Practices of Social Sensitivity: A Case Study of muf architecture/art as Double Agents

THE ROLE OF THE ARCHITECT AS A DOUBLE AGENT:

professional practices and social sensitivity

EVANGELIA ILIOPOULOU 10843424

PROFESSIONAL STUDIES: SPECULATION TUTOR: NICHOLAS HAYHURST UNIVERSITY OF BRIGHTON 12 05 2015

THE ROLE OF THE ARCHITECT AS A DOUBLE AGENT:

professional practices and social sensitivity EVANGELIA ILIOPOULOU 10843424 PROFESSIONAL STUDIES: SPECULATION TUTOR: NICHOLAS HAYHURST UNIVERSITY OF BRIGHTON 12 05 2015

I hereby declare that, I have consulted and understood the information provided in the University of Brighton's Plagiarism Awareness Pack and the information on academic standards and conventions for referencing given in the Short Guide to Academic Writing. I know that plagiarism means passing off someone else's writings or ideas for my own, whether deliberately or inadvertently. I understand that doing so constitutes academic misconduct and may lead to exclusion from the University.

I have therefore taken every care in the work submitted here to accurately reference all writings and ideas that are not my own, whether from printed, online, or any other sources.

CONTENTS

1

Introduction

The need for a double agent 5 throughout the past decades 11 today

15

Double agents on the task a case study of muf architecture/art

25

Epilogue

29

List of figures

31

Bibliography

1

INTRODUCTION

2 INTRODUCTION

Global economic recession and sustainability issues have affected the modern-day built environment as well as those responsible for designing it. What’s more, the contemporary architect faces new, modern ways of making and developing through technology, which is now a necessity. These new conditions have challenged the role of the architect in numerous ways for the past ten years and call for a reshaping of both the profession and the practice for them to survive in the future.

Is it a matter of merely adapting to the new settings1, as Mouzon suggests, or do the changes have to be more drastic? Could the solution come through rethinking the role of the architect via tracing back the original aim of the profession? Going back to first principles (in MacEwan’s words) would be, as Young points out in Future Practices, ‘a regression’, and not a useful one. Instead, the architect should be now aiming to figure out ‘next principles’.2 Taking into account the nature of the AIM705 design thesis, it is suggested that these next principles are not to be found through the obvious solution of yet constraining technology, but examining architecture as a socio-political construct. In other words, principles that render an architect able to serve the people’s needs and a project created through their experiences.

Such a tactic could many times suggest that the building -“as a

1. Mouzon, S., The End of Architecture as We Knew It, Original Green Blog, http://www.originalgreen.org/blog/theend-of-architecture-as. html, 15 April 2013, accessed on 12/04/15 2. Hill, D., Future Practice: Conversations from the Edge of Architecture, 2013, p11

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noun”3 rather than a process, as Graham Perring has defined such an act- is not always the solution to a spatial problem. In order for architectural practices to survive it is believed that architects have to engage with a deeper newer strategy:

3. Perring, G., Part of the AIM708 Lecture series, University of Brighton, 02 March 2015, Lecture 4. Hill, D., Future Practice: Conversations from the Edge of Architecture, 2013, p10 5. Dodd, M., interview

by Hyde, R., Beyond Building Dossier, Architecture Australia, March 2012 (Vol 101 No 2) 6. Awan, N., Schneider, T., Till, J., Spatial agency online, http://www. spatialagency.net/database/muf, accessed on 12/04/15

“That deeper strategy is not something architects currently get to engage with, or are particularly equipped to engage with. They are mainly perceived as working to create buildings and urban spaces, yet buildings are not why cities exist; they are simply a side-effect of cities.” 4 In order to explain the social aspect of delivering architecture, a guerilla architectural practice is assessed as a case study. Muf architects/arts are examined as a successful example of managing a balance between the necessity of delivering a project and the need to stay true to social values. Muf is a collaborative of artists, architects and urban designers based in London, England, specialising in the design of the urban public realm to facilitate appropriation by users. As it is described in Dodd’s (architect of muf) interview, this balance of the different roles the future architect needs to gain, can render the architect as a double agent. 5 Thus, the practice is actually engaging in art, development and designing but always having a “social (spatial) ambition beyond the fixity of the building as object”6.

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5

THE NEED FOR A DOUBLE AGENT throughout the past decades

6 THE NEED FOR A DOUBLE AGENT THROUGHOUT THE PAST DECADES

It has been evident that throughout the past century architectural research has many times been inspired, or even triggered, by social struggles. For instance, the avant-garde spatial practitioners of the ‘20s had acquired the role of an agent of revolution7. Yet during the last thirty years this social role has been questioned. In the 70s, MacEwen was describing that crisis of his times and had analysed its consequences in architecture and allied professions. The RIBA had contacted research and conferences8 at the time, trying to ensure the social responsibilities and creativity of the profession that the bureaucracy had overwhelmed. But according to MacEwen9 the result was the odd contradictory roles of an architect that might either work in favour of the practice (the professional/defensive role) or the society (the learned society role). MacEwen in 1974 proposed the formation of a new architectural body to work closely but separately from the RIBA suggesting the name Architecture Centre, in which the public –non-architects, clients, users– had to be included. At the same time, the Architects’ Revolutionary practice (ARC), and its associated New Architecture Movement (NAM), questioned RIBA, as well as the character of the profession in the 70s, opposing to the elitism (figure 1) and doubting whose aims architects really suit (figure 2).10

7. Goberna, C, Lun Wang, C, Architecture as Double (Secret) Agent, 2013, http:// abstract20122013. gsapp.org/architecture-as-double-secret-agent/, accessed on 12/04/15 8. MacEwen, M. & Royal Institute of British Architects 1974, Crisis in architecture, RIBA Publications, London, p6 9. Ibid, p8 10. Awan, Schneider, Till, Spatial agency, p43

7

figure 1 Slate has been the newsletter of NAM and a means of sharing their opposition to the architectural organisations of the time Cover from SLATE 9, Spatial agency, p 177

8 THE NEED FOR A DOUBLE AGENT THROUGHOUT THE PAST DECADES

figure 2 Cartoon from SLATE Spatial agency, p 177

9

Later on, in the late 90s, “Egan Report Rethinking Construction” 11 dictated the changes that continued to affect the role of the architect: - growth of procurement methods other than the ‘traditional route’ - increase in contractor’s managerial role and the proportion of building work carried out by sub-contractors - effect of fee bidding and the ‘Best Value’ initiative on the traditional relationships

11. RIBA: ‘Adapt or die’. Building Design.

1999:5.

12. RIBA, ‘Meeting the Challenge’.

Building Design, 1999

At the time, a new possible solution to the threats of the new conditions was merging the roles of the whole construction chain, creating multi-disciplinary practices, standardization and prefabrication. RIBA’s “Meeting the Challenge” 12 was an attempt to ensure the survival of the profession, strategically putting creativity within society, thus aiming to fulfill the client’s needs.

13. Cohen, L., Wilkinson, A., Arnold, J. & Finn, R. 2005, “’Remember I’m the bloody architect!’

Architects, organizations and discourses of profession”, Work, Employment & Society, vol. 19, no. 4, pp. 775-796.

Although the future of a profession has been discussed as homogenous, the aspirations of individuals within the profession of architecture vary massively. In Remember I’m the bloody architect! (2005), conducted by Cohen, Wilkinson, Arnold and Finn, it is evident that the creative endeavour is the main focus of the majority of the architects13. However the practices that belong to the public sector mostly employ architects whose

10 THE NEED FOR A DOUBLE AGENT THROUGHOUT THE PAST DECADES

personal interests extend beyond their personal gain, while the private ones, consider the profession as a business endeavour.

This division of what different practices aim for is not simply an expression of different ambitions. The effects of each practice’s standpoint towards the profession extend beyond economic or personal reasons, affecting massively the social environment.

Nonetheless the division and conflict between the different aspirations does not stop in the single architect or one only practice.

Professional bodies that define architectural standards (RIBA, ARCUK - later replaced by ARB) have, also, been splitting the occupation historically.

Thus, these constant shifts in the organizational context or the role within the construction industry have been amplifying the profession’s general vulnerability in the political, economic and social new conditions.

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THE NEED FOR A DOUBLE AGENT today

12 THE NEED FOR A DOUBLE AGENT TODAY

What an architect today is can be crudely described as the intermediate agent (figure 3) between the employer and the mechanic14. Today, architecture “lies at the interstices of a quintessential pre-bureaucratic form (proffessional practice) and what is often assumed to be a post-bureaucratic and post-modern form (creative industry)� 15. At the same time, there are many forms of architectural practice emerging. Firms must seek to balance their desire for challenging creative work with commercial constraints but also represent themselves as pursuing aesthetic goals – even at the expense of pragmatic economic gain16. Or, it could be said that architectural practice exists in a grey zone between two different situations: It could be either critical (art/writing) or applied (building according to the prevailing political economic framework)17.

Yet, it has been explained that the profession has to tailor itself to the different roles as a result of global changes. In order to survive, it is necessary that there will be an end in the struggle for balancing the profit with creativity and, at the same time, architectural practice succeeds in serving its social responsibility as effectively as possible. But does architecture have, at last, the potential to act as a double agent working for these opposite ideological agendas? The detachment of architecture from the global social uprisings (Arab Spring, the protests in Greece, Indignados in Spain, Occupy Wall Street in New York, etc.) has been evident18. But these conditions make the (re)purposing of the profession as an agency of provocation more urgent than ever.

14. Soane, in Tombesi, P., On the Cultural Separation of Design Labor, eamer, P., Bernstein, P. & Yale University.

School of Architecture 2010, Building (in) the future: recasting labor in architecture, Princeton Architectural, New York.

15. Brown, A.D., et al., 2010, "Invisible walls" and "silent hierarchies: a case study of power relations in an architecture firm", Human relations, vol. 63, no. 4, pp.

525-549.

16. Pinnington & Morris, 2002; Winch & Schneider, 1993 17. Richter, Hughes, F. 1996, The architect: reconstructing her practice, MIT Press, Cambridge, Mass; London., p98 18.Goberna, C, Lun Wang, C, Architecture as Double (Secret) Agent, 2013

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client (commissioning)

owner

architect

contractor

agent (design)

vendor (execution)

figure 3 The Triangle of Practice Paolo Tombesi, , building (in) the future, Recasting Labour in Architecture

19. Cohen, L., et al., 2005, "'Remember I'm the bloody architect!'

However, this expansion of the architect’s role can be questioned. The notion of the profession as multifaceted and the architect as multi-skilled, involved in a spectrum of activities and constantly pushing the parameters of what constitutes ‘architecture’ 19 is against the conservative tactics. Still, these activities are considered to be outside the boundaries of architecture but are still part of the business. Is policy-making, education, design thinking and cultural activism, architecture?

14 THE NEED FOR A DOUBLE AGENT TODAY

It is true that focusing on the object/product, the building, as architecture is a completely wrong way of looking into the role of the architect. The danger of this wrong stance has been evident in the past 10 years, as recession has massively affected the profession, which has been facing the danger of unemployment more and more 20. One should take into consideration the built environment as a complex organism rather than fixating on “the pragmatic and economic forces”21. Thus, the role of the architect should go beyond “building after completion to its occupation” 22. Tombesi agrees that architecture is a profession that built its “social agency function in liberal traits”: It is organized around the social necessity of satisfying different social actors (clients, contractors etc.) 23. It is true that architects are not the only ones that engage in the creative production. Today’s city requires an architect-agent that collaboratively works with these other actors of a different expertise and intentions 24.

20. Awan, Schneider, Till, Spatial agency, 21. Hyde, R., Beyond Building Dossier 22. Dodd, M., interview in Hyde, R., Beyond Building Dossier 23. Tombesi, P., On the Cultural Separation of Design Labor 24. Awan, Schneider, Till, Spatial agency, p28

15

DOUBLE AGENTS ON THE TASK a case study of muf architecture/art

16 DOUBLE AGENTS ON THE TASK A CASE STUDY OF MUF ARCHITECTURE/ART

Looking at muf architects as a case study, one can see that they are a collaborative practice of art and architecture, using their projects to implement art and urban design embedded in the cultural and social fabric of the city.

Following the principles of the architect as agent, as has been described before, muf have successfully managed to work collaboratively with consultants, friends, the public, or clients.

This for muf takes the form of a dialogue -but not necessarily a consensus- with the aim to uncover the spatial secrets of each site25. Thus, the professional attitude of muf towards the creative process takes the form of an open conversation with others of different expertise/experience with the immediate duty to care for the client.

In their project “Shared Ground� in Southwark Street (figure 4), commissioned by the Southwark council, this dialogue/site research has taken the form of a video of locals, developers, politicians and children equally voicing their aspirations for the site (figure 5). Of course, the shift from the pilot stage of the proposal to the completion had been according to muf a matter of endless negotiations, and the aim was not to satisfy each and every voice, but to assist the creative process of the practice with a brief of knowledge 26.

25. Shonfield K, Dannatt A, Ainley R, muf.

This is what we do: a muf manual. London: Ellipsis; 2001.

26. Ibid

17

figure 4 First of a series of drawings for Shared Ground by muf. Each dot represents someone in the video 100 Voices for Southwark Street, muf architecture/art, This Is What We Do: A Muf Manual, 2001

18 DOUBLE AGENTS ON THE TASK A CASE STUDY OF MUF ARCHITECTURE/ART

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figure 5 Shared Ground by muf. muf architecture/art, This Is What We Do: A Muf Manual, 2001

20 DOUBLE AGENTS ON THE TASK A CASE STUDY OF MUF ARCHITECTURE/ART

In a similar manner, muf’s awarded project for the regeneration of the Barking Town Square in London (figure 6, 7), has been taken through a first stage of documenting the voices/vision of locals including: students from the Theatre School, elders from the Afro-Carribean lunch club and apprentices from the local bricklayers college, in its detailed design. The double role of producing architecture “connecting always back to the community” 27 is further extended by aiming to have a sensitive attitude towards the site itself. In the Barking project muf decided to celebrate the brick buildings surrounding the site by installing a mock up of a ruin (figure 8), a brick wall to hide away newer buildings as an echo of the site’s historical past 28.

Either way, it is evident that their work is cathartically freed from building, and through an artistic point of view, sometimes only with small moves, succeeds in reforming the spatial qualities of each site satisfying many social voices. Liza Fior of muf has explained that muf are not anti building. But, they see architecture expanding further than the built solution, as a network of connections 29. This way they manage to expand what the role of the architect means socially and politically by incorporating outside influences of locals, managing to still satisfy the corporate needs of the project, as well as a site-sensitive architecture.

Caitlin Elster explains that this merging is a political action.

What she calls this merging is a call for the practice to be double agents.

27. Rogers, R., Wordsearch Communications & Architecture Foundation 1998, New architects: a guide to Britain’s best young architectural practices, Booth-Clibborn Editions, London. p79 28. muf, This is what we do: a muf manual 29. Heilmeyer, Florian, muf architecture/ art, http://www.baunetz. de/talk/crystal/pdf/en/ talk27.pdf, accessed on 12/04/15

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Top: figure 6 Barking Town Square by muf during a public event, http://www.muf.co.uk/ Bottom: figure 7 Barking Town Square by muf, aerial view, http://www.muf.co.uk/

22 DOUBLE AGENTS ON THE TASK A CASE STUDY OF MUF ARCHITECTURE/ART

figure 8 the false ruin Barking Town Square by muf, http://www.muf.co.uk/

23

24 DOUBLE AGENTS ON THE TASK A CASE STUDY OF MUF ARCHITECTURE/ART

Therefore architects should be moral agents of change to offer effectively in the much-needed social practice. In order to achieve this, practices should bear this responsibility collectively, and, also, their members, need to work as agents of change individually, too. According to Ray, the social agent – architect needs to envision the built environment as the other place 30.

At the same time, this calls for facilitation of structural, social, environmental needs of the global society by the agent.

Nevertheless, the need for a deeper strategy to comply with the social role of the agent could also be achieved through alternative ways of looking at the role of the architect, for example cultural activism as part of architecture. Everett 31 suggests that a deeper strategy can be more easily achieved outside of the role of the architect. Or, as muf suggest, with a continuous fluid discussion with the client. Another possible solution could also be the merging of the role of the architect and the client as a new model of relationships. Finally, isolating the role of architecture from building even more, could be given a new physical goal: “Maybe now architects have to offer other skills, other roles, other contributions” 32. In an image-dominated world critical thinking of what architecture is could be presented in the form of exhibitions 33, as Gadanho states.

30. Ray, N., Architecture and its ethical dilemmas. Abingdon: Routledge; 2005.

31. Everett, E., Part of the AIM708 Lecture series, University of Brighton, 16 March 2015, Lecture 32. Gadanho P, Gallanti F. Del curare architettura come pratica critica./ On curating architecture as critical practice. Abitare. 2010(506):32-7.

33. Ibid

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EPILOGUE

26 EPILOGUE

The fact that the architectural practice should go beyond building has been explained and defended before. It is proved in publications such as the 2005 Volume magazine going “beyond architecture’s definition of making buildings”; or Aaron Betsky’s 11th International Architecture Exhibition at the 2008 Venice Biennale entitled “Out There: Architecture Beyond Building”.

Architects in the digital age should be more like thinkers: “architects do not build buildings, builders build buildings” as the division of labour has identified 34. To produce new architecture means to produce new subjects posing problems and questions for designers 35.

Despite all these, there is no doubt that the ultimate goal of the architect is still to solidify ideas. The solution to the crisis of the profession might be embracing non-architects in a new type of practice, a multi-disciplinary one. This could ensure the survival of the practice in the demanding changing future. But, while all of them attribute to the creative procedure of the production of architecture, this “does not make everyone architects” 36.

“Unlike the policy-maker or the cultural activist, the architect cannot only conceptualize architecture, the architect can go beyond this to make it in the material world.”37 But, it is a necessity that the future practice is composed by architects, who, via working with other professions, are ready to operate in “complex spatial contexts” 38. This new practice

34. Martin, R., Postscript, Deamer, P., Bernstein, P. & Yale University. School of Architecture 2010, Building (in) the future: recasting labor in architecture, Princeton Architectural, New York.

35. Ibid 36. Hyde, R., Beyond Building Dossier 37. Ibid 38. Awan, Schneider, Till, Future Practices, p.85

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needs to take into account and merge political, social and environmental conditions with spatial requirements in order to produce a solution.

To sum up, the double agent should be equipped with a sensitivity regarding social issues. In order to achieve this, they cannot act alone but only as part of a “mutual enterprise” 39. The client needs still have to be the centre of the discussion but this process should now be aiming to reaching a solution, no matter what the form of this is, and, as a result, sometimes avoiding building completely, in the spirit of muf architecture/art.

39. Awan, Schneider, Till, Future Practices, p.32 40. Awan, Schneider, Till, Future Practices, p.33

The architect-double agent and the practice-spatial agency could potentially be the key to shift the importance of the building as an object, to building as a concern. It is strongly believed that once entering and merging the profession with “socially embedded networks” 40, discarding conservative tactics, the future of the practice will be ensured and evolve into new ways of doing architecture, which fit the contemporary social and environmental issues.

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LIST OF FIGURES Cover photo: author’s own, Photomontage , source images:

slums, https://lebbeuswoods.files.wordpress.com/2008/01/ slum-mumbai1a.jpg

muf projects, Shonfield K, Dannatt A, Ainley R, muf. This is what

we do: a muf manual. London: Ellipsis; 2001.

Figure 1: Cover from SLATE, Awan, N., Schneider, T., Till, J., Spatial agency: other ways of doing architecture. Abingdon: Routledge; 2011, p 177 Figure 2: Cartoon from SLATE, Awan, N., Schneider, T., Till, J., Spatial agency: other ways of doing architecture. Abingdon: Routledge; 2011. p 177 Figure 3: The Triangle of Practice, Tombesi, P., On the Cultural Separation of Design Labor, Deamer, P., Bernstein, P. & Yale University. School of Architecture 2010, Building (in) the future: recasting labor in architecture, Princeton Architectural, New York.

Figure 4: 100 Voices for Southwark Street, Shonfield K, Dannatt A, Ainley R, muf. This is what we do: a muf manual. London: Ellipsis; 2001.

Figure 5: Shared Ground by muf, Shonfield K, Dannatt A, Ainley R, muf.

This is what we do: a muf manual. London: Ellipsis; 2001.

Figure 6: Barking Town Square by muf during a public event, http://www. muf.co.uk/ Figure 7: Barking Town Square by muf, aerial view, http://www.muf.co.uk/ Figure 8: The false ruin, Barking Town Square by muf, http://www.muf. co.uk

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BIBLIOGRAPHY Awan, N., Schneider, T., Till, J., Spatial agency online, http://www.spatialagency.net/database/muf, accessed on 12/04/15 Awan, N., Schneider, T., Till, J., Spatial agency: other ways of doing architecture. Abingdon: Routledge; 2011.

Brown, A.D., Kornberger, M., Clegg, S.R. & Carter, C., “Invisible walls” and “silent hierarchies: a case study of power relations in an architecture firm”, Human relations, vol. 63, no. 4, pp. 525-549., 2010 Cohen, L., Wilkinson, A., Arnold, J. & Finn, R. 2005, “’Remember I’m the bloody architect!’ Architects, organizations and discourses of profession”, Work, Employment & Society, vol. 19, no. 4, pp. 775-796.

Everett, E., Part of the AIM708 Lecture series, University of Brighton, 16 March 2015, Lecture Gadanho P, Gallanti F. Del curare architettura come pratica critica./On curating architecture as critical practice. Abitare. 2010(506):32-7.

Goberna, C, Lun Wang, C, Architecture as Double (Secret) Agent, 2013, http://abstract20122013.gsapp.org/architecture-as-double-secret-agent/, accessed on 12/04/15 Heilmeyer, Florian, muf architecture/art, http://www.baunetz.de/talk/ crystal/pdf/en/talk27.pdf, accessed on 12/04/15 Hyde, R., Beyond Building Dossier, Architecture Australia, March 2012 (Vol 101 No 2) Hyde, R., Future practice: conversations from the edge of architecture.

New York; London: Routledge; 2013.

MacEwen M, Royal Institute of British Architects. Crisis in architecture.

London: RIBA Publications; 1974.

32 BIBLIOGRAPHY

Mouzon, S., The End of Architecture as We Knew It, Original Green Blog, http://www.originalgreen.org/blog/the-end-of-architecture-as.html, 15 April 2013, accessed on 12/04/15 Perring, G., Part of the AIM708 Lecture series, University of Brighton, 02 March 2015, Lecture Pinnington, A., Morris, T., Transforming the Architect: Ownership Form and Archetype Change, Organization Studies 23: 189-210, 2002 Ray, N., Architecture and its ethical dilemmas. Abingdon: Routledge; 2005.

RIBA: ‘Adapt or die’. Building Design. 1999:5.

RIBA: ‘Meeting the Challenge’. Building Design, 1999 Rogers, R., Wordsearch Communications & Architecture Foundation, New architects: a guide to Britain’s best young architectural practices, Booth-Clibborn Editions, London, 1998 Shonfield K, Dannatt A, Ainley R, muf. This is what we do: a muf manual.

London: Ellipsis; 2001.

Tombesi, P., On the Cultural Separation of Design Labor, Deamer, P., Bernstein, P. & Yale University. School of Architecture 2010, Building (in) the future: recasting labor in architecture, Princeton Architectural, New York.

Williams D, Egan Sj, Contasfor. [Summary Of ] “”Rethinking Construction”” - The Report Of The Construction Task Force. Ice Briefing Sheet. Proceedings Of The Ice - Municipal Engineer. 1998;127(4):199-203.

Winch, G., Schneider, E., Managing the Knowledge Based Organization: The Case of Architectural Practice, Journal of Management Studies 30: 923-37, 1993

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