Nick White is a TikTok comedian with over 500K followers. At the start of Archicon, he was handed the microphone to warm up the room.
But my goodness, we were cold. A room full of architects, colder and stiffer than a freezer bag of fish fingers, and determined not to be impressed too soon. Nick tried every trick he had, and did a brilliant job of a genuinely tough gig.
But by morning tea, things were shifting. The talks and conversations did what the comedy couldn't (yet). Sceptics were swapping ideas, our problems communicating with the public started to look like opportunities, and we realised we were facing them together. By the end of Archicon, we'd defrosted and become a warm parcel of fish and chips, steaming straight out of the shop!
Here's what stayed with me: if a room of architects is that cold in the face of a comedy routine, how must it feel from the other side of the table?! That frosty distance is exactly what so many homeowners anticipate when they go looking for design help. Calls that aren't returned. Fee proposals that feel out of reach. It all reinforces the sense that architects are for fancy houses and someone else.
So what has a room full of thawing architects got to do with you, at your kitchen bench with a floor plan you're not sure about? Quite a lot, as the other bookend to my month made clear.
Reinier de Graaf, a Dutch architect and writer, spoke in Melbourne about his new book, Architecture Against Architecture: a manifesto of 14 provocations for a profession he believes is in real trouble. He LOVES architecture (I suspect he's had to say that a lot), but argued it has lost much of its credibility with the public. He was refreshingly self-aware. He noted that architects tend to win the big prizes at around retirement age, and suggested, as an older European man himself, that it's time to make room for what comes next.
A few of his provocations had me nodding hard:
Stop treating every building as art. Architecture may be the mother of the arts, but most of it starts as real estate, and pretending otherwise has cut architects off from the people who actually need buildings to work for them.
Talk to the people who use buildings. Put the users back at the centre, and reduce the power of the middlemen in between.
Act collectively. Work together in the interests of quality, variety and robustness, instead of as lone heroes.
Build homes for people, not for money. This was the one that hit me. Too much real estate is built to give money a home, rather than to give people one. This leaves the people to fix what the home doesn't yet provide.
Let me translate that into what it means for you.
When architects let go of “art” (but not delight!), the design can stay yours. Our job becomes helping you shape it, in your own words and around your own life, rather than taking it over.
When architects work together instead of alone, you get the benefit of a whole network's knowledge, not just one person's opinion.
When architects stop seeing themselves as artists, good design stops being a luxury. It becomes something anyone is able to access, at the moment they actually need it.
Parts of the profession are now loudly talking about whether, or how to, renew and reinvent. I'm glad. It's overdue. But while they go off to do that work, Architect GP has been quietly getting on with it: at kitchen benches, on Zoom calls, pen in hand and brain switched on. Collaborating rather than owning. A connected network across the country rather than lone heroes. Practical, independent advice for real homes and the people who live in them.
We're here, and we're ready. And we always answer our emails.
If you're at a point in your project or your thinking where you're not sure what to do next, take our quiz to find the Architect GP service that fits where you are.
Warm regards,
Sarah
