Architects Taking Over the World
Oct. 3rd
ARCH 3711
Please do not be intimidated by my courageous title, my immediate response to Michael Speaks’s article “Design Intelligence and the New Economy� was such an aggressive rethinking about the architecture profession. In this article, Michael Speaks points out the globalization favors intangible and interconnected things. In a way, all the existing disciplines are interlinked and inter-influenced by each other. By highly abstracting the core values of architecture into three key words: design, communication and new technology, Speaks proposes a “network practice� model where design thinking plays a significant role in communicating with people from all the fields. Then Michael Speaks raises some examples that fully expound some attributes of this revolution. The case of UN Studio provides us an experimental method about how architecture firms from all parts of the world use new technology to solve design problems, regardless of the geographical distance. This “network� method is also largely influencing the practices of big architecture firms and prominent academic institutions. Speaks also claims in the article that a “doing knowledge-based� society is taking the place of “being knowledge�. This fundamental transformation resets the order and system of the world and the innovative practices.
Architecture, as an undefined (or not clearly defined) discipline, blurs with almost all the other disciplines, is often misunderstood and mislabeled as a marginal (purely artistic design) profession. Every year, the smartest students get accepted into various architecture programs only aiming to be trained as a practicing architect. Putting almost the same efforts as lawyers and doctors into the profession, today’s architects are receiving low wage and treated unfairly in many ways. In this safe system (undergraduate studies – graduate studies/professional school – registered architect) of today’s profession, architects is limiting and marginalizing themselves away from the other creative disciplines. This unchanging mentality stops most of people in the profession from being innovative in designing their own professional path.
November 2007 issue of Architect Magazine
Alan Tyle, a product designer in Hertfordshire said, "I started as a product designer, became an architect, and then returned to product design. I came to realize that the architect's training is wonderfully valuable even or especially for a product designer. The architect is trained not to worry is a job is small or large nor what material it is made from or how complex it is." Indeed, there is no denying that architecture is a demanding profession. It deals with many fundamental problems in today's society, for instance exploring new ways of living, investigating new technologies and material and ensuring that what we build is environmentally sustainable. Also, architecture is one of the broader disciplines that offer numerous opportunities. So an architecture degree almost presents you the entire world in front of you. In this human-centered world, everything is about solving people’s problems creatively and critically. Architecture provides a platform where innovative and rigorous thinking take place – we are courageous enough to link all the disciplines together within the context of global technologies, but why don’t we push it a little bit further to overturn and redefine the profession/discipline of architecture?
One of the greatest Chinese contemporary cultural figures, Ai Weiwei, is an artist, architectural designer, social/cultural commentator and curator. His ability to think critically, interlinking intangible things and strong knowledge in both academia and technologies enable him to be successful in every different discipline. Ai Weiwei’s success shows the possibility for both the profession and discipline of architecture to evolve a new form of adaptive design intelligence. The new form of design intelligence can interpreted as a revolution of design thinking being highly valued; design intelligence can be interpreted as architecture professionals free themselves from the existing frames; design intelligence can be interpreted as the first step for architects to take over the world.
After all, to be alive is to think. It is a world about creative ideas. When we finally see through this fundamental principle of how world functions, we will understand the potential for architects to make the world a better place.
