Another quote to consider from the well-known architect developer Jonathan Segal says..
Architects of today are losing control and slowly losing their ability to lead the direction of architecture and place making in the urban environment. Fortunately, by practicing the firm prototype of ‘Architect as Developer’ the architect has the ability to become the owner, therefore eliminating the client and the general contractor from the design and building process. The architect is then in full control to create better city environments for the community as well as achieve financial satisfaction” – from ‘Architect as Developer’ Online seminar by Jonathan Segal
So Segal makes the argument that architects have the skills and the interest in shifting the proposition of control in a way that allows them to optimise their value to the process.
What does the developer delivery model look like? And how can we extract information from it process to redefine the tradition architectural service model?
Phil states that he spends a lot of time teaching project delivery models and he looks at a lot of diagrams for how the architect is positioned in the overall system.
A developer is usually trying to orchestrate a bunch of different constituencies in a way that makes a project come together. A developer tries to manage the capitalisation with the partners and stake holders (lenders too), making the approval processing synchronise, trying to get to a series of costumers and also managing a project delivery model with architects and contractors. Therefore, hypothetically speaking, what happens when the architect moves to the centre of this model as illustrated below?
Phil suggests that there is a continuum and a framework that allows us to think about the architect’s role relative to the developer where (as the diagram below illustrates) on the left hand side, is the pure practising architect and on the right is the canonical definition of the developer with a series of steps where a designer can take on the way to incorporating as a developers. These include…
providing specific technical advice to a developer on specific limited problems related to their development project
Potentially playing a larger role by conceptualising the feasibility of a project
Be hired as a the designer of the project and work directly for the developer
Invest your own capital of the capital of stake holders as part of the development process
Lastly, you can become the actual developer/leader of the overall process
There a few firms who have been taking these ideas on board to applying it to the practice and have been successful in some ways. I find it particularly interesting that architecture firms are starting to leverage their architectural skills to move very fluidly along this continuum. There are some examples of this here in the UK as explained the AJ article linked below.
Going forward:
With regards to the architect becoming a developer, I think there is a wider discussion that I am starting to consider about the value/responsibility of the architect. Through my experience in practice so far, I have found that architecture firms tend to only serve the needs of clients; this includes my current employer. My research into Phill and Yale, has revealed a new type of conversation that I think architects in the UK need to continue having. I wonder if there is an opportunity to have a development arm to BPTW; a way to reinvest some of the capital gained from projects into small scale developments that will yield even more profit, thus expanding our reach and value to the built environment. Personally, I am glad that Yale is encouraging students to start considering new business models for architecture practices and wonder if architecture schools including WSA should consider this as part of its Part II curriculum.
Side note: regarding the role of the architect, I have recently been introduced to the process of co-design and will be exploring this further.
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