Challenges of the futuristic architect!!

CHALLENGES OF THE FUTURISTIC ARCHITECT

“I am good because of what I deliver, but this will change if my clients start telling me what to do”

The above quote could be true for so many professions. An auditor, a doctor, a lawyer, a designer, a life coach… All these people will echo this paradox with me, I am sure. Imagine, if a patient starts telling a doctor, how to treat him, just because he had googled before meeting him,

It caught my attention, when an architect client of mine made the above statement to me. He says, that now-a-days his creativity is blocked because of certain market forces and ongoing practices. What is the most disturbing fact is that he is not allowed to think out of the box and this is a “Lose – lose” situation for both his client and himself.

So, as I do, whenever something catches my attention, I started looking out for the challenges and practices pertaining to the field of architecture. There are many observations, but in this piece, I shall restrict myself to about 3 such challenges.

Before moving to these observations, however, the one fact which stands out is that when we look up for exemplary historical architects of world standards, such a Michael Angelo or Leonardo Da Vinci within our own country, we do not really find names of architects, rather we find names of the emperors/ sultans who have built our own monuments. One has to dig deep to get the names of the architects such as Ustad- Ahmad Lahori. This name is not doing front pages… Emperor Jahangir’s is. Contemporaries face the same fate. We as a country are lucky to have at least a few names in headline in the past few decades.

So, with this context, let’s move ahead with what the current day architects are facing

1. THE FLY BY NIGHT (NON- ARCHITECTS): This can equate to the “quacks” of the medical world. There are so many unqualified, self-proclaimed architects now a days, who try and sadly succeed in luring the “ever bargain-ready Indian” to abandon real design and quality delivery and embrace mediocrity instead. Now, my concern is the “Fly by Night” status. I wish we would wake up to creativity before we turn into a concrete- country.

2. THE GREEN ARCHITECT: Consider this “Climate change will not affect the earth… but the species of life on earth which are not responsive to quick changes”. Sounds familiar isn’t it? As a matter of fact, most forward-thinking architects are in pursuit of building “Carbon neutral” designs. But the problem is that, it is extremely difficult to build such designs and yet make them beautiful. I feel we do not give enough credit to our architects who are trying their best to strike a balance between sustainable design Vs. Beautiful designs. Adding fuel to fire we also undermine them by bargaining on design fees and project costs

3. VASTU: Now, as if battling with sustainability, creativity and bargaining was not enough, our friends are thrown another huge challenge in terms of “Vastu-compliance”. I understand that quite a few architects are of the opinion that their designs are compromised because of the pressure to comply. What with all the google (mis) information around this, most clients are far more demanding rather than trusting their designs.

As an observer, my fear is that we in India, are making the same mistakes which our ancestors have, by not encouraging our architects to do world class work and get the fame for that. And as a business coach, my fear is that with this trend, maybe we are putting extreme pressure on our architects, with effect that fewer and fewer of these architects have a robust revenue model and a supportive eco system.

Few articles on the internet say that this may be a profession which will lose its relevance in a few decades. I, being an optimist, however choose to have faith on one of my architect friends’ dream to “Design resorts on the Moon”

Is there a way that this profession can be preserved and nurtured and made profitable?