by Richard W. Hobbs, FAIA
AIA Resident Fellow, Marketplace Research and Trends

A recent conference sponsored by the AIA California Council sparked lively debate on facilitating strategic change within the profession. The “Expanding Practice in a Shrinking Universe” conference called together architects with the intent of inspiring thought, encouraging discussion, and offering perspective on the issues and opportunities facing today’s professional. The “expanding practices” portion acknowledged that filling the diverse needs of today’s clients requires multidisciplinary teams. The “shrinking universe” part considered that if the client sees the architect as lacking responsibility and accountability, the client will explore alternative solutions. The result? Architecture as a profession is being marginalized by outside businesses and professions promising more for less.

Along those lines, we are seeing the following trends.
• Clients prefer to deal with a team that can coordinate, facilitate, and deliver entire projects with predictable outcomes.
• Using today’s technologies, architects offer vision and lead both the design process and project delivery.
• An overarching process must lead the collective vision of the group, given that a diverse perspective leads to understanding and a place in the larger picture.

Maintaining the profession’s status quo will further marginalize the role of the architect in the design process, therefore shifting strategies should be front and center on the radar screens of many design firms. Some skeptics question whether such strategic change will benefit architects financially more than it will create value for the client. My findings show that the architect’s ethics and professionalism indeed primarily address value for the clients, users, and community. Increased financial reward for the architect turns out to be a byproduct of shifting strategies.

Clients are ready for a strategic shift
Former AIA Secretary and California State Architect Stephan Castellanos, FAIA, says he trusts that those architects working on behalf of California’s vast array of design and construction projects start with a social and professional responsibility to the client. He believes that “clients are pulling architects up the ladder” in their need for professionals to take responsibility for both projects and the process. Clients, he posits, are fostering an emerging vision of the architect as holistic, synthesizing thinkers who bring value to whatever the design issue.

Clients today want design professionals who look beyond the project (i.e. the building itself) to the process and who acknowledge that although many parts of the process are “virtual and nonphysical,” they should be undertaken with the same care and passion as the physical building. Clients, in other words, are looking for professionals who will further their business strategies through design. And, in fact, design is the link between strategy and implementation for whatever process or product is being created—virtual or physical, non-built or built.

Are we limiting ourselves?
Do we, as a profession, limit our own thinking about how we approach architecture? We know that 47 percent of architects are more than 50 years old. It has been my observation that architects 35 or younger are quickest and most comfortable embracing integrated services and future scenarios. Taken together, we may ask whether factors limiting the professional may be coming from within.

All the findings in this column are about applying the architects’ training and skills of critical thinking to define our own profession. Strategic, critical, insightful thinking often comes from the outside, or from fringe “deviants,” and is brought inside by those who keep their ears, eyes, and minds open to insight. Futurists are not about telling what is going to happen, they are challenging us to see things differently.

To many architects, architecture is DESIGN, the core of the profession. I think DESIGN can be considered the infrastructure of architecture. Let’s draw a parallel to the software industry, whose infrastructure constantly is being refined. As the infrastructure gets better, the value of the application increases. The same is true with architecture: As the value of its infrastructure, DESIGN, increases, so does the value of the profession. And as the value of DESIGN increases, the profession broadens and extends its knowledge base by moving both upstream (into predesign services) and downstream (into post-design services). You can apply these services when you understand the clients’ overall strategy and align your design process with it.

Our Redefinition Scenario graphic has DESIGN at its center, infrastructure on the implementation end of the Practice axis, and application on the integration/strategy end.

It’s all DESIGN!
DESIGN links strategy and implementation, regardless of profession or industry. Many people, architects among them, currently are talking about “stories,” of how they work, and design plays a starring role in many of them. Many other professionals are telling a story that is also our story. To bring these stories to you, we currently are researching and developing these “Best Practices” stories and will present them through this column in 2003. We’ll be studying diverse practices in architecture, the architect as “knowledge integrator,” and the role of design research.

Here’s a hint: These stories will excite and intrigue you. They will offer a vision and framework to facilitate strategic change that could encompass greater responsibility and accountability, ultimately providing greater value for your clients, profession, and yourself. Share your comments and feedback, vision and insight. If you’d like to take part, contact me.

Copyright 2003 The American Institute of Architects. All rights reserved.