Cranes, cranes everywhere and all the construction sites abound
Cranes, cranes everywhere nor any new work to be found
One may point out to all the cranes that dot British cities currently as evidence of a surge in construction. One may even be lulled into a false confidence in the property market; however, people forget that in the cycle of building design, construction is but the last stage of what has already been largely designed years earlier. The boom in construction sites in 2019 is most probably the delayed manifestation of the boom in the property market in previous years. The process of producing property is long, precarious trade that leaves architects adrift in a sea of economic uncertainty.
Furthermore, over the last 4 decades, the economy in western countries has been mostly abstracted where wealth is generated through services more than it is through manufactured products*; yet, the architectural profession has not adapted to design for abstract spaces as it does for actual buildings. Bricks and mortars is the only recourse; however, the profession misses out greatly on so many other opportunities not dependent on the whims of the economic cycles: construction is such a delicate field that is always afflicted at the hint of a recession, yet architecture is such a vast discipline for which construction is but one manifestation. Architecture is both a service and a product and yet the persistent obsession with production whilst ignoring services is what puts the architectural profession in peril. Many in the profession may scoff at ‘paper architecture’ yet in times on turmoil, it is these projects that may keep the profession afloat. If construction is sensitive to the economic tremors, entertainment is somewhat shielded from the fluctuations of the market.
What have architects done to ingratiate themselves with gaming designers? Gaming is a very large, lucrative and emerging industry with so much spatial design involved. Space and architecture are integral to gaming. They are the foundation of the worlds of fantasy these games purvey. Why don’t architects pursue these projects with commensurate rigour as they do with developers? I understand that these projects will not command the same revenue but they are quick projects with minimised overheads that can be delivered relatively quickly. They can even be handled by younger staff, keeping them motivated and energised. These commissions can even act as testing grounds for certain designs to be extrapolated and interpreted in actual buildings at one point in the future.
What have architects done to get stuck in in the film industry? London is the global epicentre for post-production, brimming with cutting-edge studios working on myriad films. A great deal of spaces are CGIs. Do architects get approached for such projects? Do architects lobby to get involved? How about architects vying to liaise with filmmakers to advise on actual spaces, locations and interiors? This design knowledge should be the preserve of architects and it is in fields like this where architects can dispense their services as well.
The list goes on. There are myriad fields to explore and frontiers to conquer. The architectural profession has remained mostly unaltered by the cataclysmic changes in the world around it. Have people at the helm, especially those who survived one or two recessions, with the harrowing redundancies and reduction in wages, ever paused to think about what to do differently lest they face the same misfortune repeatedly?
*One can refer to Sharon Zukin’s 1987 book Landscapes of Power for a detailed analysis of the effect of the changing economy in Western countries on the role of the architect