Why We Still Don't Build Properly: A Brief Guide
For the first time, I've produced a post that requires footnotes for the layman. I'm not sure how I feel about this.
One of the things that everyone knows about the recession, at the moment, is that architects are getting a right royal shafting. Nobody's quite sure what the unemployment figures are, but it seems that there are approximately twelve architects left in Ireland who still have jobs (and even they're all doing a four-day week). The terrible thing about this, though, is that it was practically inevitable.
If anyone's read Flat Earth News (and if not, what are you doing with your life?), they'll be aware of the author's depiction of journalism as a "corrupted profession". It's a thumbnail that can be applied to architecture without changing a thing. Increasingly, architects are overworked, marginalised, and excluded from the most important decisions made by the building industry. Because they're asked to do more and more by clients, and get paid less and less, many architects have failed to keep up with developments in the building trade, and are now undereducated in current building technology and regulations. If you want an example, the new Part L (1) has now been in use for over a year, but I'd guess that the majority of architects have only vague, second-hand notions of what it contains.
So really, the current fragmenting of Ireland's architects is hardly a surprise. You still have to ask, though... how did this happen? Whose fault is it? The story you'll get from most Irish architects is that Irish culture simply doesn't place enough value on design; that speed and property revenues have been prioritised over quality; and that they have been forced out of the building process by increasing amounts of Design-Build contracts (2), the rise of the project manager (3), and more and more speculative developments with little architectural input. On the face of it, none of this is untrue. It is also, however, a self-pitying analysis of what has actually happened.
Many people, for example, don't realise how little involvement architects have in the majority of Ireland's buildings. Housing stock is a prime example; most houses are built without any architect involvement at all. In addition, Ireland enforces its building regulations by a process of self-certification (with the exception of fire safety); there's no building inspector who visits and makes sure everything being built is within the law, which pretty much gives builders free rein to do whatever the hell they like. As there's no formal process to certify and educate a competent builder, many are simply unaware of recent advances in technology. You can still see houses being built using 2 inches of polystyrene insulation in a cavity wall, which is positively archaic (and, it should be added, illegal); in addition, many builders don't understand the effects of, say, interstitial condensation, which is a comparatively new problem that didn't crop up in uninsulated buildings. This lack of knowledge isn't unexpected, and nor is it a criticism of philistinic builders; there's just no easy way for a builder to learn this stuff, and no real incentive for them to do so.
The result is that many houses being built still don't comply with building regulations. The advent of BER certificates (4) should, in theory, be a first step towards controlling this; however, in what shows a typical contempt for building professionals, there's no control over who becomes a certifier. You now have armies of hairdressers and woodwork teachers telling you how energy-efficient your house is, even though they may know nothing about how it's been built. The result is wildly inaccurate ratings (plenty of people have already spotted this - example here), and it's this sort of stupidity that makes the constant pronouncements on low-energy houses so laughably ineffectual.
To summarize: there's no real policing of Ireland's building process at all (under-reported scandal number one-million-and-one). Architect-designed buildings are better-built on the whole, but there are still huge problems. Architects are frequently pressured into designing buildings in ridiculously short time-frames, so they just don't have time to do their job properly; and, as I've already said, many of them don't have the knowledge of building methods that they should do. They end up certifying buildings as substantially compliant, and "substantially" becomes a magic word to cover up a multitude of contraventions. More or less everything that's made in Ireland is subject to control; cars are tested, food is vetted, restaurants are inspected. But buildings? Houses, where people spend so much of their time? Even now, nobody bothers to see the things are being built properly.
It's probably worth clarifying exactly what architects do, because people are blissfully unaware of what the job entails; many still see the profession as artsy types who draw houses in charcoal, then hand it over to the builder and expect him to do the rest. This is bollocks, and if architects have done anything wrong over the years, it's their failure to dispel this myth (partially because a lot of them are artsy types, and quite like the image). Architects are trained to design well-made buildings that work properly, and get the maximum value from the budget they're given. They ensure a building complies with all the building regulations; they draw skirting boards, damp-proof courses, radon membranes, and any other detail you care to think of; they co-ordinate power, ventilation, and structure, to make sure you don't have a column sticking exactly where you don't want it, and that the plug sockets are in the right place; and they go on-site to make sure the builder is doing the job properly. In short, they do almost everything. One of the good things about Room To Improve, RTÉ's surprisingly competent home improvement show, is that it shows how little of an architect's work goes into sketching things in pencil; it's not a perfect view of the profession, but it's a decent start, and Dermot Bannon is irritatingly likeable.
At this point, you have to ask why architects have so little involvement in the big decisions of the building trade, and why they are increasingly excluded; if they're so damn good, surely no-one will get rid of them? If they're so knowledgeable and diligent, then how do we arrive at the stereotype of a dreamer who charges a huge whack of money, takes an absurdly long time getting a building built, and then the building goes over-budget anyway? At this point, architects tend to throw up their hands and say "nobody cares". It's not the whole truth.
Many architects, particularly from the older generation, are closer to the "eccentric dreamer" stereotype than is comfortable, and the age profile of architects-wot-make-decisions remains high. There is now a yawning generation gap between these older architects and those who are, say, mid-thirties or less. This is simply because, in the early-to-mid 1990s, the profession changed massively, thanks to a number of different factors.
1. Computer-Aided Design. At the start of the nineties, CAD was still in its infancy; five or six years later, 90% of drawing work was done on computer. This doesn't mean the shiny, textureless, completely shit and unimaginative computer-generated images that are now standard in the profession; it's the nitty-gritty of builder's drawings and details where the impact has been felt. Because the decision makers didn't really understand CAD, they didn't grasp its potential. Computer drawings are quicker, more accurate, and easier to reproduce. As the drawings are actual size, it's possible to design a building in more detail, far earlier than would previously have been practical; it simply used to be necessary to get on-site without all the information you needed, then improvise the minor details. The enormous potential of CAD has still not really have been grasped, although this is slowly starting to happen; people who are comfortable with CAD, and understand its potential, are finally running practices (even if they aren't yet running the industry).
2. Building Regulations. It might seem astonishing to the layman, but Ireland's Building Regulations only came into force in 1991 (they've been updated several times since). Before that there were building bye-laws, which changed from county to county (some counties didn't even have any), and were rather arbitrary anyway; there were also British Standards, which were almost impossible to keep track of (and not mandatory). In 1991, you suddenly had to achieve standards of insulation, waterproofing, protect your building against radon, and make sure people in a wheelchair could use the thing. The result of this was a change in culture; previously, building standards tended to be second-hand, based on what your mentor had told you, so the knowledge of architects was uneven by definition. In the last twenty years, there is - increasingly - a "right" way of doing things that may well be law, and will certainly be an industry standard (5). Younger architects are more comfortable with legislation, more aware of it, and - crucially - more likely to read it. This isn't a function of age, it's simply that they were educated against a background of a more heavily legislated profession, and are better-adapted to that reality.
3. That Fucking Tiger. Probably the most difficult to quantify, but probably the most important. Ireland's younger architects grew up in Celtic Tiger Ireland. Ordinarily I'd say that this is nothing but a bad thing, but it means they grew up against a culture of efficiency, flexibility, and the importance of money. This obviously makes society obnoxious, self-absorbed and culturally bankrupt, but it was a background in which architects were sadly lacking, and lead to them being shockingly reckless with other people's money. Architecture wasn't just an institution, it was institutionalised - a profession that was highly rigid about what it did and how it did it, and in many ways this is still the case. Architects don't get involved in debates about building financing, planning, zoning, or urban planning, in spite of the fact that they have a lot to say on all those matters; this is largely because the older generation just don't see it as their job. We still have a culture where Structural Engineers, Service Engineers and Quantity Surveyors all work in different offices, even though it's a cripplingly inefficient way of getting anything done. And most architectural practices are still badly-run, because the people who run them grew up in a time when being inefficient just didn't matter.
You would think that, if any profession failed so spectacularly to move with the times, a government worth its salt would have simply forced them to reform. This is just not the case. Governments tend to be afraid of professions; professions have a mentality that governments, businessmen, and accountants just don't understand. Architects aren't motivated by money; very few made buckets of cash from the building boom, because they're building-nerds who don't really value money at all. This makes people with money nervous. Design-Build contracts and Public Private Partnerships (6) are not good value for money, but governments and businessmen are more comfortable with them, because the client and the builder at least speak the same language. More and more, Quantity Surveyors (7) are asked to manage projects, rather than architects - again, this is more because their vocabulary is the same, rather than them being any good at it.
The other thing is that, as archaic and repellent as it may sound, most decisions end up being made by people latching on to the nearest Alpha Male. Architecture just doesn't attract Alpha Males; it's not really that sort of job, and the education process - in which architects pin-up their drawings, and then have them criticised by half-a-dozen tutors in front of their entire class - ritually inculcates the architect with a streak of self-doubt. This is necessary in a good designer, but it also creates an industry that's in the habit of taking flak. They've been sidelined because they allowed it to happen, because louder, bolshier builders could elbow them out of the way, and all the architects did in response was whine about it to each other in coffee-shops. Architects are now seen as irrelevant, self-deluding artisans in tweed suits. Or, to be more succinct; they're seen as a joke.
Example time. The government recently announced they were cutting all their designers' fees by 8%, and to hell with their existing contracts. This came on top of most architects losing 30% of their fees due to the drop in building prices. It's crippled many offices, and driven even more architects out of work (50% of architects are unemployed as it is); it's a shameful, blistering attack on the most vulnerable profession in the country (underreported scandal number one-million-and-two). They wouldn't even dream on doing that to builders. This isn't anything to do with cronyism, it's just that the government doesn't hold builders in contempt. Also, the builders would sue them. Architects won't.
In a way, though, this is what might just make attitudes change. Most of the jobless architects are young. Many are active, dynamic, and finding other ways to express themselves (sustainability is a big one, boring and all as it is). They're also increasingly politicised, and it's not beyond the bounds of possibility that these are the people who will make the profession matter again, as it must. If we really do care about Ireland's building stock, how it looks, how it works, then a reformed, modernised architectural profession needs to be at the heart of it. Until that happens, all we'll ever have are soundbites and slums of the future.
(1) - Part L. The building regulation that deals with energy efficiency. This and is now complex, demanding, important, and dull. And frequently ignored, as all such documents are.
(2) - Design-Build: In which the builder hires the architect to design for him. Goverments like this because it's a turnkey operation, but the buildings are almost always lower quality, particularly with regard to detail. Pier D in Dublin Airport is a design-build job, and the roof already leaks.
(3) - Project Manager: Faceless bureaucrat who gets paid to co-ordinate the design team. Historically, the architects used to do this themselves. Project managers started appearing for no reason at all, except that a lot of architects weren't very good at doing this.
(4) - BER Certificates: It is now necessary by law, if you're renting or selling a house, to get some random bloke to come to your home. He will take some measurements, feed some numbers into a computer, and give your house a rating of energy efficiency which will probably be wrong.
(5) - And yes, this is a good thing. Any hippyish bleating about the nanny state will not be entertained.
(6) - PPP: Oh, don't even get me started. Just take my word for it that they're shit and waste millions. Or go here, for a quick thumbnail (the Brits call them PFIs, but it's the same thing).
(7) - Bean-counters who work out what buildings will cost, and argue amongst themselves in incomprehensible language before telling you that a wall will cost twice as much as you thought it would.
One of the things that everyone knows about the recession, at the moment, is that architects are getting a right royal shafting. Nobody's quite sure what the unemployment figures are, but it seems that there are approximately twelve architects left in Ireland who still have jobs (and even they're all doing a four-day week). The terrible thing about this, though, is that it was practically inevitable.
If anyone's read Flat Earth News (and if not, what are you doing with your life?), they'll be aware of the author's depiction of journalism as a "corrupted profession". It's a thumbnail that can be applied to architecture without changing a thing. Increasingly, architects are overworked, marginalised, and excluded from the most important decisions made by the building industry. Because they're asked to do more and more by clients, and get paid less and less, many architects have failed to keep up with developments in the building trade, and are now undereducated in current building technology and regulations. If you want an example, the new Part L (1) has now been in use for over a year, but I'd guess that the majority of architects have only vague, second-hand notions of what it contains.
So really, the current fragmenting of Ireland's architects is hardly a surprise. You still have to ask, though... how did this happen? Whose fault is it? The story you'll get from most Irish architects is that Irish culture simply doesn't place enough value on design; that speed and property revenues have been prioritised over quality; and that they have been forced out of the building process by increasing amounts of Design-Build contracts (2), the rise of the project manager (3), and more and more speculative developments with little architectural input. On the face of it, none of this is untrue. It is also, however, a self-pitying analysis of what has actually happened.
Many people, for example, don't realise how little involvement architects have in the majority of Ireland's buildings. Housing stock is a prime example; most houses are built without any architect involvement at all. In addition, Ireland enforces its building regulations by a process of self-certification (with the exception of fire safety); there's no building inspector who visits and makes sure everything being built is within the law, which pretty much gives builders free rein to do whatever the hell they like. As there's no formal process to certify and educate a competent builder, many are simply unaware of recent advances in technology. You can still see houses being built using 2 inches of polystyrene insulation in a cavity wall, which is positively archaic (and, it should be added, illegal); in addition, many builders don't understand the effects of, say, interstitial condensation, which is a comparatively new problem that didn't crop up in uninsulated buildings. This lack of knowledge isn't unexpected, and nor is it a criticism of philistinic builders; there's just no easy way for a builder to learn this stuff, and no real incentive for them to do so.
The result is that many houses being built still don't comply with building regulations. The advent of BER certificates (4) should, in theory, be a first step towards controlling this; however, in what shows a typical contempt for building professionals, there's no control over who becomes a certifier. You now have armies of hairdressers and woodwork teachers telling you how energy-efficient your house is, even though they may know nothing about how it's been built. The result is wildly inaccurate ratings (plenty of people have already spotted this - example here), and it's this sort of stupidity that makes the constant pronouncements on low-energy houses so laughably ineffectual.
To summarize: there's no real policing of Ireland's building process at all (under-reported scandal number one-million-and-one). Architect-designed buildings are better-built on the whole, but there are still huge problems. Architects are frequently pressured into designing buildings in ridiculously short time-frames, so they just don't have time to do their job properly; and, as I've already said, many of them don't have the knowledge of building methods that they should do. They end up certifying buildings as substantially compliant, and "substantially" becomes a magic word to cover up a multitude of contraventions. More or less everything that's made in Ireland is subject to control; cars are tested, food is vetted, restaurants are inspected. But buildings? Houses, where people spend so much of their time? Even now, nobody bothers to see the things are being built properly.
It's probably worth clarifying exactly what architects do, because people are blissfully unaware of what the job entails; many still see the profession as artsy types who draw houses in charcoal, then hand it over to the builder and expect him to do the rest. This is bollocks, and if architects have done anything wrong over the years, it's their failure to dispel this myth (partially because a lot of them are artsy types, and quite like the image). Architects are trained to design well-made buildings that work properly, and get the maximum value from the budget they're given. They ensure a building complies with all the building regulations; they draw skirting boards, damp-proof courses, radon membranes, and any other detail you care to think of; they co-ordinate power, ventilation, and structure, to make sure you don't have a column sticking exactly where you don't want it, and that the plug sockets are in the right place; and they go on-site to make sure the builder is doing the job properly. In short, they do almost everything. One of the good things about Room To Improve, RTÉ's surprisingly competent home improvement show, is that it shows how little of an architect's work goes into sketching things in pencil; it's not a perfect view of the profession, but it's a decent start, and Dermot Bannon is irritatingly likeable.
At this point, you have to ask why architects have so little involvement in the big decisions of the building trade, and why they are increasingly excluded; if they're so damn good, surely no-one will get rid of them? If they're so knowledgeable and diligent, then how do we arrive at the stereotype of a dreamer who charges a huge whack of money, takes an absurdly long time getting a building built, and then the building goes over-budget anyway? At this point, architects tend to throw up their hands and say "nobody cares". It's not the whole truth.
Many architects, particularly from the older generation, are closer to the "eccentric dreamer" stereotype than is comfortable, and the age profile of architects-wot-make-decisions remains high. There is now a yawning generation gap between these older architects and those who are, say, mid-thirties or less. This is simply because, in the early-to-mid 1990s, the profession changed massively, thanks to a number of different factors.
1. Computer-Aided Design. At the start of the nineties, CAD was still in its infancy; five or six years later, 90% of drawing work was done on computer. This doesn't mean the shiny, textureless, completely shit and unimaginative computer-generated images that are now standard in the profession; it's the nitty-gritty of builder's drawings and details where the impact has been felt. Because the decision makers didn't really understand CAD, they didn't grasp its potential. Computer drawings are quicker, more accurate, and easier to reproduce. As the drawings are actual size, it's possible to design a building in more detail, far earlier than would previously have been practical; it simply used to be necessary to get on-site without all the information you needed, then improvise the minor details. The enormous potential of CAD has still not really have been grasped, although this is slowly starting to happen; people who are comfortable with CAD, and understand its potential, are finally running practices (even if they aren't yet running the industry).
2. Building Regulations. It might seem astonishing to the layman, but Ireland's Building Regulations only came into force in 1991 (they've been updated several times since). Before that there were building bye-laws, which changed from county to county (some counties didn't even have any), and were rather arbitrary anyway; there were also British Standards, which were almost impossible to keep track of (and not mandatory). In 1991, you suddenly had to achieve standards of insulation, waterproofing, protect your building against radon, and make sure people in a wheelchair could use the thing. The result of this was a change in culture; previously, building standards tended to be second-hand, based on what your mentor had told you, so the knowledge of architects was uneven by definition. In the last twenty years, there is - increasingly - a "right" way of doing things that may well be law, and will certainly be an industry standard (5). Younger architects are more comfortable with legislation, more aware of it, and - crucially - more likely to read it. This isn't a function of age, it's simply that they were educated against a background of a more heavily legislated profession, and are better-adapted to that reality.
3. That Fucking Tiger. Probably the most difficult to quantify, but probably the most important. Ireland's younger architects grew up in Celtic Tiger Ireland. Ordinarily I'd say that this is nothing but a bad thing, but it means they grew up against a culture of efficiency, flexibility, and the importance of money. This obviously makes society obnoxious, self-absorbed and culturally bankrupt, but it was a background in which architects were sadly lacking, and lead to them being shockingly reckless with other people's money. Architecture wasn't just an institution, it was institutionalised - a profession that was highly rigid about what it did and how it did it, and in many ways this is still the case. Architects don't get involved in debates about building financing, planning, zoning, or urban planning, in spite of the fact that they have a lot to say on all those matters; this is largely because the older generation just don't see it as their job. We still have a culture where Structural Engineers, Service Engineers and Quantity Surveyors all work in different offices, even though it's a cripplingly inefficient way of getting anything done. And most architectural practices are still badly-run, because the people who run them grew up in a time when being inefficient just didn't matter.
You would think that, if any profession failed so spectacularly to move with the times, a government worth its salt would have simply forced them to reform. This is just not the case. Governments tend to be afraid of professions; professions have a mentality that governments, businessmen, and accountants just don't understand. Architects aren't motivated by money; very few made buckets of cash from the building boom, because they're building-nerds who don't really value money at all. This makes people with money nervous. Design-Build contracts and Public Private Partnerships (6) are not good value for money, but governments and businessmen are more comfortable with them, because the client and the builder at least speak the same language. More and more, Quantity Surveyors (7) are asked to manage projects, rather than architects - again, this is more because their vocabulary is the same, rather than them being any good at it.
The other thing is that, as archaic and repellent as it may sound, most decisions end up being made by people latching on to the nearest Alpha Male. Architecture just doesn't attract Alpha Males; it's not really that sort of job, and the education process - in which architects pin-up their drawings, and then have them criticised by half-a-dozen tutors in front of their entire class - ritually inculcates the architect with a streak of self-doubt. This is necessary in a good designer, but it also creates an industry that's in the habit of taking flak. They've been sidelined because they allowed it to happen, because louder, bolshier builders could elbow them out of the way, and all the architects did in response was whine about it to each other in coffee-shops. Architects are now seen as irrelevant, self-deluding artisans in tweed suits. Or, to be more succinct; they're seen as a joke.
Example time. The government recently announced they were cutting all their designers' fees by 8%, and to hell with their existing contracts. This came on top of most architects losing 30% of their fees due to the drop in building prices. It's crippled many offices, and driven even more architects out of work (50% of architects are unemployed as it is); it's a shameful, blistering attack on the most vulnerable profession in the country (underreported scandal number one-million-and-two). They wouldn't even dream on doing that to builders. This isn't anything to do with cronyism, it's just that the government doesn't hold builders in contempt. Also, the builders would sue them. Architects won't.
In a way, though, this is what might just make attitudes change. Most of the jobless architects are young. Many are active, dynamic, and finding other ways to express themselves (sustainability is a big one, boring and all as it is). They're also increasingly politicised, and it's not beyond the bounds of possibility that these are the people who will make the profession matter again, as it must. If we really do care about Ireland's building stock, how it looks, how it works, then a reformed, modernised architectural profession needs to be at the heart of it. Until that happens, all we'll ever have are soundbites and slums of the future.
(1) - Part L. The building regulation that deals with energy efficiency. This and is now complex, demanding, important, and dull. And frequently ignored, as all such documents are.
(2) - Design-Build: In which the builder hires the architect to design for him. Goverments like this because it's a turnkey operation, but the buildings are almost always lower quality, particularly with regard to detail. Pier D in Dublin Airport is a design-build job, and the roof already leaks.
(3) - Project Manager: Faceless bureaucrat who gets paid to co-ordinate the design team. Historically, the architects used to do this themselves. Project managers started appearing for no reason at all, except that a lot of architects weren't very good at doing this.
(4) - BER Certificates: It is now necessary by law, if you're renting or selling a house, to get some random bloke to come to your home. He will take some measurements, feed some numbers into a computer, and give your house a rating of energy efficiency which will probably be wrong.
(5) - And yes, this is a good thing. Any hippyish bleating about the nanny state will not be entertained.
(6) - PPP: Oh, don't even get me started. Just take my word for it that they're shit and waste millions. Or go here, for a quick thumbnail (the Brits call them PFIs, but it's the same thing).
(7) - Bean-counters who work out what buildings will cost, and argue amongst themselves in incomprehensible language before telling you that a wall will cost twice as much as you thought it would.
Labels: Architecture, Building, Inevitable prioritisation of money over doing something that isn't completely shit
posted by Nyder O'Leary at
13:06
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