There is a crossroads ahead for those of us in disciplines that make up the building industry. The advancement of technology and design tools has been knocking at the door for some time now and we won’t be able to hold it back much longer. Where has the industry arrived with these tools, what measures have we exploited to advance efficiency and design intelligence? Our overall productivity continues to decline. Built projects are taking longer to design, are more expensive and longer to realize, and are consuming energy at rates that is shameful and irresponsible. What do we have to show for the myriad of technological and material advances available to us? Not much. Our buildings are more expensive, take longer to realize, and are of increasingly lower quality. Why is this? Is it litigation, increasingly unskilled labor, isolationism among designers and contractors? Probably all of the above. Where does it start, where is it perpetuated?
Professionally it is our willingness as architects to take responsibility for our buildings. Our unwillingness to face the logistics, the rigor, the perserverence and forethought that is inherent, though un-celebrated, in our discipline. We are all to willing to style ourselves only as artists, conjurers of objets d’art, not to be bothered by pragmatic concerns. This is a mistake.
Architects are blessed with a discipline that is rich and complex. Our work is both art and science. “It is a twenty-five education,” I am told. Is this not a blessing? Our solutions are complex, spatial, visceral. They are primal in their fulfillment of basic human requirements. They are refined and reasoned to facilitate efficiency and provide for an unknown future. They can lift the spirit.
Our mentors are courageous, creative, driven individuals. They embrace a tradition where knowledge is shared among generations. They are educators.
This is the environment I find myself in. This is a crucial time. These are the global constraints on which we must bear our most reasoned logic and design intelligence. This is from where our most innovative solutions will be borne.
