Why the Architecture Profession Must Die
Venezia 2004, via Wikipedia
My phone begins to ring, I lean over to see who’s calling, it’s my business partner calling from New York. It must be two o’clock in the morning for her. I hop out of bed, grab my phone and laptop and walk out onto the terrace overlooking the canals of Venice in Northern Italy.
Her excited voice comes over the line, “I can’t sleep, I have a great idea on how to improve the natural lighting scheme in the lobby and atrium!”
From my laptop I remotely connect to her computer and I watch as she goes over the design with me. We conference in our third partner in California and by 9am local time the design solution has been agreed upon. We forward our markups to the production team in India and by the end of the day we all receive an email saying the design renderings and animations are ready for final review.
For the last eight weeks the three of us have been able to dedicate all of our time to this design competition, it has been the highlight of our careers. For the last two months I have been living in Italy, enjoying the weather and gaining inspiration from the works of Carlo Scarpa scattered throughout the city.
If we win the competition we will be busy for the next two years in the production and construction of this building. If we don’t win we’re going to all move to Ecuador for the next year and volunteer our time with Architecture for Humanity.
This is the future of architecture. The framework for a distributed global project team isn’t new. Technologies like remote desktop software and high-speed internet connections allow project teams to work anywhere in the world.
What may be new to some is the idea that the Architect doesn’t need a mountain of paying clients to support themselves. How can my project team devote two months to work only on a design competition and then turn around and expect to continue to work for free for the next year? Did we just finish a string of highly profitable projects that have padded our bank accounts? Maybe, but we didn’t need the work. Did we win the lottery? No.
Photo modified by Alex Ceballos, source unknown
It’s six o’clock in the evening on a Friday night. You’ve been working ten-hour days all week, your clients are bombarding you with emails wanting to know the status of their projects. You are personally managing six major jobs and even with all this work it still seems like at the end of every month your firm is barely meeting its financial needs. You make a reasonable income but it’s impossible for you to take time off to travel or spend time with your family. Work is one crisis followed by another, one deadline resulting in three more.
Due to a downturn in the economy you know that if you don’t find more work soon you will need to start laying off employees that you have worked with for years. You know you could do better work and have more developed designs but you must cut the time you personally spend on each project to market your services and follow-up with potential clients.
At the end of the day you turn off the lights and lock the doors. You are the last one in the office again. You walk downstairs to your car and put the key in the lock. You think to yourself, what happened to the joy I used to feel in my work. Is this all architecture is? Is this all my life is worth?
This is the status quo in architecture. The movies portray Architects as carefree, glamorous, wealthy and successful individuals. The truth is that the architecture profession today is for the most part composed of stressed, overworked, frustrated individuals who live from paycheck to paycheck hoping that someday they will be able to take control of their lives and have the time to do the things they really want to. Out of financial necessity we take on too many projects and stretch ourselves too thin … and for what? At what point and at what cost are we deemed “successful and accomplished”? Have you asked yourself lately what are you working towards, what are you working for?
The status quo no longer works. The economic meltdown that we are struggling to pull ourselves out of has reinforced this fact. The idea of working for forty or fifty years and hoping to have enough saved to “retire” is no longer a viable option. At any rate, why do we volunteer to literally work ourselves to death throughout the best years of our lives?
The idea of Architects as artists is ancient. Wealthy patrons would hire resident architects and support them in their art. It is time for Architects to become their own patrons. Architecture may be our reason for living but it doesn’t have to be our livelihood.
Photo by Jayjay402
It is time for the architecture profession as it is today to die. It’s already dieing, it’s just a question of whether we will be like the Phoenix and rise from the ashes stronger and more noble. Freed from the financial shackles Architects can reach their true potential of being agents for change and contribute to the improvement of the built environment in ways previously unimagined.
I, for one, am choosing a different path. I choose to only do projects I want to do and to not do projects just for the sake of keeping busy. I choose to not compromise on quality because I must take on more projects just to keep the lights on. I choose to start living NOW and not wait until some future date. I choose to be creative and not settle for the worn out solutions of the past. I choose to take the training that I have received as an Architect and use it for the benefit of all people, not just those that can afford to pay me.
Stay tuned, the best is yet to come.
I’ll see you in Venice in two years, (Update 4/4/12: It’s taking a little longer than expected but I’m getting close)
Tim Alatorre, AIA, LEED AP
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I believe that it is important to understand that people have options even in a down economy. I’ve always done something outside my regular job in seek of a better life and sometimes just because it wasn’t enough. I cannot agree any more on the topic discussed here in the article, besides the fact that I do see myself living that kind of life. Although not in Italy, I can certainly see myself and my family living in a nice modern house overlooking the ocean front with an infinity edge pool right off full glass living room wall. Plus the hamock on the side and a small area for my baby girl to build sand castles and play.
The architecture profession has always been seen erroneously different. We, although handsome and well fit, are not driving the nice cars and living in the nice modern house IF ARCHITECTURE is our only source of income. I believe that the main point of the article is to have something else that supports us so we can do our job to the best of our abilities and not depend on it as the only thing that provides for us and our families.
Sometime ago I learned a valuable lesson, it was from an old very wise guy. He told me “a good investment is worth a lifetime of labor” I gave it some thought and let me tell you he was right. I know of some people who, for example, bought some real estate some time ago and sold it for more money they would have made their entire lives. But I realized, most people dont’ have a good investment. So I thought some more… and came up with this conclusion. If most people don’t have a good investment, they are sentence to a lifetime of labor.
We only live once, create a brighter future by working in the present.
Sincerely,
Alex C.
Great comments Alex. There has been a LOT of very interesting discussion going on about this article via email. Here is a response I just sent out to a number of former co-workers who didn’t quite make the connection that I wrote this article. Sigh, we are busy I know… .but my name is all over this website. Anyway.
——
Hey guys,
Have you read all the way to the bottom???? The author of this “article” is not just “some guy.” IT’S ME!! Tim Alatorre, AIA, LEED AP, Cool guy. Yes, that’s my official title.
I think both Greg and Bob make some good points, but no, I’m not having a tough time getting ahead in this profession. In fact I think I’m rockin’. I’ve achieved all the goals I’ve set for myself, I’m licensed, I’ve been working with the CAB developing testing materials, I’m very involved with the AIA, and I LOVE my work!
My point is that the profession got off course. Architect’s never should have started doing what we do as our source of income. Why are you settling to do this work just to get a paycheck? Work because you love it and get money some other way. Write a book, sell strawberries! I don’t know what you want to do, but separate this work from the money. We are creative problem solvers, why do we just fall into the trap of what has always been done the minute we finish school? Why are we creative with everything but our own lives? I believe that there is a better way. We talked about it briefly on my podcast this week, the episode will come out tomorrow morning. (www.sloarch.com/thestudio/)
In my 14 years of experience, my work with the AIA, the CAB, and interviewing dozens of professionals in the industry, I have decided that we need to get back to the foundations of the profession. This has become my calling, my mission. I’m going to spend the next seventy years of my life trying to tear down the economic foundations of our profession in an effort to make it better. Am I calling for a revolution?! Definitely.
~ Tim Alatorre, AIA, LEED AP, Cool guy
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“There are a lot of bright, enthusiastic, imaginative architectural students who could do something amazing with it – a coat of paint, lighting. And there must be professional architects who would be interested in it as a social project.
[…] that has changed the way I look at the world. In fact, my controversial post on the requisite death of the architecture profession came about in part as a result of the […]
Seems like you are punking out.Fight for better fees.stop devaluing
this profession.Never heard such bullshit.Maybe you just might
get some food stamps too for your spouse and kids.Begin by
recognizing your value….maybe you’ll find a couple of your Doctor
and Lawyer friends and open up a lemonade stand.
This is the problem, not the solution.
Thanks for you feedback Carl. I think we are both in very, very different places in our careers but Georgia, like California, has felt the full brunt of the construction slow down. I’m sure that worrying about putting food on the table makes my youthful idealism seem out of touch with reality.
After going to school for almost a decade, plus internships, completing the ARE exams, and the California Supplemental Exam I highly value the privilege I have to call myself a licensed Architect. The people I consider to be “punking” out are the individuals who don’t bother to get their licence but instead offer mediocre, half-baked services for a fraction of the fees. They are the ones I’m really targeting.
I know of many young Architects who are focusing more on the art of architecture and less on the profit. The end result is better buildings, happier clients, and more work. I think the real difference is if you just value your title of Architect as a way to pay the bills or as a higher call and responsibility to improve society. There are many doctors and laywers who work for free part time and full time. Why can’t we?
This may also be of interest, this is a show I did three weeks ago about pro-bono architecture. http://www.sloarch.com/2011/05/the-studio-73-the-art-of-pro-bono/
What happened to architecture that architects went from being master builders overseeing construction projects to simply artists that draw pretty buildings? Why can’t an architect support himself by being an architect? Why have architects let engineering firms steadily chip away at the profession?
I’m a young aspiring architect to be and the recent financial meltdown really changed my view of the profession and practice of architecture. I love architecture but hate the practice. I love tangible product but hate the bureaucracy that has crippled the profession. I don’t think that the engineering profession intentionally set out to derail the architecture profession although they do make a lot more money based on the 2007 US Census.
By the nature of the profession, architects can’t really look up answers in a book yet time is money. This is how engineers are kicking our asses speed and efficiency in the age of information economy. We should be getting better compensation but we don’t because clients don’t pay for the steps taken, just the results.
Ok… We’re architects. I’m not seeing a plan here…
Thanks for your comment Yogitect. I wrote this post a year and a half ago and I was in a very different place than I am now. Since then I’ve tried and failed at a lot of plans but always in the framework of being an employee in someone else’s firm… working towards somebody else’s vision. I’m finally in a position now that I’m going be starting my own firm and I’m looking forward to taking a new approach to how firms are managed and financed.
Stay tuned…. I may be close to a plan… and a new frontier in Architecture.