: urbantimes.co
Sydney Opera House staging a public rally. Source: www.shanghaidaily.com
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introduction
There is a profound dysfunctionality in this country between the profession and public opinion. All architects believe that what we do contributes to the greater good, yet we’re often regarded as a sort of nurse, pushing medicine down an unwilling client’s throat. We have to find a way by which that gap, debate and dialogue can reassure everyone that we have professional worth.
“We’re not here to build for other architects, we’re here to build for all of humankind. First of all we need to care about the people we are designing for, understand what their dreams, desires and priorities are, and then use that understanding as the driving force of the work we do.” - Bjark Ingels, 2015
In 2011, the Education Minister Michael Gove announced the UK doesn’t need ‘conniving breadhead architects’ creaming off fees by designing schools. It is clear that the Government has no rigorous interest in architectural standards. After Prince Charles’ attack on the profession in the early 1990’s, the government’s attitude marks a dangerous moment in our profession. Even the RIBA is daring to suggest that that current title of Architect could die out by 2025, reporting that the title “architect” has restricted practices engaging in work outside the realms of architecture. Our work is contaminated by this dysfunctional relationship, and our fragile professional position limits our effectiveness. Good architecture requires a healthy relationship between an ever-growing team, and whilst this relationship is sometimes difficult, it is entirely feasible and often achieved. More difficult however is our relationship with that more elusive client: public opinion - the invisible, yet ever-present audience. Our mandate or lack of it is not solely in the hands of those who commission us, but also in the expectation of others. Whatever we have in common with the other arts, we represent larger interests, and what we do cannot be achieved in isolation. We cannot and should not resent this situation and responsibility. Our work cannot be easily ignored, and therefore we must understand the disappointments and aspirations of society. If we don’t want architecture to become a guerrilla activity then we must, for the future of our profession, find a normalised relationship with opinion and power. In this paper I hope to discover the architect’s profile, past and present, what may have muddied our position and comment on ways we may regain a positive stance and better reputation.
“In common with other professions architects owe a duty of care to their clients but they have a higher responsibility than most in that the buildings and environments that they create may well have a profound effect on the population at large.” - Paul Chappell, 2000, xvii
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Stanley Kubrick’s 2001: A Space Odyssey. Source: filmessaysandarticles.wordpress.com
Coalbrookdale by Night by Philip James de Loutherbourg, painted 1801. Source: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Coalbrookdale
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our place in time
Geologists talk about the age we live in as the Anthropocene. It represents a time where human presence is the strongest force of change in our geography. The moment we became architects, whether around 10,000 years ago or during the Industrial Revolution, we made an important inversion of evolution. According to Darwin, evolution is the principle that life has evolved by adapting to its surroundings, Yet when we acquired the tools and skills to adapt the surroundings to life, humans had the power to change the form of the planet. With great power comes great responsibility, and as architects we must regain and implement this responsibility for the greater good.
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architecture and architects
The Oxford English Dictionary provides two definitions of ‘architecture’: 1) “The art or science of constructing edifices for human use” relates to a cultural perspective, linked to the inherent knowledge and history of the profession. 2) “The action and process of building” emphasises the art of construction, embedded in tradition and approach, in which, one might say, architects are not directly necessary, Treatise The Roman Vitruvius was the first to create a treatise on architecture, but being first didn’t necessarily make him right. His bland commonsensical mantra of “Commodity. Firmness. Delight”, despite being updated to issues of use/function, technology/tectonics and aesthetics/ beauty, set the wrong immodest, unethical and inhumane architectural wheels in motion. Title The title “architect” has existed for centuries. Before the 1800s, any talented and skilled individual could become an architect through reading, apprenticeship and self-study. The great Renaissance architect Palladio was apprenticed as a stonecutter, learning about Classical Orders from a scholar. Sir Christopher Wren, arguably London’s greatest architect was a mathematician and scientist, learning about architecture through reading, travel, and dialogue with designers. The great American Thomas Jefferson designed through studying Palladio’s books. These valid, qualified and educated figures achieved architectural greatness without a predetermined education route with guidelines and standards. Profession The profession emerged and changed at two key moments. Firstly in the Renaissance, Brunelleschi designed and built the dome of Florence cathedral, which opened the way for challenging and developing new ideas. Distinct from the craftsman who executed what was already known, Brunelleschi consciously considered himself “designer”. Secondly, the Enlightenment brought a remarkable distinction between engineering and architecture. Architecture students studied the “how”, and engineers the “what”. Both moments encapsulate the idea of architect as “genius” - an individual gifted with imagination and creativity, distinct from the masses. Cities had become complex and needed trained architects, not dirty amateurs (Till, 2013). Institute Architects, like any profession, wanted to exert their independence as a means of defining their territory, their area of control, away from the ordinary and public opinion, and hence the RIBA was founded (1834).
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“The business of the architect is to make the designs and estimates, to direct the works, and to measure and value the different parts; he is the intermediate agent between the employer, whose honour and interest he is to study, and the mechanic, whose rights he is to defend. His situation implies great trust; he is responsible for the mistakes, negligences, and ignorances of those he employs; and above all, he is to take care that the workmen’s bills do not exceed his own estimates.” - Sir John Soane, 1788
The quote above from a young John Soane in 1788 was an effort to clearly delineate the contemporary role of the architect, which he imagined would stir up images among the public of distinguished gentry. Meanwhile, the founding of the RIBA represented a self-serving act of self-protectionism. Magali Sarfatti Larson argues that, “autonomy is justified by the professional’s claim of possessing a special and superior knowledge, which should be free of lay evaluation and protected from inexpert interference” (Till, 2009, 917). Contemporary profession can be described as being conceived from 18th century ideas, operating in a profession designed in the 19th century, within construction processes derived in the 20th century, attempting to meet the demands of the 21st century.
Vitruvius. Source: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Vitruvius
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Post-war London. Source: www.reddit.com
Pruitt窶的goe was a large urban housing project first occupied in 1954 in the U.S. city of St. Louis, Missouri. Living conditions in Pruitt窶的goe began to decline soon after its completion in 1956 Source: http://www.theguardian.com/artanddesign
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speaking society’s language
Architecture once represented collective identity, civic aspiration, shared meaning and common principle. Nowadays architecture is driven by the market - products of consumerism and energetic investment, orchestrated by profit-motivated contractors. Whether architecture will ever return to the collective representative is questionable, and any potential role would have to be contingent on the establishment of a public realm in the political sense (Teerds, 2013). A unanimous architecture Traditionally, the architect mediated between the client and the world, between public and private, between dreams and reality, between memory and speculation. For millennia the collaboration of architect, artist and craftsman (who were visibly ‘at work’) made buildings that were resonant across a wide spectrum of the population. They drew upon myriad styles bound by physical laws and mathematical principles that gave unanimous elegance and practicality. These buildings had a legibility and proximity to the everyday citizen. Post-war After World War 2, architecture was a central activity in the construction of civil society. Architects were trusted to implement visions to reform a shattered society. Architects, armed with a sense of social responsibility became public servants, and architecture became truly public both in who it was for and how it was funded. However the architecture, although wellintentioned, flirted with constructional experimentation and often resulted in monotonous urban environments. Suddenly architecture has alienated itself within its own bubble, and wrapped itself in academic discourses like Postmodernism and Deconstructivism. Suddenly architecture became something to be weary of, and it became an opposition. Speaking about the late 1970s, David Chipperfield said:
“No one really prepared us to go out into a world where we would be so ignored, and distrusted. That distrust is profound... Why, in one’s normal professional process, is dialogue so confrontational, and why are we in a attrition process, fighting developers, fighting planners, fighting the expectations of the public.” - (Source: Tedx Marrakesh).
The situation worsened in the 1980s when Thatcher’s privatisation schemes left architects controlled by the private sector, pushing them further from society. Along with the abolition of fee scales which secured a respectable living for the architect, the architect’s position in society had been cheapened (see graph overleaf). Nowadays, the public profile of the architect is often cynically regarded as merely a display of public relations in order to attract new commissions (Hyde, 2011). The low quality of dialogue between the profession and society about matters architectural and urban has had a profoundly negative effect on architectural production and the way our cities are designed.
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Source: The Farrell Report
Source: The Farrell Report
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The age of the “starchitect” Whilst 98% of buildings constructed are not designed by architects, our powers of selfcongratulation have never been greater. Although the label “starchitect” has become something of an insult, its currency with celebrity culture highlights architects’ broad but superficial reach. Although the likes of Norman Foster and Zaha Hadid continue to demonstrate architecture as a glamorous activity and give architecture a reasonable press (compared to say lawyers or accountants), these singular buildings misrepresent the majority of the profession - they serve only a few and are largely irrelevant to the everyday lives of the majority. A recent study by InBuilding.org in 2012 uncovered an alarming statistic that the British public is largely ignorant of what architects do: • • • • •
72% are unaware that architects apply for planning permission 86% have no idea architects select and manage contractors <20% know architects prepare construction drawings 9% know that architects control site budgets 15% didn’t know architects designed buildings
The years leading up the Millennium projects and the proliferation of architectural awards in recent decades has cheapened their worth whilst reinforcing the self-congratulatory nature of the building industry (see opposite), as well as misconstruing the public perception of architecture as a shape-making exercise. Awards given to buildings that have gone over time and budget reinforced negative preconceptions of architecture as divorced from realities and increased scepticism from the public.
“What needs to happen now is that architects need to reinsert architecture as something people are interested in to not just architects, a thing that is important for society. It’s not just a stylistic exercise of redecorating your bathroom, it’s literally a question of deciding as a species what kind of world we want to live in.” - Bjark Ingels, 2015
Archispeak The tendency of architects using unintelligible language has further alienated us from the public. There is a popular story (shared between architects, of course), that upon leaving a Rem Koolhaas lecture, an attendee was asked what the lecture had been about. He replied “I have absolutely no idea. Either I’m stupid, or that guy’s a genius.” (Ijeh, 2013). When modernism lost its steam, architects took refuge in pseudo-intellectualism, masking their words and texts in indecipherable garb that gave false integrity to discredited ideas (Ijeh, 2013). We should instead strive (and it is our duty) to speak a language we can all understand. We’ve taught generations of architects to speak out as artists, but we haven’t taught them how to listen.
“Being a good communicator is essential. As an architect one has to be multi-lingual, and we must find a way of communicating in different ways, and by different means. If you can’t communicate your ideas to a client, if you don’t communicate to a contractor who ultimately translates your drawings into built form, then you don’t achieve success in architecture. Communication is essential.” - Stephen Hodder, 2013 (taken from Mies UK)
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Source: Codesigning Space
Collaborative codesign in action. Source: www.thehubble.net
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finding a common language
Economic recessions provide invaluable time to reflect, take stock, re-establish priorities and think a bit differently. The recent recession provoked innovation, finding new and more cost-effective ways of getting things done, engaging with building users and the public directly by cutting out the middle-man. Alongside IT and communications, this allowed a new, more democratically driven culture to emerge. Our profession is increasingly perceived as a translucent process rather than an opaque craft, and we should capitalise on this by celebrating process as well as the product of architecture. Codesign One remedy for the disjunction between the architect and the public might be the notion of “codesign”. Ignoring for a moment the production of starchitect-designed iconic buildings which “land” on-site, I refer instead to the buildings people use on a daily basis and have humble collective meaning - housing, community facilities, civic buildings, museums, shops, restaurant, cafes. The process of producing such buildings, close to the hearts of the public, could become vehicles for architects to engage. There is a fundamental logic that developing the design of a space through participation with those who will ultimately use it make practical sense (Dermot Egan, founder of TILT Studio, 2013). A codesign approach formulates workshops that brings clients and building users together for interaction and a cross-pollination of ideas, all of which is orchestrated by the architect. The process encourages users to explore the role of objects, furniture and design in their space, and its impact on their own culture and behaviour. From these inclusive participatory activities, the architect translates observations and outputs into more impactful yet suitable spaces and communities. These spaces develop a more purposeful narrative and resonate with the expectations of the users. Collaboration with end users ensures spaces are fit for purpose, whilst the process creates a cultural relationship by providing end users a sense of ownership (see diagram opposite).
“Putting users and designers in direct contact has created a more immediate and democratic dialogue which itself has gained momentum. There has been a cultural shift by which a new generation of practitioners has begun to question the way that things have been built over the last 20 years or so, and a renewed interest in the process of design itself - politically, economically and socially.” - Dyckhoff, 2013, p7
Codesign has a venerable history going back hundreds of years, back to a time when there was little distinction between the professionals and the users. Reconnecting architecture with its users - rediscovering the radical middle, where we meet, listen and truly collaborate with the public, speak a common language and still advance the art of architecture - is long overdue (Bingler, 2014)
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Fall of the wall, 1989. Source: www.bloomberg.com
Fall of the wall, 1989. Source: www.britannica.com
Architect David Chipperfield engaging in politics and process. Source: http://www.davidchipperfield.co.uk/
Architect David Chipperfield engaging in politics and process. Source: http://www.davidchipperfield.co.uk/
Professional Studies - Adam Jones
Berlin - participation and passion Berlin’s division after the war left the city the task of reorganisation. Architects, planners and politicians reacted collaboratively to rebuild a broken society. From their history, the Berliners, a reflective and articulate society, feel strongly about how their city should be and how it should look. Architecture has become an important reflection on their aspirations and the State has allowed significant public participation in projects. This task of enhancing civicness through architecture has been short of patrons, with the last two decades or so concerned more with political gain, risk mitigation, profit, speed and the vanity of the wealthy minority. Cities according to David Chipperfield, are the result of making ideas in physical form - records of our visions and mistakes. Due to the mismatch between the tendencies of investment and the poorly articulated expectations of the public in the Anglo-Saxon world, we have been extremely clumsy in this undertaking (taken from Poor, sexy, messy: the joy of Berlin, 2014). Chipperfield argues that public passion and participation in his Neues Museum project (although often fierce critical and negative) allowed a “charged” process to occur, a close dialogue and integration between architect, design team and citizens. Empowered by the state, architects in Berlin have facilitated a strong dialogue whilst the Berliners have maintained a sense of participation and ownership within the process of making a building. Architects have a more substantial role in such circumstances and engage closely with politicians. Chipperfield recalls a dinner event that took place at Angela Merkel’s country residence. Aside from the politicians and their spouses, all other guests were cultural figures,
“This would never have happened in Britain. This is your most important dinner in Germany, and there are only cultural people at the table” (taken from Higgins, 2014).
Alvaro Siza is equally concerned over the questionable democracy of decision-making in our cities. In a 2014 interview for the RSA Metzstein Architecture Discourse, he said, “decisions
are made in a closed way, disconnected from people and architecture. I think it happens because people do not have real control or participation in what is going on in the society. So there is a disconnection and then the field is occupied by speculation or by political wishes or decisions that are taken, even in a democracy, and get in the way of the passion of society.”
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So many decisions take place before an architect is even approached. We should strive to be involved earlier in the process. Source: Finn Williams
The architectâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s role in the design team has been lessened by the ever-increasing number of participating professionals and specialists Source: The Farrell Review
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“we’re not buried next to the king anymore”
Fewer architects sit comfortably as the traditional glamorous architect. As Herman Hertzberger said in 2011 “we’re not buried next to the king any more” (Small, 2014). The role of the architect has been eroded in the traditional sense by a plethora of processes and practices, new contracts, a rise of building specialists and forms of procurement, with the rising influence of engineers, surveyors and project managers in recent decades have poached the architect’s work (Jacob, 2014). According to the architect and theorist Alejandro Zaera Polo, the act of architecture has been reduced to a few-hundred-millimetre zone of a building’s envelope because the building’s mass, floor plate, programme - has been defined long before by others (Jacob, 2014) (See diagram opposite). Collaboration This irreversible situation means that the idea of collaboration is fundamental to the production of architecture. Where once architects were commissioned by direct appointment of a client, contractor-led procurement is ever-increasing and the architect can be sidelined altogether. We must embrace this, and embed ourselves as part of the team because successful collaboration creates better buildings. This idea has been at the forefront of the RIBA’s recent agenda, who have themselves admitted the architect’s changing role. Our reach as a profession has become shallower in the traditional sense but wider in scope, ambition and outreach. Architects who specialize and focus on systems, building information, energy, specifications, visualisation, simulation, constructability, etc will continue to see high demand and are uniquely positioned to become experts rather than generalists. This might lead to a new class of building entrepreneurs unbound by traditional rules of practice (Negro, 2011). Trying to remove architecture from the processes where investment, communications, marketing and media converge, is to diffuse the potential of architecture in the very real politics, vision and social possibility embedded in such relationships. It’s in the interweaving of these concerns where architecture really happens and value - social and economic - is created (Jacob, 2014). Professional Generalist Architect’s strength therefore resides in their diversity - from small to large, from generalist to specialist to multi-disciplinary, from local to international. This makes us a nimble, reactionary profession to respond flexibly to changes in the market. To be somewhat of a “Professional Generalist”, to coin Rory Hyde’s classification in his book Future Practice, seems paramount in such circumstances. A Professional Generalist has enough general knowledge to know what specialist disciplines to engage, the skills of communication to extract their expertise, the ability to identify the value in this niche knowledge as relevant to the task, and the extraordinary capacity to synthesize it into an integrated whole (Gang, 2012, p195).
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Design teams are getting ever-larger with more consultants. Source: http://www.lyonsarch.com.au/
Future markets. China, India, the US and Brazil hold great opportunities for architects Source: The Farrell Review
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As architects we’re generalists by definition - we know a little about a lot of things. On projects we naturally tend to become a translator, integrator, co-ordinator, information handler. We can argue that architecture is more than simply the production of buildings, but one of many diverse outputs. Architects are part of a team which involves and a process which delivers services, processes, programmes, which brings together planners, investors, users and the public, and utilises skills of design, engineering, planning, sales and marketing. Working Volume Because of these circumstances and the poaching of traditional roles, working volume for the traditional architect’ has shrunk. Despite this, the number of architectural practices across Europe has actually increased since 2008. It must be noted however, that the recession caused many small practices to go freelance, and 80% of practices now comprise fewer than five people. In addition, it is obvious that in a globalised world, larger practices need to look abroad for projects in booming countries like China and Dubai. The demand for architectural services in Britain and across Europe has flatlined since the financial crisis. Between 2008 and 2012 the sector shrank by 28% according to the Architects Council of Europe (ACE), an industry body—much faster than falls in GDP or construction output. In Britain architects suffered much worse, as the demand for their services shrank by as much as 40% according to the RIBA. (taken from Small, 2014). In response to this, architects have employed some ingenious measures to cut costs. Remote-controlled drones have been implemented to conduct surveys and take aerial photos which has slashed costs of inspecting tall buildings. The time taken to generate drawings has reduced through BIM. Work is also outsourced to India and Peru for cheaper rates. The ability to connect globally with workforces allows 24-hour working. Despite this, architects still struggle to attract clients, with the RIBA suggesting the construction boom is benefiting builders more than architects, because many contractors have in-house architectural capabilities. It’s predicted that even in 2025 the construction market in Western Europe will be 5% below its 2007 peak (taken from Global Construction Perspectives). Furthermore, the threat/opportunities of cheaper prefabricated system-building methods of construction may reduce the need for bespoke design services. The European Commission have said that by 2020 they want 5% of new buildings to be built of prefabricated straw panels.
Architects charge out cheapest fees for their most valuable work! Source: Author’s own
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Source: blogs.reuters.com
Source: www.businessinsider.com
Rome. Source: www.readwave.com
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invaluable value
“What is very clear, is irrespective of global or UK ambitions, practitioners that will succeed in the future will be those who understand how to add value to what they’re offering to their clients.” - Harry Rich (taken from Vimeo - RIBA, 2010)
Architects have to constantly justify architecture because of the added value it gives. For a profession in transition, RIBA Chief Executive Harry Rich draws many comparisons to the manufacturing industry. Manufacturers who continued to be successful through financial recession are those who can provide added value, utilizing their skills, intelligence and assets (Harry Rich, 2010). Clearly, opportunities will always exist for those who know how to add value. Beyond monetary value What sets architects apart from other professionals is that we trade in a service whose value is more than commercial. Yet because we operate in a commercial world, demonstrating value through commercial means is problematic and we are commissioned on a basis of trust. We should instead trust and reassert focus back to the benefits that well-designed buildings, spaces and places have on people’s lives - these things are also demonstrable. We trade on a currency of ideas and skills to deliver meaningful projects. We’ve witnessed the consumerist, transient nature of the economy and there is a prevailing tendency to believe that architecture is part of it. But what lasts, in the end, is not the forecast of the stock market, but music, literature, the arts and architecture (Chipperfield, 2011). While some architects focus on ‘regaining’ some romantic notion of control, we should instead realize that architects already have incredible power. The power to determine a vision, to set a path, to influence, to build teams, to specify, to solve problems, to lead, is extremely important - not just a privilege but a responsibility (Negro, 2011).
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Palladio’s Quattro Libri dell’Architettura (The Four Books of Architecture, 16th Century). Through his books of representations, Palladio influence became fashionable all over Europe. Source: facsimilium.blogspot.com
Drawn by Soane’s skilled draughtsman, Joseph Michael Gandy, this aerial perspective adeptly reveals the building’s interlocking maze of top-lit offices, corridors and courtyards. Showing the Bank as a ruin also has symbolic significance, positioning Soane’s work as among the revered ruins of Antiquity. Source: archiwatch.it
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photoshopping ourselves into a corner
The power of image has transformed the architectural profession and increasingly replaces the physical experience of architecture. It has severed architects from their craft and alienated us from the construction industry whilst society struggles to have proximity with buildings. In our image-obsessed culture of immediacy and consumerism, there is an automatic desire to think in a visual way, prioritizing the subjective over physical engagement. The physical “stuff” of things now exists within contexts of the mediated digital image (Jacob, 2014).
“The idealized representation of un-built buildings is stock trade in the architectural profession, and architects and their hired hands are expected to produce seductive images of their projects to sell the designs to clients or to persuade the public.” - Belmont Freeman, 2013
Image in practice To suggest image has no role in architecture would be naive - architects have always made representations of architecture. Indeed the recognition of representational drawing (specifically perspective) is what helped distinguish architecture as a profession. Image provides publicity - if Palladio hadn’t written ‘The Four Books of Architecture’, very few would visit his villas. If Le Corbusier hadn’t written ‘Vers une Architecture’, very few would go visit his houses. Gandy’s portrayals of Soane’s Bank of England project became more famous than the building itself. Superstudio used imagery in a provocative and engaging way to evoke concepts. The use of image is as old as the profession itself. The emergence of “Photoshop designers” (Koolhaas, Mutations, 2001) has seen China pirate and replicate buildings in their architectural and urban production. With the increase of computer generated, illegally copied architecture, we see construction increasing at an increasingly rapid speed. China are building 30-storey buildings in 15 days, and plans to erect a 200-storey building in seven months. The need for rapid construction in cities with abundant resources and a shortage of architecture means they copy from image. The WikiHouse allows anyone to design, download and ‘print’ CNC-milled houses and components which can be constructed with minimal skill. In a recent interview WikiHouse co-founder Alastair Parvin deliberately and explicitly marginalizes his own profession by emphasizing the democratic nature of the project: “If the factory is everywhere, the design team is everyone, one size no longer fits all. It gives us the opportunity to do for design what Linux does for software, to open it up.” Media has become so all-consuming, “with a rapacious barrage of daily updated featuring ever more problematic new images, it is little wonder that architects have time to work, much less think.” (Eisenman, 2014, p162). Peter Eisenman regards it unnecessary to visit his own buildings as the important thing was laid out in the drawing, instead his work is about “advancing his project, something that transcends any commission and attempts to elevate the work to a disciplinary and cultural critique (Eisenman, 2014, p162). This is a rather selfindulgent and problematic stance to take if we are to regain our public profile - it’s like a chef who thinks writing the menu is the same as cooking the meal.
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Hotel + Congress Center Proposal. Image courtesy of OOIIO Architecture. Source: http://www.archdaily.com/
schmidt hammer lassen architects’ rendering of their Waterfront Development in Shanghai. Source: http://www.archdaily.com/
Skidmore, Owings, & Merrill’s rendering for a possible Penn Station. Source: http://www.archdaily.com/
Peter Zumthor creates models because they’re engaging and a truer representation. Source:www.pinterest.com
Professional Studies - Adam Jones
Image as deception We must remind ourselves that architecture is the most physical of the arts, intended for human occupancy and charged with the purpose of providing shelter, whose success depends on factors beyond the mere visual. The two-dimensional graphic representation of architecture was traditionally the precursor or subsequent by-product of architecture, yet it seems that image and representation is slowly becoming a substitute.
“The digital age the graphic representation of architecture has moved beyond an exercise in persuasion; it has become an exercise in deception. I fear that the proliferation of such photographs lead clients and the public at large to expect from architecture and architects a degree of quality — perfection — that is impossible to deliver in the real world. The architectural profession may be Photoshopping itself into an artful corner. - Belmont Freeman, 2013
Architecture is becoming something that happens “to” us through a bombardment of imagery, without public participation. It’s turned into a entertainment, creating objects of consumption with an emphasis on economic profits (Teerds, 2013). These images give society false hope rarely will a finished building live up to the expectation of the visualisation. Perhaps we should all, like Peter Zumthor, stick to models and forsake rendering altogether.
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AA School of Architecture Projects Review. Source: projectsreview2011.aaschool.ac.uk
Norman Foster’s office in London. Source: www.fosterandpartners.com
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Lyons Architecture’s office in Melbourne. Source: www.lyonsarch.com.au/office
Professional Studies - Adam Jones
school vs practice
“Connections between academia and practice are quite weak in architecture”, said Adrian Dobson, Director of Practice at the RIBA in 2014. This is an understatement. The relationship between the profession and education is messy, like the clumsy embrace of two octopuses (TIll, 2009, p17). There is no question that what we teach and what confronts us in practice are not necessarily the same, and perhaps they shouldn’t be. Architecture faculties have always siloed themselves from the realities of practice. This condition has meant practice is exploring innovative ways of operating whereas academia is operated in the same its modern inception in the 1960 (Hunter, 2013). Schools with their fixed hierarchies and bureaucracies seem inflexible to respond to the scale and speed of change occurring outside, with transformations in industry ignored as compromising and distasteful in an idealistic flight into indulgent irrelevancy (Buchanan, 1989). In ignorance, schools fail to prepare students adequately for practice, from the traditionally crucial skills of understanding construction to more recent developments in BIM, which could be utilized not just as a prime tool but a catalyst for collaborative working. If we are to avoid our architecture schools sliding further into a theoretical bubble, we should aim to return with pride the title we were given by the ancient Greeks - arkhitekton or ‘chief builder’.
“My own education prepared me for a fraction of the challenges that I face as an owner of a practice. A more rounded, more streetwise, more savvy, service industry-led education would have been better than the esoteric, niche, quasi-monkish, introspective and frankly very expensive time I spent in la-la land.” - J-J Lorraine of Morrow Lorraine (2013)
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AA School of Architecture Source: http://www.aaschool.ac.uk/
Plaque outside AA School of Architecture Source: http://www.aaschool.ac.uk/
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inside school
“Architecture schools aren’t ladders but snakes in the board game of life.” - Will Hunter, 2013
The current architectural education system was formulated during the 1958 Oxford Conference, an event attended by fifty male delegates. They wanted to strengthen the profession by raising the entry standard to university, making it more exclusive. As Robert Mull said in 2010, “What use is a profession if it isn’t exclusive? Rather than widen access to
education and the profession, we must limit the overall size of education, ensure this smaller elite have automatic access to status and work.” After deliberation of introducing part-time
and sandwich courses, they opted instead for the AA School model because it was seen as exemplary, having produced a steady stream of successful architects.
Almost 60 years later, 96% of architecture schools still blindly follow the Part 1, 2 and 3 system without reflecting on the dramatic changes we have seen in the profession - society, politics, legislation, economic climate, construction industry, procurement, technology and globalisation. Instead, to retreat into a world of indulgent arcane academia seems enticing (Wainwright, 2013). This reluctance to change may be partly responsible for the marginalisation of the architect’s position within industry. The architect’s fixation on theory at the expense of the realities of building performance, construction, cost control and delivery has opened up opportunities for specialist consultants to intrude. This concern is widespread, even from within the RIBA itself. Stephen Hodder said in 2913, “ I find there’s a reluctance to engage with the realities of what it is to deliver a building - they’re almost things that one shouldn’t speak about. When students emerge from school and engage with clients and resources and the wider construction industry, we need to be able to speak their language.” Multidisciplinary education and training, integration with the construction industry, and a holistic approach to design are essential not only to achieve sustainability but also to reassert the architect’s position at the centre of design and construction (Bennetts, 2008). I refer once again to AIA Gold Medal recipient Richard Johnson, whom I worked for in Sydney in 2012:
“I think we’ve been too willing to hand over to others, the more laborious and difficult parts of what we do; to accept partial commissions, or roles and contractual arrangements that preclude us from acting in a completely professional way.” However, when education is reduced to mastering these skills, it departs from active and personal engagement, and judgment and idea becomes instead the gathering and absorption of information. A heavy reliance on sustainability codes and frameworks, for example, makes architecture quantifiable - bad, good, very good, etc. For the sake of our profession, we must protect the intellectual freedom and studio atmosphere that current architectural education allows. The freedom to think independently and exploratively remains fundamental to any education, and allows the student’s, character, life experiences and ethical positions to feed into the work.
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h, trut . A n w way is o e. H is own hy, an v i t mo e. in h sop only ieve it a philo al in lif d, s i h o h e , was rk to ac engine as his g , believ he h t u d o tr an w te d. T tw â&#x20AC;&#x153;His is own book, g - tha , opera create the d in d h ot ,a and phony a build ard, rea g he ha tion, n eator a sym ane or ho he e thin he cre The cr st all l h airp those w bited t sers. T rom it. d again one. a no t an h df su re No or in ot it derive l things ing and men a n w , fle ation thers ve al ith oth cre efits o h abo erves n ations w 3) ben his trut eator s . all rel â&#x20AC;? (194 r k . y r . r c d f a l l a o he .. The imse cond dR . h war se - Ho men ves for li He
Howard Roark Source: galleryhip.com
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“The most important thing for students is to seek out a climate that allows for spontaneity. During my own student years we worked as a small year group of around 30 people, ‘a collective’. You built a dialogue with one another and competed for knowledge and designs. These groups arose from a studio atmosphere and in most schools the studios were open all the time. It was rather like-a hothouse. But other than providing students with a safe place, warm in the winter and with good light, there is nothing else schools can do. Students must build themselves: their position on ethics, social commitment and so on emerges from those circumstances.” - Peter Smithson, 2001, (taken from Barrett, p8)
False role models Architecture students have always been brought up on a false, irrelevant and immoral role model - an elitist professional independent and superior to the building industry; a heroic genius with a pious, high regard for themselves (Buchanan, 1989). The fictional Howard Roark, protagonist of Ayn Rand’s book The Fountainhead (1943) has tempted many to architecture school. He remains the perfect manifestation of everything that’s wrong with the profession. More recently, Frank Gehry, arguably the most famous architect of our generation, has said that “denying the architect right to self-expression is like denying democracy” (Hosey, 2013), failing to admit that democracy is the will of the majority, not the Roarkian individual. The long shadow of the gentleman architect still looms over the profession, obscuring the more noble, early memory of the master builder who was integrated into and directly served society. I believe contemporary society has more interest and patience for the latter over the former. Image (again) The outputs of architectural education are increasingly two-dimensional. End-of-year architecture shows have become progressively more trendy as social events, with student work used as decoration for the promotional aspiration of the school. Student work becomes essentially ephemera, concerned with impact and immediacy, momentary thrills with a sense of ambiguity and mystery (Buchanan, 1989). There is nether the interest nor bravery to confront the reality of construction or buildings here. Projects and ideas are designed as images, a reflection perhaps on the tendencies of practice?
“Projects seemed intent on freeing the real world of people and places, scale and context; retreating instead into fantasy realms of convoluted forms with no seeming purpose... Elsewhere, data was the order of the day, with sinuous blobs generated by computerscripted commands, wrenched into algorithmic oblivion then squirted out on a 3D printer. This was generally a process so tortuous that students had forgotten quite where their starting point was – or even what their building was for... Other projects were staged in near-future scenarios of such complexity – with new legal, social and political structures – that after half an hour of explanation, the assembled critics were none the wiser as to what the student was proposing.” - Oliver Wainwright, 2013
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Mies van der Rohe Teaching at Crown Hall, Illinois Institute of Technology (Chicago). Source: duranvirginia.wordpress.com
Architects judging the RIBA Norman Foster Travelling Scholarship, 2014. Source: www.worldarchitecture.org
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Teaching The perceived over emphasis on theory in UK architecture schools can be attributed to teaching and teachers. There is often an imbalance of tutors who have had little or no recent practical experience - schools become a refuge from practice (Lynch, 2013). Often the brightest recent graduates are invited to teach in the school they have just left. They are often inexperienced and they can only draw upon their rarefied academic experiences, which tends to engender an anti-building culture. On the other hand in most European schools, in order to teach you must have practice and building experience. In this regard, I look up to Jonathan Sergison and Stephen Bates who teach and practice in equal success and seriousness. I refer to a comment by Stephen Bates in 2011,”it makes a big difference when a practicing architect starts to teach - the two go hand
in hand - it creates a discipline. There’s a level of urgency, and students get their vibe from the fact you’re building. We’ll debate real issues and details, things we deal with on a daily basis. Students enjoy it because they feel they’re right at the coalface of ideas and building and construction. I can only see that as a positive.”
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Young architectural collaborative practice Assemble Studio rely on external engagement with the community and fabricators to achieve their projects. Source: www.t-r-e-m-o-r-s.com
The AAâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s Night School is an on-going speculative project dealing with alternative models of architectural education. It aims to turn an architecture school inside out, offering what are usually internal activities to a wide audience of professionals, clients, other creative practitioners, the general public as well as students. Source: http://aalog.net/
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outside school
Part 2 graduates are likely to leave university with debts up to £100,000. Add to that the uncomfortable fact of low starting salaries in traditional practice and the option of an educational route through external engagement seems an attractive option. Through architecture school we acquire a wide and invaluable skill set, which opens the door to many approaches to architecture. GSD Professor Danielle Etzler remarked in 2011,
“If our best and our brightest recent graduates applied themselves to the project of building not only through the offices of architects but also through employment with our government, clients, construction managers, and consultants, in a single generation we would increase the quality of our built environment and instil values that establish architecture as an irreplaceable cultural currency. If we can imagine that we wouldn’t stop being architects by taking jobs wherever we can influence decisions related to buildings, our influence would grow exponentially.” - taken from Harvard Design Magazine #34, Spring 2011.
New ways In 2013, Will Hunter established Alternative Routes for Architecture (ARFA), which leads the promotion of academia engaged with practice. They’re aim is to make a 21st-century version of apprenticeship, where there is a reciprocal relationship between practices and students, and where both parties benefit and develop. In addition, they want to focus tuition fees on tuition while reducing overheads such as fixed infrastructure in order to make education better value and more accessible.
“Unlike the hierarchy of a school, we want to be a network. And, of course, the success of the enterprise starts with the quality of the practices involved, who will ultimately attract the students.” - Will Hunter, 2013
Other radical shifts are gathering pace in academia. Peter Carl’s ‘free unit’ at London Metropolitan university allows students to generate their own briefs and enact outside university. Furthermore, the reality of collaborative working across a range of disciplines could be integrated as an orchestrated network containing tutors, consultants, institutions and students to develop projects collaboratively. Projects could be initiated and undertaken locally, engaging with the community and allowing architecture a presence outside the faculty bubble. Cardiff and Cambridge offer a 12-month Part 2 programme - resonating more with a working routine, with only four weeks holiday. Alternatively, a part-time course allows for working in practice alongside studies, complementing each other. Promoting Foundation Year as a starting point on the long route into architecture seems to me invaluable. It would diversify and intensify the energy within schools whilst allowing the freedom to experiment and indulge in what may seem unconnected interests. But as David Chipperfield said in an interview in 2011, “you could study anthropology or have a keen interest in bicycles and still be a good architect”. Art schools in particular are places to rub shoulders with other disciplines, and take inspiration. Peter Markli has “learned so much from painting and from sculpture that I can transfer to buildings.” (2013)
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Source: The Farrell Report
ETH Zurich. Source: www.chemistry2011.org
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A European approach Despite refusing to adjust the Part 1, 2 and 3 system since the 1960s, the RIBA and ARB have put forward a proposal that aligns closely to the European model - an “integrated award” as a gateway, not a pathway. The name itself is attractive. In many ways the UK and European courses are similar; its annual duration, number of years and requirement for years-out and so on. The key difference, fundamentally, is how the subject is taught. In the UK there is a greater emphasis on a liberal attitude, with students encouraged to experiment and follow their own creative impulses, leading to a great sense of self-belief. In Europe, the priority is to instil knowledge of the discipline of architecture, develop an understanding of history and theory, and familiarity with technical aspects of the subject. Armed with knowledge rather than only intuitive impulse, a student is in a better position to begin to explore their own architectural interests. I refer again to Jonathan Sergison’s remark,
“Most young architects from European schools are primed and ready for practice. Of course, they still have much to learn but can do this by building upon a good foundation. In my experience of employing people that have come through architectural schooling in the UK there is a lot that needs to be undone first.” - taken from Architecture and Education, 2012
A European structure This would manifest as five years of university study (5+0) or four years of university combined with two years of professional traineeship (4+2). This proposed gateway would provide a rigorous and robust examination of competence but flexible enough to allow numerous pathways to registration, currently ineligible. In other words, architects could complete an undergraduate degree in another discipline and transfer to a MArch (or equivalent) degree, or even qualify after a lengthy apprenticeship. Allowing architects to train more in practice would reduce the time and financial commitment and allows a more diverse range of outputs. At the same time, some are worried that allowing graduates with little experience to register may undermine the professional title. But maybe naivety is a positive thing, and it should be embraced as a catalyst for fresh open ideas. Furthermore, not everyone wants to qualify as soon as possible. Architects are normally in it for the long run and there is an idea of slowness in developing a position, stance and place within the profession
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conclusion?...
... I suppose I’m rather old-fashioned. I believe our profession has neglected public opinion as a vital ingredient in the making of meaningful architecture. We will always be able to rely on architecture with a capital ‘A’ to produce singular, eye-catching, iconic buildings which keeps the profession in good press. Yet we seem increasingly incapable of creating harmonious work that resonates with a broader swath of the general public - architecture which is valued beyond the mere visual and which seemed commonplace centuries ago and in the post-war era. This contributory role to society should see architects shed their enigma and prove themselves as a valuable profession as any other. Architects have undoubtedly lost their control in an ever-growing design team, yet we should treat every commission as an opportunity and not be content in a state of isolation. In this way perhaps architecture should step back from the act of building as its ultimate fulfilment. By immersing ourselves in the realities of our contemporary circumstance we might find ways to forcefully argue for the absolute necessity of architecture to clients, to the public and to society at large, above and beyond traditional professional roles (Jacob, 2014). Alternative contemporary forms of practice have been generally perceived as a threat to architecture, yet those unwilling to collaborate and engage has seen an erosion of their traditional sphere of influence. A modernisation of the education system that the RIBA and ARB are contemplating would promote a healthy transparency between academia and practice - “reinventing the school not as an established hierarchy, but as an orchestrated network” (Hunter, 2012). As a result of the privatization of higher education, fees, and fear of debt, education and the profession faces threats of becoming smaller, less diverse and less representative of the society it serves. However as students we are socially engaged, active and determined to make a difference with our privilege of skills. There is a growing sense that the “real” and “unreal” world of education will disappear, with students, teachers and practitioners engaged in academia, practice and beyond. However, these exciting changes and possibilities will come to nothing if architects continually devalue themselves. Architects may have other motivations, but if they can’t make a living then they will have no long term viability. Failing to seek out adequate remuneration for good design only creates a false economy. Collective action, engaged with public opinion and participation, is required to make the case that architecture is worthwhile. Yet architects must also think about the values their clients hold dear. As David Chipperfield has said, “architecture can’t happen without money and power.” Architects need to show their clients tangible benefits of their worth if they are to free themselves from the tyranny of a cut-cost mantra. The potential for new ways of practicing and the opportunity to shape future paradigms is exciting, but if architects want to continue to contribute to shaping the built environment we must take the first step.
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Finally, I believe that architects must have a more significant say in the process of making buildings. Weâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;ve been too willing to hand over to others, the more laborious and difficult parts of what we do. We accept partial commissions, roles and contractual arrangements that preclude us from acting in a completely professional way. I believe this will result in a compromise to our art, or in extreme cases, no art at all - just construction. Or ultimately, no profession at all - just a service provider, and consequently, no inspirational legacy to place and culture. It would be inconceivable to have the manager of the orchestra than the maestro conducting, making interpretations of the music that suited agendas other than the music. The same applies to architecture.
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bibliography
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