Archinect : Views : 2009 Prediction

The glut of design training and talent, and its subsequent overflow into other fields will be recognized as the best thing that could have happened to the world economy.

Ever notice that the phrase 'the architect of n' is only ever used for entropic and machiavellian values of 'n': 'The Architect of 9/11', 'The Architect of the Iraq War', 'The Architect of the Financial Crisis'. There is a reason why credit default swaps and mortgage backed securities are described as 'baroque' in the press, they are a species of architecture. Behind every Pyramid Scheme is an Architect.

They want architects? Let's give them architects. Downsized? Newly graduated? Changing fields? If the AEC industry doesn't have a place for you, it's only due to their own shortsightedness and outdated models of pro-forma, investment, and delivery. They will fail, and we will succeed, because we have better methods. Our education is broad and intense, we know making, we know history, we know aesthetics, and we know economics.

At every stage of the economic chain, from investment to implementation, the creation of value is an act of design. Design thinking is spread all along the sequence, but it is most condensed at the end, when the confluence of money, will, culture and stuff must coalesce into some sort of interaction, or object, or structure, or space. If there is no thing, no construct at the end of all these transactions, then the whole set of deals collapses as nothing more than a ponzi scheme.

Buildings are big and expensive, let's forget buildings for the moment. Architecture is a method, not a thing. Architects will only benefit these other fields to the extent that they continue to act like architects, even if they do it on the stealth: undercover agents, adding design intelligence from within. This is your assignment: add to a cultural conversation, redefine the brief, remember your obligation to the public realm, track the details; be opportunistic, phase, optimize, scale; consider context, time, material ... no matter what you do in 2009, act like an architect.

"There is almost nothing to build, and if we can really build somewhere, we do it to live. Or maybe you're lucky enough to be carrying out a good contract? I'm finding the practice to be cloying, and in principle, you all seem to be feeling the same way. Honestly: it is completely good that today nothing's being 'built.' Things can thus mature, we can collect our strength, and when it begins again, then we'll know our goals and be strong enough to protect our residents from dangerous adhesion or degeneracy. Let us consciously be imaginary architects."
--Bruno Taut, 1919

(Originally here: http://www.activesocialplastic.com/2008/10/let_us_consciously_be_imaginar.html and of course in the Crystal Chain Letters ... was it an inspiration for your post?)