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It is obvious the AEC industry must disrupt- as mentioned in the a recent blog “Disrupting the AEC Industry” in this disruptive, digital global economy. The AEC industry will find its environment of operation will have to change quickly to survive. No one can predict the future of the industry but the industry can decide for itself to disrupt itself or be blindsighted by some other industry that will disrupt it.

Let’s consider one of the chief players of the AEC Industry - the Architectural profession – It will have to recognise that things have changed around them and that the practise/ profession will have to adjust itself to the digital, globalised economy where society and technology are progressing at a faster rate than institutions and organisations. Some in the profession have already started to do that. Architect: Rem Koolhaas in Architectural Review interview titled Batik, Biennale and the Death of the Skyscraper has this to say:

“For architecture the conditions have changed more in the last 30 years than they changed in the previous two centuries, yet we still act as if it’s the same profession. There have been radical changes to so many things, such as computing power, engineering and the relationship between architect and client, yet we persist as if we are still old pipe-smoking gentlemen.”

Architect Clive Wilkinson told Dezeen in an interview for their article: Google was cubicle land when we started designing offices for them says:

"One of the reasons I really like workplaces and interiors is that the impact on humanity is much more powerful than dealing with inert architectural shells, or the decorative outside dress of a building - which frankly is what most architects do." There's a notion that you can't build big buildings for owners who have highly specific needs because needs change and therefore that building will be compromised by its specificity," he added. "So architects are placed in a market of building shells."

It is a reality that architecture as a profession has to progress, leaving behind the vestiges of the industrial economy model. Dr. Alan Beyerchen –Ohio State University has this to say:

“We construct buildings, erect institutions, and develop organizations to yield linear responses and predictable behavior, and ultimately to achieve the social goal of control.”

In this digital globalized economy where every industry is being disrupted through Disruptive Selection, it is not strange to consider that architectural practise has to change to be relevant.

The industry has to recognize that it is out of step with the client’s ability to:

  • Disrupt and re-invent themselves
  • Implement Rapid advancement of technology & globalization
  • Allow new business models to be introduced
  • At an ever-increasing rate & with rapidly declining costs

Their inability to be in step with their clients increases the “financial cost” of the project and affects the client’s ability to get their products or services in “time to market”

In order for the Business of Architecture to be in step with their clients they will have to transform the AEC Industry infrastructure & its ecosystem through a disruption of their practise, as follows:

  • Design to Evolve > Evolving Facilities > Buildings and Interior Spaces that evolve not inert architectural shells
  • Inventers and Industrial Designer > Collaborative work with the engineering discipline > using research to create unique construction method
  • Product Mindset > Ensure Standardization & Constructability > Stop transferring risk down-stream > Control cost overrun
  • Design for Assembly > Manufacturing > Incorporate Detailing as a deliverable > Ensure predictability of final design through assembly
  • Build like Lego > Modularization > Hyper cycle Scheduling > Ensure predictability of project execution
  • Human centred Environments > Impact on Humanity > Sustainability > Cradle to Cradle > Smart Buildings > Leveraging Big Data

In my blog “What’s next for Architecture” on LinkedIn you read in detail on other exterior influences that will impact architectural practise, such as:

  • Architecture in this digital economy is going to be defined by how infrastructure is going to be built for the next 1 Billion.
  • Architecture in this digital economy is going to be defined by the future designers of the cities of the future.

·         Architecture in this digital economy - the modern age - the Anthropocene - is going to be defined by industrial design turning it into a product where structures do not quickly become waste, but are reused to extract their maximum value before safely and productively returning to the biosphere.

If we just look at the practice itself and ignore the ones mentioned above, there you will find a reason why the practise has to evolve into a Business of Design. Here is what Guy Horton a writer based in Los Angeles reported in his column The Indicator: The Next Architecture on ArchDaily magazine while reviewing a book title Aftershock: The Next Economy and America’s Future, by Robert B. Reich, former Secretary of Labor under President Bill Clinton – refers to a premise in the book that indicates that:

“The culture of architecture, for its own internal logic, unwittingly exemplifies the economic and social divides that made our economy vulnerable to recession in the first place.”

He further goes on to say that:

“Architecture needs a re-boot and perhaps the recession is a good opportunity for that. Architecture must move beyond the project-shop mentality and evolve using viable, practical business knowledge. He further states” ‘…..high design can thrive only when protected by an economics of value and fiscal sustainability. Without developing new approaches to architecture as a business, architecture as a profession will continue to erode. It will reach a point where younger generations will not be able to sustain themselves in the profession. The sacrifices will simply be too daunting and unreasonable—if they aren’t already”.

I leave it to you to decide on the state of the profession - It's going to be an interesting journey for the profession. I would love to hear from you on your opinion and also potential solutions to disrupting the Business of Design - Architecture.