The Atelier #1: Scaling Back and Staying Relevant in Architecture

Welcome to 'The Atélier', a series of blog entry I specially made for thoughts on architecture. On this pilot entry, I shall describe in layman terms the harsh reality architecture as a career. And the vast possibility when architecture embodied as a 'spirit'. Nothing spooky okay.

Welcome to architecture. A career where its participant would aim for the stars. If you doesn’t come from an architecture background, names like Mies Van Der Rohe, Rem Koolhaas, Santiago Calatrava and Antonio Gaudi would sprung series of mental imagery of buildings you commonly see in magazines or places you have visited before. By the way, those architects are some of legends which had carved their names in the architecture constellation – something like sailors do when compass doesn’t exist. We look up to them when we are lost, but it seems most of us never admitted we are forever lost

But times have changed, and as the architecture field gets crowded, your chance to carve a name in the constellation becomes faded. The architecture field has not become a field of passion, but extreme competition, client demands, cut costs and dog eats dog cannibalistic scene. Architects would work to extreme hours next to nothing, sight of blankets and toothbrush at workplace is nothing uncommon. It pays barely pays your bills and emerging architects overtook you from behind fleecing your clients with further ridiculously lower prices for such valuable design advisory you had your neurons spark for with the help of caffeine.

Present economic volatility had construction industry halted or slowed down to a snail pace. Malaysia is no more in its glorious boom seen in mid 80s. Construction is guaranteed the first to be affected and even get out of the clout. I fondly remembers my lecturer saying “ a sign of healthy economy is shown through the construction industry “. Even so, when times are good, your client would never forgets the discounts given when you scrambled for living during hard times, so, the struggle becomes a vicious cycle and balancing act on a tight rope of karma and luck.

Architecture firms are getting much more like hypermarkets. Only big firms seems to cut the deal and mopped the floor clean, if they employ you, they pay you real cheap, you are taxed for being in a well-known firms.  While the smaller firms folds or survives on unique idiosyncrasies that majority of people wouldn’t seen it necessary.

But amidst the frustration the real world doesn’t give a F of your superb green design or poetic aesthetic light-coming-through-a-froghole features, there is no need to throw off the hat. Architecture is a versatile knowledge. It lets you swerve and maneuver with plenty of room keeping your mental faculty occupied and your hard earned college credits relevant. Architecture spirit simply doesn’t quit on us. It’s a matter of we quitting on them.

Alternative careers for architects are endless. I always picture Architecture as an accumulation of several branches from the tree of knowledge. We learn to articulate our ideas ( mostly bullshitting thou ), so we are naturally public speakers and happily accept offers to give any fiery speeches at a rally. We learn how to sketch, so we can utilize that and illustrate wonderful things ( and probably gets into someone pants, I mean, their pockets). We calculate things, our calculus mastery is somehow superior, few notches behind engineers, but, yah, still commendable. We learn to read people minds, we learn to understand the current trends and most importantly -  we design.

Identity by design

Design is always something which people disregard. Nissan, as a case, had suppressed its car designers in turn for cut costs with awful plastic and interior upholstery selection. Nissan nearly went bankrupt when Charles Ghosn, the new CEO, had given designers more freedom in designing and material selection and Nissan fortunes began to turn.  

Apple Inc. the makers of iMac, iPod, iPhone and other i-whatever-devices had similar blunt decision to disregard design. Before Steve Jobs were at the helm, a corporate trained leader was at the top, telling designers to forgo their wet dreams and instead ordering manufacturer to boost up production. Their products failed to sell and had been stockpiling like an old junk. Apple was at terminal stage when Old Steve Jobs took over.

Steve Jobs, being an innovator at heart recognizes design as part of product and subsequently, company identity. In 1998, we saw the candy colored iMacs, from then on; Apple design has been simply stunning and refreshing. The rest is history.

The rooms are there for us, there are people who attentively listens and humanely considers what we do to an extent that doesn’t diminish our creative flair. The Architecture spirit is never confined to the design-follows-budget stigma. Architects like Hijjas Kasturi who had come to great heights locally finds time in to designing watches, lifts and yatches. Why such figure wants to scale back to designing petty stuff that people rarely use? Has he lost his prestige? 

Nah, IHMO, Its because the spirit of architecture roams everywhere, architects can wake up at 4 in the morning and went to the drawing table just to sketch an eclectic space inside a home. Nobody stops them, because ideas comes like a squall or gust and goes away quickly.

Arkitek Kampung

Scaling back of our dreams means we don’t have to murder our Architecture spirit. Instead of licking the floors at big firms and envisioning to construct the next  300 floor towers, try looking at the community level. Architecture can contribute a lot to the society by improving the existing spaces. It doesn’t mean an excavated clear ground is always our playground, present spaces can be our canvas of creativity.  May it be a kindergarten, taska, wet market, 4 footers, 6 footers or Sunday flee market, these spaces desperate for an architect’s Midas touch.

Architecture also needs perception change with people unfamiliar with them. Parents expect us to design multistory complex for a multinational companies whatsoever and laughing our way to the bank with millions, while it seems viable ideally, the contrasting reality seeks architects to dedicate their energy in a different way. In college, I was though about simple installations, a panel or mirrors or just string encompassed in-a-way to concentrate certain qualities of a site – the genius loci, blending and respecting what came earlier to the place - this is the next of architecture.

 The imagery of heavy pile driver and noisy bulldozer chasing like cats and mouse on-site should be applied with much more opacity to it. Architecture now is no longer an all-out intrusion but a tacit intervention, just like Glenn Murcutt quote “Touching the earth lightly ”

Architects were also given task to give a new leash of life onto old building. Cities like Malacca, Penang and KL has plenty of pre-merdeka building that needs restoration to retain their beauty and historical value. There also might be a fine-tasted financier who would want to turn old walls into exciting place for candlelight dinners. We, architects, can step up to the plate.

Architects can be a bona-fide superhero. When crimes arise in densely populated cities, it’s the responsibility of architects to help the society out. We change the existing landscape from crime prone to something safer and better for people. Little changes like straightening of streets and installation of lamp posts make a huge difference!

In short, these hard times had architects arrested for upward growth, but who cares, we grow sideways. We reconsider and explore new possibilities and keep the architecture spirit (yes, architecture is a spirit, not profession ) relevant throughout times.