12

TOPIC 2: MARGINALIZATION

2,994
ARCHITECTS AS THE GHOST AUTHORS OF EVERYONE’s CITY:
Letting go of top-down control, gaining back our influence

Topic 2
Professionalism
By
Candidate 12
 Topic 2 - Candidate 12 - Professionalism

BACKDROP

Francis Duffy had heralded the approach of a golden age of professionalism in his 1998
publication “Architectural Knowledge”, pointing at the arrival of a period in which access to
specialized knowledge would be highly valued in a global climate flooded with information. (1998,
p.vi) 20 years on from his words, it is evident that he was on point in his prediction. The
business world is inundated with unfiltered information and the crucial roles are for those who
have proven track record of making meaning and making value with that information.

We are living at times where the core and unique skills acquired through an architectural
education are more valuable than ever. We are a professional body trained for creative problem
solving, for delivering strategic visions, resolutions within complex project contexts, through the
challenges of innumerable factors of uncertainty that unfold throughout the lengthy design and
realization periods, and throughout the lifespan of the built place. We are equipped with the skills
to do so, whilst willingly committing to being autonomous in our decision making, in order to serve
the interest of a multitude of stakeholders all at once. Our education system, the studio
environment set up around “Crits”, is one that prepares us for presenting ideas to a diverse
audience while making our vision believable and marketable through the medium of blueprints
(nowadays taking form of much more advanced and accessible visual representation techniques).
On top of this ability for “bird eye” thinking which allows us to be in control of a bigger picture
rather than a “single perspective” view, we are trained in various practical and technical skills,
which enable us to deliver “materialized value” to the built environment. Our professional body
stands for practical acumen that is grounded in professional knowledge, a collective “knowledge”
acquired through practice as opposed to purely discursive knowledge; the kind of knowledge that
is described by Duffy as “knowledge based on design and unites, in the context of action – past
and future, science and art, demand and supply, decision making and reflection”.(1998, p.vii)

2
 Topic 2 - Candidate 12 - Professionalism

Skills on a par with the 2030 vision for the workforce of the future*

We are living at times where the global urban population is expected to increase by 72% by 2050.
(Price Waterhouse Coopers 2017, p.7) This factor is naturally a harbinger of growth in the
construction industry, and the growth of cities. It also is a harbinger of further complexity in the
value networks affecting the built environment, where increased density of construction will spur
increased clashes of interest and coinciding forces tugging at the decision makers of the design
industry. An increase in such fast paced urban development calls for the unique role that
architectural professionals are trained for: The “autonomous synthesizer” of the various
voices and entrepreneurial energies that inform the vision of a new built environment. The
mediator of the stakeholders’, end users’, clients’, contractors’, existing communities’ and
the environmental sustainability requirements or needs. A research report published in 2017
by the global auditing company PWC further corroborates that the rising qualities and valued skills
for the future of the workforce are going to be the uniquely human traits such as emotional
intelligence, creativity, persuasion and innovation. The same report points at developing
information technologies such as artificial intelligence amplifying the need for these human
abilities as the technologies take over the tasks of processing, analysis and evaluation of the
abundant data that is creating today’s world.(2017, p.8) This would mean that the calculative roles
taken by quantity surveyors and developers can become cheaper services streamlined into
automated processes that create a base for creative strategists to work from, and not the main
“profit making” drivers of spatial design.

MODUS OPERANDI

This backdrop sets the tone of this essay as one of good omen, for we are already a very strong
and well equipped body of professionals networked with a shared continuum of knowledge,
operating through principles countering the traditional secrecy and silo mentality seen in many
other value generating innovation industries. In developing this optimistic view, the essay will first
dissect the shared worries around being marginalized in the design of the built environment and

3
 Topic 2 - Candidate 12 - Professionalism

the causes for the so-called loss of architects’ influence or authority. The understanding of the
causes will lead to the methodology of alleviation and reclamation structured in two parts: Part 1is
the short-term strategies architectural practices can adopt in order to boost commercial agencies
as service providers and Part 2 will outline the long-term collective goals of our profession for
developing the infrastructure that would allow us to comfortably use our expertise at higher
capacities, through strategies of market disruption that can shift the balances of the centralized
capital driven tectonics of the financial value network that is shaping our cities. This two phased
view will make it evident that we cannot get complacent in creating business models for providing
design services to an industry whose rules are defined by other tradesmen and business
administrators in which places we live in are designed as value engineered commodities. Our
practices will need to tune their business models to shift in two directions, in order to avoid the risk
of being marginalized:

1. EFFECTIVE COMMUNICATION OF THE MAIN “PURPOSE” OF OUR PRACTICES

2. MARKET DISTRUPTION THROUGH INNOVATION

CAUSES OF MARGINALISATION

Graphs taken from “The Farrell Review of Architecture + the Built Environment”.(2013)

4
 Topic 2 - Candidate 12 - Professionalism

1. The dwindling credibility of being the singular master builder or the hero-author: Losing
control under the increasing pressures of an ever-growing list of new construction
technologies, complexities of dense high speed urbanization, and growing scopes of roles
required for such complex projects
2. The unbearable (financial) unmeasurability of the “soft” values architects are dedicated to
generating: the value of good design.
3. Architects’ complacency in what comes across as unaccountability in the eye of the
investor: Transference of financial risks to other bodies involved in the project structure.

A SHIFT FROM STATE DRIVEN ARCHITECTURE TO MARKET DRIVEN ARCHITECTURE:

Anti-democratization of public realm design

Graphics taken from “The Farrell Review of Architecture + the Built Environment”.(2013, p.17)

According to the Building Futures: Future for Architects? article, 50% of architects were
employed by the public sector in the 70s; nowadays this has dropped to less than 9%.
Moreover, more than 50% of UK architects’ construction value is appointed through contractor

5
 Topic 2 - Candidate 12 - Professionalism

clients. (2010, p.23) These statistics are proof that there is a lack of diversity in the
procurement paths of our built environment and lack of diversity in drivers of the design
quality. The heavy privatization of the sector leads to financial risk hedging through
standardization of design processes and procurement, an overall hegemony of the private
client at the disposal of pluralist concerns of spatial design experts.

THE STIFLING CONTRADICTION OF THE CODE OF CONDUCT

While the ethical code and professional conduct brings along our obligations to the society,
the communities we build within and the environment, these obligations place the architect at
the heart of a clash of interest when the self-interest of our clients’ profits are not in par with
the interest of the other parties affected. By our code of conduct, we claim to be
“autonomous”, meaning we vow to remain impartial at moments of contrasting demands, we
claim to have agency in transforming these kinds of situations while also holding on to the
freedom to act otherwise at the face of questionable client demands. This freedom we hold on
to, in the eyes of a commercially driven client -whether it is the contractor client who wants to
make profit through procurement, or whether it is a private funded developer who measures
“value” through excel sheets of schedules of accommodation- is unaccountability. In the eye
of the private investor who carries the financial risks, the architect may seem like a service
provider, which does not guarantee the expected return of investment. It is this weakness in
trust that causes the loss of the architect’s control over design. For this reason, architects
must develop strategies to gain popularity and conviction in more diverse audiences of our
networked society and emancipate design decisions of the development of our land by
dissipating the authority of the overpowering client-centric market forces.

EFFECTIVE COMMUNICATION OF THE MAIN “PURPOSE” OF OUR PRACTICES

“Discourse commonly invites dialogue. However, in architecture (as in all professions),

discourse is not open to everyone but based on social appropriation and a principle of
exclusion. Laypersons are not entitled to participate in the production of the profession as a
discipline.”(Larson 1996, p.5)

6
 Topic 2 - Candidate 12 - Professionalism

It is this esoteric characteristic of our discourse that has lead our services to be inexplicable
and unmeasurable to the broader public. We are a profession trained to have agencies that
combine discursive knowledge with practical knowledge. While the discursive knowledge can
be made explicit and be shared, the practical knowledge that is difficult to define or transfer is
the one that gives us agility. As Schneider and Till further corroborate, this is a challenge to
professional norms considering that one can only claim authority if one can explicate. (2009,
p.99) This inability to clearly communicate our offering to the consumer -whether it be small
private clients or larger private development leads- lies at the core of our profession’s
marginalization. However, this is not an issue specific to our profession but a broader effect in
the business world, due to the characteristics of an empowered, highly informed and selective
client base that is facing a plethora of options in every industry. It is this shift that is forcing
every business to clearly define their “purpose”, specialize and form niche markets for
themselves in order to make a clear statement to clients that are overwhelmed with options.
Staying commercially relevant is dependent on the marketing and branding of our architectural
agencies, on being clear of what services we provide and what our unique selling points are.
As Evans also highlights in his article “This is how design will change your life”, businesses
need to answer the question “What are you for?” rather than “What do you do?” in order to
effectively communicate their purpose through a brand identity.(2018) Applying this method of
“brand identity” formation both at micro level (for each individual practice) and at macro level
(re-branding the title “architect”) should be our way of gaining back our authority in spatial
design.

At the “Education, Outreach & Skills Workshop” of the Farrell Review research, Professor Alan
Penn has stated that architects are not very good at explaining why what they do matters. He
further claims that surveyors and engineers are far better at staking their position on the
ground.(2013, p.63) If at the micro level, architectural practices start clearly communicating
“what they are for”, through specialized niche business models which have clear set of values
and purposes; this can lead to a bottom-up effect of the re-branding of the “architect” title in
the eye of the public. A re-branding that allows architects not to be viewed by the public as
luxury service providers, egocentric master-crafters who are only employed by rich patrons,
but as agencies who have ideals beyond the “site boundaries” of their private clients. Niche

7
 Topic 2 - Candidate 12 - Professionalism

business models such as baca architects, Mae, Erect Architecture, EVA Studio, Populous,
Common Ground Architecture, amongst many other young practices each portray a different
specialized raison d’etre. Each of them has distinctive purposes, missions that are more
relatable and easier to comprehend for the general public. Mæ Architects, as an example “has
not just developed a specialism in social housing and estate regeneration, but (their) whole
mission in life seems to be to develop research, understanding and new thinking in how good
social housing design can significantly impact on people’s lives.” says Evans.(2018) A clear
mission such as this is powerful communication, effective even outside the bounds of
architectural discourse. The increase in number of similar practices will have an emergent
effect of a broader message that re-connects architects to a new and informed wide audience.
Furthermore, a clear mission and a niche purpose increase a businesses’ commercial agility,
securing an influx of jobs for the practice.

Spacehive.com : “A funding platform for projects that make local places better”

Our profession is in need of proving our vitality to a broader, pluralist audience -namely the
layman, the public, the end users- whose interest we wish to remain accountable for. On one
hand we have the anti-democratized de-regulated land development process in the UK that is

8
 Topic 2 - Candidate 12 - Professionalism

the legacy of Thatcher’s policies, which eradicated in-house architect employments in councils
and the presence of public sector architect departments.(Fulcher 2013) On the other hand we
have the recently “democratized” image of architectural practices that are reversing the
historical one-way, top-down profession approach.(Farrell, p.65) However, architectural
profession should show determined intent whilst giving-up the singular author role. In the
process of letting go, our profession shall take the active role of distributing control of design
to a broader open and inclusive stakeholder base. It is this active distribution that can be our
profession’s biggest contribution to the design of the built environment. In doing so, our only
hope is the well-informed networked society we wish to serve, the society who know what they
want, are able to self-diagnose and report back to the profession.

nHouse is a crowd-funded company founded by architect Richard Hywel Evans, who

has designed high-quality modular houses to address the housing crisis of the country

MARKET DISTRUPTION THROUGH INNOVATION

Endeavors focused on developing new information technology platforms, technologies which

can facilitate a democratized, decentralized and crowd-sourced (public participation)
procedure for the design process, are the way forward. The design phase, which currently is
at the mercy of private funds and understaffed, under-qualified council planning departments
should be opened up to the public. The steps that are facilitated behind closed doors, by
private developers with commercial interests, can be moderated in a crowd-sourced manner,
similar to the “collective opinion formation” which already occurs on social-media these days.

9
 Topic 2 - Candidate 12 - Professionalism

Thames Baths Project Visualisation used in crowdfunding campaign on Kickstarter.com

The value speculation of a site and the conceptualization of its future use can be determined
through public opinion on open digital platforms, the risks of planning approval processes
reduced by frontloading, the speculation and analysis roles of the private developer
dissipated, funding for an unbiased design development crowd-sourced by public popularity;
allowing the design of places to be driven by autonomous professionals rather than privatized
market forces.

There are many examples lead by small practices, which have tested the potential of public
participation of the socially networked society. One stellar example to this approach is the
Thames Baths Project, started by studio Octopi architects. The project started as a response
to an open-call ideas competition exhibited at the Royal Academy. The initial positive reaction
of the public lead the team behind the idea to incentivize a crowd-funding campaign that would
allow the architects to work on the research and development of the project with other expert
consultants, enabling them to prepare a pre-planning report on various possible sites along
the Thames. The project reached an initial £142,000 funding from the online community
Kickstarter. Three years later, the project is still running through a CIC, which has appointed
the architectural practice (studio Octopi) to complete a planning report, which also details their
business strategy and tackles the complex planning and environmental issues a full planning
application addresses. All of this information is made fully transparent to the public. This is a

10
 Topic 2 - Candidate 12 - Professionalism

useful method for allowing the publicly supported architectural idea gain momentum, whilst
distributing the financial risk of starting a design development for a project that does not have
precedence. A similar project has been running for a floating, self-filtering public pool in
Manhattan’s East River. +POOL is a non-profit organization that was founded as a
public/private initiative. Their initial crowd-funding of 40,000$ was used towards developing
the first filtering prototype, followed by a second crowd-fund campaign raising 300,000$ used
towards the river testing of the filtering technologies developed. More importantly, the public
campaigns have brought together a very strong group of consultants and influential backers
from respective industries to all work for the aim of building this pool.

The Hastings Pier project by dRMM Architects was made possible by a charity which the
architects founded, funded through crowdfunder.co.uk community, a platform which
allows investors to buy equity on the project – whether they invest £100 or the 10% of
value (which is the maximum one investor can buy in)

The success of these examples of crowd-funded civic architectural projects are proof that the
public is ready to participate and to shoulder the financial risks, of developing projects for
places that are designed by autonomous professionals. These few odd projects may not have
disrupted the construction industry but are revolutionary in essence. It is possible to see that
these may be the embryonic answer to a critical question posed on the Farrell Review: “ how

11
 Topic 2 - Candidate 12 - Professionalism

do we better engage the public in planning and designing the built environment, which is
ultimately owned by everyone?”(p.19)

CONCLUSION

We are fast approaching times where the role of a “real estate agent” will be left in history, and
the transactions between owners and buyer/renters are being streamlined into digital
platforms driven by cloud computing and data analytics, thanks to a plethora of property
technology start-ups.(Carey) The government has made a marked and definite point of going
digital with the National Planning Policy Guidance.(Farrell, p49) The future of the planning
“Design Review Panels” may well be open-platform technologies that are more accessible to
the layman, through technologies such as online 3D models of neighborhoods or VR
presentations of future possibilities. If “architecture” is seen as the discourse in which
members of our profession have internal dialogues for the advancement of a continuous
history of knowledge, our contribution to the built environment based on the reflections of our
discourse can only be viable if we treat architecture not as an insulated set of values but as a
“socially and politically aware form of agency, situated firmly in the context of the world
beyond, and critical of the social and economic formations of that context in order to engage
better with them in a transformative and emancipatory manner.”(Tillman, Schneider 2009,
p.98)

If Uber can represent the world’s largest automobile fleet without owning a single car,
architectural professionals can harness a decentralized financial force driving projects that can
benefit a broader public, without owning extensive property portfolios. The key to market-
disruption success is to create the best user interface through existing technologies. Inclusive
interfaces allow for a magnitude of reach and the scale of reach defines impactful change in
the game. Our duty as a professional body, should be to stand at the frontline of developing
these digital platforms, in order to disrupt the power dynamics restraining our professional
agency.

12
 Topic 2 - Candidate 12 - Professionalism

BIBLIOGRAPHY

1. Price Waterhouse Coopers (2017). Workforce of the future The competing forces
shaping 2030. [online] Available at: https://www.pwc.com/gx/en/services/people-
organisation/workforce-of-the-future/workforce-of-the-future-the-competing-forces-shaping-
2030-pwc.pdf [Accessed 11 Feb. 2018].

2. Jamieson, Claire, Dickon Robinson, John Worthington, and Caroline Cole. "The Future for
Architects?” Building Futures. Web. 04 Feb. 2018.

3. Duffy, Francis, and Les Hutton. The Idea of a Profession: Architectural Knowledge. E &
FN Spon, 1998.

4. Schneider, Tatjana, & Jeremy Till. " Beyond Discourse: Notes on Spatial Agency."
FOOTPRINT [Online], (2009): 97-112. Web. 12 Feb. 2018

5. Fulcher, Merlin. “The Thatcher Years: Architects Reflect on the Legacy of the Iron Lady.”
Architects Journal, 11 Apr. 2013, www.architectsjournal.co.uk/home/the-thatcher-years-
architects-reflect-on-the-legacy-of-the-iron-lady/8646400.article.

6. Carey, Scott. “These 11 Proptech Startups Will Help You Climb the Property Ladder.”
Techworld, 24 Jan. 2018, www.techworld.com/startups/these-11-startups-will-help-you-climb-
property-ladder-3632594/.

7. Larson, Magali Sarfatti. Behind the Postmodern Facade: Architectural Change in Late
Twentieth-Century America. Berkeley: University of California Press, c1993 1993.

8. Farrell, Terry (2013). “The Farrell Review of Architecture + the Built Environment”.
[online] Available at:
http://www.farrellreview.co.uk/downloads/The%20Farrell%20Review.pdf?t=1518886750
[Accessed 11 Feb. 2018].

13
 Topic 2 - Candidate 12 - Professionalism

9. Evans, Martyn. “This Is How Design Will Change Your Life.” Building Design, 15 Feb.
2018, www.bdonline.co.uk/comment/this-is-how-design-will-change-your-life/5092040.article.

14