When the future of architecture practice comes up at conferences or in conversation, someone invariably pulls out a chart comparing the productivity of various industries since the mid-20th century. And while the numbers for agriculture and manufacturing skyrocket, construction’s remain dismally flat. Another popular take on the same point juxtaposes two photographs of laborers framing a house, one dated to the 19th century and the other from the 21st century, with the presenter dryly asking, “Do you see any difference?”
As Yale School of Architecture lecturer and former Autodesk vice president Phil Bernstein puts it, quoting research by one of his students: “The building industry is suboptimized to the point of failure.”
A 2017 McKinsey Global Institute (MGI) report identified numerous reasons for the building industry’s lagging performance. Three in particular should sound familiar to architects: a bidding environment that prioritizes cost over results; a design process that fails to leverage opportunities for standardization; and tight profit margins that preclude investment in digital technology, data management, and workforce training. On the bright side, the report estimates if the U.S. construction sector’s productivity matched that of the overall economy, it could increase revenues by more than $500 billion annually.
The profession isn’t just losing out financially; it’s also bleeding talent. While the National Council of Architectural Registration Boards reports that accredited U.S. schools have graduated an average of 6,152 students per year since 2009, the average number of designers completing the Architect Registration Examination per year during that time is just 3,560. That’s a dismal proportion, even taking into account the six or seven years it takes many graduates to achieve licensure.
What happens to all of those creative minds? One of them, AIA Practice Innovation Lab chair Evelyn Lee, found that the promise and pace of design studio did not match the backward realities of practice. After spending her intern days at an architecture firm fielding complaints from clients who could not “plug in their coffee machines” because they couldn’t reach the newly relocated electrical outlets, Lee now works at a commercial real estate consultancy.
Everyone needs to pay their dues, but there’s no escaping the fact that other fields allow young designers to engage more immediately, with greater impact. With today’s seemingly endless technological resources, innovative practitioners can cut their losses, broaden their skill sets, and join sectors that are already acing the productivity curve. According to WeWork senior vice president, head of design Federico Negro, “half of the students” who attended a recent talk of his at the Yale School of Architecture “weren’t asking how to get into big or fancy architecture firms, but rather how to get into Google and Airbnb.”
Silicon Valley will be happy to take them — and to eat the rest of your lunch while they’re at it. As Georgia Tech architecture chair Scott Marble observes, the Elon Musks of the world, having conquered the digital arena, are eyeing the built environment and its enormous data potential. The infusion of technology and cash into the AEC space from these outsiders will, Marble says, “have a profound impact on the structure and potential of the industry at large.”
Are dark times ahead for architecture practice? Demand certainly shows no signs of decreasing in the longer term: The MGI report also predicted annual spending on buildings and infrastructure to increase from $10 trillion in 2017 to $14 trillion by 2025. The challenge is to ensure that architects are in the best position to meet the demand. With that in mind, the individuals and organizations featured on the following pages are adopting 21st century models of entrepreneurship, embracing demographic and socioeconomic change, developing new technologies, and fundamentally rethinking process and product. They have not only heard the wake-up call, but in many cases and in many ways they are the wake-up call.
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The Polymath: David Benjamin Is Expanding The Definition of Architecture
Embracing multiple disciplines as easily as a polyglot switches languages, David Benjamin and his firm The Living meld biology, computer science, and design with the aim of optimizing architecture.
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The Original: Kathryn Anthony Guides Architects to Think Big Picture
Architecture students worldwide journey to the Midwest just to take courses on design entrepreneurship from Kathryn Anthony, the longest-serving female faculty member at the Illinois School of Architecture in Urbana-Champaign.
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The Incubator: MIT DesignX Steers Architecture Students Toward Startups
MIT’s famous $100K Entrepreneurship Competition has spawned hundreds of companies. The MIT DesignX program wants to give architecture students a piece of the action.
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The Capitalists: Thornton Tomasetti Bets on Innovation Through TTWiiN
With TTWiiN, Thornton Tomasetti has found an avenue to support—and retain—aspiring, in-house entrepreneurs, while garnering a stake in the potentially profitable results.
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The Algorithm: Cove.Tool Runs the Numbers for Designers
The founders of Cove.Tool are delegating the tedium of data-crunching to machines, a growing trend that will free architects to direct their creative talents elsewhere.
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The 800-Pound Gorilla: Autodesk Sees a Digital Future for Architecture Firsthand
Billion-dollar software developer Autodesk is angling for an even bigger stake in the building industry with initiatives in automation, machine learning, and data management and exchange … all by watching design innovation in action.
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The Lab Rats: Payette Champions Subject Matter Expertise
By establishing a research arm that encourages architects to dive into technical investigations, Payette hopes to foster a knowledge-sharing community.
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The Interloper: WeWork Upends the Conventional Architecture Firm
WeWork’s predominance in co-working office space weighs heavily on the real estate industry, but as its reach expands to services such as enterprise design, the architecture profession also has reason to worry.
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The Young and the Restless: Practice Innovation Lab Wants the Building Profession to Catch Up
They’re educated, mostly licensed, and hungry for change. The 60 emerging professionals who participated in the AIA Young Architects Forum’s Practice Innovation Lab have no shortage of ideas for how architects can reinvent their businesses.
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The Prophet: Phil Bernstein Envisions New Roles for Architects
The building industry has an abysmal record of schedule and budget mishaps, says Phil Bernstein, a lecturer on professional practice at the Yale School of Architecture. But the smart use of data and technology could change all that.
