This is a collection of writings and reflections on the Changing Shape of Architectural Practice published elsewhere
(The RIBA Journal published 4 pieces which you can find here online or as one piece below. Pdfs of the online articles can also be retrieved at the bottom of this page).
The reflections are based on 'The changing shape of architectural practices conference' (2017) which was held at Aarhus School of Architecture (AAA). It was the third of a series of events. The research project originated in 2010 by Professor Fredrik Nilsson at Chalmers University in Sweden and Professor Michael Hensel at AHO and culminated with a The Changing Shape of Practice: Integrating Research and Design in Architecture and other publications in 2018.
In April 2018 Prof. Walter Unterrainer published the book which can be obtained here.
The reflections are based on 'The changing shape of architectural practices conference' (2017) which was held at Aarhus School of Architecture (AAA). It was the third of a series of events. The research project originated in 2010 by Professor Fredrik Nilsson at Chalmers University in Sweden and Professor Michael Hensel at AHO and culminated with a The Changing Shape of Practice: Integrating Research and Design in Architecture and other publications in 2018.
In April 2018 Prof. Walter Unterrainer published the book which can be obtained here.
Changing shape of practice: new roles for architects
By Sofie Pelsmakers
In the first of a series examining the changing shape of practices Sofie Pelsmakers looks how practices are adapting to changing roles
Much has been written and discussed recently about the marginalisation of the architect and how we can regain a more central role. Budgetary and constructional reality, as well as climatic and environmental contexts, are often regarded in both architectural practice and education as obstacles to good architecture, when in fact these constraints are just more ingredients to play with and opportunities to innovate, interpret and renew.
Our reluctance as a profession to engage with these constraints has caused the profession wider reputational damage – as well as resulting in the loss of project work. As a profession, and as individual architects, we need to reframe our role in design, changing it to meet the challenges of a changing world. It might also mean that we refine what design is – maybe it is not building at all.
These and the other challenges and opportunities were the focus of a recent conference, The Changing Shape of Architectural Practices, at the Aarhus School of Architecture (AAA) in Denmark, as part of a collaborative research project between AAA and AHO Oslo. The ambiguity of the title captures the profession’s dilemma: we need both to change what we do (the shape) and how we do it (the practice). This is also focus of Aarhus School of Architecture’s research lab Emerging Architectures, coordinated by Professor Walter Unterrainer.
Drawing on this research, and on their own experience in practice, the conference speakers shared the ways in which they had forged new opportunities by reframing their roles and finding new ways of working in response to society’s economic, social, climatic and environmental challenges. Four recurring themes stood out, the first of which I look at below:
1. New roles for architects
2. Evidencing the value
3. Interdisciplinary collaboration and sharing
4. The need for new design processes in practice and education
1. New roles for architects: reframing what architectural design is and our role within it
While many in the profession might not be very responsive to new challenges, there are several architects in practice who are reframing their conventional built architectural portfolios. Some practices such as Snøhetta and KieranTimberlake were able to redefine their role from a position of luxury (though is it ever a luxury to test ideas?): that is, being able to experiment on some projects while continuing with business as usual in the rest of the practice.
Smaller and newer practices proved themselves able to carve out a unique identity by reframing their role. For example Helen & Hard is exploring new ways to deliver co-housing as designer, co-developer, co-investor and supporter of community engagement. This has meant embracing the influence of stakeholders in the design decision-making processes – ultimately influencing the architectural language. Several architects showed the long-term value of deep co-production to projects.
User engagement and different levels of participation and co-production provided a recurring theme. An example of forging a closer relationship between what we design and who it is for was seen in the work of Peter Nageler and Roland Gruber, from the Austrian practice Nonconform. They expanded their role to ‘participator-designers’ and ‘participator-curators’, working at urban design scale on community functions.
Nageler and Gruber were particularly inspirational – not just for the content of their talk, but for the refreshing manner in which they delivered it. They opened their presentation by candidly illustrating how they were awarded prizes for their work using traditional practice but how they also ended up failing the local communities they designed for. They were criticised because no-one understood what they were doing.
Nonconform used this sense of failure to change its working process, creating a ‘Baukultur’ – culture of building – that meant citizens had a voice and were supported. It made a shift from ‘working on’ projects to ‘working with’ citizens, by listening and working closely with local people and gathering local knowledge from everyday experts.
This led the practice to the develop its ‘Nonconform ideenwerkstatt methode’, a three-day intense ideas workshop – bringing the community together in a pop-up office to co-produce and agree on design strategies. Notably, these are not necessarily the already-agreed final project. This not only makes the design decision-making process transparent but puts local people at the heart of it. The practice has developed a Nonconform academy for the public, to train them in the culture of participation and navigating complexity with a lot of people.
Some of these strategies can be thought of as delivering more services. But going beyond that is more important. We may need to master new design processes to help deliver better design quality, occupant satisfaction and building performance.
We need to develop a wider range of skills that we can employ as part of design processes, such as listening, co-production, systematic research processes to design with knowledge, drawing in contextual parameters into concepts, elevating disciplinary and interdisciplinary collaboration. Some of these will be tackled in the rest of the series.
By Sofie Pelsmakers
In the first of a series examining the changing shape of practices Sofie Pelsmakers looks how practices are adapting to changing roles
Much has been written and discussed recently about the marginalisation of the architect and how we can regain a more central role. Budgetary and constructional reality, as well as climatic and environmental contexts, are often regarded in both architectural practice and education as obstacles to good architecture, when in fact these constraints are just more ingredients to play with and opportunities to innovate, interpret and renew.
Our reluctance as a profession to engage with these constraints has caused the profession wider reputational damage – as well as resulting in the loss of project work. As a profession, and as individual architects, we need to reframe our role in design, changing it to meet the challenges of a changing world. It might also mean that we refine what design is – maybe it is not building at all.
These and the other challenges and opportunities were the focus of a recent conference, The Changing Shape of Architectural Practices, at the Aarhus School of Architecture (AAA) in Denmark, as part of a collaborative research project between AAA and AHO Oslo. The ambiguity of the title captures the profession’s dilemma: we need both to change what we do (the shape) and how we do it (the practice). This is also focus of Aarhus School of Architecture’s research lab Emerging Architectures, coordinated by Professor Walter Unterrainer.
Drawing on this research, and on their own experience in practice, the conference speakers shared the ways in which they had forged new opportunities by reframing their roles and finding new ways of working in response to society’s economic, social, climatic and environmental challenges. Four recurring themes stood out, the first of which I look at below:
1. New roles for architects
2. Evidencing the value
3. Interdisciplinary collaboration and sharing
4. The need for new design processes in practice and education
1. New roles for architects: reframing what architectural design is and our role within it
While many in the profession might not be very responsive to new challenges, there are several architects in practice who are reframing their conventional built architectural portfolios. Some practices such as Snøhetta and KieranTimberlake were able to redefine their role from a position of luxury (though is it ever a luxury to test ideas?): that is, being able to experiment on some projects while continuing with business as usual in the rest of the practice.
Smaller and newer practices proved themselves able to carve out a unique identity by reframing their role. For example Helen & Hard is exploring new ways to deliver co-housing as designer, co-developer, co-investor and supporter of community engagement. This has meant embracing the influence of stakeholders in the design decision-making processes – ultimately influencing the architectural language. Several architects showed the long-term value of deep co-production to projects.
User engagement and different levels of participation and co-production provided a recurring theme. An example of forging a closer relationship between what we design and who it is for was seen in the work of Peter Nageler and Roland Gruber, from the Austrian practice Nonconform. They expanded their role to ‘participator-designers’ and ‘participator-curators’, working at urban design scale on community functions.
Nageler and Gruber were particularly inspirational – not just for the content of their talk, but for the refreshing manner in which they delivered it. They opened their presentation by candidly illustrating how they were awarded prizes for their work using traditional practice but how they also ended up failing the local communities they designed for. They were criticised because no-one understood what they were doing.
Nonconform used this sense of failure to change its working process, creating a ‘Baukultur’ – culture of building – that meant citizens had a voice and were supported. It made a shift from ‘working on’ projects to ‘working with’ citizens, by listening and working closely with local people and gathering local knowledge from everyday experts.
This led the practice to the develop its ‘Nonconform ideenwerkstatt methode’, a three-day intense ideas workshop – bringing the community together in a pop-up office to co-produce and agree on design strategies. Notably, these are not necessarily the already-agreed final project. This not only makes the design decision-making process transparent but puts local people at the heart of it. The practice has developed a Nonconform academy for the public, to train them in the culture of participation and navigating complexity with a lot of people.
Some of these strategies can be thought of as delivering more services. But going beyond that is more important. We may need to master new design processes to help deliver better design quality, occupant satisfaction and building performance.
We need to develop a wider range of skills that we can employ as part of design processes, such as listening, co-production, systematic research processes to design with knowledge, drawing in contextual parameters into concepts, elevating disciplinary and interdisciplinary collaboration. Some of these will be tackled in the rest of the series.
2. Design validation
In the second of our series examining the changing shape of practices Sofie Pelsmakers looks how we can evidence that what we say works really does
As a profession, we can no longer afford to say that what we do ‘works’ and why it is ‘good’; we need to underpin these statements with evidence. We need to validate our designs. Doing so provides clients with confidence in what we do and reiterates the value we bring through our designs.
An example of design validation, seen at the Aarhus School of Architecture (AAA) conference The Changing Shape of Architectural Practices, is Snøhetta’s Times Square pedestrianisation in New York. This was controversial, but follow-up research has powerfully shown its value: user dissatisfaction was reduced, pollution and crime had come down and users were spending a longer time in the space. It was also reflected in increased real estate values and tax income.
Similar research undertaken by Snøhetta at the Opera House in Oslo, showed the financial value of its intervention in increased revenue from visitors attracted to the site.
These examples directly show the value of the intervention for different user groups, validating the design at different levels. It would be great to see this level of validation on Snøhetta’s other projects, rather than only on selected schemes. As well as financial and use value it is particularly important to evidence work with low-energy prototype buildings to fully understand if and how they work as intended and make them true experiments and exemplars.
Design validation throughout our profession should become the norm, yet it is still rare – as it is rarely part of our scope as defined by the client. Bartlett professor Murray Fraser, speaking at the conference, raised the perennial issue that architects do not charge for the research they do and nor do they speak out for the value of this kind of work to convince clients that the money spent on this will pay for itself.
Of course validation not only refers to verification post-completion. It is also important to design with knowledge drawing on research, physical and computer modelling, prototyping etc. And testing designs against this. This was illustrated by KieranTimberlake partner Billie Faircloth as she shared some of the practice’s exemplary work at in the USA, including detailed 1:1 prototyping and long-term monitoring such as ecology monitoring of different green roofs after installation.
Some of the KieranTimberlake projects are testing the impact of using generic climate data versus site-specific micro-climates for building design and performance. Rather than speculate, the practice not only custom-made sensors to measure wind speed, but it collected site data to look at the weathering of the building envelope both in a lab and through simulations. The team has developed apps to collect live user feedback that can be mapped back on to the space, reflecting a firm belief that ‘people or bodies are the best sensors in a space’, as Faircloth says.
To design with knowledge you need to know how to measure stuff and, even more important, how to draw upon the knowledge of others. So architects have to work alongside material scientists, building physicists, chemical engineers, ecologists etc. to innovate and problem-solve together as a team. This will require us all to forge roles quite different to that of a conventional architect role. KieranTimberlake colleagues work closely within an interdisciplinary team using tools and methods to aid design decision-making. Together they create new knowledge and innovation after experimentation and proving concepts.
Faircloth spoke out for the importance of establishing research in architecture practice as an actual project that requires people, resources and time - so that the collective ‘intelligence’ is generated and acknowledged formally within the practice and part of the business model. This also requires sometimes establishing what an architectural project is (for example, ‘only’ facade design) and it also means establishing research questions proactively, leading the way instead of being reactive – that is, driven by the design and research team, not solely by the client.
As Professor Fredrik Nilsson from Chalmers University in Gothenburg also illustrated with work in Sweden, such transdisciplinary working requires new ways of organising and to be set up to enable the interactions and discipline-specific languages to be translated between different stakeholders. Clearly this has implications for architectural education.
In the second of our series examining the changing shape of practices Sofie Pelsmakers looks how we can evidence that what we say works really does
As a profession, we can no longer afford to say that what we do ‘works’ and why it is ‘good’; we need to underpin these statements with evidence. We need to validate our designs. Doing so provides clients with confidence in what we do and reiterates the value we bring through our designs.
An example of design validation, seen at the Aarhus School of Architecture (AAA) conference The Changing Shape of Architectural Practices, is Snøhetta’s Times Square pedestrianisation in New York. This was controversial, but follow-up research has powerfully shown its value: user dissatisfaction was reduced, pollution and crime had come down and users were spending a longer time in the space. It was also reflected in increased real estate values and tax income.
Similar research undertaken by Snøhetta at the Opera House in Oslo, showed the financial value of its intervention in increased revenue from visitors attracted to the site.
These examples directly show the value of the intervention for different user groups, validating the design at different levels. It would be great to see this level of validation on Snøhetta’s other projects, rather than only on selected schemes. As well as financial and use value it is particularly important to evidence work with low-energy prototype buildings to fully understand if and how they work as intended and make them true experiments and exemplars.
Design validation throughout our profession should become the norm, yet it is still rare – as it is rarely part of our scope as defined by the client. Bartlett professor Murray Fraser, speaking at the conference, raised the perennial issue that architects do not charge for the research they do and nor do they speak out for the value of this kind of work to convince clients that the money spent on this will pay for itself.
Of course validation not only refers to verification post-completion. It is also important to design with knowledge drawing on research, physical and computer modelling, prototyping etc. And testing designs against this. This was illustrated by KieranTimberlake partner Billie Faircloth as she shared some of the practice’s exemplary work at in the USA, including detailed 1:1 prototyping and long-term monitoring such as ecology monitoring of different green roofs after installation.
Some of the KieranTimberlake projects are testing the impact of using generic climate data versus site-specific micro-climates for building design and performance. Rather than speculate, the practice not only custom-made sensors to measure wind speed, but it collected site data to look at the weathering of the building envelope both in a lab and through simulations. The team has developed apps to collect live user feedback that can be mapped back on to the space, reflecting a firm belief that ‘people or bodies are the best sensors in a space’, as Faircloth says.
To design with knowledge you need to know how to measure stuff and, even more important, how to draw upon the knowledge of others. So architects have to work alongside material scientists, building physicists, chemical engineers, ecologists etc. to innovate and problem-solve together as a team. This will require us all to forge roles quite different to that of a conventional architect role. KieranTimberlake colleagues work closely within an interdisciplinary team using tools and methods to aid design decision-making. Together they create new knowledge and innovation after experimentation and proving concepts.
Faircloth spoke out for the importance of establishing research in architecture practice as an actual project that requires people, resources and time - so that the collective ‘intelligence’ is generated and acknowledged formally within the practice and part of the business model. This also requires sometimes establishing what an architectural project is (for example, ‘only’ facade design) and it also means establishing research questions proactively, leading the way instead of being reactive – that is, driven by the design and research team, not solely by the client.
As Professor Fredrik Nilsson from Chalmers University in Gothenburg also illustrated with work in Sweden, such transdisciplinary working requires new ways of organising and to be set up to enable the interactions and discipline-specific languages to be translated between different stakeholders. Clearly this has implications for architectural education.
3. Changing practices: collaboration and sharing
Interdisciplinary work could be key to the design work of the future, suggests Sofie Pelsmakers in the third of our series on the changing shape of practicesWhat do architects think are the priorities for the next decade? A survey of 1,000 architects worldwide (with a large number from the UK), listed what they thought would be priorities in order of importance. These were: climate/energy/carbon; designing for social equity; building and materials re-use; ageing and health; and maintaining ethics and values.
Few of these issues can be tackled in architectural isolation; collaboration is required with other professionals and stakeholders. And how often are these priorities part of architectural education as studio briefs or what drives the architectural resolution? This both illustrates and perpetuates the gap between the needs of society itself and as highlighted for architectural practice.
When the Construction Leadership Council published a Sustainable Building Training Guide recently, the importance of inter-disciplinary collaboration was a theme at the launch, but training is still presented in professional silos. Collaboration is often not taught in schools, a lot of studio teaching is still focused on the individual’s design and not collaborative design or within a multidisciplinary team.
However, in the last few years, professional institutions and the professions have been encouraged to work better together to jointly tackle responses to societal changes, as recommended in the Collaboration for Change report by the Edge Commission in 2015. At the recent Changing Shape of Architectural Practices conference in Denmark, the benefits of collaboration were clear from several projects, including those already illustrated by some of the work of Kieran Timberlake on validation, where new knowledge was created by trans-disciplinary approaches.
Snøhetta presented an example of interdisciplinary research-based design, where it collaborated with Skanska and Harvard University on HouseZero, the proposed transformation of a 1980s building. While this solution may be more easily transferable and its performance is expected to be technically impressive (both meeting its prototyping idea), it is less architecturally inspirational: its energy agenda seems to constrain its architectural language rather than push it.
Additionally, Snøhetta’s ZEB Multi-Comfort pilot house (for the Research Centre on Zero Emission Buildings) in Norway is a cooperation with Scandinavia’s largest independent research body SINTEF and others. The ZEB Multi-Comfort house design is moving away from environmental determinism and instead bringing together and integrating technology and architecture.
Nor does it forget experimental aspects (the design explores stacked firewood as external cladding) and a focus on the human experience. It points towards a renewed focus on architectural design and delight, alongside meeting high energy performance standards, highlighting that the two are not mutually exclusive and should never be.
Clearly reflection, investigation, iteration and testing are part of any practice’s forging of new roles and models. The internal dissemination of this work (and establishment of an internal research database) is crucial to allow for the maturing of these approaches and for the knowledge to be applied in other projects. This work should also be published and shared externally; at the moment this does not happen systematically or effectively, so the profession is missing out on a wider dialogue and reflection.
Interdisciplinary work could be key to the design work of the future, suggests Sofie Pelsmakers in the third of our series on the changing shape of practicesWhat do architects think are the priorities for the next decade? A survey of 1,000 architects worldwide (with a large number from the UK), listed what they thought would be priorities in order of importance. These were: climate/energy/carbon; designing for social equity; building and materials re-use; ageing and health; and maintaining ethics and values.
Few of these issues can be tackled in architectural isolation; collaboration is required with other professionals and stakeholders. And how often are these priorities part of architectural education as studio briefs or what drives the architectural resolution? This both illustrates and perpetuates the gap between the needs of society itself and as highlighted for architectural practice.
When the Construction Leadership Council published a Sustainable Building Training Guide recently, the importance of inter-disciplinary collaboration was a theme at the launch, but training is still presented in professional silos. Collaboration is often not taught in schools, a lot of studio teaching is still focused on the individual’s design and not collaborative design or within a multidisciplinary team.
However, in the last few years, professional institutions and the professions have been encouraged to work better together to jointly tackle responses to societal changes, as recommended in the Collaboration for Change report by the Edge Commission in 2015. At the recent Changing Shape of Architectural Practices conference in Denmark, the benefits of collaboration were clear from several projects, including those already illustrated by some of the work of Kieran Timberlake on validation, where new knowledge was created by trans-disciplinary approaches.
Snøhetta presented an example of interdisciplinary research-based design, where it collaborated with Skanska and Harvard University on HouseZero, the proposed transformation of a 1980s building. While this solution may be more easily transferable and its performance is expected to be technically impressive (both meeting its prototyping idea), it is less architecturally inspirational: its energy agenda seems to constrain its architectural language rather than push it.
Additionally, Snøhetta’s ZEB Multi-Comfort pilot house (for the Research Centre on Zero Emission Buildings) in Norway is a cooperation with Scandinavia’s largest independent research body SINTEF and others. The ZEB Multi-Comfort house design is moving away from environmental determinism and instead bringing together and integrating technology and architecture.
Nor does it forget experimental aspects (the design explores stacked firewood as external cladding) and a focus on the human experience. It points towards a renewed focus on architectural design and delight, alongside meeting high energy performance standards, highlighting that the two are not mutually exclusive and should never be.
Clearly reflection, investigation, iteration and testing are part of any practice’s forging of new roles and models. The internal dissemination of this work (and establishment of an internal research database) is crucial to allow for the maturing of these approaches and for the knowledge to be applied in other projects. This work should also be published and shared externally; at the moment this does not happen systematically or effectively, so the profession is missing out on a wider dialogue and reflection.
Anders Lendager Group's innovation on reclaiming windows
Clearly we need to get better at undertaking research (systematic, specific) and communicating it (publishing). It has to be shared and used by other people; not just colleagues in the same office. But where do we share it? Professor Doina Petrescu of the University of Sheffield and Atelier d’Architecture Autogérée raised the problem that there are few places to publish this kind of research and that we ‘need to build up our infrastructure’ as a community.
One reason why we fail to share much as a profession is the fear that others will copy. Bartlett professor Murray Fraser made a plea to get over this stumbling block: ‘If we do it collectively, we all do better; rather than all fight against each other. It is not just about being individual and think we are unique.’
Fraser also noted that as architects we often spend too long talking about ourselves, and not long enough about what we are doing. Perhaps this is why we know of only a few architects who undertake design validation and interdisciplinary work and who share how they work, though there might be more.
Several projects from both Foster + Partners and Henning Larsen, under the research and sustainability leadership of Irene Gallou and Signe Kongebro respectively, come to mind, as do several Architype projects). As KieranTimberlake’s Billie Faircloth says:: ‘It is a mode and increases the agency of the architect.’ This type of dialogue might also bring new projects and clients interested in investigating certain areas.
One reason why we fail to share much as a profession is the fear that others will copy. Bartlett professor Murray Fraser made a plea to get over this stumbling block: ‘If we do it collectively, we all do better; rather than all fight against each other. It is not just about being individual and think we are unique.’
Fraser also noted that as architects we often spend too long talking about ourselves, and not long enough about what we are doing. Perhaps this is why we know of only a few architects who undertake design validation and interdisciplinary work and who share how they work, though there might be more.
Several projects from both Foster + Partners and Henning Larsen, under the research and sustainability leadership of Irene Gallou and Signe Kongebro respectively, come to mind, as do several Architype projects). As KieranTimberlake’s Billie Faircloth says:: ‘It is a mode and increases the agency of the architect.’ This type of dialogue might also bring new projects and clients interested in investigating certain areas.
4. Changing practices: learning and relearning
In the last of her series on the changing shape of architectural practice, Sofie Pelsmakers looks at how design processes and education will have to change
It is clear that we need a new paradigm for architectural practice; this also means that new design processes and a new paradigm for architectural education will be required.
New skills and methods in practice are clearly refreshing architectural practice, as evidenced by the work of practices such as Snøhetta, Helen & Hard, Kieran Timberlake and Nonconform speaking at the Changing Shape of Architectural Practices conference in Aarhus, Denmark. These design processes included interdisciplinary working with artists and researchers and capturing the value and impact of the projects through revisiting them, also referred to as design validation.
User engagement, along with different levels of participation and co-production, has to be one of those new methods. Typically, local residents or users are given the ‘choice’ between two schemes that barely differ. At the conference, several architects showed the value of a deeper co-production and long-term value to the project of such closer collaboration.
The struggles and successes in negotiating these changing roles must be shared so that as a discipline and as a society we are able to benefit rather than each of us in isolation testing similar things and going through the same battles. Some of Snøhetta’s and KieranTimberlake’s techniques could support the more politically sensitive projects, as presented by Atelier d’Architecture Autogerée (AAA) on ‘Commoning Architecture’ and Nonconform’s work.
For example, AAA Architecture Autogerée’s Rurban, which encourages inhabitants to self-manage disused urban spaces to be lost to more permanent uses over time, might be better protected if the value of the project extends beyond social values of these community spaces. Perhaps vegetation and ecology, better health and wellbeing for residents can be mapped and used to show the value of the intervention – and ultimately the value of the role of the architect in this process. Equally, more citizen co-production, as illustrated by AAA and Nonconform, would be able to challenge conventional design processes in support of citizen empowerment and ownership.
What does our changing society, and our changing role within it, mean for architectural education? The speakers in Aarhus had a variety of solutions their varying backgrounds and own approaches reflected in their diversity of responses to this question about architectural education, advocating some of the following:
- an open-mindedness to other fields outside architecture;
- a breaking down of barriers between individuals (and practices), and sharing more;
- for students to learn to express the value of space and spatial qualities;
- for architecture to sit at the interface of design and sciences and open up the discipline;
- to be less obsessed with objects.
As Renée Cheng, professor in the School of Architecture at the University of Minnesota, said: ‘As academics we should ask: Am I inspiring my students to ask questions that I could never imagine?’
These examples of practices rethinking architects’ roles, collaborating across disciplines, undergoing research to validate design and sharing new ways of working point forward to exciting new ways of working. However, the speakers at the conference were candid: in most cases this has not yet filtered through the culture of most of their practices’ cultures, never mind the rest of the profession. And, while one group might be innovating in one area, none had adopted all of these new approaches.
The discussion will hopefully open up other innovations, enabling different combinations of approaches. Kasmir Jolma, a young architect in Finland who has researched architecture and business, reflected that architects tend to focus on the end product while clients focus on the process; so we are moving in the right direction if we shift our attention more on to our design processes.
And, as always, there is the question about how all this thinking manifests itself aesthetically and functionally where there is often a disconnect. Is there an architectural language for these new design processes? As they refine and mature and are tested in their own right, so the outputs will mature and become more coherent.
Dr Sofie Pelsmakers is an architect and educator and author of The Environmental Design Pocketbook
The changing shape of architectural practices conference (2017) was held at Aarhus School of Architecture (AAA). It was the third of a series of events. The research project originated in 2010 by Professor Fredrik Nilsson at Chalmers University in Sweden and Professor Michael Hensel at AHO and culminated with a The Changing Shape of Practice: Integrating Research and Design in Architecture and another publication due in 2018.
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