TRUTH in ARCHITECTURE

Truth in Architecture reports, most of us in the architectural profession are pretty darn fed up. In fact, I was so fed up I took a leave of absence from a good paying gig in the Middle East to set out a manuscript for a book that’s presently entitled “Grand Reinvention” (of the United States); we’ll see how long that title lasts when and if I’m lucky enough to find a literary agent who’s willing put his or her mitts on it.

I wasn’t sure but Truth in Architecture assured me that this blog and the literary nightmare I’m presently slogging through will have more than a few threads in common; at least with respect to the architectural focus envisioned here.

Of the categories listed, I decided, after first giving some consideration to Integrated Practice, to post this opening salvo in Architectural Education. The first reason is that this terminology, Architectural Education, is truly multivalent in that it applies equally well to college students, architects at all levels of experience and expertise as well as to non-practitioners, including those who represent us in Congress and the various state houses. The second reason is that because there’s ample evidence of late to suggest that we’re about to experience some profoundly massive changes, it behooves us to all to acquaint ourselves with these and their potential implications. As architects, whether we like it or not, our expertise obliges us to assume key leadership roles, and education of all parties is essential to ensure progress and success.

By the way, that book I’m presently working on is intended to serve an educational role, albeit for a much wider and presumably less savvy audience than the architectural profession.

Basically, as I see it at this point, early into an epic energy crisis, architecture, though significant, is far less important in the traditional sense than it was just years ago. With the exception of a few outstanding architects, the global community would be better served if most of us worked outside the realm of traditional practice.

Why?

If the republic we call the United States is to endure to serve future generations, we’re going to have to drastically rearrange the way we live our lives. This rearrangement will demand far more managerial finesse than the limited brief of traditional architectural practice typically affords, yet will demand skills that few outside the profession process. My sense is that the problem statement for this rearrangement will be multi-faceted and demand a balanced comprehensive solution rather than piecemeal solutions to seemingly unrelated and separate problems. In the final analysis, the efforts demanded of this generation may well eclipse those of that Greatest Generation to endure the Great Depression and defeat Fascism, and success is far from assured.

But this begs questions that require careful discussion before they can be fully answered. They fall into two categories; here follows a brief and far from complete listing:

Category 1 – The need for Rearrangement

1) Do you agree that an energy crisis of epic proportions lies at our doorstep and that this drives a need to totally rearrange the way we do things?

I happen to believe that we’re in it deep but aren’t generally aware of how dire our predicament is. After almost three plus decades of diverting potential investment capital overseas to pay for imported oil and more recently to invest in Chinese industrial capacity, our economy has been so hollowed out that the only way we could keep up appearances was to borrow more and more from the Chinese. The last time I looked China was a communist land committed to transforming the world into a socialist workers’ paradise. A famous quote of Vladimir Ilyich Lenin, the Russian revolutionary and communist politician who led the October Revolution of 1917, was: “The Capitalists will sell us the rope with which we will hang them.” Perhaps he didn’t quite go far enough? Not only have the Capitalists been willing to pay for the rope, they’ve been willing to pay for the factory in which the rope is made and then borrow the capital needed to pay for the rope from the communists as well!

Our economy was running on borrowed capital until the 2008 crisis and now, with an epic energy crisis brewing, until we undertake a massive rearrangement in the way we do things, the only time the economy will seem to recover is for a few months after stimulus packages get passed. It will be like up north in the winter when you’ve got a car with gas line freeze and the only time it fires up is for a few moments after you’ve sprayed some starting ether into the air intake.

My sense is that the only way were going to get an economy that has enough of a surplus to allow architects to indulge in traditional practice is when we fix this mess we’re in. I’m of the opinion that scale of this mess is so epic and will take so long to fix that the architects who might be able to indulge in traditional practice probably haven’t been born yet.

2) Assuming the answer to question 1 is yes, what do you think the scope of this rearrangement will be? From what I’ve come to understand, this rearrangement will drive enormous changes to every part of the built environment. It’s likely that very little can be left untouched as success may require that everything will need to be revamped eventually.

-

3) How long will this rearrangement take? By some estimates, the whole process could last several decades meaning that many of us will not live to see it through and many just now entering the profession could devote their entire working lives to it.

Category 2 – The Role of Architects in this Rearrangement

1)  If this rearrangement will demand more managerial finesse that traditional practice affords, how then might architects best exercise their leadership responsibilities?

-

2) What unique skills do architects bring to the fore necessary to ensure success? Well, the more “seasoned” among us may still know how to hand draft while drinking Scotch and smoking Cuban cigars, something akin to walking across a street while chewing gun, but beyond that, just what tricks do we have up our sleeve that few others have?

-

3) If we’re to work outside the realm of traditional practice, how then are we to minimize our professional liability exposure in a profoundly litigious environment that obliges insurers to place so many limitations on practice?

-

For example, as an aside to my practice and as a means by which to augment my income, I was obliged to turn to the dark side and become a small-time real estate developer. I was amazed that the commercial loan departments of banks which routinely denied my mortgage applications would go out of their way to lend me development capital. As a consequence to these endeavors, I learned how to easily set up cogent sets of development financials as matter of routine. I could only do this for myself though. Heaven forbid I attempt to offer this line of expertise to my architectural clients, no quite beyond the limits of liability coverage.

I have given some thought to these and other questions but the answers demand far more consideration than I’ve been able to afford here. If you would indulge me, kindly ponder both what I’ve laid out and the questions I’ve raised. Once you’ve done that, kindly share your thoughts with the rest of us.

There is a measure of urgency to our predicament. Although we presently have adequate supplies of energy, rest assured that far sooner than most of us care to imagine, that will no longer be the case. If this reinvention is to succeed, it will need to occur BEFORE that platform of adequate energy disappears from under it. The three rules of this mission are Urgency, Urgency and Urgency.

Just as reminder, reinvention is what we do best in the United States and we owe it to future generations to get on with it. The world expects no less of us, so let’s get cracking!

Thank you and best regards to all!

George W. Abert, AIA, LEED® AP