Adapt As An Architect

A Mid-Career Companion

Randy Deutsch

• Publisher: RIBA Publishing
• Year: 2021
• ISBN:
  9781000375756
• Edition: 1
• Topic: Architecture
• Subtopic: Professional Practice in Architecture

Adapt As An Architect: A Mid-Career Companion is the only book that helps design professionals to navigate the vast heart of the architect's journey. It serves as a roadmap: a career GPS that provides options for architects getting from where they are today to where they really want to be. The focus of this optimistic, engaging book is on continued relevance, professional engagement, perseverance, and career longevity. It argues that mid-career is the lynchpin of the architect's career, and provides the guidance and support that practices themselves are missing for emerging professionals, who are often left to their own devices to find their way as they approach the middle of their career. This book means architects don't need to navigate these years on their own.

PART I

1: Relate

Fig 1.1: Situational adaptability represents the kind of challenges we face in our rapidly changing workplaces

Attaining relevance is not a one-time thing.

Architects become more relevant by expanding their services beyond traditional practice. To what extent can we expand how we design and deliver design and a variety of different services to our clients, and be OK with the fact that the end result may or may not lead to architecture? By doing so, it will open doors for more opportunities in the future.

– Evelyn Lee

As architects, we are equipped to provide design services that influence the ways we experience our cities, homes and workspaces. Our relevance is embedded in that talent, and to remain forward-thinking in an ever-evolving world. Understanding the individualities of the people, cultures and socioeconomic climates we are designing for allows us to create in a meaningful way. Our relevance is borne in the resonance our designs carry.

– Danei Cesario

To continually adapt as architects, we need to make small adjustments throughout our careers, especially to the random and unpredictable things life throws at us. This continual adaptability gives you an advantage over those who do one thing well and just keep doing it, as in The Hedgehog and the Fox, an essay by philosopher Isaiah Berlin based on the Greek poet Archilochus, who wrote: ‘the fox knows many things, but the hedgehog knows one big thing’. Hedgehogs tend to do one thing really well and always seem to have a big idea, whereas the more nuanced foxes tend to take different approaches to different problems – so foxes are more adaptable than hedgehogs. If you had to choose, at least for your career, aim to be a fox. Turning to the question of relevance, is the person with the big idea more likely to be relevant, or the person who can adapt to different circumstances?

Fig 1.2: By mid-career, what we know and learn has to be balanced with what we know and need to unlearn

Architects didn’t always need to question their importance and role, both with clients and in society. But the current pandemic and events related to social and racial equity have set architects thinking about their relevance. Without the status of being ‘essential workers’, architects have had to find and create roles in which they can contribute to the wellbeing and welfare of others. So, how do we become relevant – and, once we have proven our value and relevance, how do we remain so? ‘The internet quickly transformed the world in less than ten years, supplanting taxi cabs with Uber, travel agents with Expedia,’ says managing partner at ZGF Architects Ted Hyman FAIA, ‘and architects began to ask themselves “what [do] we need to do to remain relevant?” It is an impossible question to answer without some understanding of what the future will look like. Especially now, with COVID-19 and the context of the total disruption of the world economy because of a small virus, unknown just months earlier, [how can we know] what the world will look like in one year, let alone ten?’

Fig 1.3: While quarantining during the COVID-19 pandemic, ZGF were able to maintain the pace of work and continue their interactive work sessions with clients and consultants using virtual tools like Microsoft Whiteboard

Hyman suggests that architects can remain relevant by addressing the challenges we all face. ‘While we ponder what could possibly come next, the answers should be obvious; to remain relevant in the future, climate change and social equity will assuredly remain [the] two biggest challenges to “normal” that we have ever experienced,’ continues Hyman. ‘Together they have the potential to kill more people and disrupt the world economy well beyond anything we’ve seen in our lifetimes, including COVID-19. The built environment, the world architects “designed” is the largest contributor to the world’s greenhouse gases, and the primary cause of climate change. The cities we have constructed not only contribute carbon but they also contribute to social inequality more than any single factor; well-designed places should be for everyone.’

Fig 1.4: In addition to meetings and work sessions, ZGF team members continued to conduct site walks with contractors and consultants while working remotely during the pandemic. A platform called StructionSite has been invaluable for these virtual site visits

To be sure, architects have been marginalised in part by their own doing – an unwillingness to take on more risk or pass responsibility on to others, and by others who claim to do similar work. ‘So how can architects remain relevant? They can take on these issues and others, the ones each of us is passionate about, and with talent and expertise solve some of our society’s most challenging problems,’ says Hyman. ‘Just designing and documenting buildings for our clients is not enough to keep us relevant; we must be problem solvers beyond simply programme, bringing value both to our clients and the larger population.’

Becoming relevant

I believe an architect’s built and unbuilt work is what is judged for its value and relevance, not the author. If as an architect you engage in contemporary culture, in socioeconomic and environmental issues, and you take a critical position that you express through architecture or architectural thinking, you are doing relevant work.

– Alison Brooks

In our profession becoming relevant or being relevant means bringing some unique skill or knowledge to your position that few others have. Maybe it’s a strong interest in sustainability, technical knowledge, marketing, management – whatever your interest may be. If you want to be valued, you have to stand out.

– David Swain

There is an order to this: first, we strive to become relevant, then once relevant, we strive to remain so. To begin, how do we know that we are relevant? Or rather, how do we know if our work is vital to others? What evidence is there? By the number of people who follow us on social media, or who retweet, like or comment on our posts? Or that we are given a regular increase in salary by our employer? Does that prove our relevance?

Being relevant isn’t a one-time thing, but something you must continually renew. Belonging to a currently unpopular gender (male), race (white), class (upper), age group (middle aged) or demographic (#OKBoomer) can contribute to feeling relevant or irrelevant. To be relevant means to matter more to more people. When what I have to offer has real-life applications, then what I know, teach and share has relevance. To be relevant requires you to be of – or even a little ahead of – your time, living in the moment and up to date, offering insights and knowledge that are applicable and useful to others. To stay relevant requires you to shift from where you are today and adapt to where you need to be – the ever-changing world around you. To be relevant means you are in tune with the times; to be irrelevant is to be tone deaf. To stay relevant, you must transform yourself, and keep on top of the latest technology and work processes. Relevance suggests a moving target: you are never relevant forever. Relevant and done is not a thing.

Justin Martinkovic believes that architects are already relevant. ‘However, most architects, myself included, sense our relevance has declined, and that our talents and capabilities are not as valued and fully utilised as in the past,’ says Martinkovic. ‘We view the archetype of the architect as the venerated master builder, yet when we observe our context today, we may feel our profession is marginalised and our work product undervalued. But we, ourselves, hold the key to becoming more relevant.’

‘First this means solving the client’s problems extraordinarily well, and when possible, creatively adding value along the way,’ Martinkovic continues. ‘We must communicate well, understand the clients’ needs and not put our own interests above those of the client. We must be a true partner to the client, a trusted adviser. To be sure, this relationship works both ways. If a client does not have our best interests at heart the way we have their best interests at heart, we must disengage with that client. Easier said than done, I know, but to work at our best in the owner–architect construct, a constructive working environment is important. We must make buildings and environments for the end users that are always functional and rational, while continuing to find ways to inject our designs with meaning, metaphor and delight. It is in our blood as architects to make our work even more impactful than it was asked to be, but it must always amplify – and must never be at the expense of – the client’s goals, the experience of the end user or the greater good. Second, we must realise that we possess a unique talent that fuses art and science, and we utilise a powerful design process through which we perceptively uncover problems and cleverly solve them. We apply these talents and tools to the design of buildings and environments every day, but usually within the confines of the traditional owner–architect construct. If we as architects feel irrelevant, if we feel marginalised or constrained, we should look outside of the owner–architect construct and expand the limits of what it means to be an architect.’

‘This is the path of the visionary, the creator, the innovator, the inventor,’ continues Martinkovic. ‘Rather than outside for meaningful work, we look inside and ask “What is that fire burning inside me? What do I want to contribute to the world? What is my song to sing?” We then find ways to apply our creativity, design thinking, pragmatism and artistry to addressing the challenges that inspire, energise and motivate us. This approach holds the promise to address the problems of today and tomorrow, and to contribute our talents to improving society at large.’

This path is very difficult, admits Martinkovic. ‘Outside of the owner–architect construct, who is going to pay us? Does the project require funding? How am I going to enlist help? That is where the entrepreneur mindset can be applied.’ Tools such as the ability to think creatively and pragmatically as it pertains to buildings and environments, he adds, ‘can be applied to matters of business and organisation. If we as a profession can harness our greatest gifts and talents, if we are daring enough to expand our definition of what it means to be an architect, if we can apply our unique talents to solving significant problems, we can further contribute to the greater good, and relevance will no longer be an issue. In the act of so doing, we may find that fulfilment in our lives is greatly advanced.’

Increasing your value

We become relevant by learning things other people don’t know or developing relationships other people don’t have. We stay relevant by becoming historians – collecting a history of steps and reasons and context changes. Knowing the current best practice for how to design an office is an example of becoming relevant. Staying relevant means learning the next version of best practice and the next, as it evolves, and being able to tell the story about why we collectively evolved our best practices.

– Oscia Wilson

We remain relevant by being able to adapt and change. Our relevance as architects is directly related to our understanding of how we bring value with what we do, and how that is recognised by our clients. This should be measured from the viewpoint of our clients instead of our own. As a profession, we often try to convince ourselves of the value we bring by our own measurement. If this is not obvious to our clients and does not align with their needs, then it effectively doesn't exist.

– Angela Watson

Is relevance a choice, or something that is bestowed on you by others? To what extent can you control your relevance? And, what is the relationship between relevance and value? ‘Be adaptive, creative and acknowledge the passions that make you unique,’ says associate director at Buttress Chithra Marsh RIBA. ‘Look at how these can benefit the bigger picture and how you can best contribute.’ But how does one stay relevant? ‘Be prepared to continue learning,’ says Marsh. ‘Be connected to the world around you and assess how your skillsets can contribute and benefit wider objectives.

Be prepared to hone your skills and continue learning. Enhancing your professional qualifications with your core ethics and interests will give you a point of difference. This adaptability will be what makes you unique and stand out from the crowd. No two architects are the same.’

Fig 1.5: Associate director at Buttress Chithra Marsh (second from right) participates in a meeting with colleagues

‘There is no clear map to success,’ adds Marsh. ‘It is more of a meander to the finish line, picking up skills and experience along the way. Taking a passive approach and relying purely on the core skills you learn to become a qualified architect are just not enough.’

How is value perceived, and how is it defined by others? ‘Architects are commoditised,’ explains associate and office leader at Taylor Design John Gresko AIA. ‘Our services are widely seen as interchangeable. We are often pitted against similarly qualified firms, and my clients (when setting aside qualifications) tend to take the ones that have lower fees or provide more value for their fee in regard to their cost.’

Consider yourself...