Asking the right Question - Building Futures [RIBA]

The last time I wrote on a RIBA Building for the Future debate, it became my most visited blog post [click here]. Almost 1000 visits, take a look ;)

I find it essential as an engineer, and someone who is continually wanting to expand my knowledge of the construction and design industry -  that from time to time, I drop in on the meetings of our design cousins - the Architects. Especially as they appear to feed off lively debates, and are not afraid of going public with their thoughts.

I have always felt that us engineers were missing a trick by not following suit. Yes, we have available to us written magazine forums such as Verlulam, and of course my favourite whipping boy of the moment, LinkedIn groups. Unfortunately though, these forums can be heavily censored, and can serve to allow our engineering brethren to sling mud pies at one another from a safe distance, whilst ducking behind a crowd of disinterested bystanders.

Or we get access to a single persons view point; on blog posts like this; from engineers like me :) 

I think we should be looking to do more to encourage the passionate exchange of opinion. Like during the age of the Enlightenment, we should be inviting our most knowledgable and inspiring thought leaders to converse, debate, and chew the fat a little.

After this? Open up a public face to face debate so that the rest of us engineers [and interested non-engineers] can listen, contribute, and enjoy the witty exchange of ideas.

So back to the main event.

"This house believes that our cities are not prepared for an aging population."

Proposing the motion were Alan Hatton-Yeo, Chief Executive of The Beth Johnson Foundation and Dr Ros Altmann, Director General from Saga.

Opposing the motion were Indy Johar, Architect from 00:/ and Victoria Thornton, Founding Director of Open-City. 

Starting the evenings proceedings was Alan, he stood up at the podium and presented his case. Personally I was not overly engaged with the facts and figures which underpinned Alan's presentation, but one cool statistic caught my attention. 

"Every 24hrs the average life expectancy of UK residents increases by another 5hrs".

I did not feel a strong empathy for his cause, and this is strange since I am quite sensitive to the plights of the aging population. I guess what I was hoping for a more of an emotional plea. What I did take from Alan's presentation was that anything less than a major overhaul of the way we design our buildings and streetscapes would be a kin to a non-systemic patch. Which apparently is the limit of what politicians are capable of delivering to us.

An interesting presentation followed. Indy stood up and questioned the reasoning behind why the debate was being framed in such a narrow minded way.  He argued that we should be asking a different question all together. This as you can imagine initially caused some confusion. Indy bit back at why we felt the need to continuosly setup a confrontation between the old and the young. "I am opposed the question", "aging people are in denial, therefore should we really be trying to cater for a particular group?". Indy argued "surely we should be designing spaces that allow the aging generation and the rest of us to come together?". 

It would appear that Indy was being more sympathetic to the motion proposed.

Next up, or to be completely accurate; next to sit down [press-conference style] and present their argument was Dr Ros Altmann. This was a bit disconcerting for most of us who were not in the front few rows or adjacent to the central access row. From where I sat, I could not see Ross's face at all. This was a shame, because appealing to the audience involves finding ways to connect with them.

Ros proposed the motion once again, and cited a real need for inclusive design. She spoke of the loneliness of growing old in our cities, and attempted to create an emotional tether. This did not work for me. Ross did add an interesting point though. Good coherent design which allows the old and the young to work together already exists. Certain BMW factories have already managed to help workers from all age groups to coexist. The result is a better, more productive work space for everyone! Including the younger workers.

Finally Victoria [who also sat down] presented her argument as the opposition. Victoria believed that choice was key. Systematically moving the older generation further away from the cities in which we live is not only a process of ghettoisation of the old, but also tantamount to bullying. So we should continue to provide the very best in public transport and services for all. Then the old can continue to successfully share cities with the younger generation well into the future.

The opposition finished with an anecdote which originated from a lady living in our capital who belonged to the older generation.

"Why should I move out of London? Everything I need is here!"

The proceedings were more subdued than what I was usually accustomed to. The opposition had a very difficult job this time around, that was obvious. They may have spoken well, but this time it would appear that Indy was correct, the question was not framed very well. All the guest speakers were kind of agreeing with the same points and each other:

• Give more choice to the elderly. Less choice is no choice.
• The baby boomer generation need to begin to take responsibility. They are in the driving seat and if they do not lead by example right now... then the next generation will surely feel the same views of separation. 
• Forget forcing inter-wealth transfer of the billions in property equity owned by the older generation. No quick patches here please!
• How do we live together coherently [example of good design in Germany, BMW factories.]

All in all, not the best debate which I have been fortunate enough to find time for. I'm not knocking the content though - it was still very good food for thought. 

My main interest lays in how the audience interacted with the speakers. It is important to create a feeling of involvement without letting the proceedings become overrun by personal outbursts which do little to resolve the problem at hand. It is important for us as engineers to understand this too. 

Again, I believe Indy was correct. Perhaps the title or the question which was being tackled in this particular debate was not the best of choices. It did little to further my knowledge of what the industry was thinking. I'd still give the evening an 8 out of 10 though.

I enjoyed the evening though, and urge all engineers out there to pick out a meeting or an evening debate outside of your usual professional circles, and get along to witness the interaction.

I also urge all engineers to consider organising debating events like what Building Futures and the RIBA are doing right now. But remember... begin by asking the right question.

Engine[er]

The Fall of the Design Dynasty

Updated! 7:37pm

Firstly I have got to say that I heard about this RIBA debate through Twitter. @Bldg_Futures were retweeted by one of the Architects that I follow on Twitter. As soon as I saw the title, I was hooked.

"THIS HOUSE BELIEVES THAT 'CONTRACTORS ARE THE ARCHITECTS OF THE FUTURE'" &
"IS TRADITIONAL, INDEPENDENT PRACTICE SET TO BECOME A THING OF THE PAST?"

What a wonderful topic. I booked a seat and headed on into London under cover of darkness.

I was very impressed by the turn out and settled into a great spot to watch and listen for anything of particular interest to us Engineers. I knew that the subject was going to be both an expansive and generative one, and if you haven't quite twigged why yet... then let me slowly reveal it to you.

Architects identities are under siege by heavily funded and motivated contractor war machines. Now, their tactics are not to storm the castle gates and over throw the design team monarchs by brute force alone. However, this tactic worked very well whilst assimilating quantity surveyors, then later [the easier prey], project managers: and of course our very own industry was one of the first to experience 'the grand assimilation'. BUT our industry has already lived through 5 or 6 generations of 'middle ground' engineers who have been marginalised, and stripped of their mojo. I make it sound like we were ambushed and sold into slavery, but in reality we allowed it to happen. Plain and simple.

Now Architects must allow it to happen to them too.

Why? Fighting the tide of this magnitude is a mugs game. In reality, the contractors need not have turned up to the debate or even justify their plans to deliver a single path of responsibility for the clients benefit. Again, why? Well, they have the clients ears already - that's why. Contractors, whether you agree with the motion or not, are delivering on their contractual promises. So why humour us? If this divergence of power is inevitable... why turn up at all? To rub the Architects noses in it? Perhaps. Because they felt obliged to thank Architects for putting up a valiant effort? Possibly.

My opinion is this, they are happy to wine and dine the motion because they currently do still NEED Architects. Never more than now, when change is afoot and clients are again tightly holding on to their purse strings. Currently Architects still hold massive amounts of trust and the ultimate Master Builder Status. Society and the client understand this. Bulldozing through Architects sensibilities is not a viable option for contractors - yet. Interestingly, I think there is more to this than meets the eye. I believe that Contractors are in fact trying to save Architects from themselves too.

An industry unable to agree amongst themselves on what to do, will go the way of the dodo. Contractors are demonstrating pity for Architects indecisive nature. A helping hand has been extended, and the burning question is... what are they going to do with it?

Well the vote result of the debate suggests that they are still frightened of the inevitable. Hence a vote against the house on Wednesday.

Do Architects think that by taking their proverbial ball away and restricting the use of the RIBA title to only Architects who are not affiliated with Contractors, is a winning strategy? If this is the truth, then I predict a future where they will experience the very same loss of social identity that plagues us engineers today. You lose out RIBA, big time.

Children will grown up and wish to be Bob the Builder or Colin the Contractor, and not an Architect. No one will know what it is that Architects do. Harsh predictions, but I wouldn't bet against it.

So what can Architects do? Study what happened to Engineers and learn from our mistakes. Do not waste energy abstaining or avoiding the grand assimilation. Once inside the inner sanctums of Contractors businesses, work towards owning them from the inside out. For example, some of the managing directors of large contractor firms are either run by Engineers, or were founded by them [Balfour Beatie, Osbourne, McLaren]. The same could be said of Architects for the future.

During the debate, a number of times infact, an observation was made that the polarisation of each industry present was indeed a fallacy; that the facts were that we all wanted the same thing. I'm not so sure about that one.

"Architects are the Bursars of the construction industry. No matter how bad you treat them, there will always be enough of them to go around" Paul Morrell, Chief Construction Adviser to Her Majesty's Government.

The same could be said of Structural Engineers.

If money was not as important, and as large a reward as it is in construction, then how many contractors would continue with this line of work? I know plenty of Architects and Engineers who would, AND DO! There is no need to take pity on ourselves though. We have ingenuity, design minds and feel such a social responsibility that indeed, Paul is right - we are and will forever be what's left when financial fall-out finally balances. Cockroaches of the construction industry. Indestructible. Not an entirely romantic expression to coin, but I stand by it for now.

The debate was lively and glimpses of Architectural futures were available for the assembly of Architects to see. For example, an Architect stood up and announced himself to be the go between for a contractor and series of Architectural practices wishing to 'date' their clients. He had the peculiar air of a man going to confession and seeking to off load an almighty guilt. This Architect represents a change in attitude, he may not feel comfortable or particularly loyal to the RIBA, he may have even been sneered at by his brethren.... but in my opinion he has the right idea believe it or not.

For your information, a collection of Architects is called a Curiosity. A collection of Contractors is a Murder [joking!] and a collection of Engineers should be called an Entourage... until we get our acts together that is.

Thanks for reading.


Engine[er]

I selected this post to be featured on my blog’s page at Engineering Blogs.

Engineers and Architects fight back: Part One

Sitting in the Slaughtered Lamb just round the corner from my destination for this evening. A debate organised by Building Futures.

This is an organisation who have come together to create space for open debates upon which questions surrounding the built environment and developments affecting big cities can be chewed over and documented. Great idea.

This evenings debate fundamentally asks the question, what is the future of Architects?'

This caught my eye obviously, but what is it that an Engineer might find interesting about this topic?

THIS HOUSE BELIEVES THAT 'CONTRACTORS' ARE THE ARCHITECTS OF THE FUTURE and ARE TRADITIONAL, INDEPENDENT ARCHITECTURAL PRACTICES TO BECOME A THING OF THE PAST?



Team 1 [FOR THE MOTION] Peter Trebilcock – Director for Design @ Balfour Beatty Northern
Chris Boyce – Design Director @ Capita Symonds


Team 2 [AGAINST THE MOTION] Jane Duncan – Director @ Jane Duncan Architects / RIBA Vice President, Practice & Profession
Paul Morrell – Chief Construction Advisor to HM Government


Well apart from a great line up, the two opposing teams of successful Directors, Contractors and Architects are going to pitch arguments for and against the undeniable trend of Architectural services being marginalised and absorbed into the contractors duties. Some would say that the contractors are doing quite a good job of it too...

Tell me Engineers, does this at all sound familiar to you?

I think that you know where it is that I am going with this, and why I am intrigued as to what the arguments for and against this phenomenon may be.

Is this a last stand being mounted by the beleaguered Architects? Or a monumental coup which will set the scene for a creative come back? OR is this a great template strategy for gathering back our Engineering Mojo?

I'm here to find out, and It all starts in 1.5 hours. As long as I can stay sober that is - this beer is going down a bit too well!


Engine[er]