QUESTION TIME
uestiontime
This month’s question:Do architects need to do a better job of promoting themselves?
British architects spend seven years training and honing their craft to become experienced specialists with the skills to help build communities and cities in a far more visionary way than any other sector. But, few give too much thought to marketing their skills; and this lack of self- promotion means, the profession is largely undervalued by the general public. There are of course
exceptions; some practices invest substantially in promoting the value they can add to projects large or small and some members of the public recognise this value. But, the vast majority of practices fail to shout loudly enough about what they can offer and as a result, too often potential customers fail to recognise the long- term value of investing in architectural services. So, in the tough
economic times we find ourselves in, when everyone is looking to cut costs wherever possible, do architects need to learn to be more vocal about what they can do and how they can add value to projects? If so, what needs to be done on an individual level and also on an industry level?
Karl Renner PARTNER, CLARKE RENNER ARCHITECTS
Everyone’s a better architect than I am. They tell me all about it at drinks parties and dinners. It helps enormously not to have a qualification. One reads articles in the weekend magazines, where smug wives purr, “Oh, I designed it myself and had an architect draw it up for me.” Yeah, right! To counter such bossiness, the professional institutes have a very steep mountain to climb, but the discreet cringing and hand- wringing down at Portland Place have, it must be admitted, been absolutely no help at all. The RIBA needs to become much more bolshy and stop apologising. It’s partly the legacy of
Thatcherite snubbing of professional expertise, and partly the apparent (but spurious) empowerment offered by the internet that has led to the degrading of the architect’s status. What’s striking about the outsider’s take on the design process is its sequentiality - each aspect being considered one by one. What the punter never manages to get his (or her) head round is the architect’s juggling of so many determinants simultaneously in order that the design presents itself with everything resolved in one summation. The fact is that such design-
efficiency is reflected in cost-efficiency. Perhaps we make it look too easy, and indeed the sole, inverse result of our capability is that we do ourselves out of fees. The RIBA should be more aggressive about this. Building costs money, and
20 | Architects Choice |
ArchitectNews.co.uk
more than we might wish, but architecture doesn’t. We have, in recent years, been browbeaten by the self-righteousness of the ‘green’ lobby, but that doesn’t of itself generate architecture. Client bodies like to feel that if you pose all the right questions, then the sum of all the answers will constitute architecture, but they are mistaken. Architecture is the magic that
the brief doesn’t demand and that the client couldn’t imagine, and this is what we mean by ‘added value’. We should always point this out, as (to be blunt) added value is marketable value. It’s distressing that you can’t
force people to have a better time, but architects have taught themselves to realise that they’ve succeeded when the client claims it was his own idea all along. This is a political stratagem, but does rather shoot ourselves in the foot as it presents the client with another reason to feel that ‘exorbitant’ fees aren’t justified. But enough of all that. Here’s the real answer - the RIBA should outlaw speculative work. Sure, our workload would diminish, but it would revolutionise our lives to be paid for one scheme rather than not paid for twenty.
Gareth Davies DIRECTOR, STRIDE TREGLOWN
These are indeed tough times for the construction industry. We’ve entered the second dip of our double-dip recession, and the construction sector has been hit particularly hard. Judy Lowe, deputy chairman of industry body CITB-ConstructionSkills, said recently:” The huge cuts to public spending – 25 percent in
public sector housing and 24 percent in public non-housing; and with a further 10 percent cuts to both anticipated for 2013 - have left a hole too big for other sectors to fill.” Practices have had to resize to
meet the downturn and keep their businesses trimmed to a level that makes them sustainable. This is a lesson some European countries could learn from - for too many years, many have simply spent more than they have, both governments and their people and we are now seeing the consequences. But it’s not all doom and
gloom. There are ways to make the best of the recession and to seize opportunities. Specialising in certain sectors or expertise can certainly help to differentiate architects from one another. The food retail market is still strong and growing; and despite the reduction in public spending, education is still a big spender, particularly further and higher education. Stride Treglown is fortunate to be busy in both sectors and is currently working with over 20 further and higher education establishments in the UK designing new campuses, faculties and student accommodation. Having a sustainable expertise
can also differentiate you. We’ve always believed in putting our money where our mouth is, and in not using our clients’ projects to experiment on. So, when we had outgrown our old offices, we decided to build our own. The result was Treglown Court, the first office building in the UK to reach the highest environmental rating of BREEAM Outstanding and more recently carbon zero. We did it in a downturn and it is
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