Adaptive Architects - Diversify Or Die

Earlier this year in response to a call for proposals for a conference, I wrote some thoughts about how the modern architect can survive at a time when it seems ever more difficult to thrive as a traditional practice.  My own experience as a small practitioner is that, particularly on smaller projects, it is almost to impossible to charge a sufficient fee to cover one's time. 

This started me thinking about how I could utilise and monetise the broad skill base I have gained through training and practicing as an architect in order to create a more versatile mode of practice.  This is a summary of what I wrote:

Creative models for structuring Architecture Practices 

The traditional modes of practice of architecture are outdated, many other professions encroach on what might have once been considered the terrain of The Architect. In addition the practice of the modern architect is too often marginalised to the merely commercial realm; the servant of the developer. 

In this climate how do architects find the balance between financial survival and fulfilling the ideals with which many of us started the first year of Part I? 

Architects have always needed to be adaptable, to turn their hand to other things when there is a dearth of work. Many of our most celebrated figures performed this difficult juggling act in their early days; Rogers, Zaha, Koolhaus, all supplemented their early practice by teaching and writing; widely accepted ways of sustaining one’s private practice and maintaining important links with academia. However what can one do beyond this? How can one create links with other sectors and individuals that may help broaden one’s own practice? 

Adaptive Architects would be a conference day focused on providing architects with tools and ideas that might help them build practices that can respond to the current climate by fully utilising their or growing their skill set to enable them to branch into areas that go beyond conventional architecture practice.  These satellite services could help support their core practice of architecture, or perhaps become their own thing. The day would draw on people from related sectors and those who have managed to create and sustain diverse companies, often by adopting unconventional modes of practice. 

My practice is based within the collective setting of Rara studios. The studios are home to creatives from a wide range of backgrounds, from jewellery design to carpentry and thus is a wonderful environment for the cross fertilisation of disciplines. During my time here I have had the opportunity to consider many ways of practicing as an architect and of drawing on the skills my rich training has given me. In addition my training was not that traditional route most architects I know have taken.  I studied Architectural Engineering at Part I and worked within engineering practices as a junior engineer before continuing on the architecture pathway at the Architectural Association. Several of my cohort choose to charter as engineer's rather than following this route and whilst my initial decision to study Architectural Engineering was driven by creative and intellectual interests, working with them has made me think once again about business potential of interdisciplinary practice.

I have also been influenced by my time at the  gigantic Foster and Partners; which couldn’t be more different to my current setting at RaRa. However they do share one thing – the adoption of diversity in practice. Fosters, offer services beyond those of architecture; furniture and product design, structural engineering. Internally they supply (often via individuals originally trained as architects) their architectural teams with filmmaking, visualisation and model-making services. It is my contention that the architect of the future needs to be equally diverse – Architecture need so to diversify or die as a profession.