In order to survive in the ever-accelerating world and avoid being rendered obsolete, architects, and by extension the whole AEC industry needs to address relatively long list of challenges that are threatening its relevance. Problems of Architecture. The following challenges are in no particular order and stem from the development of the profession over the decades in comparison to other industries, human development and zeitgeist. Most of the following are causal links, often interlooping. They are problems we ignore and lies we tell ourselves.
Thank you for understanding the need for a grim tone. Despite the following, I firmly believe we can improve our standards and make architecture great again if we work hard enough and do not compromise the values we uphold.
The Output Problem of Architecture
Prevalent both in construction as well as architecture, the issue of simply not providing enough value at scale is one of the most pressing problems of architecture. In the period from 1995 and 2014, the output of manufacturing grew nearly two-fold while construction lagged significantly with only 21% of added value per hour worked.
That is an order-of-magnitude error that only gets worse as more time passes. This mistake is costly on multiple fronts and results in auxiliary problems along the way.
The Data Problem of Architecture
Data is the new oil. Resource to be gathered, refined, processed and used. It is a cheat code for improvement. Companies that embrace measuring data and are able to make educated decision based on it are those that will be able to work more efficiently and in turn provide more value to their customers, clients and partners. In manufacturing, logistics and similar industries, data are collected and reflected upon religiously. There is a new generation of data analytics companies exemplified by likes of Palantir Technologies, Snowflake, Splunk or BigBear.ai.
Effective work with data is what allows companies like Airbus cut downtime, resources and cost of manufacturing as complex object as a plane. Cooperation between Airbus and Palantir is already saving the company hundreds of millions of dollars. Unfortunately, AEC is the second least digitalized industry, issue directly linked to the output problem.
It is disheartening that in the third decade of the 21st century, many simple tasks architects have been doing for centuries are still somewhat manual process. Even something as simple as calculating areas is often done only semi-automatically due to different standards in different countries, or due to inability to integrate the process into software workflow. As another one of the problems of architecture, this needs to be addressed.
Similar goes for many of the analysis needed for approvals. When architect designs, an immediate feedback loop is required. In the past, when the number of conditions needed to be fulfilled were limited, great designer was able to incorporate all of them through synthesis of information in their brain. Nowadays, the amount of checkboxes that need to be ticked off grew exponentially. It is therefore of utmost importance to offload any thing and everything that can be automated and quantified to allow designers to focus on tasks that cannot. Architectural design these days is often co-developed across many different pieces of software, without direct link. It is not uncommon that the project exist simultaneously as a CAD 2D drawing, 3D model in Rhino and BIM model in Revit.
These three are patched together without links and the communication between the creators of those models is the friction point. None of these platforms also allows easy and robust enough soluton to inform us about the aspects of design that can be quantified. As an example, precise daylight analysis is often outsourced to external consultant, with at least a week of downtime, during which the design often changes or new information is received, rendering the outcome of analysis partially obsolete. Another complexity is the sharing of data across different stakeholders.
Since different parties require different complexities of model, especially in early stages, the model usually needs to be refined for each particular consultant, shared separately, and reshared in regular intervals as the design changes. Due to many of the above mentioned complexities, architects actually spend very little time designing and insane amount of time managing. This could be mitigated, however relatively significant upfront investment in both time and effort would be needed.
Value Extraction
Without ability to easily scale production and/or become more efficient, architects have immense problems of capturing enough value produced. One of the possible ways where architects are generating alpha is the net positive outcomes of their design.
As an extreme example to illustrate the point would be the Guggenheim Museum Bilbao, which had tremendous impact not just on the city, but the whole region. Many people and institutions benefitted, however architects upside is always capped. Either through model of service, where the client pays for the time spent or through fixed fees. In both of those business models, architects suffer from limited upside and big amount of risk on the downside. And as architects are not able to capture enough value created, we are not able to spend more on research and development to improve our processes.
The Money Problem of Architecture
Tightly connected to the point above, accentuating the scarcity prevalent in architecture comes the question of money. “You do not do this for money, do you?” is one of the common fallacies architects use to both justify their own low compensation as well as press others to accept low compensation for highly qualified work and accept the possibility to virtue signal their own superiority.
Architects are now in a deadly spiral of scarcity mentality, which is one of the cardinal problems of architecture. Unable to extract the value they create, they fight each other. For most architects, money means survival. That should not be the case, money is a powerful tool to transport value through time and space. It allows for ability to change lives of people. Everything we have is borrowed, chips on the table. And if we, as architects, really believe we are creating a net positive outcome for humanity, we should strive to make as much money as possible.
Having more money would allow us to take better care of ourselves and our families first and secondly expand on the work we do, hire more architects, spend more on research and development. Develop our own communities. Build, create, expand. The world of architecture. Talent exodus Almost half of all architects want to leave their job according to the research of Bespoke Careers recruitment firm that surveyed architects in the US, UK and Australia. Most of them are dissatisfied with salaries (60%) and long hours (44%).
At the same time the heavy workload, long hours and lack of safety through inadequate salaries are causing burn-out among architects. As another one of the problems of architecture, according to survey done by Monograph, 96.9% of architects experienced burnout. That is basically everyone. Which of course raises question why are we doing this to ourselves, since we all are responsible for the state of our profession.
The terrible working conditions have a long-term negative effect on the talent pool. The best and brightest either leave, or never enter the world of architecture in the first place. This is exemplified in, unfortunately, still prevalent practice of unpaid (or very poorly paid) internships. Unpaid internships are counterproductive for the profession of architecture as a whole, another one of the pressing problems of architecture. It implies that we, as architects do not value our work properly. It starts at the internship level and ripples through the whole ecosystem. Having unpaid workforce devalues the work of full time architects who can be replaced by one or two interns and the upper management in turn does not push client to pay adequately for the services provided, which circles back to the point of value extraction.
If we do not value our own work, how can we expect others to do so? What is the message we send when we write an unpaid internship position posting for 6 months of full-time work? How do the others outside the profession perceive it? The answer is as such: “We have no real value. We do not even try to pay our own, those we have been training for years to be able to conduct the highly complex job we do.”
As a result, significant number of architects are leaving the industry in the pursuit of a better life, outside of architecture.
Bureaucracy Overload
As outlined in the IPO roadshow prospectus by Procore, the bureaucratic load grew 11-fold since 1970s. This directly influences volume output of new construction, driving the price of housing higher, since the cost of the additional layers of complexity needs to be absorbed, partly by end consumer, partly by developers who are essentially disincentivized to build, especially in certain parts of the world.
Thank you for this great piece, it rings very true.
Your line “If we do not value our own work, how can we expect others to do so?” is what i tell Architects all the time when they try negotiate their own fees down.
But i can’t judge, because at times I do the same.
I heard a very good response to give, if a client complains about fees. You just tell them: “If you cant afford the Architects fees, you will not be able to afford the building”
Ive been using that mindset and surprisingly got some positive results. The trick is not to get emotional about your prospective client or your fees. Easier said than done.
I think I’m close to a burn out.
D.Dobrev
Architect
RSA
The nature of BIM is to create a virtual model of a real building. The two biggest problems, I see in low productivity and value provided stem from architects not being completely educated, in the science of building – materials, envelope issues, structure. Architects used to know how to build now they do not. It is pretty difficult to build a realistic model when you don’t know how to build a building. Enormous time is spent managing 2D, 3D files and models turning things on turning things off and the difficulty of coordinating with engineers.