We're being trolled by Giles Coren

I have to admit this touched a nerve for me. Giles Coren is trolling us, or is he trying to be funny? I don't see anyone in our studio laughing.

I can imagine him waking from his afternoon nap after another strenuous restaurant review and feeling a burning need for more engagement, more clicks, more attention and so he decides to throw an 'egg' at our profession. I tried to see the funny side, but he's just not very funny. David Mitchell whose writing style he copies is funny.?

This kind of thing is how culture wars start. Lots of people read the Times, maybe they won't remember exactly where they first heard that “all architects” are incompetent and money grabbing frauds, but toxic writing like this plants itself like a putrid seed in peoples' brains. There doesn't need to be evidence, it 'feels' like something that might be true and it's nice and comforting to believe simple things about the world and then to rage at other people rather than looking at why you’re feeling so angry in the first place.? I wonder who Giles Coren believes designed the ‘Amazing Hotels’ of the world when he visited them for his BBC series?

Sure, there are incompetent and dishonest architects out there, this is true of any profession, but they are a vanishing small number.? The vast majority of architects are incredibly smart designers, diligent technicians and generate enormous value for their clients.? You have to use some judgement when you hire one; ask for references, look carefully at their track record of experience and as with buying any service - it’s probably best not to pick the one that appears to be suspiciously cheap.?

We are regulated, we all pay an independent professional body to reprimand and shame us in our national journal when we don’t adhere to our code of conduct and someone makes a serious complaint – they literally publish an article when someone specifies the wrong concrete slab and it fails (I wonder where the engineer was that day btw?!).?

Rather than dismiss these attacks as baseless, let’s self-reflect instead.? I have heard many versions of these tropes again and again over the years which is maybe why I’m feeling triggered by this article.? If we strip back the language, are any of them fair?

“Architects doing drawings isn't really work”.?

To use an analogy that might appeal to Giles Coren, people don’t say this about chefs.? I enjoy cooking, but I don’t consider myself a chef and I am happy to pay a professional to do it with absolute precision and competence when my meal is particularly important and I know chefs work incredibly hard.? We draw because it helps us to communicate, it is our medium for problem solving which is where we deliver value for people.? For decades now, behind these drawings we have been quite laboriously “BUILDING” digital models; virtual building twins of proposals that are rich with data and that can be programmed to produce CGI renders and tell you everything from the exact sizing of every door in your building, to the amount of carbon you will be emitting if you build something in steel or timber.? When you change your mind about your design brief, we have to “RE-BUILD” and problem solve in that digital environment, just like a builder rebuilds brickwork in the real world.? I stress the “building” point to demonstrate that this process is incredibly demanding and labour intensive, I have never seen a practice that didn’t incur substantial overtime routinely in order to meet the client’s deliverables.? Architects routinely work so hard that there is a growing movement for unionising to improve working conditions.? With regulations changing as they are, this is increasingly true of smaller domestic scaled projects like Giles’ house, too.

“Architects can’t work to a budget.”

This may be a moot point in 2022 when inflation is running at 10%+.? It depends who you hire, the 2*+ Michelin Star restaurants of architecture are the so-called “Starchitects” where (and I don’t think this is a controversial claim) vision is usually prioritised well above cost and on the whole client’s appear to keep hiring them. However, 99% of architects aren’t Starchitects and most - if you tell them your budget and how rigid and important it is - will place it as an absolute priority.?

I say ‘most’ because I do feel that cost planning and general application of real world economics does not come naturally to many in the field and is absolutely an area for improvement.? It is indeed profoundly absent from the University curriculum (considered too low-brow?!) and has to be learned at speed when one enters the workplace, this is something we should discuss openly at University and form part of design critique, however my experience was that this was a taboo subject, cost felt almost uncouth to bring up when studying – projects had to be “imagination only” in order to do well.? There is indeed a cultural shift for the profession in this area that is much needed alongside carbon spend (which needs to be measured alongside the $$$), bad building performance and material waste.

I tend to think about cost a bit like gravity, you can’t pretend it’s not a real world constraint and actually being really focused on cost can make the design process more interesting when you have to start thinking about it as a productive constraint and every decision from a cost perspective.? My strong sense is that architecture is an endeavour that cannot be separated from the idea of a ‘patron’ and that this distinguishes architecture from fine art and sculpture.? This is to be celebrated; gravity, cost, refuse collection, human behaviour, the weather, the personality of a client are all essential ingredients that we have to work with and get the most out of and make each commission special.?

“Architects are rich and cause costs to escalate to pay themselves more.”

I’m not sure where the myth of architects being rich came from.? Perhaps from film portrayals in the 80’s?? Steve Martin likes to play architects who appear to lead very charmed and comfortable lives, but – on the whole - it’s not actually real from what I see. On the first day at architecture school we were told "if you want to be rich you should leave now".? Most experienced architects are paid ‘ok’ when compared to other fields and junior graduates are paid quite poorly, particularly when you look at wage stagnation in the past 12-15 years and the cost of living in London which can render what appears to be a reasonable income quite unworkable in the capital.? The top 1% who own the largest practices in the UK are well paid, maybe these are the architects Giles knows.? If you really want to see what they’re paid, you can look at The Pay 100 numbers, you may be surprised.

Architects will charge more when there is more work to do and a simple way to do this is using percentage fee structure, this means that when build cost rise by 15% in a single year due to inflation, the architect fees for works not yet complete will also rise alongside. Consider though that so will their costs. Percentage fees are an imperfect but fairly practical and straightforward way of charging for time up front. I say imperfect because few clients are grateful for a fee increase when they find out their building cost is going up. If you would rather pay for time rather than percentage to avoid this risk, you should ask your architect at the outset, they will likely be more than happy to estimate on a time-basis provided the programme allowances are realistic. The other thing that causes fees to rise is late design changes when the brief is changed and this causes more work to be done. If none of the above applies and you feel really hard done by as a client, go to the ARB and flag it.

“Architects just want the building to look cool”

It is true that architects are a little too obsessed with awards, plaudits and the approval of their peers.? Our profession rewards striking imagery and often appearances over substance.? Society is also emphatically narcissistic and image obsessed and this is increasingly true of architecture.? If you look at coverage of architecture it has always been photographed and promoted with great reverence and made to look heroic, but when you visit the herioc buildings the experience is never the same as the photographs - we have not found a satisfactory method for documenting physical space other than just visiting it.? But often the image replaces the architecture and causes people to obsess about appearance.? A project is mostly judged upon the images people create around it, not based on what people actually feel like using it. ? Images are also a large part of what a client wants too, they often want a building that speaks for their values, that outwardly communicates who they are, or who they want to be.? Certainly, with the challenges we face around climate destruction and lack of representation within the profession, we should look to radically adjust our values system as a profession and this starts with looking carefully at what we choose to celebrate, publish and promote.

“Architects aren’t necessary, Engineers and bricklayers are.”

?I just cannot see this. Since ancient times, the architect has sat in the middle of stakeholders, tradespeople, clients, project managers and engineers - they negotiate a pathway through these conflicting priorities and find a vision and consensus.? Giles, if you really want to do away with Architects (and I don’t think you really do in your heart), the world would become a sad place. We would system-build everything for utility only, re-use old and flawed designs, we would ignore innovation and gradually have no sense of when and why anything was ever built, it would all feel very… communist - and not the bombastic brutalist kind of nostalgic communism.? Architects tailor their buildings to particulars, their work is influenced by the arts, fashion trends and the ethical values of the age.? If you think buildings are one size fits all then don’t hire one – you might get away with it for your house extension, but if you try and scale that idea up, no one would thank you.?