A Bird’s Eye View
While occupying the President’s role, an unusual bird’s eye view of our profession unfolds before you. In casting back over the year, through all the events, conversations and meetings, I’ve formed distinct impressions of our members, our lives in architecture and how, as the collective body of our profession, the Institute fits. I’d like to reflect these impressions back to you. All inaccuracies are, of course, entirely mine.
We are propelled by conviction
I have yet to meet an AIA member who does not care profoundly about what is designed, built, taught and thought. We appear to hold a very strong shared conviction about the critical importance of good design at all scales, the importance of the deployment of our knowledge and skill, of good procurement, good policy and good thinking. This shared conviction is an extraordinary resource, a kind of motor room for a large volunteer effort on committees, juries and elected
We are increasingly diverse, but connected by ideas
Our profession is much more diverse than it was when I graduated. This seems to be related to a wider range of career pathways taken by architecture graduates. While ‘traditional’ practice still occupies a big part of our profession, many of us now work as clients, in education, government, heritage, as project or development managers, and in public life. Some of us are reinventing careers and practice to align with newer values and ways of working. Again, there is a common tissue here; amongst this diversity, we are connected by a keen sense of guardianship of our places, of the public dimension of architecture, and urban design and city making.
We feel embattled
Our awards program shows a profession that remains creatively strong. Yet many of us feel embattled: by commercial pressures, low fees, compressed timeframes, increasingly complex regulatory environments, and poor procurement settings. We feel that these day-to-day obstacles get in the way of us doing more, contributing more, in meaningfully shaping cities, bringing the benefits of considered design and development to our clients, to the public at large, increasing the value of the huge costs of building.
We want change
Members come to the Institute for many practical reasons: collegiality, learning, advocacy, maintaining professional skills. But beyond that I have observed a real drive for change.
While we don’t all want the same change, common themes recur: we want remuneration commensurate with our level of skill, improved procurement of our services, better and more diverse career pathways, equity in our workplaces. We want lively communities of interest, lifelong learning, useful and meaningful dialogue with one another. We want more influence on government policies and regulation that impact our work, and we want to help clients better understand the value we bring. We want to be able to create places that are climate and nature-positive, more affordable housing that creates strong communities, and built in climate resilience. We want to empower First Nations voices in design, and protect places of cultural and historical significance. We want to be able to make imaginative, place-responsive architecture and urban design that delivers real public benefit. We want an Institute that works with us on these projects of change.
We work from a strong base
This year has given me greater insight into the sheer amount of good work and goodwill across the Institute, and the weight of effort that goes into the change-making projects described above. Our staff and executive are incredible – hardworking, dedicated, working very long hours at a high level of skill. Despite increasing pressures on practice and personal lives, members, committees, working groups, juries, and elected representatives work tirelessly on projects, on advancing architecture many on the ‘projects of change’ described above.
How the Institute fits
For a life in architecture, the Institute is not just about how we sustain ourselves professionally, but how we work together to change the settings for architecture – how we ‘unfence’ our profession and our diverse paths through it.
I’ve found that the Institute name opens doors. When a door opens, we have to step through it with something interesting and genuinely useful to say. This year Governments, other peak bodies, allied professions, and the media have wanted to hear what we have to say about housing, city making opportunities associated with the Olympics (sadly our State Government has heard but not heeded our advice about delivery) policy, procurement, climate resilience and more. When we advocate clearly in the public interest, we are listened to.
The AIA is a connected system—from members and committees through to councils, the Board and Executive. It’s a human system evolved over time, so not perfect. There is strong collective recognition that we need to be both more impactful and more transparent, and this is a work in progress. But it is an extraordinary system – of knowledge, memory, skill and intellectual firepower. The glue of that system is our shared conviction about the value of what we do.
Thank you to all the outstanding members and staff I’ve worked with this year.
Warmest wishes for Christmas, the New Year and the holiday season.