Some more humility about fashion would help everybody like we help our clients annoy to Hello and welcome to
the Business of Architecture. I'm your host Ryan Willard, allow me to introduce today's distinguished guest on the podcast, which is David Goodman, a luminary in the realm of architecture and Education, Dr. Goodman serves as the dean of the IE School of Architecture and Design in Madrid, where he leads a vision home through his tenure as a director of The Bachelor in architectural studies, and the master in architecture. He was educated at Harvard Graduate School of Design and Cornell University, and his own academic journey culminated in a PhD from the Iowa University specializing in strategy and organizational theory. Dr. Goodman scholarly pursuits are marked by a focus on architectural innovation amidst socio economic flux, co author of the seminal work and introduction to architecture theory in 1968. To the present, his research has graced prestigious publications like The Journal of architectural education, and technology, architecture and design. His contributions extend to acclaimed anthologies, and critical source books, underscoring his profound impact on architectural discourse. In this episode, David and I talk about the absence of business education inside of architecture. And we look at different ways that architectural schools can be accommodating of that, and creating a different and more informed context of reality. When training design, we look at the power of architectural education, and its potential in different fields outside of architecture. And we also discussed the future of architectural education, and we look at different pathways forward. This was a really fascinating conversation. I'm a big fan of everything that that they're doing at the IE University. It's one of the most switched on colleges, universities of architecture in the world. And this was a great, great pleasure to be speaking. So sit back, relax and enjoy David Goodman. This podcast is produced by Business of Architecture, a leading business consultancy for architects and design professionals. This episode is sponsored by Smart practice, business of architectures flagship program to help you structure your firm for freedom, fulfillment, and financial profit. If you want access for our free training on how to do this, please visit smart practice method.com. Or if you want to speak directly to one of our advisors about how I might be able to help you, please follow the link in the information. Hello, listeners, we hope you're enjoying our show. We love bringing you these insightful conversations, but we couldn't do it without the support of our amazing sponsors. If you're a business owner, or know someone who would be an excellent fit for our audience, we'd love to hear from you. Partnering with us means your brand will reach over 40,000 engaged listeners each month interested in becoming a sponsor, please send us an email at support at business of architecture.com. David, welcome to the Business of Architecture. How are you?
I'm great, thanks, thanks, good to be here.
So very excited to be speaking with you. I've spoken obviously, with your colleague, Geronimo in the past, you are the dean of the IE School of Architecture and Design in Madrid. You have a Doctorate in Business Administration from the IE business school, and a master's in a master's in architecture from Harvard. Really fascinating career that you've had that kind of led you to lead you to Madrid and you know, a very deep knowledge of the business side of architecture. And, you know, I think what you guys are doing at the IEA schools, you know, it's it's the leading program on the, in the world, really for the business side of architecture, and is a pretty unique kind of offering for architects and very, very well needed, obviously. So welcome to the show. And perhaps we could start a little bit and just talk about your career and how did you get to the position that you are in now?
Thanks. Well, that's it that question alone? Probably could I could do this for about 45 minutes depending on how I play it. Yeah, you know, the logical thing to do when you know you want to be an architect is to study comparative literature. So I did that. I mean, I knew I kind of knew as a little kid that I wanted to be an architect, but for some reason, I thought I needed to do something else first, which I should say in the American system. We have that luxury of like, you know, having an undergraduate that's only marginal They related to what you want to do. And then you do a masters or, in my case, a four year master degree. So yeah, I went I, as a little kid, I sort of was drawing and knew I kind of want to be an architect. But I also really like I really wanted to be a writer, actually, I couldn't kind of make up my mind. So I, I decided that I was going to be a writer and I actually began studying literature. I moved to Spain to study Latin American literature. Another another curious choice. But my university had a program in Spain. And it was here that I realized, what am I doing, I really want to be an architect. At that point, it was sort of too late to turn back and I finished my undergraduate degrees. reasons I won't get into I finished a degree in political science, rather than literature and history of architecture. And then I went to, to Harvard, where I did a four year Master of Architecture, and I moved to Spain to practice here, and then eventually, back to my native Chicago, where hadn't lived since I was a kid. Actually, I practiced there for a while. But I always knew, I think the place I felt most at home most comfortable really was the academic world. I mean, it just was sort of my, you know, in truth, I enjoyed thinking and writing about architecture, more than I felt that I actually enjoyed the practice of architecture, it was just not, you know, it wasn't the rhythm that I really wanted, you know. And most of the day to day stuff just wasn't stuff I was particularly interested in, or, frankly, all that. So, as soon as I could, I began combining practice with teaching, and ultimately became full time faculty at Illinois Institute of Technology. And while I was there, I heard about this young school in Spain, where I'd always kind of wanted to come back to and at that point, architecture was new. And IE, really, I think they had been teaching it for four years or so. And I had known of it as a business school from when I lived in Spain previously, I didn't know that anything to do with architecture. And one thing led to another and I was offered the position to be the Director of Undergraduate Studies, this is now 13 years ago. And as part of that school, from the start was this program in business for at that point business for architecture. And now it's Master of Business and architecture and design, which was any kind of encapsulated this idea that like, it's one thing to, to learn the discipline of architecture, and it's another to practice it, and that sometimes that chasm, which I lived, like, painfully, most of us probably have, right? Going out with these, like, you know, world changing ideas and coming face to face with a contract, or coming face to face with, why is the phone not ringing. And not really being prepared for it. So all of this was happening to me, I was being offered this job during the financial meltdown. 2008 It was right and seeing some of my friends in Chicago being laid off, you know, one morning in big firms there and seeing what, you know, how the kind of lack of resilience we had as a profession. So when I came here, I felt like we were doing really some of the right things. And one of the right things I thought was really dealing with business at the undergrad level at the graduate level, but dealing with it as a as a designed process. You know, I mean, you can design a practice, like you design anything, and you think about it, how do I get if this is the result I want? How do I get there. And the other thing was to think and I guess we'll talk about this maybe a little bit more was to separate as much as we could the discipline of architecture from the from the profession. That is we're going to teach the discipline of architecture. For some of my students, it will be great for them to go on to be architects, which is a wonderful, noble, fantastic profession. But not all of them do or will want to. And so what we're trying to do is to prepare them for that kind of more varied, professional world. Anyway, that's how I got here. While I was here. I knew I wanted to do a PhD. And I was really interested in some of the stuff that Skidmore, Owings and Merrill was doing. In the 30s X ray, when they started, they were they were started right in the middle of the Great Depression. And I began that as a thesis at the Polytechnic here in Madrid in architecture, but I soon realized this was actually more of a business PhD and had to do more with organization. And so I while I was here, I did my doctorate at the business school talking about two different things one organization is founded in moments that are I think the technical term is crappy. Some of our in really negative socio political economic moments, what happens to organism
this is kind of SRM being founded kind of just post the Great Depression.
Right, right. I mean, 37 I think it is. So in the second dip of the of the Depression. That's one part of it. So it was started with this kind of gradually very little to do with this one. But then the other thing was okay, well, the other thing I was interested in was what do architecture firms do in this balance between standing out and fitting in? Right? Because yeah, and that's why I was really good at that. Because look at the name of that firm, like Skidmore, Owings and Merrill, it could be McKim, Mead and White, it could be any kind of classical American firm. But behind that screen of kind of conformity and anonymity, or traditional architecture from what they were doing behind it was radical. Radical, had nothing to do with what went before. So they were once like, super normative and what they looked like from the outside, but if you knew what was going on inside, it was it was something totally different.
So I thought that was, I guess that's, that's also very interesting, because I, you know, I've got a, you know, an interest in the big American firms as well and their influence on pretty much all other architecture firms that we see today. Like, we look at the Fosters and, and these these other behemoths that exist today, against lawyers, they all have that kind of legacy or heritage owed to those practices, early practices in the 19 1930s of in the US, who were, who were, who were kind of capitalizing as well on the massive shift in construction techniques, and being able to operate at a scale that architects had never operated at before. Really.
You know, what narrowings, in his, in his autobiography says something to the fact that like we could do what the Gothic age did, that we could be kind of these nameless, but highly trained collaborative professionals. We could be like, the Gothic building guild or something like this, he says, That was that was the highly like, you know, kind of very idealistic aim. And I mean, it's kind of amazing what those guys were able to do. I mean, in some sense, they were in the right place at the right time and knew the right people. But that's, to whom does that not apply? They were they were very smart, and did some brilliant design had a really good eye for designers, they knew who wasn't a designer. And they knew who was and they looked out for that. And they set up a structure like they thought about the organization, you know, they theorize the organization and design the organization, it didn't just happen. And think so many of us think Oh, yeah. Structure? No, no.
So, so you wrote this doctorate that was essentially about the kind of organizational structure of of SRM, and it became a Doctorate in Business Administration. And then it is start to influence your teaching?
That's a good question. I mean, it's kind of going on in parallel. I mean, certainly, like, the dissertation ended up having very little to do with SLM and much more to do with kind of architecture in Chicago at that moment. And navigating that tension between distinct distinctiveness and conformity. And I will say, for sure, it led when we were working on at that point, I was only involved in an architecture program, and we were developing our new master in architecture, we kind of knew. So our master architecture is like the last stage that you need in Spain to become a professional, licensed architect in Spain and in the EU. And so it's obviously very much oriented profession, if you don't want to be a registered architect, don't take the master, right. I mean, that's how most people see it. But I thought, Well, no, actually, you could use it for something way more interesting that and we embedded this business component to it, the design management module, and it only only reaffirmed what I what I thought was the case, when I when I arrived here, it's those two things. We've got to separate the discipline from the profession, because there's so many professions that architecture prepares you to work in, you know, and we're wasting and we're not wasting, but were they overly limiting the influence that architects can have on design culture, or the environment broadly supported, understood by just limiting it to the built environment. Second was that we don't know what we're doing when it comes to business, generally speaking, right? And so that there really is room. It's almost like it's our obligation. It's not not a luxury, it's an obligation. And I was kind of critical of my own training, and to be honest with you, in my professional practice, cause I probably slept through most of it because I didn't play as much importance on it. Yes, I believe working on my project. And if I stumbled in, you know, tried to stay weak as best I could, and I was a terrible student. And so, but that's kind of the message that's being sent to students is designed culture first. And management to the degree that you want to get your hands dirty, should only be in the service of that design, but we don't tend to like turn that design interest back on practice itself and kind of look at practice. Go and talk about
wrote that. That's, that's so interesting because I would, you know, I've often said I would hate to see business education at university just become, you know, a classroom where they're teaching you generally applied accounting principles are getting you to look at profit and loss spreadsheets or things like that it needs to be it needs to have that way it becomes interesting is when you put the design lens onto it, and we start talking about designing a business or a vehicle that can produce design, as opposed to just kind of, you know, isolating the business component out of it and, and sticking it on to a design course, where exactly you end up what ends up happening is no one no one wants to attend the business course, because you've got the fun and excitement of doing something creative. And now it feels like you're trying to tick a box, just by having somebody attend, you know, the professional practice part of it. I know very much when I was at university that that kind of culture existed where everyone begrudgingly went to the professional practice seminars, because he had to, because it was just part of the component part of the, you know, the curriculum, it was just it, but it was more of a tick box exercise. The problem of that is that that attitude ends up prevailing into the profession, even when people start set up their own practices. And so people don't have any kind of reverence or interest in designing their own businesses. And as a result, we have a lot of problems.
Yeah, I think you absolutely nailed it there. I mean, that is that is that sort of boredom with or almost like, outright disdain for the business component has led us into some very difficult professional lives, actually, you know, and then compound that with my generation of hair, so I'm kind of this like, indie rock, post punk generation that saw commercial success as somehow incompatible with, like, decent art, you know? Yes. Right. And so there was that too, when I was in school, like, you know, that the stain, which really, you have to get over quickly, if you want to eat, and then if you want to change the world in any meaningful way, you've got to, you've got to get past this, right. Yes. and I both wanted to change the world and eat so.
So, so. I mean, and then again, that's, that's interesting in architecture, in general, when we see even design being taught, you know, I've always found it quite interesting that there's the complete removal of economic context, in design school. And I've, you know, that's a big shame, as well, because it's kind of because it unintentionally sets up a paradigm if you like that money is a constraint, or that the financial context of which architecture operates is something that we, you know, we will take the advantage of ignoring it at university, so that we can be uninhibited in our creativity. And again, that kind of negation of the economic context has has an impact through design, and also just kind of it perpetuates an unhelpful attitude. You know, and certainly, from my work now, when I'm working with a lot of architects, we're training them in business. And there's a lot of that it's not necessarily the mechanics of business, because that's not that difficult as such, but the culture around it, and the mindset, that is that's much more deeply ingrained. And this negative attitude or profit is a dirty word, or just the idea of making money is incompatible with great design. That's a really harmful, really, really harmful belief that the profession kind of has any unintentionally perpetuated.
Yeah, and there's a corollary of that, and that is the lifestyle that architects live is rice, is based on free labor, our own, sometimes it's hard. And none of the test on too little of it. I should I should I should mention my words, a little of it tends to be passed on to the client, right? So we therefore are sabotaging our own businesses and our own health and lives and the value of an hour of our time. Precisely because we think it's a, you know, we think it's a cause to which ones should dedicate oneself nobly at great loss. If we do that. We leave it only to the people who can afford such loss. Right. And you can afford a hobby in architecture, which is what it becomes definitely a subsidized hobby. That's not right. The other part of this is also good design is economical, right. I mean, I mean, I think this is also tied up with sustainability. And, and I struggle with what you talked about, like this idea of what we'll do, we'll do with budgets later, we don't budget our projects in school, we don't we're not enough quantity surveyors, we, you know, we're not doing that, you know, are we too much is probably it's been done for a long time, in that sense, right. But what we try to do is to link it to sustainability link a certain economy of means, right, with with, with reducing our footprint, and I think that that is, also there's like a lucky fortuitous overlap of what is what is economically feasible and what is sustainable. So a lot of reuse, and minimizing, like, maybe a certain humility, certain humility in, in, in design. So I think around the board, wherever I go, you don't see very much heroic when you do it, certain schools, you don't see so much heroic gesture, and levers and magically floating volumes like this. Mercer.
ferrofluids, and
it exists, you know what I'm talking about. But but but, and that's also cool. Like, I'm glad those places exist, that's just not what we're, you know, we want to be a little bit more tactical, like, you know, and the bang for the buck is the expression in American English, at least, you know, to choose your battles, and and otherwise be economical. And that doesn't mean have low ambition. Right? That means use the constraint any good designer is that a constraint is an opportunity for invention. So budget constraint, another angle?
Yeah, exactly. I mean, that's a very interesting point is that, you know, architecture, we're used typically in design with spoken, you talk about constraints, or these friction points being the generators of architecture, and a budget or financial consideration, or a consideration of who the client is, and you know, how they're being funded, that can actually generate an interesting set of design solutions, or what you're saying here in terms of sustainability or kind of resilience in in materials and design or longevity, that becomes a good place for creating friction, which encourages more thoughtful design, and gives us something gives us something to be able to work with, how do you then with the because you've got the MBA degree, and then there's like a master's degree of architecture. So the two are different is
the MBR. The master business, and this is typically a post professional degree, tends to be, you know, not immediately after graduation. And it's it's not only for architects, I mean, designers may take as well, although it ends up being 90%. Architecture, the the mr. is the professional master's degree. So in an in Spain, you do a five year undergraduate, and then a one year and you're licensed. So it's not like in the UK or the US where there's an internship component. No, there's no practice component, which leads us to have a slightly more practical, perhaps, undergraduate education than in the UK or in the States or Canada, where you have you have steps right after we don't we are that we are the final the final step before licensure. So our master in architecture, the content of that, strangely enough, or not, strangely enough, unfortunately, enough, on paper, roughly 70% of the content is set by the state, right, because it's licensing so they say okay, you must know XYZ. But they say you have a little margin, even methodology, we've been super innovative in how we do it work with Ben van Berkel un studio, super entrepreneurial architect. We integrate sustainability in the first term especially. And we take our students to Amsterdam, they work on real projects with UN studio. And but the real content innovation was to add the design management module so our students get the strategic management for architects project management, and creativity and organization, which is one that I really liked, because it's, that's the one where we're saying, okay, you know, apply your creativity thinking about organization design. And, you know, I think some students are sort of puzzled by this and most of them from my experience. So we are super excited about the chance to think about it in those terms like as a creative pursuit. So that's our master in architecture. They're both one year programs.
Great, amazing. Amazing. I've spoken with some of your past students of the the MB arc before Tosun was on the show not too long ago, we had a good conversation about some of her insights and things that she that she learnt. So, it we were we were last time we spoke, we were talking about this idea of institutional theory. Could you talk a little bit about that? What does that mean? And how does that relate here in terms of the kind of business side of architecture?
Great, yeah, I'd be happy to. So institutional theory is very important theoretical framework, in the study of organizations and sociology, at its base, institutional theory says that we're actually not as free. When we design organizations, we're not as free as we might wish, or we're not as free as we might think that there is to a degree in what they call external control of our organizations. That is, we have to fit in not fitting in as great penalties, let's say, and the most basic level in regulatory terms where you have to have a license, you can't just say, Hey, I'm an architect, because I watched The Fountainhead, you know, I watch Netflix series. I know you can't do that. Right. So then the state will come and carry you off to an uncomfortable place. If you do that. That's like the most basic level. So there's regulatory conformity? No, we all must be licensed. We must go to a certain school, those schools are also constrained right by the state or whatever regulatory authority there might be. Right? That's the kind of easiest to understand. Then there is competitive conformity. Everybody else is doing this. If I don't say for example, in the time of Skidmore, Owings and Merrill, it was almost unheard of. And I, in my my dissertation I saw in the population of architects at the time that Skidmore, Owings and Merrill were founded, they're about 500 firms in the Chicago area, something like 499 of them use the last names of the principles, or the last name. Sounds like a silly thing, right? Of course, you know, David Goodman architects. Have they chosen to call themselves you know, Building Solutions Incorporated? Or I don't know, studio? About? Well, that's only about had they decided to do that in 1937, they probably wouldn't have been any clients whatsoever. Certainly not the US military. Okay. So there's a certain amount of conformity, even if it's not conscience conscious. If you are in a certain stream of, let's say, avant garde architecture firms, and you call yourself you know, David Goodman architects LLC, that's not likely to make you sound as sexy as choose any any noun, any new salad fork, studio. Studio is a more convincing name nowadays, like, you know, any noun that has nothing to do with architecture that can be the name of your firm. And it's pretty normal. Yeah, whatever. You. That's cool. I think so. For sure, would it work? soup spoon or to disable nevertheless, melodious? But, yeah, so you can you can. Nowadays, there's almost the reverse pressure. If you're a certain if you're an architecture firm with a certain degree of ambition, you must put some sort of inscrutable name or acronym, right? There. There are there are counter examples as well. But what I'm saying is that specific pressure has changed over time, those pressures are socially constructed, and they're not regulatory. And there are certain things that an architect would not do. Okay. And if you've seen the series Better Call Saul.
I have seen Senator episodes about, okay. Well,
I mean, so he begins as a respectable lawyer and explains his, his path to one of those guys who advertises on late night TV, and he sheds all of those layers of like, what you should not do if you're a legitimate lawyer, he starts brothers, or it gradually becomes loses all of that and there's freedom in that but nobody will take him seriously in the world of the serious law firm. Architects we do much the same, much the same and and that's another kind of let's say inhibitor to innovation, right? It is, it is the very real pressure to conform in order to be taken seriously. And the third is lack of any better ideas. Not everybody has great idea, so imitate Right. And so we ended up almost by default, sometimes not questioning models that are set up for what a firm looks like where a firm should operate, what firm should call itself. And so all of those constitute institutional factors to conformity. Now there's another right? So those are the kind of intuitively when you explained it like that, it all makes sense. We all lived those things. But then there's something else that's super interesting. There's this paper by Myron row in 1977. Talks about the split between what architects actually need to do an architect, sorry, I didn't mention architecture, what organizations really need to do for efficiency? And what I mean, when I say efficiency, I mean, like, just to get the job done, what do you need to do? Okay? In order to respond to the demands of your clients, or customers, wherever they are, there's certain amount of stuff you need to do to get the work done in a timely way, right. And then there's the other stuff you need to do to be institutionally sound to look like a serious firm to do what a firm should do not do what a firm should not do, right? And sometimes these two things are at odds. What if, for example, it's it's frowned upon, as it was by the American Institute of Architects to offer structural engineering services, not illegal? What if it's against the law to or frowned upon by the by the, by the industry to advertise your services, or what if being a general contractor is considered to be unethical by the professional associations, which it was the United States, right? A lot of the things that you would want to do for efficiency, now I want to be the GC, and I want to be the architect, but the professional association tells me that's unethical. So I have to make a decision, either I have to not do what they're telling me not to do. Or I have to do what in the social theory is called decoupling, which is basically like, I have to show the world one thing, and then at the same time be doing something else. So that decoupling is how you can conform with the image that society wants you to, to comply with, while you need to do the stuff you need to do. So a lot of institutional theory has to do with that tension between what I really would like to do and what I have to do. And part of what I tried to explore in my dissertation was kind of well, okay, what are the overtime because I studied all firms working in Chicago, as part of my dissertation there several parts, but one is, like over a period of 80 years, there's this tension between fitting in and standing out. What, over time, what were the ways of fitting in that remained? Important? And where was it possible to innovate? And then the other question was in moments of crisis, when things are really bad, like, like, you know, you can imagine, like fitting in the status quo is is nice when things are going well. But when everything's falling apart, do you think maybe there'll be more freedom to experiment? And that was another thing? So if a firm was founded in the moment in the Great Depression, like so when was there more freedom to innovate? Or was it? Was it more constrained? I'll leave that there was a cliffhanger.
Well, that that's, that's so interesting, the kind of constraints of the profession itself, which are kind of implied or, you know, of you needing and wanting to fit into your own profession, actually being an inhibitor to business innovation. You know, just in the way that you might market name yourself, the way you're structuring yourself. And there's this, it's actually very obvious when you say it like that, for why architects are very cautious with even employing an outside business consultant. So as a Business of Architecture, we're definitely one of our advantages with the business education we've provided. And I imagine that a similar similar with you guys, is that well, you're architects, or you're associated with an architect with architectural education and the design and architecture, whereas architects traditionally have been very, very suspicious, if you like, of external consultants coming coming in and telling them how to do their their business. And they'll often confide in, you know, in my, you know, when I speak with them, they're often say things like, Well, yeah, but they don't understand architecture, or they don't, they don't understand a professional we needed somebody who understands the profession. And it's actually more to do with this kind of caution or concern of stepping outside of the, the institution which is which so much investment has gone into becoming part of it. In my own practice, I recall at one point, considering abandon that abandoning the word architect, there's the There's a lot of marketing strength, and kind of prestige that comes with the word. But I often used to find just as a way of thinking, I feel really constrained, calling myself an architect. And I'd like to do something very different. And as a result, never joined the RBA, or any of the professional bodies, hadn't my registration. And I know a lot of other other architects kind of feel like that, that that, you know, I will need to use the word architect, but any further going into the institutions then feel like I'm being influenced in a certain in a certain way? How would you suggest that that the profession kind of approaches this and tries to have more freedom inside of itself, and more freedom to experiment?
Well, it's a great, that's a great question. And what you say is, it's so true, like there's the the name itself is so charged by the architect that it often creates the most rigid kind of structure, which is a structure that's self constructed, right? We can chafe at and complain about regulations that come from without, when we are the ones who build the iron cage. Right. And that's, that's, that's a phrase that that organization theorists use that, to describe that kind of conformity when we built it ourselves, then we don't even see it, right. And so by dropping off the name architect, maybe it lets us be more experimental with what it is we're really doing. And it might be for that reason that I mean, I have to tell you, I think maybe half of our students go on to practice architecture, maybe half, maybe less. And that doesn't mean that they're not working in creative industries, or in design or even on buildings. But they might not think of themselves as architects, because I think maybe we do, we do too good job. But we do a very good job of explaining this to them. There's more your design abilities could be could be useful beyond architecture, but But going back to architecture itself, you know, I think we also have to be realistic about what are the useful constraints? And what are the ones that we've just built ourselves? Right, and which are the ones that we just never thought about? Never question. That said, there are also things that have never been done and for good reason. Right? So not everything, not every blue, you know, blue water, I idea is a good one, because no one's done it before. So I think I would again, apply our thinking as designers to the problem of what do what is it that we want to do with our lives? What do you want to wake up every day? And do because ultimately, the money is there, money's there. But let's, let's talk first of all, like, what do you want your Monday morning to be? Like? What do you want to go to work to do every Monday morning? Because you have to design that. Or if you just let it happen? You find yourself, you know, 20 years down the road with a practice specializing in something you hate? And so no, you know, you've got to, I think, think very clearly about what it is you want it to and then what do you do better than others? Right? And stop calling an architecture for? Well, I love that you say that? Because you kind of have to think about it. Don't assume the answer will be architecture, maybe the answer is something else, or something that's called something else. And then only once you've gone through that process of ideation, which we would do if we were designing a building, or a coffee cup. You know, once we do that, once we then we say, Okay, what am I what am I created? You know, what am I what do I just design architecture firm? This is a consulting firm. Am I really good at writing specifications? And is that what I want to do everything like that, whatever it might be, you know, that maybe you're not an architect, maybe you're a client services provider, or maybe you're involved in real estate. But that's because that's what you really want to be doing. And that's no longer architecture. I think there's freedom in it. But I would also hate for people who really do want to be focused on the built environment for them to feel that they can't use the word architect, which is almost a secret word, you know, it would be a shame to abandon that word, but I totally see why one would,
yeah, I find this this kind of idea of decoupling the profession, from the discipline, actually very interesting. And, you know, the fact that you were saying there that 50% of your students don't go on to becoming an architect is actually actually quite, quite empowering and that there's, it's something quite important for us to be able to see the different trains of of, of where you can go with your profession. How do you guys instill that into the into your education, this decoupling from the discipline versus the profession?
I should say I think there is already in the DNA of our of our institution, the spirit entrepreneurial spirit, as a school that's kind of born out of the business school, right? I happen to have studied there myself, but not very few of our professors have. But nevertheless, we're in this environment where it's just very entrepreneurial and thinking about what's the problem, really, what is actually the problem, you know, and interrogating that over and over and over again. And that very conversation of like, well, what does it do? What are you interested in? Really? I mean, I know you'd like architecture, but what do you really want to be doing? I think we just have those conversations. The other is, while we always have, they do have to design buildings, no way around that in architecture school, we complement that with a lot of other things in the architecture program. So there's a whole sequence of courses related to experimentation, which can be installation art film, you know, we make sure that they all have experiences and other creative fields. And I think it's sometimes opens eyes, we've got students who end up working in digital art, several actually, in virtual environments, kind of, you know, video game II kind of things a lot. However, there are a lot of people in lighting design, for example. So for or fashion or adjacent to the fashion industry. So I think it's, it's, you know, using this, we kind of instill this idea, even though here, we do require them to work on buildings, because we're a licensed granting institution, we try to complement that as much as we can with other other experiences, other inputs, and maybe crucially, to demonstrate that that's not less. And I think a lot of architecture schools, like kind of maybe implicitly, like, look at those others, other fields as being somehow less, maybe that's oversimplifying the case. But I
think that's interesting. You know, I've been found in architecture, you know, from my own personal experience, going from architecture school, probably I didn't ever, I did my best throughout my entire architecture, education to avoid designing a building wherever possible. And, you know, I went to one of these avant garde schools in in London, and, you know, was able to have the freedom to like, just avoid designing a building, except when there was some part of it that needed to be rebuilt or accredited. And if you just design a concrete box and tick off all the building regs, and then you know, and then you go off designing whatever kind of computer coded performance gown that I was creating. But I think that that becomes interesting, because the pathway to becoming an architect, certainly, in the UK, I always felt you were on this track, and you could play. But it was like a very strong calling to become an architect. And part of it was the snappiness of it, where it was kind of like, Yay, I could do this other this other stuff. But now I've, I've said, I'm going to become an architect and being the architect that that's the real thing. And it kind of begs the question as well then that if you've got a design degree, or an architectural degree, that can be used for so many different things. Why even why even call it architecture? And what would happen? What would happen if you totally pulled it out of architecture, and then architecture became something that it'd be a practicing architect, you did it solely inside of a professional tract? And there's problems with that as well. But I'm interested to hear you.
Yeah, that's interesting. I mean, look, I I would I would I would fight that. Totally. And I don't think it's an old country. I agree with what I was saying earlier. I would fight that because I believe that it's an ancient eautiful all consuming, fraud, engaging discipline, right. And that discipline is called architecture. I think it deserves defending right and deserves handing down to other generations. I really do think so. I think we have to be custodians of that discipline, and not lose sight of it because it's precisely what is specific about the discipline of architecture that makes it so valuable as a training for so many things. All I'm saying is, it's such a good training. It teaches so many things, you know, both analytical, creative, teamwork, communication skills, graphic skills. It's about every bit of a human. I think it is I can't think of a more Our comprehensive way of learning and that is called architecture. Now, I don't think that always has to translate into this sort of arrogance about the professional choices. And I think it is the hardest working. Maybe medical students work as hard as architects, maybe probably law students some places to, but but like, that doesn't mean that sort of arrogance is also born in the schools, at least out of look how hard we're working, we are only one, all the other students are sleep aware of, you know, I do think we should turn that lens back on ourselves and ask, is the parenthetical ask Is that really necessary? But But I think I think I would, I would so saddened me to see the name architecture disappear as a discipline. I don't think that's I don't think that's what I'm saying was, I wouldn't want to see that. But I do think that some more humility, about fashion would help everybody, like we help our clients annoy to think, you know, architects have this messianic kind of streak, that hasn't done great things for people. We are generally, you know, slightly on the arrogant side of the spectrum, I think, and I think we're seeing it to be that way, which ultimately isn't great for the business, because people don't really want to be lectured to constantly by their architect.
Yeah, so do you, do you think the profession could be involved in expanding the remit of what an architect does? So say, for example, we see, you know, I think it's really fascinating, actually, these days, you can get an architectural training. And it's also kind of sad in a way that you can go through your architectural training. And actually, you can be compensated financially, far better in a different field that actually appreciate the architectural thinking and design synthesis skills that you get from university. We see this in tech all the time, where they're, you know, and UX designers. And you know, I've interviewed a number of UX designers who were architects, and then they've, they've moved over to UX. It's not an easy transition, and it takes quite a bit to pull themselves out of the profession. But then, within a few years, the salaries are unfathomably more rewarding than what they would be getting in the architectural space. And in many ways, I often think that architectural traditional architectural practice, doesn't utilize the skills and these kinds of creative synthesis skills that is so wonderful about architectural education. And it's almost like, leaving it on the table. And I often think, is, is there space there for the profession to even expand what an architect does, particularly as we're kind of moving into this world of virtual and digital spaces. And we're living more and more of our lives online. And there's this kind of organizational discipline that the architect is so good at being able to, you know, bring in, what were your your thoughts on, on that,
you make a great point that the profession has a choice to make in the face of this challenge, right, and it will in and out, just as they did in the 1930s in the states, if you trace the the AIA bylaws or ba recommendations for professional professional conduct, they gradually came to accept practice that included general contracting, instructional engineering. And the to the the attitude of the professionals who embrace the change are accepted at least. And I think now, the question is, what would the professional organizations do? Excuse me. Question is what will the professional organizations do? In the face of these new challenges? Which could seem you know, the architecture is dissolving into UX design video game design, virtual environment design? I think that's great. I mean, I think it's great that our textures touch those things. I think if we don't do it, we are condemned to be a metaphor for other things architecture, I mean, if you do a Google a Google Scholar search for articles published on architecture, I think you have to go like downs like the 200 to get beyond Information Technology articles or meta or genetics articles, where architecture system metaphor for other things. So if we don't understand that no information architecture, actually, maybe we can bring something to that field. organization design this part of what I was trying to do well what if what if you know we bring a design approach to organization design? So I think if the if the profession like the profession and then the professional organizations to degree that they're, they're influential in this matter, I'm not sure they are. But to the degree that a professional says no, I'm an architect and I my A field is building. So I'm an architect and my field is data. I think I think that to me is, is could be freeing and very interesting. I think I hope the professional accepts these things as legitimate ways of practice, otherwise, people will always have a thing I have to leave my field to do when I when I, you know, what I like, imagine if you've ever worked in hospitals, I never have, okay. From what I understand, it's like a different world altogether, you know, it's a different kind of practice. Nevertheless, we call it architecture, right? Specializing in hospitals, probably utterly unlike a two person practice working on houses, there must be almost nothing in common. What would be the sort of so different than say, Well, I'm working in virtual spaces? You know, in the metaverse, or whatever it is, we call it. I don't think it's so different. I think it's probably closer and anyways, to the two person office building houses than the international hospital for him.
Yeah, I think it's a really interesting, it's an interesting opportunity for lots of the institutional governing bodies of architecture to, to kind of potentially capitalize on or, as opposed to being reactive to a kind of proactive approach of where the what the future of the, of what the profession could be. You know, I think that opens up a lot of a lot more opportunities and a lot more freedom, a lot more freedom.
Do you see this in the firm's you work with desire to kind of push the limits of what is architecture practice?
Not not with not necessarily with the firms that we work with, I mean, that typically, the firm's we work with are traditional architectural practices. What we do see with them is them introducing different services, which are kind of traditionally architectural related. So, you know, we've got loads of clients who build out an interior design firm, or they build out a contracting firm, or they become developers themselves. And that's another thing that I'm big kind of advocate for, because, you know, becoming the developer yourself, you know, that that's where you get to, you know, you're the one now directing the creativity and what you want to build. And it encompasses, you know, a solid understanding of Business and Economics and raising finance. And that gives a lot of a lot of freedom. Typically, I see a lot of students who I will speak with on a more informal basis, who are looking to who are frustrated in the profession, and then start looking around at, you know, where do they where do they want to go? How do they want to practice architecture, and then this leads them to moving into different fields, I don't know if you've come across of out of architecture, with Jake and Aaron. So they're a consulting agency in the US, and they actually specialize in helping take people out of architecture and locate them into other professions. And their own stories are really interesting, because I think, Jake, he now works at Adidas. And found, you know, he was using all of his 3d design skills in making new trainers and renders and, you know, just economically, it made so much more sense to be using those skills inside of, you know, a creative company like this, I do speak on the on the podcast that a lot of practices who, you know, have moved into the world of, say brand experience, which is a kind of, that's an architectural interpretation of branding. And I think that's very interesting and placemaking. So we start to see these kind of periphery, parts of the profession opening up and being very innovative and, you know, pushing the kind of physical boundary of what architecture can be, and starting to integrate it into something which is a little bit less, you know, confined in a in a building, which again, I think is, you know, is really good. And but there's so much there's no, there's, I think, certainly younger students have got so much opportunity, and brought up in the YouTube generation, if you like, and are very well aware of different ways of making money have different ways of communicating of marketing of selling. I have a different relationship with physical space. You know, we grew up in an era where our bedrooms were these little havens of expression of personality. And now people have social media profiles, which become the bed we know the equivalent of the bedroom wall. So there's a real sort of a cultural shift that's happening. And, you know, the future of architecture is kind of I think it's it's interwoven into that.
I think there's a different entrepreneur, different relationship with entrepreneur. Entrepreneurship nowadays than there was when when I was in school. Certainly. Yeah, sure. Right. Because I think that ethic of like, well, don't be too successful. You know, you wouldn't want to sell out, right? This was very much, as I mentioned before, it was like, you know, they're all it's fine. And it's not there any of the time nowadays? Yeah, for better and worse, right? A little of that little that wouldn't hurt. I'm showing my age. But But certainly, the younger generations have this kind of like, you know, entrepreneurial spirit from the start, they can sell. They don't see it as in any way in contradiction with artistic aspirations, which they've got, clearly. And they express it through, you know, kind of personal branding. And they got, they've got that, like, that's their, in their DNA, most of them. I see. I think they're even like further self selecting the ones that come to our school, because they know we're kind of in this business environment. Like they're already a little bit, maybe even more like, I think it's generational. I see it with my with my daughter. So, like, I think maybe there'll be free of some of that self sabotage. My generation engaged in for a while and have most and by the way, it only it only resulted in kind of later coming to terms with the business aspects of artistic practice, right? It didn't mean resigning themselves. It was just like, No, I've got to deal with this. I hadn't really taken it seriously. Until now. I'm going to kind of reskill. But I think but I do wonder, though, like about the integration of that with architecture? No, it's going to be interesting to see, as we make this leap into AI powered practice, what is it that we refuse to let go of? Right? I mean, because things we will no longer be doing just inevitable. Some things. Just as we no longer have departments of draftsman or drafts, you know, we there will be people who aren't doing things in architecture firms anymore, but it will be interesting is what we define as being the essential human human element of architecture and then other other other areas of work will open up I think this is a good opportunity to have that conversation where that
no, absolutely in the near me bring up there the kind of AI revolution that we're kind of entering into you had someone like Sam Altman, you know, recently saying that they're in the future, we're not far we're not far off having a one person billion dollar annual revenue company, which is, that's just, it's insane. It's insane to think that that's that that's the future that we're stepping into, and what does that mean, for an architecture practice? I mean, in that context, you know, there's so much drudgery in architecture that could be replaced, which actually means I think that the architect can step back into this synthesizer role, and the one who's able to look around and, you know, create and join ideas together and be a be more of a curatorial position. You know, technology can can relinquish and free up the the architect a lot. You know, architecture is a funny business model, where you often have very highly trained people doing basic, very basic tasks. And that makes it very, very inefficient. And there's the freedom of an AI to replace a lot of that I know, we're seeing AI at the moment, involved in lots of creative things, which is kind of, you know, that's where it's getting, it's kind of marketing push if you like, but but really, for practical sense, we want to hold that creative thinking to us and AI can do a lot of the decision make decision making things and regulatory processes inside of a practice that take up so much time and are very repetitive.
I think had we had aI so much of the thing that I mentioned at the start like what I didn't really enjoy about practice for sure many of the many of the people who are watching the podcast can relate for about you know, a year and a half two years. I'm in a large project where every morning my job was pick up a crate of samples you know submittals to make sure that you know, the which there was the contractor was sending us to verify that they were what we had specified, which I had to sign stamp inspect, and this was a menial task above all menial, menial tasks. What about me stepping and folding them sending them back in the mail that I actually consumed? did nothing to the project, all of my training all of my ability to contribute? If AI nothing, nothing, it probably I was bad at it, probably because I was so detached from, you know, a bot could have done that job better, and I could have been doing something else. The question then is what I've had a job at all. podcast, but but certainly like that part of practice, I hope it goes away. I mean, why would anybody really miss that? I don't know, perhaps not me. Yeah.
No, that's, that's very interesting. I think that's the purpose was to conclude the conversation here we've got, I sense that there's many more hours that we could be, we could be talking. But thank you very much, very much enjoyed speaking with you very insightful. And, you know, thank you again,
thank you for having me. And
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