Architecture is a complex business
Knowledge
Over the years I have become increasingly in awe of the vast knowledge held within our profession. When you think about all the intelligence and knowledge we bring to the realisation of a project, it’s significant. Across the whole profession, it’s – well – incomprehensible. This design intelligence delivers extraordinary value to the communities we serve.
I think it’s reasonable to say, though, that we feel it’s not fully appreciated across the community.
Some are pretty good at communicating their value to clients. But we are not good at conveying this value more broadly, to the community.
We are going to embark on a strategy to address this, commencing next month specifically.
We are asking all Award winners tonight to present their projects in a series of sector-based forums. From the material gathered in these forums we will analyse the current and emerging drivers of design trends to share more broadly across a series of stakeholder and public forums through the year ahead.
Challenging delivery frameworks
Yes, architecture is a complex business. We operate in an extremely challenging environment for delivering our projects.
Of all professional services, we operate within a framework which is the most adversarial, sometimes extremely adversarial – and quite unnecessarily so. This can be exacerbated by the unwise advice given to clients regarding procurement processes and contractual conditions.
Sometimes this advice brings a most protracted procurement process and unnecessarily onerous contractual conditions, the intension being to better safeguard their clients’ interests.
They don’t.
Any uninsurable contractual conditions such as unlimited liability and consequential loss are not in a client’s interest – precisely because they are uninsurable. Architects are not known for their strong balance sheets.
Productivity
This is a productivity issue.
The current practices of procurement and commissioning lower the productivity of our industry. We know productivity is an issue for the construction industry and these practices exacerbate the problem.
It can also impact on the business of architecture, lowering our productivity too. There are many Architectural businesses who tell you that it impacts their productivity and commercial outcomes.
We will be reinvigorating the practice forums within the Institute to gather the evidence, analysing it to help commissioning bodies better understand the productivity impacts, and work together to elevate the performance of design and construction.
A complex business, yes.
But what a professional life we share! What an amazing career within which to bring your creative instincts to life.
Tonight, we acknowledge and celebrate the best of those endeavours and also the clients who have enabled their architects to be at their best. You have drawn upon all of your resources of knowledge and talent and overcome all the hurdles that would have otherwise constrained and diminished the value of the design you have given to your clients.
