architectural design – Page 4 – Peter Raisbeck: surviving the design studio

TESTOSTERONE FUELLED TECHNO-OPTIMISM: 2018 Global Architectural Research Survey Part 2.

March 22, 2018Peter Raisbeck

This blog follows on from the previous blog discussing the responses to my rapid survey of research attitudes and structures in architectural practices. I have sprinkled a few thought provoking quotes from survey respondents throughout.

As a new practice with limited mentor-type assistance research consumes a massive amount of time which results in inefficiency and financial stress. It is nevertheless a constant element that underpins all projects through all phases. The assumption is that through research we develop our knowledge and the ability to recall and apply it in order to achieve better result and with greater efficiency.

Research Ad hocism

Around 57% of responding architects have no, or only partial, systems within their practices to capture research knowledge. Yet as noted in the previous blog on this many architects still claim that they are doing research in informal ways as they design projects.

If all this ad hocism is the case then it is reasonable to ask: what sort of research are architects currently pursuing in their wonderfully ad hoc, informal, doing the project-at-hand and organic ways? The survey asked a two questions about this. The first question asked: Does your firm conduct research into any of the following established research areas ? The results are below:

Perhaps the survey question could have been sharper. But look at the chart: Lots are doing sustainability research (surprise, surprise), lots are into Urban Design (I am old enough to remember when no-one did this) and then different variants of health, housing and education crop up. Health and ageing looks like its a bit low. Nonetheless, my innate trained at RMIT cynicism tells me its a list of the usual suspects.

What is probably more interesting, in the above somewhat prosaic list of responses, are the outliers (the other responses) and these were things like: indigenous cultural awareness, forensic architecture, animal welfare, pre-fab, modular, briefing methodologies, co-living, design advocacy and dispute resolution.

The list certainly reflects broader economic realities. Being the areas where clients have the money and the architects are following. As they say, follow the money. So this may simply reflect broader economic realities. But is this really a list of research areas that are going to help architects enhance their agency in the future? If everyone is doing the same research how can an individual firm differentiate itself?

I’ve noticed many practices in the UK do formally engage in meaningful research and employ full time research staff to organise and catalogue information. Not only does it help to strengthen the practices body of work, but also their image as a practice that engages with contemporary issues, this consequently gives them a competitive edge when competing to win much sought after public projects and roles involving design advisory for government bodies

One strategy for firms is to set up structures, to research the things around what the practice is currently doing but also develop a few research projects that lie outside of the firms expertise; research that might create knowledge that will differentiate the practice.

The research carried out by the practice is underutilized, and should be benefitting the practice and the industry in general.

Which leads us to the next chart, the second question about what architects do, which was intended to be a little more future orientated:

Looking at this one, I am beginning to wonder, again with my cynical hat on, if anything outside of the techno-optimistic agenda might be too hard for architects. But all of the other usual and overtly macho-boyo technical suspects were there including: BIM, Parametric Modelling, Drones & 3D Printing or Scanning (stab me in the eye with a biro), Virtual Reality, CNC Fabrication and Advanced Prefabrication. Not a word about the organisational or social sciences. The what?

I was somewhat shocked to see that a huge slab of architects listed BIM Modelling and Parametric modelling as the big ticket future research items. Maybe not so suprising. Surely, any future research in these areas is more about incremental rather than radical innovations. Perhaps architects are now lost without a kind of technical agenda for guidance.

But, as someone said to me if you are going to research this stuff don’t dabble in it. Either do it as pure research or do it as serious applied research, at the other end of the chain, which will give you some kind of competitive advantage. But don’t dabble.

Little thought is given to incentivising staff to carry out research. For more could be achieved if there were incentives for staff. Staff are assumed to be interested in research but many capable members of staff feel they are too busy to do it especially when they do not see a return.

Heres another chart looking at research governance:

While there is a knowledge bank from previous successful and never built projects that can be accessed by anyone in the practice, it is a tool that it is rarely used. There is this idea among architects that there is always the need to reinvent the wheel, even when sometimes the answer is within previous research and projects undertaken by the practice.

Ladbrokes

For my money I am betting with my Ladbrokes account on research into data analytics and social media. This is because I think architects can profitably bring their creativity, spatial thinking skills and ability to see across disciplines fields like data analytics. Maybe those qualities are a bit old school. But, I am over the boys-with-toys technologies in architecture. And what really worries me is all that testosterone fuelled techno-optimism has eroded our ability to think clearly.

Surviving the Design Studio: 4 Ways to make sure you become a BIM monkey.

March 16, 2018Peter Raisbeck

Feature Image: ‘Concrete[I]Land’ (Photograph courtesy of New_territories with Ann-Arbor)

Getting older in architecture sucks. Along with all the other forms of discrimination, profiling, appalling labour practices and lack of diversity once you get to certain age you become invisible. Worse still you become really really invisible to those architects above you adept at exploiting the talent. Much easier to exploit the interns and the recent graduates than the old hands.

A friend of mine, an architect with about 25 years of experience working with the very best architects in town, as well as the worst, bemoaned the early career architectural graduates she had to work with. In a nutshell she said there was

“sometimes a staggering gulf between “confidence level and knowledge-experience-skill.”

Another friend, who came through the same cruel archi-school regime I also suffered under, wondered out loud:

“why would you go to architecture school just to learn BIM and not much else?”

Someone else I know in NYC, was aghast in a design meeting where one early career architect proclaimed:

“I’ve done some research and Brooklyn has a lot of old buildings with arches so we should do a building with arches.”

Someone else said to me:

Whenever I go to those large practices full of young architects on computers don’t they realise in a few years all these computers will be gone? What will they do then?

This of course is not to stereotype a whole generation of early career architects as dumbed down, dullards who think doing BIM is what architecture is and thus have no need for history and theory. Many of this generation are going to be great architects and help to transform the profession. Perhaps even save the profession from itself.

But there are nonetheless a few gentle warnings in the above litanies of architectural senility and cynicism. So, if you do want to be BIM monkey this is what you need to do:

Actually think that BIM is Architecture.

Of course BIM is just a bundle of software programs and processes. I won’t bore you with the definitions. But in this is not the same as architecture. You will only be able to spend so much of your life doing the CAD or BIM monkey seated jigs. In fact jigging on the computer jigs has a limited life-span as documentation becomes increasingly more commodified.

Know in your heart that Parametric Modelling makes the best architecture.

Listen to and channel Schumakkker.

schumakkers ear

The Parametric types like to push the idea that every Parametric model is a unique and customised product or object. Our digital feeds have since the early 2000s been swamped with completely dysfunctional and useless Parametric “art” objects; conceptual objects that claim to increase our haptic awareness. Hit me up with a another geomorphic iceberg skeletor thing. Another adornment or folly to cleanse our souls and “transport” us to a natural environment. At least Francois Roche is brave enough to explore the scatological and organic forms in a way that isn’t just pap.

‘Robotic Processes’ (Photograph courtesy of New_territories

I am not sure Parametric Design has really moved on in the last 15 years. It certainly hasn’t engaged with politics nor does it seem to have a sense of its own irony.

Forget about wild and crazy design thinking.

Wild and crazy Design Thinking is central to architecture. But if you want to be a great BIM Monkey just go for that linear problem solving, get it done one quickly, jam that round problem into square hole type of thinking. Get excited about the efficiency of the CNC code. Love that little laser cut model that looks like a plywood skeleton.

If you are at architecture school just to learn BIM and hot-shot oversaturated realistic rendering then maybe you are better off somewhere else. I really don’t want you in the profession. You are only hastening the commodification of architecture as a domain of knowledge.

No wonder the 30,00 strong REVIT group on Linked-In told me to only post “relevant” pieces to their group page.

Love and consume the tasteful.

Yep, just eat up the tasteful. Wear the clothes and subscribe to the mags. Follow the Insta influencers. The best way to become a BIM jockey is to keep thinking the best architects are the ones that the real estate marketers, middle brow property developers and the lifestyle magazine editors love. Who can blame architects for getting in with this crowd?

The above people are obviously the gatekeepers who see architecture as a narrow canon of taste and fashionista profiling. Best to stay on side with them. Ignore anyone different.

Abandoning theory

Architecture has a complex social politics and history. Abandoning theory in favour of fashionable consumption is your choice. But it will just leave you ceaselessly jigging in the BIM jig money chair.

I made the worst models and did the worst drawings at architecture school. But I did learn how to think and that is what is most important. So my advice is, from an older invisible architect verging on senility, if you want to have an enduring architectural career see if you can get through the whole of architecture school without learning BIM. Otherwise, you will end up jigging with the software jigs for the rest of your life.

You be a robot architect and then the real robots will take over and you will be out of a job. If don’t learn how to think at architecture school this will be your fate.

Keeping it Real: Melbourne has the best Architectural Practices in the World

March 13, 2018Peter Raisbeck

One of the challenges of teaching architectural practice in the modern era is to architecture engage students with real practice. Complicating this is the fact that the face to face lecture is increasingly a thing of the past. More of often this is done in the class room where the Practice Lecturer attempts to convince and persuade the students that the lecturer is the font of all knowledge and experience. This is how I started of teaching the subject. There face to face lectures were full of wonderful war stories, solo sea shanty’s, and other various tales about my life in practice working for architects, dealing with builders and also working for myself. I used to bring in specialist lecturers as we trudged our way through the syllabus. Of course as time went on, over a number of years, less and less students turned up to my face to face lectures. No one wanted to hear about my life and times as a practitioner. Why would they ?

The classes also become much bigger and bigger (in fact this year I have 320 students). Neo-university regimes, students who want subject content rather than discipline based learning, the rise of social media all means that these days architecture students want their learning delivered differently. And I mean delivered. Many students, hemmed in by other work and financial commitments, just want to come to the class, quickly figure out what they need to know, what boxes they need to tick and what they need to do to pass.

So long for the long languid apprenticeship style of learning how to be an architect.

The above confluence of factors has led to the situation where architecture students are increasingly removed from the narratives of architectural studio experience. This year, as in past years, we are employing a fantastic group of tutors who are with a lot of experience.

This year in an effort to keep it real and bridge the gap we have organised the students to visit actual practices in and across my small city on the outer edges of the architectural galaxy. As a result, we have 20 or so practices who were willing to be involved and I would like to thank everyone of them. It was great to have such a generous response from practices in Melbourne ! The practices involved are as follows:

K2LD Architects and Interiors

BKK Architects

Williams Boag

NAAU Studio

Rebecca Naughtin Architect

MAArchitects

DCM

Architectus

Grant Amon Architects

BY Projects Architecture

ClarkeHopkinsClarke

John Wardle Architects

BAU

So I would like to thank all the practices who generously offered their time and were involved in this effort. The response from practice was overwhelming and I will try to organise more events like this. Melbourne really does have some of the best Architectural Practices in the World.

A special thanks to our Senior Piret Veeroja for facilitating this as well as a shout out to all our tutors this year Sonia Sarangi, Emma Templeton, Rob Polglase (who also facilitated a few practices), David Walker, Aurelia Gachet and Camilla Tierney of Bates Smart, Norman Day and David Walker. As well as, Nurul Sedek and Meng Hau Siow of BY Architecture. Not too forget Rowan Brown. You can follow the subject at Instagram @msdarchiprac. I would also like to thank K2LD architects for their hospitality towards me.

Research-In-Practice: 2018 Global Architectural Research Survey Part 1

March 9, 2018March 9, 2018Peter Raisbeck

The Surviving the Design Studio: 2018 Global Architectural Research Survey is in. Thank you so much to everyone, to those architects, who responded. I was working off a few different contact databases. Next time I do this research survey I will more effectively target respondents and make the definitions and the questions more precise. I have interspersed the survey with quotes from the respondents.

Architects are slowly starting to wake up to the fact that they need to do research to in order to stay ahead of their competitors whoever those competitors might be.

I work in a practice three days a week that is run by one principal and 3-4 staff. He is interested only in the projects he is working on and would consider research a waste if time and resources.

With the rise of the Design as Research movement in the early to mid 2000s architects began to question and argue about what constitutes research. For the most part this project, or push, was a response to the introduction of various research metrics and research evaluation exercises in universities in Australia, the UK and Europe. This push also coincided with the rise of parametric design and a renewed interest in technology in the discipline.

Many firms do not provide budget allocations for research or post occupancy studies and any research allocation can be difficult to get and has to be in relation to a particular project and only as a small time/money allocation. Therefore most research that I do is in my own time and often after hours.

But what might have been missed in all of this was the idea of industry development in relation to Research-In-Practice. Even in the universities we still don’t know what Design as Research is. Even that old Etonian and architect Jeremy Till and now head honcho at Central St Martins doesn’t seem to have quite got his head around it in this piece on architectural research. He seems to have boiled architectural research down to “three stages” and then provides us with the diagram devised by Alejandro Zaera-Polo & Guillermo Fernandez Abascal as an example of research “into architectural processes.”

The diagram looks like an updated version of a Charles Jencksy diagram that only reinforces architecture as a narrow canon of profiling and privilege. Yes, that’s a cheap shot at Jeremy and Alejandro and Guillermo and yes, I need to look at that diagram in detail. But it looks like hocus pocus to me.

So read on: The Surviving the Design Studio: 2018 Global Architectural Research Survey is in.

Response rate

The response rate from the database I was working off was around 13%. Respondents came from all over the world and 47% were either partners or directors. 63% were from Australia and so the survey gives a pretty good idea of what is happening in Australia. The next biggest block was 10% from the UK and 8% from the Americas and about 8% came from Asia. 27% of practices had more than 50 people and 21% had from 11 to 50 people, and the rest 52 % had less than 10 people.

Most practices do not have a formal R&D program established

Yet most Practices claim to have an informal R&D program in the office.

Everyone thinks Design as Research is a valid form of research.

But not all practices think competitions or speculative design projects are part of a firms research activities.

The majority of practices do not have a research function.

Design as Research ?

Architects in practice still think design is research but then, by and large, they have done little, for whatever reason to foster research or build a formal infrastructure around research. Most architects think they are researching when they design stuff. This may be why most architects think don’t have a formal research program, or research function in the office, and yet claim that they are still doing research.

In practice, the Design as Research proponents have failed to help practices, and the profession at large, to build the research infrastructure, methodologies and discourse required to help architectural firms.

In academia, the Design as Research proponents have failed to convince those who don’t think design as research of this merits. Yet some of these same proponents have simultaneously supported themselves in the university system via the mantra of Design as Research.

Walking the Talk

I am an adherent of the Design as Research project. But the primary aim of this project, to recognise design as a research activity, has been weakened by a lack of rigour to say the least.

Those who are sceptical about Design as Research cannot be blamed for that scepticism. If the knowledge produced through Design as Research cannot be verified, tested and positioned as new knowledge why wouldn’t you be sceptical?

Those architectural academics (many of whom, have aligned the project with the new delivery technologies) who have pursued the Design as Research have done little for its take up in Practice. Some academics just mouth of about it. It is little wonder that sceptics of the concept have not been swayed. Embedding a researcher into a practice and getting them to do things is not necessarily going to produce good research. Getting notable architects to reflect on their “body of work” is not necessarily going to produce new research knowledge that will help to develop architecture as a discipline.

Research-In-Practice

I see more hope for research in the practices themselves; I think even Jeremy the Etonian thinks this as well. Architects need to change their practice models if they are to survive. Its no good to just say we do design and that is research. That doesn’t just mean giving someone a job or a role as the research person in the office. It means changing the way design knowledge is created, conceptualised, captured and distributed in the office. That would require a Knowledge Management approach. But as well know many offices struggle with even the most basic and simplistic notions of management. Yes, different offices will require different models, and yes, smaller offices and sole practitioners obviously need a different research model as compared to a larger firms.

Finally, as one respondent noted:

There is a strong trend within the architectural community to claim what is in reality ‘work’ as ‘research’ for what are essentially marketing purposes. This is especially true with Design led Research which seems to rarely meet any sort of broadly accepted or quantifiable bar set by the broader research community.

Design led research is an excellent way for practices to contribute to the profession and broader community but a better definition and clearer bar needs to be established for it to gain traction or credibility within the research and broader communities. Sadly architecture doesn’t have a great track record in this area and the current systematic abuse of the term Design led Research does little to improve the standing of the profession.

If we can’t get more rigorous we will never take on the authority we need to build better cities.

Architects are living in La-La-Land: Project tyranny and network fantasies

March 1, 2018Peter Raisbeck

Traditional logic suggests that architects are focused on project networks rather than projects. But architects we now are witness to a rise of the project network organisation. This new form of organisation has arisen as a result of project complexity requiring greater degrees of specialist knowledge. Such organisations are seen as being the best way in which complex tasks can be achieved by bringing together heterogeneous and diverse skills and knowledge. Project networks are argued to be more flexible and creative.

As soon as project outcomes have been achieved the knowledge network is dismantled and reconfigured for the next project. According to this body of theory projects now embody “temporary systems” and that these systems are “constituted by multiple individual or organisational actors”^⁠ (see: Whitley, 2006; Manning and Sydow, 2011).

In this context the challenge for architects, is to adapt in a competitive global system that is increasingly flexible and indeterminate. This is a system where the project itself has, in a manner of speaking, disappeared. As a result, architects now face competition from project delivery actors who are better, because of their agility, at project control and management than architects ever were.

Project tyranny and the genius

ear of an architectural genius

It is reasonable to ask in this context, if architectural firms are sufficiently flexible, both internally and in their external facing guises, to adapt to the demise of the project. Certainly, architects focus on projects but increasingly utilises and connect to various knowledge networks outside of the firm. This suggests the line between project based organisations and network organisations is in theory at least increasingly blurred. For architects there is still a tension between being project-centric and the idea that projects are themselves temporary systems.

In other research, focused on consulting and knowledge based firms, it is contended that: projects are exclusively customer or client centric, leading to a kind of “project tyranny.” This tyranny does not allow for or easily accept competing, flexible or organisational principles and dynamics.

All of which struck a chord with me because architects seem dangerously focused on the designed project with a capital P and this approach this is linked to the inflexible postures of the creative designer. In combination project centricity with the current culture of design leads to inflexible, archaic work and discriminatory work practices. The tyranny of client centric projects alongside inflexible organisational hierarchies and haphazard infrastructure reigns supreme within many firms.

Network fantasies

Potteries Thinkbelt Cedric Price

But for architects there is another danger: the allure of the internet as a distributed technologies. Architects have been obsessed with networks for a long long time. There is a superficial resemblance between the project networks that architects seek to build and the internet technologies that facilitate these networks. In the strategic thinking of some architects these two different types of networks are conflated. This conflation is exacerbated by the optimistic and utopian rhetoric’s that surround the ongoing development of technology in architecture. Every architecture school in Australia has robots, we are getting workshops technologies and software shoved down our throats at every turn. Yet very little of any architectural school’s curricula is devoted to how to manage these technologies. As I was reminded in a recent ACA webinar architects aren’t even taught how to manage projects. Design them: Yes. Manage them: No.

Cedric Price and the windscreen wiper goggles

For architects technology networks are seen as a realm of possibility rather than a realm that threatens to limit the agency and range of architects. Emerging technologies may be the architects worst enemy. There emerging bunch of technologies (I won’t name the usual suspects here) are arguably broadening the size of our professional service markets, market geographies and worst of all reducing differences amongst competitors and increasing the proliferation of substitute services. Oh, and I forgot to mention, the internet allows suppliers of knowledge to reach end users more directly. Yet architecture students are frigging around in every studio workshop across the globe with little bits of laser cut timber.

Collaborative Leadership

On the one hand, architects may survive in a scenario where projects are organised around a temporary teams, enabled by technology, that is both mobile and fluid as it connects and reconnects to different networks. Arguably, it is the architects, organised around teams with good studio based leadership, leadership that is collaborative and inclusive, rather than the old creative design genius style, design leadership needs to be about gathering, configuring and integrating design knowledge, from within and across networks, in order to design and produce through temporary project systems. Not just stamping your ego and whims on a project.

La-la land

In the future survival and competitive advantage will go to those architects, who cling to the notion of the designed project but also recognise the indeterminacy of both projects and networks. As well as this architectural survivors will reject, the fallacies of technology, and its associated hyperbole, and opt for models of collaborative leadership. Anyone else is living in La-la Land

It has been a hectic week: Architectural Practice at MSD has started up, I have discovered WeChat, my son has started his final year of school, and we have been busy organising our Practice Night for the subject on the 13th of March. Wow !!! we have about 24 practices across Melbourne involved. Thank you so much to those firms who have agreed to participate. It will be quite a night, especially on Social Media. Not only that but the rescheduled Faculty Christmas party is this coming Friday (lets hope I survive it).

10 things Architects learnt from the Apple at Federation Square Debate

February 20, 2018February 21, 2018Peter Raisbeck

All that remains of the Western Shard at Federation Square is an imprint on my Shard protest t-shirt.

In case you missed it the Open House Melbourne debate regarding the Apple store at Federation Square took place last week. I watched the live stream at home on my Apple iPad. I couldn’t get a ticket and something else was on at work at the same time. But I decided to stick it out and settled down with my APPLE Gold iPad Mini (yes, terrible I know to admit, obviously I am some kind of unwitting sucked in APPLE consumer; Oh, and I should say I am typing this on an Apple Power Book that is owned by my University).

I hate getting on bandwagons no matter the cause. Cause orientated bandwagons always seem too cultish and clubbish for my liking. But hey, at least I was involved with the effort to Save the Shard. I still have my T-Shirt to prove it. What worries me now are the echoes of that debate in this one.

I watched it on the live stream for more than the entire 2 hours. I am thinking the whole thing is going to make a great case study for my Design Activism course in September.

Its great Open House Melbourne organised this debate. It was seen by many as a mature debate around issues of urban design and public in our city. But, if the debate was mature, then we can also ask, how nuanced was this debate ?

So here is everything you need to know about the debate at Federation Square in 10 easy to digest points.

1. Let’s face it the Yarra Building at Fed Square became a bit awkward.

As hinted at by Donald Bates one of the architects of Federation Square, in his debate speech. The Yarra building never was the best bit of Federation Square, it was worth a try at the time, as a commercial space, so why not change it now? Why not redesign the Square? Or should we just keep the Yarra Building as a piece of so-called heritage?

2. Some people like to say the word Activation a lot.

I must have done my post-graduate urban design degree so long ago at RMIT that it was before this activation word came into vogue. Donald Bates mentioned it a few times but Ron Jones on the Anti-Apple side mentioned it a lot. It even made the internet tabloids.

Its zombie urbanism concepts like this that a sliming (or slimeing?) our cities with low-grade commerce. Does “activating an edge” mean putting in little coffee shop, or kripsy kreme, tenancies all along a so-called urban “edge”.

3.Politicians still need to figure out that community consultation processes for large-scale projects are needed.

I think Cr. Ron Leppert was able to set out the case for the failure amongst our political class (the non-greens class) to adequately consult and to be transparent. It was great when he kept saying something along the lines of “I am not an architect”, but I am still going to tell you how to plan the city. That was so “plannersplain.” Designing planning schemes without an architectural perspective = more zombie urbanism. Read about it here.

4.The Committee of Melbourne elites have yet to develop a more nuanced argument than the zombie concepts of Melbourne 4.0.

The Committee for Melbourne CEO Martine Letts, ably outlined the standard neoliberal position: more change, more disruptive technologies and get ready for more global competition. We are all on this hamster wheel. But maybe the Committee for Melbourne might have more success in these matters if it wasn’t full of so called “movers and shakers.” Let’s see a few “bogans” on their board. This is definitely a group that could do with a dose of real people and learn about community development and consultation. God help us when F2, (neo-liberal speak for Federation Square East) gets going.

5. The Victorian Government Architects Office needs more funding and independence.

Yes ! That might help get some transparency back into these processes. When will politicians stop listening to Treasury and listen more to architects?

All too obviously, this situation is the product of the autocracy, elitism and lack of transparency when it comes to the procurement of major civic projects in our nation. Architecture is too often sidelined. But something like this is bound to get a backlash. When will our political classes and neo-liberal elites figure this out? It was the same at Sirius in Sydney and there will be other examples in the future.

6. No one from Foster’s office or evil Apple seemed to be at the debate.

I have written about the Foster design for Apple HQ here. As someone noted in the Open House debate when these stars come to our great southern land they don’t necessarily do the best job. Usually they just do second rate job then fuck off back to whence they came (Lab Architecture Studio was actually an amazing exception to this).

7. The design of Federation Square didn’t just happen

I fear that many in the audience didn’t know this (maybe the audience was packed out with too many of Ron Leppert’s Green’s party planner mates and that’s why I couldn’t get a ticket), but the design actually evolved and emerged over time. Yes, architects actually design things through iteration. Designs don’t just pop out of architectural heads fully formed. Donald Bates said something like this and its worth quoting from my rough debate notes:

“This is a Drawing showing one tenth of all the iterations of the design process. The design developed by iteration and possibilities emerging. It is about a design of relationships and not specific objects. The fixation on objects is not embedded in the DNA of the Square

8. It is a hate the big brand thing

It is correct to say Fed Square is not retail Chaddy or Bunnings. But it doesn’t matter because according to the no case, Apple, will make Fed square into a giant Shopping Mall. A huge giant giant shopping mall. Just like they have in the suburban badlands. They will sell you stuff and every Insta photo in Fed Square will feature them. It’s a brand thing the No-Apple side is fighting against.

In response to the Apple proposal its easy to rail against the perceived evils of the big brands. Apple’s personal consumerism, its awful tax regimes, its blind technological march to the singularity. But what does that have to do with site specific architectural arguments in this instance?

9. The Koori Heritage Trust gets a much better deal out of this proposal.

Shouldn’t that be the highest priority for Federation Square as a public and civic space? If it was me I would put KHT where the Apple store is supposed to go and Apple into the Deakin building. I would, if I could, decolonise the square and let KHT own all of it ! Maybe thats what we should be thinking about rather than the populism of big brand hatred.

10. Its train wreck

This issue is a train wreck of big brands, naive and not so naive political populism. Not to mention, architectural ignorance, conflicting theories of architecture, planning and urban design in our civic politics. Space prevents me from writing how we got to this point. It may sound strange but I partly blame that huckster Jan Gehl and his slippery urban design populism for watering down our urban theories and analytical instruments. I think the crazy comitteeee for Melbourne has a lot to answer for. Check out what they thought about the minimum apartment standards. A veiled attack on those standards in the name of a pro-development flexibility. Yet, this is a group that claims to be all about sustainability and future liveability.

Outrage cycles and populism

It’s so easy to be populist in this social media age. Easy to rev up the shock jocks and the tabloids. Perhaps this is why it’s the No-Apple bandwagon that also worries me in this debate. In embracing populist notions of public space, architecture and urban theory are too easily erased from the public discourse. This has what has happened in regards to this issue. Digitised Outrage and Outrage and Outrage that blunts any real analysis of the plight of our civic spaces. Paradoxical when all the genuine and self serving outrage is facilitated by Apple devices. Architecture and any deeper architectural and urban arguments get swamped.

The architectural and urban arguments for Apple, as presented in the debate, were analytical, nuanced and refined (to echo the Victorian Government Architect) and actually grounded in architectural process. Arguably, it is the architectural argument that bridges the complexities between architecture, urban design and the social realities of the mercantile.

Having said that, we also need to recognise that the position underlying the Pro-Apple argument, and indeed the original scheme, is based on a stream of architectural theory that has never really resisted, and always accommodated capital. There never was a secret about that in this city. So why are people upset now? No one screamed when QV was pillaged and privatised. Of course its because we all love Federation Square so why don’t we now listen to one of its architect? But do we really care about pursuing real public space and architecture?

Campaign 2016 Debate — Democratic presidential nominee Hillary Clinton, right, shakes hands with Republican presidential nominee Donald Trump at the start of the presidential debate at Hofstra University in Hempstead, N.Y., Monday, Sept. 26, 2016. (AP Photo/Mary Altaffer)

It’s way too much like Hilary versus Donald.

It seems ironic to me but in a strange way the Pro-Apple team was a bit Hilary-like (actual experts, politicians and neo-liberals) whereas the Anti-Apple team employed Trump-like (or maybe John Howard) populism. A populist backlash that seems to be saying: we are the people, we are angry with the neoliberal and global elites, we are angry about the public spaces in our city, we hate the outer suburban shopping centres, and so WE should get to decide who comes to our Federation Square shores.

What a train wreck the whole thing is and I am not even sure the punters care that much. Because, after all is said and done, Federation Square has free Wi-Fi.

Surviving the Design Studio: 2018 Architects Global Research Survey.

February 8, 2018February 16, 2018Peter Raisbeck

Dear Architect or Surviving the Design Studio reader wherever you may be in this large architectural planet. You are invited to participate Surviving the Design Studio 2018 Global Architects Research Survey. The survey is intended for anyone working in an architectural practice from any country across the globe. Anyone who works in an architectural practice can respond even the interns ! If you would like to participate in the global survey the link can be found here.

In some ways, the last few blogs for 2018 the focus has been on the larger practices. (Although these last few blogs have lessons for small practices, or gleaner firms, as I would like to call them. The first blog focused on branding, the second on client relationships, and large corporate to institutional clients and in this blog I want to talk a bit about large practices and how they might create value through research. My concern is that the large practices (of course, except the ones I am involved with), who are in the best position to conduct research. But these practices have underplayed research in architecture. I would like to be proved wrong.

Trash for Cash Syndrome

The other day a friend who is a director of her own company reminded me that the real role of a company is to create value rather than simply just doing the work and getting money for it. For any kind of company, or not-for-profit enterprise, small and large, value creation is, I think the essence, of existence. Why else would you do it? Just for the money?

But, for architects it is easy to fall into the trap of simply doing the jobs and getting the money for it, for others making the widgets and just selling them, it’s a bit like just getting people on the tour bus and selling them a ticket and then going from A to B. Never thinking about wear and tear on the bus, or the customer experience, or even how happy your bus driver is.

I call it the trash-for-cash syndrome. This is what a photographer I know used to call wedding shoots. He said supply a trash or commodified product and get cash for it.

The value creation argument

Whilst you might make money in the short-term this approach does not add long-term value to your firm in the longer term. This is because as things change in your business environment you need to create potential value for the future. It is inevitable that your business environment will change over time. Using research, yes research and not just gut instinct, to foresee these changes and anticipate where future value can be captured is really vital.

Architects who continually value knowledge creation through research are able to get new jobs and provide new services to future clients. Creating new knowledge in you firm doesn’t come about by simply saying , “hey we are really smart and creative bunch” or “our pedigreed networks will always guarantee jobs” or “the clients will keep coming and paying because the like us.”

Simply doing what you have always been doing. Simply, cranking the handle of the practice, or whatever organisation it is, and designing, delivering projects that produce fees is not enough in the longer term. Sustainability is about growing a research culture in your practice.

So here are few clues as to how you can create more value in your architect’s office via this quick checklist.

How is your firm’s research health ?

1. Outward looking ?

Does the firm involve itself social issues or policy debates related to architecture or the firms areas of specialisation?

2. Specific functions ?

Does your large practice have a specific research function or is research just an adhoc or add-on function.

3. Staff Contribution ?

An architectural firms biggest research resource is its staff. Is there a governance or management structure that allows all staff to contribute to research? Or is research a function that only some staff are allowed to do? In other words, is research only conducted in the firm by directors or senior managers? Do only some people get all the special research projects? Or is the entire approach adhoc?

4. Technology ?

Does your firm research new technologies? Either technologies, or software that might be implemented in the firm, or new design construction and delivery technologies. Does the firm have a critical view of these technologies?

5. Knowledge Management ?

As new knowledge is created in your firm are there knowledge systems, or other systems in place to document, store and allow for this knowledge to be retrieved?

6. Strategy ?

Does the firm use research to create knowledge that might help to generate future fee income? Strategic research should be the firm’s first priority.

Arguably the dis-intermediation of architects in procurement processes, the rise of partial services, the easy replication of architectural services by others are all the result of the endemic lack of research infrastructure in practice. The professional associations should also bear some of this responsibility.

Architectural firms are great at creating knowledge and value through design. But perhaps only when they put their minds to it. Many architects struggle to understand IP and innovations systems and pathways are not often studied at the architecture schools. As architects we are too naive when it comes to research. Simply saying design is research is not enough to save our future skins.

Again, If you would like to participate in the global survey the link can be found here.

Architects vs. Project Managers: Rising up against the alien overlords known as Project Managers.

January 10, 2018January 10, 2018Peter Raisbeck

Yes, this month is a bit like Surviving the Design Studio’s greatest blog hits. This was also another very popular post in 2016. At a Christmas party I was surprised to meet an architect, working in local government, who said this post was good enough to be pinned up in the tearoom for all the other architects (and project managers) to see. I hope you enjoy it the second time around.

Architecture takes a long time to learn. Designing and organising the construction of buildings is a complex process. As most architects will know even the smallest renovation can involve juggling a complex scenario of client brief, planning and building regulations, site conditions, sustainability issues, construction detailing and logistics, contractor and subcontractor capabilities and of course design itself. This is a much wider range of design and construction knowledge than many project managers are either trained in or know about.

The good

A few times in the past few weeks I have heard my architecture friends bemoan the profession of project managers. Good project managers, like good architects, will be able to make the trade offs, have the foresight and understand the complexity of managing user requirements. Basically, good project managers understand architecture and design processes. The best project manager I have ever met was one who gained valuable experience in an architect’s office based on community buildings that involved a great deal of community consultation work. She then went on to much larger projects.

I should also say that I share an office with a project management academic. He is great. A kind of rocket scientist who has taught me a great deal about advanced quantitative decision analysis.

The bad

But bad project managers are really bad and I mean really bad. Of course some would argue that IT project managers are worse (but that’s another story). But, I worry that all the really bad ones have ended up in construction. One qualification for being a project manager is to be able to do a Gantt chart with unrealisable time outcomes that you can then bludgeon the architects and all the other consultants with. Yes, you don’t need refined or nimble negotiation skills to be a construction project manager. You just need to be a bully. Interestingly, the architects I have heard complain the most about these vermin have been female architects.

Because project managers appear to know a few more things about numbers and spreadsheets it is easy for them to tyrannize architects. As architects we are all vulnerable on this point and our lack of quantitative trading only makes us feel unworthy.

Of course I speak from a partisan point of view. This is because I think it is time architects really rebelled and rose up against the alien overlords known as project managers. Don’t give in to feelings of inferiority because you don’t feel numerate; often the project managers numbers are self-serving, dodgy, and rigid.

Blame the “bloody” architect.

But all too often the architects either individually or as a group are blamed when things go astray. Project managers love to do this.

Why is this? I guess its related to some of the things that surround Trump’s election being elected. In the modern digitally connected world its pretty easy to run a spin campaign with no substance these days. It’s pretty easy to troll the architect, after all architects are dandified dickheads who don’t care about client needs or wishes. I think the star alpha-male architects have contributed a lot to this impression. Hopefully, as new alternative forms of practice emerge and architects are more aggressive in how they brand themselves as a group, these impressions will change.

Why architects are, oh so much, better

An architect is a highly skilled professional, usually about 7 years of training, including two years of audited and examined experience. Architects are trained to lead projects from start to finish, on time and on budget. If they don’t get this right they can be sued. They are uniquely placed to understand cost pressures in construction supply chains. Project managers often only have an overview of these things. Architects are trained to understand client and user needs and ensure that a project is feasible from the very beginning. The problem is that all too often project managers get the architects in too late. They have already decided the wrong approach to the project’s feasibility, strategic design and often ignored risks that an architect, with more on the ground experience and a better overview of client needs as well as the broader context would have identified.

Project managers love to tell the clients what they want to hear in the early stages of the project. Architects have to tell the truth because they are usually bound by architects registration acts and PI insurance issues.

Architects are able to communicate and many are good at this. This is what they are trained to do. Architecture is in some ways a liberal arts education and communication across the project team and along the construction supply chain is essential.

Some real PM fuck ups.

Here are some of my favourite examples:

Southern Cross Station was a low bid tender price put in by the contractor. When the architects came on board the architects wondered why there was no cost manager on the project. Basically the contractor low balled the price to get the job. All the other tenders for the project were 25% above. Lo and behold the final price was 25% above. The contractor then decided in the media to push the blame on to the architects. You can read about it here and I think this situation really poisoned my view of project managers and contractors. It’s a pretty cheap shot to blame the architect all because of public antipathy and punter distrust of design aesthetics.

Federation Square is a case in point. This facility has now served the public of the City of Melbourne admirably. It actually works as a fine public space alongside its public institutions and commercial spaces. It is a building that is a legacy project that will serve the city’s future for many years to come. Yet at the time the architects were excoriated for trying to uphold standards of construction and design decency for the project. You can read about some of it here. The meddling of politicians in the project and the hacking off of the Western shard was one of the most despicable anti-architecture campaigns I have ever witnessed.

Another example: The problems with the $16.2B Commonwealth’s Building the Education Revolution (BER) was not the result of architects. It was the result of project managers stuffing up. You can read all about it here. Schools that managed their own affairs with architects did better than those BER schools managed by Project Managers.

Architects understand cost trade-offs

The rise of project managers can be attributed to the impression that architects are not suitable to manage projects because they are not sufficiently focused on time and cost outcomes. In a 2011 paper we published which looked at how architects work with Quantity Surveyors we concluded that an important thing that architects contributed to projects, amongst other things, was the ability to make complex finishes and material tradeoffs in the clients favour. You can get the paper here.

Architects understand final results

In value management and cost reduction exercises it is the architect who is best positioned to uphold and fight for the best materials and finishes for the sake of the project. Architects are uniquely placed to do this because project managers and few other consultants or trades in the building and construction industry have an overview of how it all works.

Architects understand heritage issues

Project manager’s, by virtue of their training, wouldn’t have a clue about material finishes in either domestic, community or public projects. A quantitative Gantt chart jockey is not going to be the sort of person you should trust with complex decision about your domestic reno, legacy building or your facility designed to bolster your community.

Another case in point is the Harold Holt Pool. The project manager employed by Stonnington Council on the pool redevelopment really had no idea bout the modernist heritage values associated with the pool. You can read about that here.

Architects understand how to integrate systems

In some industry segments client expectations have driven the pressures for unrealistic time frames and low budgets. This has been a significant factor in the continuing use of project managers in the construction and development industry. In the dark dim past it was the architect who managed, organised and supervised the construction process. It was the architect who was the single point of communication. I would argue that Architects are still the best people to lead integrated construction projects This is primarily because of their training architects are supremely placed as system integrators.

For the last 30 years architects have bemoaned the fact that project managers have taken over their role. Of course it’s easy for project managers to blame the architect. I am sure many architects reading this will have stories about project managers with poor integration skills. A good project manager like the best architects can integrate systems and make the trade offs. Most of all good project managers should have the foresight to see what is coming down the line. And yes, a good project manager treats the architect with respect.

Rise up !

So next time, as an architect you are being set-up-to-fail by some cone-headed low-grade project manager, clutching spreadsheets with no idea about design, construction processes or user requirements call them out. Its time for architects to rise up against their alien project manager overlords. When the clients work that out as well our cities, community institutions and housing will be suitable for the future.

Planning Anarchy: Why architects hate urban planners in my city.

December 27, 2017December 25, 2017Peter Raisbeck

This was one of my popular posts in 2016: Yes, some of my best friends are planners, many of my more admirably and politically orientated colleagues are planners, but I am sorry, we really need to continue to have this debate. For the amusement of blog readers, this time around I have edited a bit and added a few more notes on this enduring topic.

Architects are a contradictory profession. Prone to political activism and yet also deeply conservative. Seemingly agile, radical and innovative yet unable to move quickly in the face of gender inequality in the profession. Forward thinking and future driven yet bound by the traditions of the canon.

Are the planners any different? Let’s go through the list.

1.Prone to political activism and yet also deeply conservative. Tick, planners are definitely this.

2. Seemingly agile, radical and innovative: Yes, I think planners like to think they are all these things. You only have to witness all the social media feeds sponsored by planners regarding sustainability, urban spaces, not to mention their promotion of that great city in the sky: the great new whizz bang creative cluster, public transport, bike riding, organic coffee Henri Lefebvre, Apple store free, and right to the city city.

3. Yet unable to move quickly in the face of gender inequality in the profession: I am not sure I am actually qualified to answer this. I have not, to my knowledge seen any statistics on demographics, career paths or pay gaps for woman, in planning. It would be interesting to see the differences to architecture.

But if there is one thing I think many architects in my small global city of 4 million people can agree on it is this: Statutory Urban Planners are the lowest form of life (In late 2017 now cant believe I actually wrote this, was I too harsh?).

I am not the only one in Australia to actually think this. A recent article by Elizabeth Farrelly in the SMH also points to the crisis in the planning profession in Sydney. However, I think many of Farrelly’s observations may also apply to Melbourne. The only problem is the planners themselves are not aware of the crisis. Architects, to their credit, on the other hand always seem conflicted by professional guilt and riven by internal debates of one kind or another.

Don’t get me wrong. I am a big fan of urban planning and its associated discourse. I was in partnership with a planner who also did architecture. But, many small architectural practitioners I know are angry. They are angry about the idiocy of a planning system that permits the wholesale destruction of our cities fabric and memory and yet binds up small projects in the most torturous regulations and processes.

From the perspective of many architects in Melbourne planning governance is broken and this impedes the governance and development of the city. It is an anarchic system.

Lesson 1: The built environment would be better if planners actually learnt about architectural and urban design

Perhaps the study of Australian architectural history should be mandatory for statutory planners. The curriculum of most planning courses have a kind of pseudo legal aspect to them. This is matched with a altruistic, if not condescending, interest in community participation. Chuck a bit of sustainability into the syllabus and what more could you want? How about planners study architectural history, visual arts or urban design as a core component of their tertiary courses. How about planners learn about design, design research rather than exclusively focusing on social science research?

As someone who commented on one of my blog’s recently said in relation to the rise of apartments towers in my city:

“if the planning process / apartment standards allow such things, can I blame them ? No, but I do visualise someone sitting at a computer drawing it up, and wonder what they’re thinking – how to maximise units / floor only ? Is that person actually an architect ? Do ‘they’ consider the outlook and light at all ? I also wonder about the stat planners who approve them, I assume they’re just ticking boxes, checking regs, and that’s it. One day I’d like to interview whoever was in charge of the ministers planning dep from say 2005-2010, and ask them what they thought their job was exactly.”

Lesson 2: Planners will tie you up in processes that are disproportionate to the size of the project at hand

In the process of doing an internal renovation of a commercially zoned building in a middle ring suburb the building surveyor insisted an external facing shutter be removed and replaced with a gate in order to facilitate emergency egress. Makes sense doesn’t it ? Sure, it makes sense but not to the planners. They insisted that the new gate be subject to a planning permit including advertising. Maybe 3 months, maybe 6 months maybe a year to get through this process if you are lucky. Providing no one objects during the advertising period. But, maybe someone will object and you will go to VCAT. Of course if any one objects the planners will agree with them.

The architect friend of mine responsible for this project bemoans the fact that, a junior planner is employed at the council on the project and is just following the rules; that way they don’t have to think. She says, perhaps with the benefit of prior experience, if you complain the planners put you at the bottom of the list and go slow.

Lesson 3: Planners have no control or interest in questioning large scale developments

One of of the last remaining buildings associated with the coach industry. Who cares ??? Not the planners. This facade is about to be completely demolished for a, perhaps tawdry, laneway and curtain wall. Maybe the laneway will have a barista outpost in it.

The upshot is almost nothing is actually governed by the planners. Small projects get locked up in red tape and as Elizabeth Farrelly points out the interests of big developers remain paramount.

Lesson 4: Planners love to meddle in architectural design

You can always tell when the stat planners have a had a go at a building in the planning process. They love to tweak a corner or add a bit of value to a streetscape. They are excellent mimics especially when it comes to imitating, the facades of Victorian and Edwardian housing stock. Their favourite delight is slapping on the heritage colours out of the paint bucket. Fragmented and “broken down” facades, setbacks on setbacks, screening in myriad materials, different materials and colours; beige, pink, rust and that beloved of all colours for the planner wanting to evoke Melbourne’s historic past: terracotta. Oh, and I forgot to mention that the planners love a balcony.

These pathetic efforts are usually touted as a win-win and as a result our city is full of the results of this kind of urban streetscape slop.

In reply to Farrelly’s article the PIA the Planning Institute of Australia responded by stating:

Planning policy provides the checks and balances to put the densities where they best fit and ensure infrastructure is appropriate. There will always be differing public, professional and political opinions and reactions to any rapidly changing city.

Planning is inherently focused on facilitation and balance where both the public and many differing private interests are accommodated. This should occur without compromising good design, creation of place, amenity and liveability – this is known as the public interest.

Conclusion

As far as I can tell urban planners in Melbourne are powerless and do none of the above. The planners are always good at writing stuff to make it sound nice. After all that is what they are trained to do. But they need to be visually and spatially literate.

What rankles is how easily the punters find it in themselves to hate architects. In actual fact it is the urban planners the punters should be hating. Yes, architects are kinda guilty as well. Both professions are involved in and witness to the current and ongoing contemporary destruction of Melbourne.

But at least the architects as a profession will argue about it and lose sleep over it. Which is more than I can say for the urban planners.

What are we to make of the Apple Flagship Store at Federation Square?

December 22, 2017January 22, 2018Peter Raisbeck

Earlier in the year I went to an exhibition at the Design Museum in London about the influence of Californian design on the whole world. One of the original Apples built by Steve and the Woz was in the exhibition. It was great to see how primitive it seemed, then I kind of forgot about Apple for a bit. Even though, I was surgically attached to my my iPhone 7 plus. Apple design is so clever and I was living the Apple dream without even noticing.

But, then a few days ago there was an eruption of outrage in my social media feeds. OMG!!! Apple were knocking down a big chunk of Federation Square to replace it with an Apple store and the Koorie Heritage Trust (will the new Apple building acknowledge country?) has to move. Apple are building a flagship store on that most loved of Melbourne sites Federation Square. Thankfully, the Koorie Heritage trust, or at least that is what we are told, is moving across the way, to the Alfred Deakin Building, on the other side of Federation Square.

So Apple is going to take over Federation Square. Another bit of creeping and insidious privatisation of public space in the city. The outrage on Twitter was incessant.

So, what about all of the other moments in the history and memory of the city when public space has been eroded and privatised in the city? As the Melbourne architect Stuart Harrison famously once said: try riding your skateboard down the so-called lanes of the QV development. It’s not long before the low paid security guard tells you it is private land and turfs you out.

Of course, it would be easy for me to say horror, outrage and sacrilege and jump onto Twitter etc. But then again Professor Donald Bates, whom readers should note that I work with at the Melbourne School of Design, one of the original designers of Federation square, is in support of the Apple proposal. Donald Bates stated:

The design of Apple Fed Square is necessarily of a different and distinct architectural vocabulary. We would abhor a faux-LAB Architecture design, replete with triangles and shifted geometries. The Foster Associates design is simple, pure and of its own aesthetic. Its success will lie in how it maximises the civic nature of Fed Square to form a tight connection with events and activities, bringing an engaging program of debates and discussions, as well as offering a new vista onto the Yarra River.

So given this argument, perhaps we need to think through the issues and fault lines at play here. So, let’s not jump onto the Trumpian cycle of social media Outrage vs. Outrage. Evil Apple versus People who love Fed Square (now). So, without taking an immediate position of media Outrage here are a few questions to consider:

Q: Why are the political hacks suddenly interested in Architecture and Urbanism ?

Suddenly all the politicians got interested in Architecture, Apple and Federation Square. The collision of place branding and technology tends to get them out of the woodwork. It was an unlikely cohort, Adam Bandt (the Greens), Jeff Kennett (neoliberal liberal) and even Senator Derryn Hinch (independent centrist crusader) had something to say about it.

James Norman in the Guardian wrote as if the store was going to destroy Fed Square as we know it. His bio states the he is “a Melbourne-based writer and author of the book, Bob Brown: Gentle Revolutionary.” Obviously someone with a deep and abiding interest and knowledge in architecture and urbanism.

The Sun Herald was probably the worst.

I just wish these people would be more interested in architecture and urbanism when it matters. I don’t see this motley bunch saying much about the lack of affordable housing or the crap towers now adorning our city. Nor do this group seem to do much every time a bit of our 1960s or 70s modernist or brutalist heritage gets knocked over in the name of development.

A: It’s like a brand collision, a car crash of the big brands: Melbourne, Fed Square, Crazy Architecture, and the biggest brand of all APPLE. Thats enough to get the political opportunists, who I am sure hope, to build their own little brands by being a part of the ecology of outrage.

Q. Why don’t we have politicians who can talk more with more nuance when it comes to issues concerning public space or new projects?

This question is, I admit a particular bugbear of mine, and of course a number of state politicians jumped in with the hyperbole in defense of the project:

“The tourism minister, John Eren, said the store would bring millions more visitors to Victoria and breathe new life into Federation Square.”

The trade minister, Philip Dalidakis, said the deal “reinforces Melbourne’s reputation as the undisputed tech capital of Australia and creates hundreds of ongoing jobs in the process.”

I draw your attention to some of the above phrases that were probably dreamed up by their junior advisors and spin doctors: “millions more visitors”,“breathe new life” (Fed Square wasn’t dead), “undisputed tech capital”, “hundreds of ongoing jobs” (all casual retail).

A: Because they are ignorant when it comes to architecture.

Q. We all live in the Apple economy now, so why be hypocritical?

Every now and then I ask my architecture students if they have Samsung or Apple phones. They all say Apple. So what is wrong with the Apple building given that most architects in town own Apple phones, perhaps we have turned a blind eye to Apples cross-border taxation arrangements or who makes actually makes the stuff. So given this blindness then what is now wrong with the having an Apple store at Federation Square. Is it any different to crafting your architectural or personal brand and career through Instagram on your iPhone ?

A. Apple’s success is its ubiquitous invisibility. Are we not, already as architects, totally embedded in the Apple economy? Do we not love Apple because of its design ethos?

Q: At what point, prior to its completion, do we judge the Foster and Partners design?

I am not sure about the Foster and Partners design. The design looks like one of those things old star architects, and their interns do, when they have run out of ideas. Just put together a bit of minimalist, and proportioned to an inch of its life, faux classicism with some smoochy and luxurious materials. Design it like a temple and make it “disappear” with transparency via glazing. A lawyer friend said it looked like a pagoda. Maybe, thats the easy way to build next to an already significant architectural building. There is an example of this type of thing here. It is not an unknown design strategy.

But maybe this design is actually a piss-take on Apple. Who knows? If Phillip Johnson was alive and had proposed it, that might be so. Also, and arguably, maybe Denton Corker Marshall could have done a better job than Foster and Partners. I am sceptical about the aesthetics of the building itself, the increased amenity seems likely, but lets wait and see how the thing actually pans out when it is built. I probably won’t be able to tell until it is built. It could be great, or pretty good, but I would prefer to wait and see in this instance.

A: Maybe when it is built.

Q: Is urbanism just all about the brand now?

It is unfortunate, if not outrageous, that we need an Apple Store to financially support a civic space like Federation Square. We need one of the biggest brands in the world to support the biggest and most important civic space in the city.

Architecture is a global system and brands circulate in that system, in Melbourne in many respects, Federation Square ushered in the idea of the iconic building as a global brand and nowadays, it’s all about the brand. The central Melbourne grid is now part of a property market, if it hadn’t always been, firmly embedded within the circuitry of global capital. This is evidenced by the privatisation of public assets, the commercialisation of public facilities, the private management of public spaces, developer driven regulatory frameworks and the product design of property assets.

A: Yes, and architects need to recognise and counter this.

Q: Do Australian architects have the theoretical instruments and maturity to cope with global competition?

Lord Foster and Partners is coming to town; and globalisation has always meant that architects like Foster would come to town. The winning design of Federation Square by Lab Studio Architects was announced in July 1997 and completed in 2002. It was a shock to the Melbourne system as Lab Architecture was not part of the Melbourne’s entrenched architectural networks of architecture schools and various tribal cliques.

Lab had a new way of practicing, that seemed to rankle with the entrenched networks, a way that seemed to say that architects were advocates, equal partners with policy and decision makers. The contractors hated this approach. Lab never got another job in the town again.

My worry is that architects and urbanists in Melbourne, or anywhere for that matter, have not developed the theoretical instruments, advocacy skills or research and industry infrastructure to contend with the worst excesses of branded architecture in the global system.

A: I don’t think they do.

Q: What should have happened?

A1: The better solution would have been to have given Donald Bates and Lab Architecture the job

At least that way Melbourne could have been absolutely sure we weren’t getting a ironic piss-take building or more than a techno temple for the international tourists. Maybe I would have liked more of that crazy triangle stuff and space frame stuff or something new from Lab. Even the punters and the bogans love Fed Square now. Lab Architecture would have done a great job.

A2: A design competition would also have been a great idea.

If Apple’s, and all the Silicon Valley rhetoric about disruptive innovation is real, then a design competition would have been the way to go. I might have won that one. But that would have provoked even more outrage.

Architects and urbanists need to avoid the hypocrisies of piling outrage onto outrage. What we really need is better theoretical instruments to build our own capacities as advocates of architecture. Maybe then we can get better at theorising, recognising, and avoiding, the really schlocky outputs of corporate capitalism.

Have a great Christmas and New Year. Again, Thank you all for supporting the blog in 2017.

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