A manifesto for professionalism in architecture

A little knowledge is dangerous as the saying goes, but in the profession of architecture, the practitioner’s brain is now creaking under the steadily increasing weight of knowledge required to meet legislation, best practice, financial and social expectations. This excess of knowledge is equally dangerous for architecture as ‘compliance’ seems to be the sole agenda of our age and buildings must ‘perform’ and act as ‘commodities’ almost to the exclusion of all other concerns.

As ever more of the Architect’s functions are handed over to project managers, health and safety coordinators and even builders, many lament the loss of influence of a once-great profession. Others, however see a new landscape rich with opportunity for architecture to re-invent itself and recapture the high ground as one of the very few surviving, truly creative professions. Such architects recognise that this cannot be achieved by turning their back on this new reality, but by engaging with it; taking it into their design processes and often subverting it. Architecture is also a uniquely optimistic activity and the subversion of pragmatic concerns frequently gives rise to surprising and inventive ideas and a deeper understanding of the objectives of creating architecture in the first place.

At UEL, we subscribe to this optimistic agenda, through the concept of integration. Professional studies is viewed as a body of knowledge that should be considered and integrated in the design process, helping to drive a project forward. Through this process, the knowledge can be re-interpreted and transformed, developing a confident but healthily sceptical attitude in the architecture students. This attitude can subvert constraints into opportunities and find pleasure in exploring and testing the boundaries of rules and requirements. We call this Professionalism.

Roland Karthaus, Professional Studies coordinator @ UEL