Yesterday I had a really interesting conversation with somebody about the future of the architecture profession. We spoke about how Joshua Prince-Ramus of REX believes that architects have marginalized themselves as a result of shying away from liability. We spoke about how architecture schools need to teach more about about business and making money. And we spoke about why I decided to never practice architecture and instead become a developer.

At the end of it all, he came to more or less the same conclusion that I did in this post. He felt that as more and more trained architects choose to become developers, that maybe the future will be firms that vertically integrate both architecture and real estate development. For those of you not in the building industry, this is fairly uncommon practice today. Typically, developers retain the services of an architect to design their buildings and do not handle this in-house.

But there are firms that do. DDG out of New York and San Francisco is one example. Although there’s a subtlety worth mentioning. According to their website, they say that they often act as the “design architect” for their projects. This means that there would still need to be an “architect of record”, whose name would appear on the building permit and who would ultimately end up shouldering the liability for the design.

You see, a bifurcation has happened even within the architecture profession itself. You have “design architects” who may or may not be licensed, but do a lot of the fun design work upfront for a project. And you have production oriented firms that actually produce the technical drawings needed for construction. The fees are generally higher in the latter case (unless maybe you’re a starchitect), but the work is less creative.

The emergence of these two streams of architecture is precisely what Joshua Prince-Ramus is talking about when he says that architects have marginalized themselves by shying away from liability. He believes that architects are reducing themselves to designers and stylists, from master builders. So his argument is that architects need to reinsert themselves into more of the building process.

What I’ve been suggesting is that architects should become owners. They should insert themselves into the development process. And the reason I feel this way is because I worry about the tendency for production and construction to just be farmed out to the lowest bidder. Design and development, on the other hand, are high value creation items.

Truthfully though, I don’t really know which option is better for the profession in terms of relevance. I know which one I’m most interested in, but that could just be a personal preference. What do you think?

Image: The Red List

The “ground plane” is an important reference in architecture. The ground is typically where people walk. The ground is where our fabricated buildings meet the earth. And the ground is where our experience of the urban environment–however good or bad it may be–truly takes shape. Often times I feel that we, city dwellers, spend far too much time worrying about the height of buildings and not enough time worry about the ground floor.

But what if there were no clearly defined ground plane? This morning I stumbled upon an interesting book called, Cities Without Ground: A Hong Kong Guidebook. The authors call it “a manifesto for a new theory of urban form.” And the argument is that Hong Kong has developed a unique series of public/private spaces that allow it to function as a fully three-dimensional city. 

Through underground tunnels, above ground walkways, escalators, and other connective infrastructure, Hong Kong is reinventing the way we typically think about cities–both from a user experience and a real estate standpoint. Here’s an excerpt from the Guardian architecture and design blog:

The phenomenon began in the 1960s, when the Hongkong Land company, one of the main developers in the region, built an elevated walkway to connect a luxury hotel to the second storey of an adjacent shopping mall. An insignificant move, perhaps, but it in fact had the effect of changing the rentable values within the building: suddenly the mall’s second floor units could be rented out for more than those at ground level. It entirely recalibrated the vertical logic of real estate value.

Now, you could argue that Hong Kong is a unique place. And it is. Other, less dense cities, have found above and below grade walkways to be a destroyer of urban vibrancy. But in Hong Kong it works and, as many other cities around the world focus their energies on urban intensification, we may find that Hong Kong is indeed a new model for urban form.

The journey of Architect This City has been an organic one. When I first started blogging regularly in September 2013, I had no plan in mind other than that I wanted to write about cities. I had just come off working full-time on my startup, Dirt, where I had gotten into the habit of writing and I enjoyed it immensely. So I wanted to continue.

Cities seemed like the perfect umbrella to capture all of my passions: architecture, design, planning, real estate, and even technology. And so I rebranded brandondonnelly.com—which I had already been using as a microblog—and slapped the title “Cities” on it. (That personal microblog has since become brandondonnelly.me.)

Then, after a few months of blogging, I was having drinks with a good friend of mine and telling her about my new daily discipline. She immediately asked me what it was called and, when I replied by saying that I didn’t really have a name for it, she insisted that I create one immediately. Since she’s one of the brightest people I know, I gave it some serious thought. A few days later, Architect This City was born.

I liked the idea of having a distinct brand, because then it meant it could grow beyond just a personal blog. It could become a real community of people passionate and committed to building better cities. And that ultimately became the goal as I got deeper and deeper into writing.

Since that time last year, I’ve had friends guest blog on ATC. It has gone on to become syndicated on Mobility Lab and Urban Times. And it has been featured by the Guardian in the UK has one of the big city blogs in the world. But even more exciting are the moments when somebody tells me, either face-to-face or through a quick message, that they’re really enjoying ATC and that they read it daily. That’s what keeps me going.

Lately though, I’ve been thinking about what’s next. What’s the purpose of ATC? What’s the why? I thought about writing a manifesto of sorts, but that just seemed unnecessarily onerous. So I sat down, primarily on the subway, with Evernote, and I wrote a purpose statement for ATC:

To promote the building of beautiful and environmentally sustainable cities that offer strong economic opportunities and a high quality of life.

That’s really what I believe cities should do. They should be enjoyable and beautiful places to live life and they should empower people to get richer. At the same time, we need to be aware that as more and more of the world’s 7 billion people move into cities, the need for environmentally sustainable solutions is only going to increase.

So those are the kinds of discussions I hope we can have on ATC. Regular scheduled programming will continue as usual, but hopefully now the why is clearer. If you have any feedback on the above statement, I would love to hear from you in the comment section below.