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

Tribes, Warlords and Transformers: Which architectural practice are you?

April 13, 2017Peter Raisbeck

After the last post, which focused on Australian Architects, I thought I would expand some of this apocalyptic thinking to the global system of architecture. Arguably, architecture is at an end because of the commodification of the services that architects provide. But the effect of neoliberal policies and market competition is more insidious than that. I think that this global system has also come to condition the very types of practices that operate within it. In the late 20^th Century the heroic architect of the 20s morphed into the star architect of the late 90s and the early 2000s. But I think we also have some new practice types.

The Three Types: Tribes, Warlords, and Transformers.

I have named the three types of practices as Tribes, Warlords and Transformers. These practices are conditioned by a survivalist mentality that accounts for architectural competition in the global system. Architects are desperately trying to survive as their knowledge and workflows are being simultaneously digitized and commoditized. The work of Sklair, examining star architects and the work of McNeill which looks at the political and cultural economy of globalization and cities. No doubt there are others.

This impetus of market survival is evident as a result of global flows of capital pertaining to: neo-liberal policies, service disaggregation and fee for service competition. Despite its allure and heroic mythology in architectural traditions architects have in reality abandoned the old binary logic of Creative vs. Suit. In this global system there are recognizably three types of architectural firms:

Tribes

Tribes are small community based and local practices. Their territories are local. These firms create a design knowledge ecosystem around their own local field of practice. These are small firms which develop linkages both within their teams and the communities that surround them. These firms inwardly focused and are bottom-up in they way they create design knowledge. They are collaborative and community orientated. Whilst a single designer may dominate these tribes the emphasis is on consultation. As many of these firms feel they are struggling to survive these Tribes will sometimes form together to make bigger firms.

Examples: Assemble Studio, RCR, Grupo Toma in my town we have Architecture Architecture and our very own Assemble.

Warlords

Warlords: Warlords are best exemplified by the so-called star architects. Their territories are media channels. They dominate both national and global systems. These firms create a knowledge ecosystem around themselves that is dominated by a single, style, aesthetic ideology or person. These firms create design knowledge on a project by project basis. However, the creation of design knowledge is secondary as the firm seeks legitimacy through media hits. They are focused on winning prestigious commissions and often create conflict in order to win media presence. They are intent on creating seminal projects that build their reputation in the architectural canon.

Examples: Schumacher, in my town we have you know who, Aravena (star or tribe?) and of course the older generation of people like Gehry and the remnants of the New York Five like Meier and there is of course Rem (but I think OMA is a Transformer)

Transformers

Are large multi-disciplinary and networked mega-firms firms that work within the global system and often across borders. These firms are predatory. They need to be to survive. Their Territories constantly captured, expanded and rebuilt. They resolves conflict in order to govern. In these firms design, knowledge, systems and governance are integrated. These firms create highly specialised design knowledge which is integrated into their own systems. As a result these firms are large enough to anticipate, create, design and deliver large mega-projects such as urban infrastructure and cities; whether or not we need these urban products. These firms are intent on building projects that enable the firm to be continually self-sustaining. They transform as they their constituent networks ebb and flow. They are often surrounded by tribal firms that act as a Remora fish.

Examples: RMJM, Arup and Aurecon. So whats BIG, tribe, Warlord, Transformer or Mega-firm? Probably a hybrid tribe-star on the way to becoming a Transformer) Some firms are hybrids and we can see them changing from one type to another.

Its all about the Brand

Certainly, an overarching institutional logic of survivalism is arguably the result of a number of factors. The changes since the 1970s in professional status as a result of neoliberal policies leading to trans-national and market competition. The loss of traditional services to other disciplines and subsequent disaggregation of full fee-for-service regimes. The rise of new technologies alongside new procurement systems have also led to the commodification of design activities and knowledge.

In this system design knowledge has been confused with branding. So I guess Tafuri, and perhaps even Guy Debord, may have been right about the intellectual work of architects after all.

Surviving the Design Studio: Symptoms and cures of design jury anxiety.

March 31, 2017April 4, 2017Peter Raisbeck

Archigram and Anxiety

I am pretty busy this week (conference paper writing) and mid-semester crits are looming at my graduate architecture school on the periphery of the global architectural system. So I thought it timely to republish this blog from last year.

The above Archigram image is mean to soothe even the most anxious architecture student.In fact whenever I get tense or uptight about architecture I pop out, have a cup of tea, and look at a bit of Archigram. They were a pretty relaxed bunch of dudes. (doods being the operative word). In fact Peter Cook’s recent exhibition at the Bartlett has just closed last week celebrating his 80th. Rumour has it that somewhere in the archive of the 1960s there is a picture of PC in a kind of Emma Peel Avengers style PVC jumpsuit. I would give my back teeth to see that and it would it would make a great paper on taste-making and gender in the architecture of the 1960s. Of course such a paper would have to discuss Reyner Banham’s rants about Jane Fonda in the Barbarella film. There is a it about it here. Maybe those smart-arse and well funded researchers at Princeton should examine this stuff.

Cookie and the other GUYS in Archigram never really got too anxious as they were all to busy playing footsies with the girls under the table, drinking tea, and smoking huge spliffs. Not surprising that the girls in the back row never really made the club.

Looking at Archigram projects, and following in their anxiety reducing practices, may be one way to cure anxiety. But Anxiety is one of the most debilitating things that can beset you prior to the design jury or a crit. It’s hard enough being an architecture student. No money, long hours, and the struggle to learn a complex discipline. Pre-design crit anxiety can be crippling. It can certainly stop you from working effectively and it can prevent you from communicating your ideas and what you have done effectively in the actual crit. You are not alone almost every architect or architecture student has had to face this anxiety.

The Looming Deadline

Of course, it is worse if you are approaching a project deadline or the end of semester. It is worse if you do not think that your tutors, or the client group, or a consultant, is not on your side. It is also worse if you feel that maybe you haven’t done enough work and it is even worse when you are earnestly struggling to build your skills, design confidence and resilience.

I am writing this from a number of perspectives. Firstly, as someone who knows what it is like to be anxious about a studio crit or a meeting. But also as someone who is on the other side as a critic who has seen the anxiety of architects and architecture students. As a young design tutor straight out of my cultish architecture school I was a somewhat fierce and unreasonable critic who developed a reputation for making students cry and jumping on models. Thankfully, after 30 years those people have forgiven me and I now realise how reprehensible and disgusting my earlier behaviour was.

There are of course a number of things you can do to manage the situation and manage your anxiety before that terrifying crit or design jury. Here are my suggestions:

Sympton 1: Thinking the worst

Your imagination can run wild, you can think that the worst will happen. You will be cut down by other architects, the client or jury members, and you will be humiliated amongst your peers. I suffered from this and it can be debilitating. Don’t replay in your imagination the worst things that people might say to you.

Cure: Remembering most critics are interested and want to help.

Thinking that the worst can happen is never good. I have been in and seen some pretty bad crits in my life. But, nowadays days these are extremely rare. Most design jurors and critter people in the 21^st century are a pretty decent lot. Find out from your tutor who they are and do a bit of research. Usually, they are attending because they are either a convenient friend of your tutor or they have some kind of special expertise that is relevant to the studio.

They will probably not tell you that your work is appalling or rip the prints of the wall or jump on your model. It is unlikely they will belittle you or humiliate you.

They will tell you what they think and usually they try to be honest. Mostly, they will be interested in what you have done.

If you feel anxious before the crit try imaging the sort of interesting questions they might ask you. Make a plan for what you will do before the crit and what you will say. Don’t just turn up and wing it. Be prepared. Making a plan of what you will say and even practicing it in front of a mirror before hand will help you minimise your own anxieties. In other words, imagine them asking you the questions you want them to ask. Imagine the crit going well rehearse what you a going to say using this formula set out in my previous blog.

Symptom 2: Over work anxiety,

Anxiety feeds off overwork. Not enough fun or enough rest will fuel it. After my own architecture thesis I went camping on a river and just sat in a camp chair for about ten days and did not move. I was so burnt out from overwork. This can happen to anyone no matter how old you are. I have known student’s who haven’t stopped working hard since high school. At some point they discover they need a break because they are really burnt out.

Working all night will fuel pre-crit anxiety. Not getting enough exercise will make you more anxious. Or just have a rest or go out and play with your friends. There is no point working and working and working and getting so tired. If you are tired before the crit your anxiety will be harder to manage.

Cure: Have fun and get balanced.

If it gets really bad go for a walk. Go to the pub. Go shopping. Go out with friends. Sometime you can overdose, and burnout, on a design project or a studio or even a course. Read this.

Be mindful, try meditating, there are some really good apps you can get that will lead you through some great mindfulness exercises.

Symptom 3: The best friend of Anxiety is procrastination.

I might have said this here before on this blog, but procrastinating, by deferring the activity of design and design gestures, will only make your anxiety worse. Designing is a labour intensive exercise (especially if you are using a computer). Putting it off only means you have to do the same amount of work in less time. Designs are not made and fully formed in the brain and then exactly transferred to the computer or paper or the physical model. If only we could do this life would be so much easier. Designing takes time.

Cure: Work constantly.

Reading, researching, writing little notes, thinking while drinking that batch brew or Aero press coffee, going to the fridge and eating, web surfing and Google searching are all the fabulous ways to defer the actual act of designing. The problem is designing is about either physical or digital drawing and the sooner you start the better. You will be less stressed if you work constantly throughout the studio and avoid procrastination. If you do feel stuck get help or advice from your tutor to get unstuck.

Symptom 4: The other people are always better

There will always be someone in your studio who seems better, smarter, more creative and more like one of those over-confident alpha-male architects. Thinking this is real recipe for anxiety. You will always be your own worst critic and these other people will always seem better. I mean who needs design tutors or guest critics when you are so good at demolishing your own design thinking and ideas?

Cure: Run your own design race.

It’s best to solve your own problems rather blaming others or being focused on your fellow studio members. Run your own race. Believe me you will actually end up doing better. Focusing and comparing yourself to others is waste of energy. They will always seem better and if you think like this your anxiety will easily be fuelled.

Symptom 5: Critical negativity

Also, don’t compete against yourself. Know when to give yourself a break and when to be critical of your own judgements. Too often I see students tied up in knots and paralysed by their own critical negativity. As designers we need to question. But we don’t need to question every single tiny thing related to a building design. The worse architecture schools on the planet are the ones who promote this kind of claptrap critical negative method.

Cure: Remember there are no right answers

Sometimes it’s often better to design something, anything really, even if you think it might be “wrong”. The alternative is always to be searching for the “right” or correct idea and that is an ideal that doesn’t exist. Or after you have developed an idea for a while in your design its thrown it out and everything else with it. Because it is not correct. I see a lot of this. To develop design confidence and resilience you need practice in developing a design.

Symptom 6: Don’t kick the cat; or anyone else for that matter.

This is a rare, but not uncommon, symptom of anxious students. People and indeed architects under pressure who get extremely anxious sometimes release that pressure by lashing out at their pets or others. Please don’t kick your dog or cat when you get anxious about the upcoming crit. It is also really good idea to not lash out or blame your tutor, or your fellow classmates, for your anxiety. Usually your design tutor is trying their best to guide you and get you through.

Also, speaking from experience, your tutor will not think highly of you if you do this. I am usually relatively understanding if someone lashes out at me when they are under pressure during the studio. There is not a lot I can do when it happens. But, as a tutor it is not pleasant and usually it means that after the studio is finished I don’t really want to have much to do with the lasher-outer type.

Cure: Don’t bottle things up and build ongoing relationships.

Instead of lashing out talk to your tutors and your peers about your fears and anxieties. You might find everyone, tutors included, are just as worried as you are. Try and remember that after the studio has finished the most important thing you can do as an architecture student is to retain and have a continuing relationship with your peers and those who have taught you as an architect. Each studio is an opportunity to build your future professional networks.

Symptom 7: So maybe you haven’t done a lot of work and that’s why you are anxious.

Yep. You realise there is only two weeks left in the studio and the deadline is looming. You are definitely going down the tubes because you did not do enough work earlier in the semester. You are running out of time. You have been too busy having fun or you haven’t really been thinking about the time. You are not sure how you are going to actually get everything done. Even if you work all day and all night you think that you are going to fail.

Cure: Get help

Symptom 7, along with just about everything symptom above, is best cured by getting help.

Tell your tutor your predicament. Most tutors will be sympathetic. Most tutors want you to pass and even if they recognise that you have done no work they will still help you. But to do that you need to get their help and you need to be honest and realistic about what you need to do. Talk to your friends try to enlist their help as well.

Finally

If of course your anxiety is becoming to much of a burden you may need to get help from a counsellor or your GP. Most universities and architecture schools have avenues and contacts that can help you overcome anxiety. Sometimes the worst thing you can do is to think you can just push through and ride out the anxiety. It’s a lot easier if you always get help and remember that you are not invincible. The most important thing to remember is that you are not the only one to ever feel anxiety prior to a design crit.

It could always be worse imagine if it was Cookie and his crew you had to present to.

Architects, Branding and Narcissistic Personality Disorder.

March 16, 2017March 17, 2017Peter Raisbeck

Things are in full swing here. The place is full of students and the bicycle park is full by the time I get in everyday. I am “under the pump” as they say and this may be why there were so many typos in the first posting of this.

Narcissistic Personality Disorder.

As a profession in some ways architects have all the characteristics of Narcissistic Personality Disorder. The common complaints by clients and of course other members of the construction industry are: grandiosity, lack of empathy for others and a need for admiration; a common willingness to be arrogant, self-centred, manipulative, and demanding. This is of course a harsh assessment and many other groups in our industry also suffer from these traits. Especially, Project Managers and contractors ! People with NPD, Narcissistic Personality Disorder often believe they are superior or special. We all know people like this.

Arguably, some of these narcissistic traits are needed to get architecturally designed projects built, in a world that seems not to care about architecture, design or aesthetics. A world that really doesn’t care about design value. It may be because architects go against the normal grain of “cheaper and quicker is better,” and actually care about design, that they are seen by others as being narcissistic.

However, there is one area where I wonder if the self-regard and narcissism of architects is skewed. This week in the MSD Architectural Practice class we ran a Q&A panel on architects and branding. One theme that came out of this panel was the fact that architects were great at producing awesome renders and most, although I would say not all, have a pretty good idea about communications design and graphics. Yes, all of those things are taught at architecture school. We are good at building brands for other people like developers. But I think that is the problem. That’s all we architects are good at; we are only good at doing the renders and the graphics for the designs. As a result, we think we a really good at branding because these activities have visual components. But being the narcissistic profession, that we are, we then think this is all you need to do. We too often reflect and bask in the glory of our own technical skills.

Knowing a little about computer generated renders and graphic design does not necessarily mean architects know much about branding. This is an even more pressing issue as branding is now more complicated in an era of ubiquitous computing, customised advertising, the rise influencers, the proliferation of social media channels. Data analytics of consumer preferences is now a dark art and few architects understand it. The shift to the very short digital film clip as the most common form of communication is smoething that seems to have eluded us.

Branding for architects isn’t just about a few slick images and a funny cute name. Its not something you can do in an afternoon in the office (unlike a blog full of typos). As Verity Campbell reminded me at our Q&A session architects really need to think about how our representational, images, logos, names and graphics are seen by others. Architects need to bridge the communication gap between ourselves our clients and community.

At the firm level.

Branding is about distinction and positioning. What’s the point of every architect in town claiming to do sustainable design. When I searched for sustainable architects in my city I got 684,000 results in less than a second. I couldn’t believe this search result. Whats the point of doing a website that seems more like a hodge-podge of quirky graphics that does your head in when your cursor tries to engage with it. Or loads so slowly you have a aneurysm waiting. At my age aneurysms are a real issue when you are looking at slow moving web sites. All of this hokey pokey branding schmaltz is like the caricature of the architect with the Corbusian glasses in black with the Comme des Garcon jacket driving to the site meeting in a Citroen.

As noted at our panel architects need to develop marketing and branding techniques that uniquely position themselves. This is a common error. For example when you find blurbs on websites like this. (I have redacted a few things to avoid mutual embarrassment).

and the combined experience of the office ranges from significant major projects in Melbourne, to many small and site specific projects, and international works. Our activity, interests and expertise, ranges from urban design to interiors and furniture – architecture in its broad sense.

We bring design to a broad set of situations and audiences, including peripheral locations, difficult problems and tight budgets. We aim for our work to participate in the widest environment it can; in new forms of communication, in sensitive natural environments, new types of cities, and with ordinary life.

Yip. All things to all people. Everywhere. How can the above be seen as effective branding? Yet, this is the mistake that is commonly made. I am sick of reading about what architects could do: Anything you ask them to do apparently? Or what they are like: creative, smart, experienced etc. etc. Most potential clients probably what to know what architects are doing, what they have done and how they are actually different to the tens of thousands of other sustainable design orientated architects in the universe. Maybe this is why I like the Assemble web site so much as a model.

At the community level

Our professional associations need to get much better at marketing and promoting architecture. Lamb does it and now they kind of own Australia Day. I am actually not sure how many punters are going to get to this “find your architect” AIA page deep inside what is essentially an industry association website.

The AIA 2017 National conference is called PRAXIS. Holy Sardine Batman ! At least there is a bit of diversity in the speaker line up. Of course, when I think of the word PRAXIS I think of Deleuze & Guattari. But its just lots of architects talking about architecture. At least you get a tax deduction. Maybe the conference needs to include more punters, more real people, more politicians, policy experts, and more decision makers and be seen as means to market what we are as a profession to these broader groups.

In Australia the individual AIA chapters have Twitter accounts, the National AIA Twitter account seems to have tweets few and far between. The account that has over 23,000 followers but just seems to feature a lot of stuff about the AIA conference and little that would be engaging to the punters, decision-makers or any one else for that matter. It’s a real snooze fest.

There is no obvious involvement through these channels in promoting architecture as anything beyond a kind of slick image marketing brochure. No wonder the punters think we work for the rich Kardashians. There is no deeper engagement, through all of these channels, with the policies and dilemmas of architecture in our time. I know I am biased but Parlour is a much better model of how to do things. At least the Parlour Instagram account doesn’t send you to sleep.

The last upload to the AIA Youtube site was about 2 months ago. Whoops that was the wrong link ! Here is the real AIA website. This doesn’t really appear to be a direct or crafted communications strategy that would link architects to anyone, except for maybe: other architects. No wonder we are too often, and unfairly, regarded as narcissistic out of touch idiots. At least we are fashionably dressed and have nice, although ineffective, websites.

Hair Wars: Hair and Australian Architects or why I never made the grade as a star architect.

February 17, 2017May 1, 2019Peter Raisbeck

One of my most popular posts in 2016 was the one about Bjarke Ingels being evil because he had hair. But then I thought what about Australian architects. How much hair do they have? What about their hair? How is Australian Architectural hair portrayed in the media and across social media? As a result, I decided to conduct a few Google experiments. With the research aim to explore how the hair of Australian architects is portrayed on the web. Like all good researchers I needed a hypothesis a methodology and a few methods. My hypothesis is that architects with hair get more hits on social media. My broad methodology is to focus on notions of identity and how these are constructed within architectural discourse. As for methods a bit of Google Image search combined with a visual analysis. In doing this I referred to some diagrams about male pattern baldness (myself being a prime example).

Google Search: Australian Architects (searched 170217 1.31pm

Glenn Murcutt
Jorn Utzon
Robin Boyd
Harry Seidler
Roy Grounds
Nonda Katsalidis
Walter Burley Griffin
Francis Greenaway
Philip Cox

It was a relief to me as they pretty much all had hair undergoing various stages of Male Pattern Baldness. Numbers 5 and Numbers 6 seemed to have the most hair. It goes without saying that its shockingly amazing that even Google doesnt include female Australian architects when you do this kind of search.

Google search: Top 10 Australian Architects (searched 170217 1.40pm)

Glenn Murcutt
Sean Godsell
Philip Cox
Robin Boyd
Harry Seidler
Jorn Utzon
Nick Murcutt
frederik Romberg
Roy Grounds
Edmund Blacket

and with this search something weird happened. Suddenly an insurgent with lots of hair jumped up to second place on the list.

I then decided to search just in Google Images (searched 170217 2.30pm) rather than Google.

Google Image search: Best Australian Architects (searched 170217 3.00pm)

In this search you get a lot of buildings but of course only one Australian architect features and that is Peter Stutchbury who admittedly has a pretty good ahead of hair (as does his comrade Richard Leplastrier)

These are of course Sydney architects. Before I write any more I need to make a disclaimer which is this: At my tribal architecture school in the 80s one of the first things we learnt was to hate, and I mean really HATE, Sydney architects. Despite my biases a kind of Roland Barthes semiotic analysis seems appropriate here. There is certainly no sign of Brylcreem or Hair Dye in this image. These architects are in some ways proto-hipsters. These men appear to be the very negative of the urbane, metropolitan, Don Draper suited 50s and 60s architect like Gary Cooper in the Fountainhead or indeed some of the architects in the above lists like Robin Boyd, Harry Seidler or the seemingly avuncular Roy Grounds.

Nup these guys are wild architects with all that hair: Raw, mountain men, lumberjack architects, with natural poetic instincts and urges, the very antithesis of the cosmopolitan architect; they appear to be flaunting an organic and seemingly natural sexuality and masculinity. Satyrs in the woodland with set squares. Its all a bit too Norsca Soap like for me, and even the work of these architects is kind of entwined with the myths of Scandanavia and the scarves, for some unknown reason, start to remind me of the columns in Alvar Aalto’s Villa Maireia.

When he was younger Stutchbury, who was born in 1954, looked like this (what is he looking at?). I was surprised to find this image so easily on the web.

Stutchbury

Raisbeck

I had hair as well when I was young as you can see from the above comparative photo of me in the 70s at my outer suburban high school. So its interesting to wonder why our own practice never got up and running. I mean I had long hair as well. But actually the reason is probably very obvious. Firstly, I lost my hair and I was also confused about the semiotic identity I wanted to portray as an architect. This is fairly obvious in this picture of me below from architecture school in the mid to late 80s. Little wonder I never made the top 10 Google list.

I was already loosing my hair then. Plus, I had obvious aligned my self with the cosmopolitan urban intellectual types rather than the organic FLW loving mountain men. But the tie was all wrong. No wonder I never got into the club. At night I wonder if our practice had done better if I had retained my hair and somehow gone the long hair silver mountain man foxy route. Or worn a straighter tie.

As my friends will now I have kind of re-invented myself a few times now. And as I noted last time our wrote about this kind of stuff in the Bjarke blog: The construction of the architectural identity should be regarded as being problematic and contested rather than being seen as a singular, holistic and a stable domain. As architects in this age of, oh so awful, celebrity we need to foster debates around the real laws, and dilemmas of architectural design our cities.

It perhaps goes without saying, but it keeps needing to be said, that the identities that we privilege in architectural discourse need to be more inclusive of difference. The recognition of collaborative practice is one way forward. But in the swamplands of social media a constant critique and dismantling of the rhetorical images that are presented to us is essential and necessary. Otherwise, the rhetorical idealisation of the architectural identity will continue to corrupt our discipline and architectural education. It’s time for the the cult of architectural celebrity to die. The mountain men architects like to think they are poets but they are really just celebrities.

Its been crazy here as I prepare for the students and substantially revamp my Architectural Practice course which starts in two weeks. Notably, I have prerecorded 9 lectures and have another 9 to do. It will be an interesting experiment in online teaching models. This will give me more time to run an actual tutorial in the subject and organise the guest lectures. This year we will also have a number of Q&A style panel sessions which we will advertise here and elsewhere.

Surviving the Design Studio: A quick form guide for the Shepparton Art Museum competition.

January 31, 2017January 31, 2017Peter Raisbeck

I think architectural competitions are awesome. A well run architectural competition generates debate, promotes architects and architecture and ensures that cronyism, fee cutting and so-called value management doesn’t diminish the public realm. When it comes to procurement it is usually the Project Management types who get it all wrong and not the architects. Yup, it is often the in-charge Project Managers who have little concern for, or knowledge of, architectural design. The killer thing is the Project Managers love to blame the architects for the problems they have created in the first place.

Greater Shepparton City Council. should be applauded for having the courage to run an architectural competition for the new Shepparton Art Museum. Architectural competitions are a excellent way to get the best outcomes, both in terms of time and cost and meeting the requirements of a complex program. Its great to see architecture supported in this fashion. In this case it is a complex cultural program and interestingly the business case for it is readily accessible if you are interested. It’s great to see and contrasts with the the usual behind closed doors machinations of Project Managers and bureaucrats enmeshed in established networks of patronage (and dare I say privilege).

The problems of criticism

Since starting this blog I have been hesitant to allow my harsher critical intelligence to run riot. Architectural criticism is fraught with hazards and pitfalls. The central problem is that some architects are notoriously thin-skinned and any vaguely or faintly critical discussion of their work can lead to bad voodoo. A lot of what passes as published criticism, and architectural discourse, on the web is really just about saying nice things about a particular architectural project. Or worse still stating the obvious with little interpretation. A lot of it is middle brow sop avoiding the hard questions and failing to pursue the contradictions and complexities of architecture in a wealthy nation like Australia.

I also fear that critical theory in relation to architecture is a little dangerous. Too much critical theory and you can get into trouble. I think this is because I witnessed the “Theory Wars” at my architecture school in the early 90s when the practicing architects took on the theory mavens. Theory is certainly dangerous of course, and unlike Italian, Dutch, or French Architecture, not valued particularly highly in Australian architectural culture. I can just hear those voices now saying: “cut the bullshit and who needs theory when we get stuff built.” I remember once when I was a chair of on a AIA awards jury I was told by an older and respected architect: “if you don’t give so and so the award you might as well pack your bags and leave town.” The privilege of practice doesn’t necessarily mandate the particular theoretical view of the practitioner. Why should it and why shouldn’t such views be contested and debated? I think we need critical theory more than ever now. In recent times I fear that the practice and development of theory in architecture schools has been, with a few exceptions, almost completely erased. Much easier to grab and robot and dance with a 3D printer. Who needs theory when you have technology. Who needs architecture for that matter?

As a much younger person I was also involved in a radio program on community radio. Every week we reviewed a building and gave it a score out of 10. A few buildings were so bad I used to call them dogs and I may even have made barking noises a few times on air. It is little wonder I always struggled to find work and why I never ended up crawling up the ladder to being an associate somewhere. Of course I was useless as well, as I was always spilling Rotring ink, or dropping things, or crashing the directors cars, or trying to gatecrash lunches at the Kelvin club with the AIA President or barfing up at the AIA awards. No wonder I was relegated to the back of the office under the dyeline machine.

These days I wonder if anyone cares whenever I write about anything about buildings at all. When I write stuff about Bjarke’s hair, or Alien Project Managers, or the problems with planners, the blog stats go through the roof. But nonetheless, despite these impediments, I still feel the need to try and here is my quick form guide to the Shepparton Art Gallery entries. In no particular order here is my, oh so gentle, take on the Shepparton shortlisted schemes.

DCM

This scheme has a pretty cool roof deck. The planning and circulation looks like it would easily cater to a range of different exhibition configurations. The volumes of the central galleria would be cool. Maybe its a bit too much like a gallery; but that is probably the point. But, the thing I like the most about this one is the northern “plate” façade and the hill or mound leading up to that. Working together these would be a pretty good articulation and expression of public space. I could just see myself lying on the hill drunk on Rose watching a few projections. If it is detailed and constructed well (and it think it would need to be to carry it off) the northern façade or plate could be fantastic.

Lyons

A lot of fun with some inverted wedge shapes (wedgies?), deftly playing up on contours of these volumes; in conjunction with the diamond shaped façade, this would give the Wyndham street view a great visual dynamic as you approach the gallery. Lyons really are great exponents of dynamic façade design and detailing. The volumetric shapes allow for the building to have a series of well articulated and diverse gallery spaces opening out to the lake. I like the ceiling of the Kaiela gallery. The galleries are generously and the central square would be great place for the kids of Shepparton to play up in.

KTA architects

To be honest I actually like this one the best (is it ok if I say that?). I think this one pays more respect to the idea of country. I think it is because of the way that it attempts to drag the adjacent wetland and landscape into the building, and like the DCM scheme, I am a sucker for rooftops you can get onto. The space planning of the galleries look a bit constrained but I think the idea of a flowing circulation space and the sheltering canopy would be great backdrops for art. Being able to walk through it after hours is exactly what the punters need in Shepparton.

JWA

I work in a JWA building so maybe I am positively biased. In contrast to the materials in the Lyons scheme what distinguishes this design is the use of timber both inside and outside. The vertical circulation through the building and the arrangement of different rooms and spaces is functional and extremely well considered. There are some pretty cool bits that would work well: The circular aperture over the entrance gallery. The large outward facing window to the amenities area. As well as the surreal red canopy over the roof terrace (which presumably can be changed and is intended to change over time). There is a lot of architecture and architectural detail in this proposal.

MVS

Of all the schemes I think this one is probably the most subtle in terms of its concept.This is a more conceptually ambiguous proposal, than the other proposals, and perhaps that is a good thing. However, this ambiguity makes it harder to describe in a few words. At first glance it looks deceptively simple. A separate block and a courtyard block. There is no bluster or obvious kick in the head big idea. A distortion and break up of a traditional art gallery or museum typology. In the renders and the conceptual diagram it looks like the concept is structured around disruption and play between a forested landscape (country), a manicured landscape and the wetlands. A slightly different take on the themes in the KTA scheme. The kinda lumpy ceiling of the entry gallery looks like fun.The facade is also apparently ambiguous with hues of orange, yellow, pink and violet against a mesh-like pattern and material.

State of Play?

It’s a pretty good snapshot of the current state of play of Australian architecture. In light of the above I have tried to keep my remarks generous and resist the urge to let my critical faculties run wild. You can make up your own minds. My comments are based on the renders and plans to be found here. I would encourage all of you, especially students of architecture, to study and think about these submissions as these projects represent some of our best.

As with all good competitions you can vote on which one you like best. You can also do that here.

Strategy and Design Thinking: Why architects need strategic thinking.

January 20, 2017January 24, 2017Peter Raisbeck

This blog explores the nexus between architectural design and strategy. I am thinking there will be more blogs on this subject to follow over the year.

Most architectural practices seem to lurch from crisis to crisis. In Australia most architects are small practitioners, juggling family commitments, trying desperately to maintain work life balance and at the same time running a small business that produces bespoke projects that require innovation, high levels of risk management, advanced negotiation skills not to mention networking and marketing skills. Architects, in between juggling the school drop off or saving for their own mortgages, work hard to add value to their clients, the built environment and society at large. Of course, its much easier, as it is for some in the building industry, to take the low road of cheaper, better faster and easier when it comes to delivering projects. If its cheap and nasty it must be good, right?

Having a strategy, and embedding strategic thinking into practice, a good way to help guide and resolve the dilemmas of practice. A good way to combat the cheap and nasty faction. Recently it was suggested to me by an architect that architects need not learn the finer arts of strategy. It was put to me that some architects never learn it and that it doesn’t really matter. I was pretty surprised by this as we were taught at Business School, regardless of what you think of business schools or biz school education, that strategic management and thinking was the highest form of managerial action.

In classical management theory the classical definitions of strategy are intertwined with notions of competition, military thought and the notion of winning. Mintzberg argued that strategic thinking was a central component of creating innovation and was by its nature intuitive, creative and divergent. Strategic thinking as defined by the managerial theorist Mintzberg argues that strategic thinking is:

“about synthesis. It involves intuition and creativity. The outcome…is an integrated perspective of the enterprise, a not-too-precisely articulated vision of direction”

Michael Porter another management theorist argued that:

“Competitive strategy involves positioning a business to maximize the value of the capabilities that distinguish it from its competitors.”

Of course strategy as a field of thought has moved on since the work of Mintzberg and Porter. This has happened because technology has morphed and remorphed and the interconnected complexities of the global system have seemingly increased. In recent times the discourse of strategic management has reflected this. In strategic management theory and research questions abound: Is strategy formulation something that emerges or is it something that can be designed top down? How can strategy help our institutions with concepts of turbulence and uncertainty? As noted in a recent editorial in the Strategic Management Journal strategy may cover: organisational capabilities, interfirm relationships, knowledge creation and diffusion, innovation, organisational learning, behavioural strategy, technology management, and of course corporate social responsibility.

For architects having an understanding of strategy and strategic thinking is vital. In fact I would argue that it is vital for future architects to study strategy at architecture school, perhaps in the design studio. To suggest that strategic thinking is not a part of architectural education or architects expertise suggests that architecture is simply a bundle of technically orientated skills and processes. A bundle of repetitive actions that require little thought. Actions that can be transferable and imparted to others. This suggests a craft based notion of architecture where skills and knowledge are passed down from so-called master to apprentice. I am not so sure about the craft myths that seem to permeate architecture. The craft myth is hard to shake even when highly advanced design and construction methods are used. The craft metaphor is probably a little bit too formulaic as a concept of architectural knowledge for my liking.

In Australia the competency standards describe the competencies and skills that architects are expected to know. These standards are used in accreditation processes to determine if a particular person is capable of being an architect; or an architecture school is teaching the correct skills or competencies. Interestingly, the standards say little about the need for strategic thinking. They mostly describe what architects do rather than the thinking or conceptual skills they require. They are activity and process based. The standards are really lacking when it comes to issues around concepts of strategy, foresight, risk, project management and financial skills. The weight of the standards are focused on design and documentation. Viewed in detail much less emphasis is given to practice management and project delivery. I mean who needs that stuff? All we need as architects are the skills inherent to the traditional practice life cycle: Sketch design, design development, contract documentation, contract administration ect etc. In fact all we need to know about is Sketch Design. No matter that this lifecycle is increasingly under pressure and fragmented and as result a result of the industries lack of diversity, fee competition, and dis-intermediation.

Strategic thinking and planning has a number of advantages even for those architects lurching from the client to the consultants between picking up the kids from school. Strategic thinking sets a direction, even for the small firm beyond the day to day. A kind of thinking that helps to guide resource allocation when difficult decisions or trade-offs need to be made. It determines how your firm might be different, and I mean really different, to all of the other firms out there. Understanding strategic discourse can help the architect understand clients as they make strategic decisions regarding the future. If the management consultants and gurus can do it, why not architects? We are a lot smarter and more diverse than those guys.

An appreciation of strategic thinking helps to get architects out of the cycle of reacting from practice crisis to practice crisis or seeing architectural design as simplistic, step by step, and linear process of sequential tasks. Seeing design as a narrow technical specialisation is a huge mistake. Strategic thinking is inextricably and broadly linked to design and should be regarded as the highest form of design thinking.

It’s all quiet on the front at my grad school of architecture. A few summer studios are running and there is till 5 weeks to go before classes start. Nonetheless, next week, in the lull I am pre-recording a whole lot of online lectures!

The 2017 list: What architects and architecture students should try and do over festive season.

January 3, 2017January 3, 2017Peter Raisbeck

Happy New Year.

As I noted in my first post on this subject in 2016. Architecture school does not necessarily teach you everything there is to know about architecture. I am constantly astounded by those architecture students who think that by completing all the subjects at architecture school they will know everything there is to know about our complex field of knowledge. Unfortunately, the tick the boxes mentality is all to prevalent in our universities and is at odds with real education.

A good architecture school, like the one I teach at, is only an introduction to architecture. It’s up to all of us, regardless of our position in the profession’s career path, to be responsible for our own architectural education and educate ourselves as architects. Without wishing to sound overly didactic or clichéd architectural education is a life long process. Observation and experience are central to this process. Observing, experiencing and recording the world as we encounter it is central to this process. To a larger extent, rather than a lesser one, I think all great architects are self taught to some degree. That was certainly the case for the 20th C modernists. The oldey-worldy apprentice system, the Beux Arts, even the Bauhaus all seemed to encourage the singular and self taught autodidact. In the modern age the rise of the pedigreed architectural education has perhaps eroded these older norms. Being responsible for your own education is vital; and in saying this, I don’t wish to privilege the singularly focused auteur or genius. Collaboration with others is just as much a part of the self-education process as anything else.

The festive and holiday season, especially in the Southern Hemisphere, is the time for all good architecture students and architects to get out and experience life beyond the digital screen of the studio or the office. So here are my tips for what to do over the holiday season in 2017.

Go to a party.

The Cambridge architectural educator Peter Carl was infamous for telling young architecture stduents what they needed to do to expand their realm of experience. Decorum prevents me from saying exactly what it is he is said to have often said. But I can say its great to get out and party. I dont mean one of those pleasant instagrammy Reyes filter in the garden hipster-style picnics. I mean a real party. The kind of nasty snapchatty VICE and vodka filled borderline legal substance party. A selfie in the bathroom over the faucets party. The kind where everyone gets trashed and you get talk to and know people you would not ordinarily meet. Its little wonder I havent organised for myself a birthday party after my 4oth.

If all else fails go and see a band or Simona play. She is great. Of course some of you will already be recovering from the Falls festival and Woodford.

Read a book

Yes, as with last year’s list reading a book is a really good idea. I know this is hard for architecture students and perhaps harder for busy parenting architects. So my suggestion is to not read any old book like one of those middle brow crime novels or historical dramas. I dont want to sound pretentious, but try to read a really difficult book like Finnegan’s Wake, or De Sade or Debord, or light up a few big ones and read Deleuze and Guattari; try and stay away from reading anything by Heidegger (a Nazi after all) and Kahil Gibran.

All of my above suggestions have ideas to convey about architecture, place and spatiality.

Poetry, which I have recently discovered thanks to Susan Fealy, is also good thing to read. As some of you may know about me I am fond of the poetics of place. This year reading the poems of Cafavy I was reminded how a city can be rewritten as poetry.

Go on a road trip

Yes !!!! My recent road trip to the Ngarrindjeri lands of the Coorong was great. Indigenous history, a unique ecology, sand, water and total adventure in my efforts to avoid getting my vehicle bogged or washed away. Whilst I suggested in last year’s list that architecture students should go on road trips where they see buildings. this year I am suggesting that architects go and visit the great landscapes that inhabit the interior of our nation or any nation for that matter. Landscapes are also cities in their own right. Like cities landscapes are also usually layered with the culture of occupation.

Of course you may be thinking that there is nothing worse then being stuck in a car with your friends from Architecture school. I always had fun with my friends doing this and we had crap cars. Not like the Tesla’s which most students seem to drive these days.

Look at Art

Yes, the art gallery at in your local city is always a good place to hang out on the holidays. In my home town I just saw the Victor and Rolfe exhibition and I am bracing myself to see the Hockney spectacular. I also visited the latest NGV pavilion (dare I write what I think of this?) Further afield, if I was following my son the young prince to the Paris Cy Twombley is on at the Pompidou. James Ensor is at the Royal Academy in London. I wouldn’t bother going to the States at this point in time so you can forget about that.

I am sure there is more to see across Europe. The contemporary architects of Spain and Austria beckon.Get in there quick whilst there is still a thing called Europe.

Finally, get Organised

I think that this year more than others will mean we need to organise collectively. Get your friends together and start your own social enterprise or activist group. I fear, and indeed hope, that the coming Northern summer will bring new movements and tendencies. More and more, architectural design is under pressure to become a lap-dog of those who seek to diminish our civitas (whatever that may be). Simultaneously, the new strongman Fascists and Baathists are inflaming schisms and then, after that mean handiwork, are ramming the security card down our throats. The situation at Parliament House in Canberra being a case in point. On the other hand the neoliberal project continues to run amok and privatise every bit of public space that isn’t nailed down.

Given all of this it’s probably a good time to join the Pirate Party or hang out with Anarchists and Blackfellas.

Architecture as Knowledge Design vs. the Low Fee Mentality.

December 9, 2016December 9, 2016Peter Raisbeck

Architecture is about ideas and what I call Knowledge Design as compared to that oh so icky cult of “DESIGN.” This is a more developed and modified version of a talk I gave at Denton Corker Marshall my piece at the ACAA website.

Architecture is an endeavour focused on the creation of knowledge. It’s about Knowledge Design as compared to just being about Design. Architecture is about designing processes that create knowledge. I guess, I think that this stem’s from the fact that architecture is essentially about ideas. In the same way that a work of literature or political philosophy is also about ideas.

Don’t let anyone tell you any differently. Too often we are bamboozled by the architects as salespeople who tell us that architecture is about all sorts of things: architecture is about BIM, architecture is about Green Roof’s or Resilience or Sustainability or Parametrics. Thats all fine, but I think seeing architecture as idea and knowledge driven might help to resist the urge to simplify everything in this so called Post-Truth world.

Architectural knowledge is generated via the design process and then – if you are lucky and get something realised – it is embedded in both built and spatial forms. This knowledge created by architects, and the professional services through which it is delivered, makes architecture valuable to society.

If architects are to prosper as a discipline in the future, they need to make Knowledge Design a central platform of their practice. Recently, I became interested in how UN Studio conducts its own research. They focus this through what they call Knowledge Platforms. In short, each platform is a different area of specialised knowledge – UN Studios explains:

“the objective of the Knowledge Platforms is to distil knowledge from within the practice of architecture in order to propel design thinking and innovation.”

Of course, proposing that knowledge is central to architectural production is a more complex model than simply saying that architects design buildings. This model of practice places ideas and knowledge, rather than the delivered object, at its centre. Yes, this approach is quite different to seeing architecture as simply being about the design of physical buildings (as, unfortunately, too many people do). But, in the digital age the Vitruvian tenet of firmness, commodity and delight is a little bit harder to apply to something as seemingly intangible as knowledge.

For the anti-design types, and anti-elites and anti-intellectuals in our world the intangible always seems to a struggle to understand.

Architects as knowledge workers.

Seeing architects as knowledge workers is more commensurate with our wide-ranging education, our role as systems integrators, and with the ambiguities of living in a networked global system (a global system now beset by the spectre of nationalism). Moreover, architects are now working in cities saturated by a combination of ‘wicked’ problems such as inequity, incessant conflict and climate change. Cities themselves can no longer be understood as stable entities that, through patronage, architects adorn with the symbols of power. Do we need more Bilbao’s or Dubai Palm’s or ghost town MASDARs?

Notions of future proofing practice should not be about jumping on the latest technology bandwagon or getting excited about the latest procurement method. New developments in both technology and social organisation need to be thought about and strategised by architects. In the future, thinking about architectural services in terms of knowledge will be more and more important. Excellence in architecture has to be about ideas and the design of knowledge and not just about the time and cost, or even zero carbon, outcomes of project delivery. Dare I say it but architects need to abandon the cult of design to do this. I am beginning to wonder if the “design” is a paradigm, or episteme, that actually cripples radical ideas and innovation.

An Upstream Knowledge Future

I am more optimistic about what I call an upstream future for architects. In this future architects will create upstream knowledge that downstream clients, and others in the industry, can utilise. In the upstream future knowledge creation and management is placed at the centre of the practice. In this future architects will be at the centre of creating new knowledge across all aspects of the built environment. After all that is what our long training equips us to do. This knowledge will enable architects to charge more for their services in markets that have traditionally been beset by price competition, pseudo cartels and the lowest common denominator of service to clients.

In the upstream future each practice will look at advanced methods of collaboration between and across practices. Architects will no longer be bound by traditional practices centred on a ‘name’ or star architect. Much larger collaborations of small practices coming together with effective governance will help architects be more competitive and gain larger commissions. Moreover, architects will collaborate and form knowledge ecosystems with a full range of other consultants with specialist knowledge: engineers, academics, economists, urban planners and even financial analysts.

Research will be the central driver to what I call an upstream knowledge future for architects. Every great practice, no matter how large or small, will have a research plan and function embedded within it.

I was pretty disturbed and amazed when I presented a contracted research proposal to a consortium of architects. The aim of the research was to understand the degree to which architectural design added value to property assets. It was a modest proposal. To get the feedback that the research itself was going to cost too much made me wonder. It made wonder if architects themselves are not able to value research, into our own industry development and its development, then it is little wonder that no one else in our communities and sector put a value on our services.

I guess I am really over the low fee for service mentality. It’s a mentality that is slowly destroying our profession.

This is my last blog post for the year and I need to recharge. As we are now well and truly in the festive season and I am thinking I shall return in to blog sometime in January.

I started this blog a year ago and I have had over 10,000 views now. I would like to thank all of you who have bothered to read my posts and indicated support for my efforts in person. As a result, I am really looking forward to the 2017 blogging year.

Vale: Peter Corrigan 1941 to 2016

December 2, 2016June 23, 2021Peter Raisbeck

The great architectural partnership of Edmond and Corrigan is now no longer. I have just heard the news that the Australian architect Peter Corrigan has died at his home in North Carlton. With his death a dream of Australian architecture slips away from us. This was not any old dream. It was foremostly, I think, a dream about Australia. It was about what Australia could be like as a nation of architects and artists and whose institutions served a social democracy of intelligence, difference and equality. This was not a dream of architecture justified by simple images, crude pragmatism, slick technologies, theoretical masques or private beliefs. Corrigan’s architecture and his vivid set designs were for everyone here in this country: the punters and the toffs and perhaps even the racehorses.

It was a dream Australian architects could take their place in their world with our own rightful predilections, language, traditions and canon; a critical canon of projects that suited our economic circumstances and both the optimisms and failures of our social democratic institutions. The work of Peter Corrigan was at times simultaneously mysterious, cryptic and complex. It was work that proclaimed architecture as an intellectual and artistic pursuit of the highest order in both our cities and our suburbs.

This was an architecture that drew on a broad range of eclectic sources Scharoun, Mendelsohn, Aalto and Venturi. In his set designs I think he liked Schwitters and George Grosz. Sometimes it was really hard to know what the sources of his work was. This was not the polite yet experimental modernism of Boyd or Grounds, nor was it the chamfered slip form slush of Borland, Gunn, Jackson and Walker or John Andrews. This architecture was different. Really fucking different. So much so that some doubted it was architecture at all. It was completely different to anything that has been done before or since. A cacophony of images and instinctual impulses thrown together but organised via exquisitely expressionistic and evocative plans.

The projects were in places like: Monbulk, Mortlake, Sale, South Belgrave, Dandenong, Wheelers Hill, Frankston and of course Keysborough. Suburbs and towns where architecture was and is virtually extinct these days. The buildings in these places weren’t luxurious commissions. These were projects that were a kind of poor theatre of Grotowksi and Brecht translated to architecture and we might now wonder if Corrigan wanted Australia to be a kind of Antipodean Weimar.

So many architects I know hated Corrigan. These haters were the gentleman architects, the straighteners and wowser architects the ones who were lucky enough to get the jobs. Corrigan always had his avid supporters and detractors. The now superannuated bureaucrats were afraid of him. At architecture school, and in his office, he generously protected students who had obvious promise, but needed time to develop. Under his wing a few of my friends did his studio quite a few times. Once grown, he would eventually let them go into the world.

As a young architecture student I was only brave enough to do his studio once. He was fierce to those he thought were upstarts and generous to those of us who shared his zeal. His studio, which he taught with Jason Pickford, expanded my brain a lot. It was the very best that a liberal education in Architecture could offer at that time. He had a library and taught us to read. I was told to read Patrick White’s Voss and he told me to go to the Pram Factory where we saw his set design for Bold Tales starring the actor Tim Conigrave who ended the show naked amongst Corrigan’s set of building rubble and a small statue of Michelangelo’s David. It was a long time before I understood what I had seen. His sets for Barrie Kosky’s operas and the Peter King plays were mesmerising. This was an architectural education that no longer exists in these current days of mindless managerialism and student experience scoring.

My memory has probably distorted my all too brief glimpses of Corrigan. I am sure there are others who have other memories and will rightfully claim more. Nevertheless, mine are brief but vivid. I remember him arguing with Peter Eisenman in the Gossard building about critical regionalism. When he came back from Harvard he gave a drunken lecture and showed 6 million slides of Saarinen’s Cranbrook. At the height of Post Modernism he told us that abstraction “still had legs” and to “keep an eye” on a relatively young architect then called Libeskind. I didn’t believe him. There was also the time when Corrigan and Stanley Tigerman did a drunken studio crit at Melbourne Uni excoriating the University students and praising each RMIT student as pure genius. It was a great and conniving set up. I can see a very young Corrigan and Jason P wearing woolly jumpers and smoking pipes in the Clyde as architecture students in 1961. I was too young to be there so I have no idea how I got that image into my head. I once heard him tell a student “you can’t put a fucking sound shell there” and he was right, but that student never came back to studio. One day in the studio he went on and on about the Japanese architect Maki. Another time I saw him in the Standard Hotel in Fitzroy drinking Shiraz with water and hanging out with Jack Hibberd. I remember the night Keating came to open Building 8 at RMIT and I felt that architecture had finally arrived in this country.

Even though, I was so hopeless as student, he was always generous and encouraging. Many people owe their lives to him. He once terrified me when he pointed at me and beckoned, I thought I was done for, instead in that kind of seductive Australian New England like accent he had, and he said it with a slow emphasis on every syllable: “ I want you to go downstairs and get me one of those big round sticky buns with jam and cream.” I was pretty relieved it wasn’t worse than that, and maybe he said it like that, because he thought I was dim, because in those days I didn’t talk much.

At architecture school I wanted to be him when I grew up.

He had a kind of Irish Catholic disposition and all that went with it. But, he was one of the few Melbourne architects to actually, yes actually, be in practice with a formidable woman. In some ways he always seemed to me most like the American author John Cheever with all his proclivities. A brilliant exponent of his art but a radical larrikin thrown into the middle class and high art. An outsider looking for an architectural home in the suburbs. A kind of Australian Cheever who would mention crazy Louis Kahn in the same breath as he would mention Henry Lawson, Joan Sutherland or Phar Lap. I always wondered what he had done at Johnson Burgee in New York during the Whitlam years.

All the fire stations and houses are amazing; and one hot day, with my friends Dean and Catherine we went to visit the Athan house in Monbulk as it neared its completion. We got lost, and hurt our shins, clambering over it’s unfinished joists. We found a labrynthine house of mystery; a suburban castle with an interior city within it. Nothing like the pornography of glazed box houses that I find in my social media feeds these days. Peter’s expressionism always seemed to touch on the ethereal and a kind sacred secularism at some point.

As with all great architects there are always lost opportunities. I think Edmond and Corrigan’s 1985 project for the State Library and Museum was one of them. It is tragic Edmond and Corrigan were not the architects of the City Square, Stockman’s Hall of Fame, or Parliament House or even the Geee. Yes, if Edmond and Corrigan had been the architects of the MCG we would all now be living in a much richer nation. A nation with significantly more cultural dignity than it has now.

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

November 11, 2016November 30, 2017Peter Raisbeck

This weeks blog is a bit later as I have been busy writing another piece here. I have also been consumed with Final semester design juries and marking.

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.

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.

But bad project managers are really bad and I mean really bad. Of course some would argue the 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.

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.

Blame the “bloody” architect.

But all too often the architects either individually or as a group are blamed when things go astray. 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 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 picked up.

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. This is what they are trained to do. Architecture is in some ways a liberal arts education and communication across the project team and down the construction supply chain is essential.

Some real PM fuck ups.

Southern Cross Station 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. Its 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.

As one of the architects of Federation Square Donald Bates was to note recently on Linked-In, “Project Managers produce negative consequences to projects – to the detriment of clients, to the degradation of quality and legacy and to the interests of the wider public. Very rarely do they bring innovation, intelligence, respect and wisdom to a project.”

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 best placed to do the 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.

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.

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. You can read about that here. 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.

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 you with respect.

Rise up !

So next time, as an architect you are being set-up-to-fail by some 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.

On my planet the students have gone teaching has finished. So, its time to do some research and get ready for semester 1 2017.

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