A new way of working

The architectural corner of the construction industry needs to change. Here is what we think needs to happen.

Our collaboration with Hannah Martin and Corian for London Fashion Week in fabrication

The climate crisis, the Building Safety Act, the profession’s wellbeing and mental health problem, and financial instability of architectural practice demand a change to business as usual.

We see echoes of the changes needed to the profession in the Latham, Egan and Farmer reports. These Government commissioned reports published in 1994, 1998 and 2016 respectively, each called for changes to the culture of the construction industry and each discuss its frustrating lack of collaboration.

Architects can sometimes give the impression they see the rest of the industry as a tool for getting its designs built. That we are one side of a coin. The more of a design we can do before letting go to everyone else, the better: the more control we have, the more faithful the outcome, the better the architecture, the more of the professional fees allocated to us.

Perhaps some of the reason for this is to do with how we are trained. The widespread Unit structure of Architecture schools assesses students on individual portfolios, and requires them to make regular presentations of their work to a panel of experts for public discussion. The same portfolio is the main focus of graduate job interviews.

Our view is that this model of teaching fosters a belief in succeeding or failing alone. The architect as hero. An education system for the era of the Starchitect. We believe that era is over. 

The generational challenges we face require bigger, more generous thinking. Joined up, collaborative, open-minded approaches. An era less concerned with individual authorship, and more concerned with complimentary skills, expertise, specialism and collaboration.

The depth of knowledge required to achieve statutory compliance with sizeable buildings is considerable, and The Building Safety Act unquestionably increases this requirement. The need to move away from design-as-usual to tackle the climate crisis is hard to meet when you must to rely on repeating previous design processes to handle the breadth of output needed for all-services architecture on a marginal fee.

We believe that, ultimately, only the largest and smallest architecture practices will be able to offer the currently ubiquitous all-services-architecture model.

Others will need to focus on their unique selling point, their passion and skills, and the opportunity for collaboration together. We believe we can all have the greatest impact this way.

We see this as the most exciting space. It requires us to think in ways that are different to our training, and embrace the calls for collaboration that echo back through the decades. 

Tom Lewith, New-works Founding Director