Full Citation Cuff, Dana. Architecture: The Story of Practice. Cambridge, MA,
USA: MIT Press, 1991. Print.
Chapter Notes
Acknowledgements
- Some important details from this section: 1) focus on contradictions within
architectural culture; 2) research support of this project (and the
conclusions it raises) from the AIA (professional association) and the National
Endowment for the Arts (US government funding); 3) Donald Schon intellectually
supported thew project
1 -- Why Study the Culture of Practice (pp. 3-16)
- Intro section (pp. 3-4)
- Presents a change in her perspective of arch. practice from "grand genius"
designer to wide ranger of everyday activities (pp. 3)
- Definition of architectural practice: "the everyday world of work where
architecture takes shape." (pp. 3)
- Stresses that this condition on the ground is more complex than the
definition (pp. 3)
- Wide array of people involved, clients as groups (pp. 4)
- Stresses the contradiction between belief
(representation/self-representation) and observation ("reality"); this is the
primary contradiction of the work (pp. 4)
- Main idea of the book: examination of how buildings are collectively
conceived in practice, how practice is socially constructed, and how this
understanding of architecture can guide us toward making better environments
(pp. 4)
- What is Practice? (pp. 4-5)
- Definition of "practice" = action or performance executed through a habitual,
customary, or routine method; professional practice = customary or habitual
performance of professional activities (pp. 4)
- Emergence of architectural practice in interactions between interested
parties (pp. 4)
- Practice as embodiment and expression of a practitioner's everyday knowledge
in a specified context (pp. 4)
- In continuous development & invisible/hidden from outsiders/non-professionals
(pp. 5)
- Customary actions in concert = a culture; cultural study of architectural
practice that leads to specific kinds of research and analysis of it (pp. 5)
- Architectural practice in general is not a culture (too dispersed) but the
practices of specific offices are (pp. 5)
- This definition of "culture" comes out of Clifford Geertz's work (ch 1 nt. 1)
- A Note on Theory and Methods (pp. 5-7)
- Ethnographic approach applied; ethnography as pattern recognition practice;
ethnography as investigating relation between ideas about a group and their
material world (pp. 5)
- Importance of semantic ethnography on her work, focus on speech: terms,
categories (pp. 5)
- Takes two positions on research: 1) narration from the point of view of
research subjects; 2) importance of writing the researcher into the account
(pp. 6)
- Cuff as "indigenous researcher" by being an insider in the community under
examination (pp. 6)
- Theoretical allegiance to "ethnomethodology" and its phenomenological
supports; attachment to cultural and social analysis; rejection of positivism
and embrace of interpretivism, contextualization, and
meaning-through-interaction (pp. 6)
- Argues that ethnographic description is necessary to our understanding of how
practice ought to function (pp. 6)
- Stressing the incommensurability of what architects say and do, source in
Argyris & Schon 1974 (pp. 7)
- A balance between observation and interview to get beyond this (pp. 7)
- The Architects and Firms (pp. 7-11)
- Explicates the firms and architects her study took place in (pp. 7)
- Tight geography to, primarily, the San Francisco Bay Area; practices vary in
organizational structure, management, kinds of services, quality, and size
(pp. 7)
- Argues through Blau 1984 that size of practice is determinant of difference,
though stresses how number of employees is often fluctuating/unclear (pp. 7)
- Outlines three major case studies: 1) medium-small-sized firm (12-14) with 4
partners and varied, small-scale projects; 2) small firm (6-10) with one
partner and mostly multi-family housing and developer office buildings; 3)
large firm (30+) with 3 partners and 6 associates and many diverse projects
around the world (pp. 7-8)
- Notes homogeneity of people in firms (white men), but notes larger number of
women entering profession and Asian-Americans as largest minority
represented; notes high underrepresentation of Black and Hispanic people (pp.
8)
- Rotated between firms over the course of a week with static observation from
a single location in the office (pp. 8)
- Working for each office on various small jobs at the same time; stresses that
she was eventually hired as (essentially) an HR consultant (pp. 9)
- Note taking at meetings was used by the offices in their process, access to
informal occasions and get togethers, access to candid/informal conversations
(pp. 9)
- Expansion of research to other major US cities, roundtable discussions
through the AIA (pp. 9)
- Notes her own built-in biases which she hopes to eradicate through an
increase in data quantity from various sources (pp. 10)
- 1) bias of architects to make themselves look good in self-reporting;
controls of this through observation (pp. 10)
- 2) Issues with generalization from specific practices to Architectural
Practice as a whole; distortion through missing key differences between
practices (pp. 10)
- In ch 1 nt. 8 the missing data are: 1) large architectural corporations, 2)
women in architecture, 3) developer clients, 4) very small firms
- 3) Limitation of focusing just on architects and not really engaging anyone
else in the process (besides clients) (pp. 10)
- Notes that her work is in service of a higher quality built environment (pp.
10)
- Notes that she views architecture as socially constructed through negotiation
and that this understanding is what will help make the built environment
better (pp. 10)
- Notes that she will be formulating recommendations for reform of
architectural institutions to bring them in line with the culture of practice
(pp. 11)
- Issues and Findings (pp. 11-15)
- Use of "dialectical dualities" to model a view of practice; view that
architecture favours one pole of the contradiction while neglecting the other
causing problems: the big whammy is that practice itself is the major neglected
pole with "profession" being favoured (pp. 11)
- Other oppositions examined: 1) individual -- collective, 2) design --
business, 3) decision making -- making sense, 4) specialism -- generalism
(pp. 11)
- Approaches these through: architect-client relations; comparing school vs.
profession vs. office practice (pp. 11)
- Recapitulates belief -- practice as ideology -- action (pp. 11)
- Argument that design of built environment is fundamentally a collective
activity with a balance struck between individual and collective activity
(pp. 13)
- The social dimension of architecture as the economic, interactive, and
political component of everyday life and this format directly the artefacts
of practice: buildings (pp. 13)
- Notes the lack of studies on architectural practice from inside the
profession (pp. 15)
- Notes the small, emerging field of studies of design process (pp. 15)
- Locates audience for her work in all members of architectural process so as
to assist further in the social construction of architecture (pp. 15)
- Overview of the Chapters (pp. 15-16)
- General overview of the chapter layout: vignette oriented, semi-connected
chapters
2 -- Beliefs and Practice (pp. 17-56)
- Variations on an Office Theme (pp. 17-20)
- Introduces general aim of chapter to engage how architects understand their
own activities and make sense of their worlds (pp. 17-18)
- Themes approached in chapter: training in schools and offices; importance of
design; desire for authority/voice in design; the studio as ideal model;
problems of the large office; tension between individual designer and
collective activity (pp. 18)
- Purpose of chapter: view profession of arch. as dynamic org. (pp. 18) &
critically analyse arch. professionalism (pp. 20)
- Words and Deeds (pp. 20-22)
- Split between what architects do and what they say they are doing; Argyris &
Schon 1974 present this as "theory-in-use" and "espoused theory" (pp. 20)
- Contradictions between these reduces professional effectiveness until the
practitioner is aware of the contradiction and can neutralize it (pp. 20)
- Notes how the profession is the determinant influence on architectural
practice (pp. 20); there is a professional ethos (tacitly justified actions
and attitudes) that are rarely challenged and which can no longer respond to
everyday practice (pp. 21)
- Watching ethos work in practice can reveal its problematic aspects (pp. 21)
- Professional ethos in arch. constricts behaviour of employees and partners
(bosses) by giving high importance to "design," making it the source of
professional identity despite the fact that it is scarce in practice, with
bosses tending to hoard it (pp. 21)
- Reasons for its critical analysis: 1) architects may not be aware of the
undesirable consequences of their acts and need their beliefs challeneged
(pp. 21-22); 2) need to engage the social context of practice beyond psychology
(pp. 22); 3) practice management is its own burgeoning field (pp. 22)
- Defining Professions (pp. 22-24)
- Professions are social entities by virtue of being a dynamic collection of
practitioners (pp. 22)
- Social interactions btwn colleagues, principles, policies, procedures all act
to maintain existence of profession; notes that this requires concerted
struggle; there can be degrees of professionalization, its not static (pp. 23)
- Degree based on complexity of relationships, level of organization, length of
training, licensure, and prestige of profession (pp. 23)
- Impart knowledge and skills (pp. 23)
- Emerge from occupations that seek autonomy, social status, and control over
their labour market (pp. 23)
- Consider themselves to have social contract with public: trade deal I get
privilege and you get offloading of responsibility (pp. 23); this is legally
enforced with professionals having legal responsibilities to clients (pp. 24)
- As labour conditions change, professional ideology of independence and
service is retained (pp. 24)
- From independent, autonomous actors to wage-earning workers (pp. 24)
- Professional ideology obfuscates real conditions of labour and inspires work
of professionals (pp. 24)
- The Metamorphosis of Architecture (pp. 24-28)
- General overview of changes to architectural practice in the US from its
inception in 1857 with the setup of AIA to its adaptation of European
educational models and rectification of studio education (pp. 24-28)
- Notes education movement gave architectural profession status while
simultaneously ensuring that its practitioners were those already with status
(pp. 28)
- Patronage and the Artistic Distinction (pp. 28-35)
- 19[th] and early 20[th] cen. alliance between architecture and the arts and
dissociation from craft; opposed to engineering through design expertise as
aesthetic expertise (pp. 28-29)
- Tight connection between clients and architects due to local market for
services (pp. 31)
- Notes that there is no monopolization over design though since in many
contexts architectural design makes no difference from non-architects (pp.
31-32)
- Architectural services, due to specificity of design to client, are limited
to wealthiest sector of society (pp. 32)
- Architecture produces "cultural capital," a means of showing off wealth (pp.
32)
- Notable that architecture is not able to use the professional-patron
relationship to achieve any autonomy, closely tied to patrons (pp. 33)
- Contradictory impetus: professional association standardization and unity
VS. education individuality and personal artistic development (pp. 31)
- Notes the wide array of people involved in architectural design beyond the
architect (pp.32)
- Importance of drawings in architectural practice as objects of study and in
an emerging art market (pp. 33)
- Notes increasing importance of developer clients and how they have
commodified architecture through speculative building projects (pp. 33)
- Architects as translators who use design to mediate between function and form
(pp. 33); this is a social art since agreement needs to be arrived at (pp.
35)
- Professionalism and the Contemporary Scene (pp. 35-45)
- Major contradictions between belief and practice, this inherent to the
designer's task (pp. 35)
- Contradiction between art and business with the client at the centre of this
(pp. 35)
- In general professions play up individualism and intrinsic value of work
while downplaying market principles and profit motive [as of 1977]; this as
the "service ideal" (pp. 35)
- Contradiction between definable and mysterious aspects of professional
knowledge; core of well-accepted knowledge and periphery of esoteric
knowledge; this to gain power over uncertainty (pp. 36)
- Secrecy of professional knowledge in architecture characterize it as
"colleague-oriented" with practitioner judgement/evaluation more important
that clients/the public (pp. 36)
- Profession and "discipline" hold each other up and ensure the others'
existence (pp. 37)
- Notes the "art defence" as a means of gaining autonomy and escaping public
judgement (pp.37)
- Mysterious aspect helps to establish exclusivity of profession and ideal of
"autonomous architect" (pp. 37)
- Notes that architecture has not been able to put forward testable hypotheses,
this due to the complexity/indeterminacy of design problems ("wicked
problems") and the tendency of new professions to emerge from and autonomize
from architecture (pp. 39)
- Notes how the control of knowledge and information is important in
construction projects and how information accuracy and extents are
manipulated on purpose to preserve power in this process (pp. 39)
- Power of the client is most ambiguous, but the client is existentially
necessary to architectural practice (pp. 40)
- Push to unity and standardization of profession through AIA (professional
association) (pp. 41)
- Push against this through: 1) non-universality of registration/licensure & 2)
non-universality of professional association membership (pp. 41)
- Education as overwhelming determinant in producing unified ethos despite
apprenticeship being a viable mode of getting into practice, though the
majority of practice owners have degrees (pp. 41)
- Academy disseminating common language and various tacit knowledge through
socialization (pp. 43-44)
- University focus on design (art and theory) prefigures espoused theories of
practitioners (pp. 44-45)
- Need to engage ideology and "real" social relations of practice to make sense
of architectural practice is stressed (pp. 45)
- The Place of Practice (pp. 45-49)
- Definition of "the office" in architecture as: "a setting where human
resources are organized to obtain commissions and deliver services." (pp. 45)
- Size as main determinant of difference between offices, but other dimensions
too: recognition of principals, building types, organization, disciplinary
emphasis (pp. 45-46)
- Growth in size of arch. offices ~ specialization in building industry (pp.
46)
- Most offices in US are small as of 1988 though increasing centralization of
fees to large offices (pp. 46-47)
- Notes declining profits in architecture and argues that this is due to
increased supply of architects (ie. more practices vying for work) (pp.
47-49)
- Notes expansion of what architects do in design and increased demand for
architectural services (pp. 49)
- Argues that the effect of both of these tendencies is the institution of a
managerial approach where there is a strong division of labour (against the
earlier collaborative context of design practice) (pp. 49)
- Work and Workers (pp. 49-53)
- With specialization comes "dequalification" as tasks are quantized into tine
pieces (pp. 49)
- Less meaningful, more alienating jobs; hyper-hierarchization and
centralization of power with the bosses (pp. 49)
- Notes how "design" is considered (by practitioners) mostly the ability to
make broad conceptual decisions and how this is an illusion (pp. 52)
- General tendency in all professions to tripartite stratification of
rank-and-file, administrators, and knowledge elite (pp. 50)
- Specialist groups develop their own professional identities; managerial
specialists and their increased status & oversight w/o increased design
responsibility (pp. 50)
- Notes that since the mid-70s, the majority of architects are employees (pp.
50)
- Mild forms of sabotage in the lowest level of architectural employees due to
lack of direct involvement in design decision-making (pp. 51)
- Moonlighting phenomenon as employees work on their own projects during
leisure time clandestinely (pp. 51)
- Agreement among architects that compensation is too low (pp. 52)
- The upshot of the desire for decision-making responsibility: bosses can
exploit architect-employees with a wide range of skills by giving them more
responsibility instead of or without higher pay (pp. 53)
- Across the Table: The Clients (pp. 53-56)
- Notes changes to the make-up of the client population, namely a
globalization/internationalization of US architectural practice, a movement
to mostly midd-class clients, and an increase in
corporate/institutional/government group clients (pp. 53)
- Most international work executed by large offices (pp. 53)
- Split between clients (who commissioned the building) and inhabitants (who
actually lives in the building day to day) (pp. 55)
- This also includes an increased tendency to deal with agents for the client
rather than the actual client (pp. 55)
- Argument from Fitch (1965) that the tendency towards formalism is an outcome
of this disconnection with the "real clients" (pp. 55)
- Growth in "mega-clients" who do more than 1 million bucks of construction per
year (pp. 55)
- Notes that, in general, architectural practice is tending more and more
towards resembling the general world of business (pp. 56)
- Conclusion (pp. 56)
- Recapitulation of belief-action contradiction; notes that ideology and "real
forces" both determine at the same time (pp. 56)
- Architecture as collective endeavour, bound up with more than just
architects; argues that social context of architectural practice is extremely
important to consider for architects especially in gaining new power over
design (pp. 56)
3 -- Design Problems in Practice (pp. 57-108)
- Southridge College Campus Planning Meeting (pp. 57-63)
- Presents an excerpt from a design meeting with an institutional client (pp.
58-59)
- Notes the way design in practice runs counter to popular & professional
expectations of practice (pp. 61)
- The notion of "complex client" where a design team may have to answer to
multiple levels of client authority (pp. 61)
- Distinction btwn two defs. of "design" -- design as in "well-designed" and
as in "the activity of designing"; this chapter reconsiders the latter
definition (pp. 61)
- Reconsideration in light of the fact that everyone with a "voice" in the
process is a designer [see Yanni Loukissas' (2012) term "co-designer" for
this], with architects having extra responsibilities of coordination and
spatial expression (pp. 61)
- Design problems in practice includes more than just the activity of spatial
expression (design proper) but also approvals process, construction
management, commission obtaining, etc. (pp. 61)
- Six principal characteristics of design problems in practice (see the heading
list below): (pp. 62)
- Design problems in practice are different from their presentation in
education and professional association material, specifically in the US (pp.
63)
- Defining Design Problems in Schools (pp. 63-66)
- Notes that professional associations present design for the public and courts
(pp. 63)
- Generalizes from professionally accredited architectural programs whose
overarching similarity is studio instruction (pp. 63)
- Educational design problem differ due to: 1) distinct setting; 2) studio can
only provide experience of design as isolated activity; 3) educational
problems are selected by instructors for specific didactic reasons (pp. 65)
- The Academy as safe site for error and innovation by disengaging the act of
design from its context; ignoring the social arts of design, contract
negotiation, real estate finance, and regulation (pp. 66)
- The Professional Organization (pp. 66-68)
- Introduces the AIA as force of conservatism, it was set up by and represents
established firms and architectural bosses primarily; sets standards for
building industry despite non-universal membership (pp. 66)
- Handbook of Professional Practice as the stable instantiation of the AIA's
approach to design, expressed through contractual certainties (pp. 68)
- 1. Design in the Balance (pp. 68-72)
- Architecture attempts to unite ideologically contradictory forces of art and
business making every action a contested one (pp. 62)
- Design time and design freedom are challenged in practice by: (pp. 69)
- 1) the client's common priorities (cheapness and functionality) (pp. 69)
- Overcome when the client respects professional values (pp. 69)
- 2) the architectural office's own business practices (pp. 69)
- A) View of managers as outsiders by architects (pp. 69); sabotage of business
managers; prediction that they will gain acceptance in the future (pp. 70)
- B) "charette ethos" of good design requiring work beyond the allotted time,
fee, and hours of work (pp. 70)
- Argues that the two poles should be balanced rather than falling to one or
the other side (pp. 71)
- Presents the AIA's separation of art and business as demonstrated in the
Handbook; roots the split in Vitruvius (pp. 71-72)
- Enumerates the AIA's codified 5 stages of the project; notes that most time
and fee goes towards drawing production and not conceptual design (pp. 72)
- Demonstrates that academic design problems rarely approach "pragmatic
concerns" (pp. 72)
- 2. Countless Voices (pp. 72-84)
- Influence is distributed over many voices in the design process (pp. 62)
- Architects' ideal to have full control over all of design process with
patrons stepping back entirely (pp. 72-73)
- Lone architectural genius is a myth, even historical medieval design is
distributed (pp. 73)
- Pushing of architecture into the "public domain" in the US where a huge
number of people can have input (at different levels) (pp. 74)
- Those who seems to be insignificant in the process may actually have a larger
influence in specific situations (pp. 74-75)
- Ultimate power in the project is having the ability to end it; Cuff deploys
military game theory (the zero-sum game) (pp. 75)
- Discussion of the diffuse influence in design processes (pp. 76); discussion
of how schools do not engage this at all and how the AIA has a limited
approach to it (pp. 77)
- School upholds primacy of lone designer with the instructor as the only
pseudo client (pp. 81)
- Presents the triad of engineer-architect-client as the essential relationship
around which all others are arrayed (pp. 80)
- 3. Professional Uncertainty (pp. 84-91)
- Practice is a dynamic situation where all the factors discussed below are up
in the air (pp. 62)
- Constant change that every design problem and organization undergoes over
time is source of uncertainty; response is "experience" (pp. 84)
- A) Expertise (pp. 84-85)
- Architect expected to be a generalist in knowledge (pp. 84); but this leads
to ambiguity of responsibility, areas of expertise and their boundaries are
contestable (pp. 85)
- B) Authority (pp. 85-86)
- Authority over delegation is unclear making responsibility unclear, this as a
source of liability issues; reluctance to assign responsibility due to
unclarity (pp. 85)
- Different bases of information, different access/communication (pp. 85)
- Ambiguity of authority as a source of decisions taking a long time since no
one wants to be responsible when they shouldn't be (pp. 86)
- C) Allegiance (pp. 86-87)
- When authority is unclear, those with strong interests cling to any snatch of
power they can get their hands on, leading to the formation of temporary and
changing alliances (pp. 86-87)
- D) Procedures (87-88)
- Procedures for how a project is actually run are themselves unclear due to
this changeability in the conception of design problems (the wicked problem)
(pp. 87)
- Impact of one phase upon later ones is often unclear and unpredictable (pp.
87)
- "procedures" = methods of action exhibited during the course of a project
(pp. 87)
- AIA does not recognize this uncertainty, rather prescribing certainty, with
suggestions informally followed (pp. 88-89)
- Uncertainty is avoided in the Academy since it is difficult to simulate and
takes away from the didactic aspects of studio instruction, the lone designer
with personalized feedback (pp. 90-91)
- 4. Perpetual Discovery (pp. 91-95)
- Design is a process of continual discovery due to the inherent incompleteness
of information obtainable and the challengeable aspect of every constraint;
design could be unending (pp. 62)
- Uncertain outcomes means no rational way of determining the time it will take
to complete a design (pp. 91)
- Deadlines and schedules come from outside design, external pressures (pp. 91)
- Time management as most common ailment in architecture; phase transitions
predicated on client approval, completion of phases are based on agreement
between client and architects that it is in fact complete (pp. 91)
- Projects take longer than expected since: 1) in architectural practice,
simple activities can be extremely time consuming (pp. 91); 2) external
participants can cause unforeseen delays; 3) everything is negotiable and
information is never complete; 4) any one change changes every other part of
the design (pp. 92)
- Deadlines are limits on perpetual discovery; clients want speed since time is
money (you're fired Jones!); stresses how schedules have significant impact
on building's design (pp. 92)
- Notes that management of time = synchronization and enforcement of that
synchronization, notes some examples of how (pp. 92)
- Determining what constraints are negotiable and which are not, two basic
constraints: 1) the client's problem requires architecture as a solution; 2)
the site (pp. 93)
- Number of issues/constraints also leaves design open to perpetual discovery,
there's too much and not enough information at the same time (pp. 93)
- Notes interconnection of design problems, how solutions lead to new problems
(pp. 93-94)
- How the AIA ignores the complexity of design problems; how the Academy is a
good example of "perpetual discovery" (pp. 95)
- 5. Surprise Endings (pp. 95-101)
- The possibilities of design are so limitless that no participant could
predict the outcome from the beginning (pp. 62)
- The building as outcome of negotiations with client, not the object of
negotiations; labour power in expertise is sold, not buildings (pp. 96)
- AIA attempts to reduce ambiguity by limiting the range of surprises a
building could show up (pp. 96)
- Difficulty in prediction comes from: 1) no point in a building's life where
it can be judged definitively; 2) architects are brought in when
people/institutions have shifts in expectations; 3) the principal planning
media are simulations of the outcome, the limits of visual literacy (pp. 96-97)
- Predictions about the conditions of the future are also often included in
design as information, they are designed (pp. 97)
- Forming expectations of the outcome complicated by the fact that
architectural solutions are interchangeable with managerial ones (legal
strictures, personal oversight, surveillance) (pp. 97-98)
- Reliance on precedents as guarantees that certain design moves will lead to
certain outcomes, the precedent study as scrying the future (pp. 99)
- Discussion of how the AIA tries to stabilize the issue of indeterminacy,
where architects are responsible for plans and contractors responsible for
constructed outcomes, liability as a major issued covered in the 1988 edition
of the Handbook, AIA sees architectural outcomes as predictable (pp. 100-101)
- The Academy embraces the unpredictability and surprise endings, though
they're different than problems in practice (pp. 101)
- 6. A Matter of Consequence (pp. 101-106)
- Design has serious consequences for every participant in the process, for
future inhabitants, and for the public at large, notes that the
professionalization of architecture comes out of these stakes (ie. the transfer
of responsibility to specific people presumed to know) (pp. 62, 101)
- Design decisions as calculated risks, buildings as nearly permanent and
unavoidable; the responsibilities of a building can only be transferred to
someone else (pp. 102)
- Not all negative consequences of design/construction can be avoided, not
every participant has an equal voice; economics and power differentials can
determine who matters (pp. 102)
- For negotiation, there must already be overlaps in objectives, there must be
a fundamental common interest for clients, architects and consultants (pp.
103)
- Experience as guarantor, often, of positive outcomes/success to clients (pp.
103)
- Clients have a much more ambiguous role in architecture, having more
influence over outcomes (as opposed to Medicine or Law) (pp. 104)
- For architects, projects are linked to later work, whether they get more work
or not, through the office archive and portfolio, through collection of
professional recognition (pp. 104-105)
- More commissions = solvency; the interests of profit are basal to design
success; commissions have consequences for staffing and pay (pp. 105-106)
- AIA stresses importance of architecture to the public; schools ignore the
stakes to form a risk-free environment for experimentation (pp. 106)
- Conclusion (pp. 107-108)
- General upshot: problems in practice are more uncertain, contradictory, and
have more participants with high stakes (pp. 107)
- Bidirectional relationship between schools and practice: practice problems
shape academic training and academic approaches shape practices (pp. 107-108)
- School = designers' ideal; professional association = designers' dream of a
public ideal; both can be instruments of change, but not of any radical
change (pp. 108)
- Currently, the goals of change forwarded by prof. associations and schools
are undermined by ignorance of the social art of design and context (pp. 108)
4 -- The Making of an Architect (pp. 109-154)
- Paul's Initiation (pp. 109-111)
- Intro vignette of young architect btwn school and full job (pp. 109)
- How architects are not taught how to be "cultural interpreters" and
understand a new culture of work they're thrust into; how architects respond
through "charette" since it's the only thing they know (from school); how
partners cease to notice how charetting becomes their usual way of working (pp.
110)
- Meanings are fluid in architectural practice, being constantly remade;
outsiders' participation goes both ways: integrating and evolving the system
(pp. 110)
- Main argument: architectural practice is a culture whose examination will
give us a better understanding of architecture's uniqueness and what
architectural identity means (pp. 110)
- Culture of practice as what happens inside the sociological boundaries (the
structure a la Strauss' structuralism), structure is backdrop (pp. 111)
- Change is the main characteristic of architectural practices that is evident
everywhere, time and its consequences is central to understanding
architectural practice (pp. 111)
- This chapter is about how an individual becomes an architect (identity) (pp.
111)
- The Office Culture (pp. 111-112)
- Justifies her cultural analytical approach; beyond sociology's disembodied
processes (pp. 111) and pop-business analysis of "corporate culture" (pp.
112); locates her study with cultural analyses of other professions (pp. 112)
- The Definition of Culture (pp. 112-116)
- Definition adapted from Clifford Geertz's work: "a set of control mechanisms
-- plans, recipes, rules, instructions... -- for governing behaviour." The
programs give meaning to experience; culture is the totality of mechanisms.
(pp. 113)
- Cultural analysis as a means of predicting what people (the architect here)
will do in the future by understanding their world (pp. 113)
- We can learn about them since "webs of significance" are public, shared, and
observable; they do not belong to one individual; they are made even more
visible by outsiders in a culture (pp. 113)
- The point of architectural work culture is to ensure the smooth process of
production, as opposed to constant arguing; new members are assimilated to it
(pp. 115)
- So-called office culture is not monolithic and consist of various subcultures
that operate together as a dynamical system constituting everyday life (pp.
115)
- Argues that social context of life in architectural practice is at least as
influential as site and materials on the form of a building (pp. 116)
- From Layperson to Expert (pp. 116-118)
- Studying the process of becoming an architect as a means of accessing what it
means to be one (pp. 116)
- Proposes a series of periods: architectural student entry-level architect
/[full-fledged-architect]/ {project architect/associate principal}
- Notes she will be focusing on most common way of becoming full architect (pp.
117)
- Discussion of how one decides to become an architect (pp. 117-118)
- Only two ways to begin (school or apprenticing) but many ways to [note the
next word well] escape architecture (pp. 118)
- Path of professional socialization as one of repressing "idiosyncrasies" (pp.
118)
- The Architectural Student (pp. 118-129)
- Outlines the standard 5-year design degree, presents the undergrad-masters
program; defines main characteristics of both: studio, crit, and charette
(pp. 118)
- Notes that canon of heroes and precedents is strongly established, yet
continually revised (pp. 121)
- Studio is primary, everything else is secondary; stresses the
instructor-student relation as primary one (pp. 121) with face-to-face time
as a limited resource, rareness of non-architects in crits (pp. 122)
- Dinham's three purposes of review juries: 1) criticize individual students;
2) provide general instruction; 3) initiate scholarly exchange that's
supposed to add to the student's growth; Juries also assimilate students to
values (pp. 126)
- The charette deadline and how students learn from each other (pp. 128)
- Notes that architectural schools are dominated by a patriarchal culture (pp.
128)
- Transition to next stage: learning that experience is everything (pp. 129)
- Entry-Level Architects: The Gathering Experience (pp. 129-137)
- Standard architectural office hierarchy (high to low): principals,
associates, project architects, then "everyone else" (pp. 129)
- "everyone else" = typically those just out of school (pp. 129)
- Landing a Job (pp. 130-133)
- Notes the circular issue of needing a job getting experience; menial jobs,
personal connections, unpaid work (pp. 130)
- Low unemployment among architects; working for low or no pay due to: high
supply of architectural grads & need for experience for better/permanent work
-- the architectural labour market looks like the "unskilled labour" market
(pp. 130)
- Persistent fluctuation in labour pool: people hired and fired per project,
movement of workers to better jobs as soon as they have the experience,
nonexistent job security (pp. 132)
- For bosses, employees are potential liabilities to the survival of the firm
[read as "profits"] (pp. 132)
- Uncertainty of architectural practice (pp. 132)
- Title Blocks and Bathroom Details (pp. 133-134)
- Work of architectural employees looks more like the work of labourers than of
professionals (pp. 133); young architects treated like architectural tools
rather than people (pp. 134)
- Training of interns done at the least expense with little oversight and on
tasks with few consequences (pp. 134)
- High mobility of young employees between offices (pp. 134)
- Key to keeping your job is error-free speed: working quickly and accurately
(pp. 134)
- The Humility of Practice (pp. 134-137)
- Difficulty of young architects to get range of experience they want (pp. 135)
- Contradiction between generalist approach of AIA/schools and the coordination
of specialists representative of practice (pp. 135)
- Accumulation of authorship credit with the principals with no authorship
afforded to employees lowest on the chain; note this in relation to the
importance of authorship forwarded in schools/AIA (pp. 135)
- Examines the "rebel" who avoids wage labour in architecture through various
means (single client, teaching, family money, connections) and start their
own office immediately (pp. 135-136)
- The Middle Years: Job Captain, Project Architect, Associate (pp. 137-146)
- No predetermined duration for being "entry-level"; metamorphosis into "middle
years" is slow and uneven with the change in job title (and pay) following an
increase in responsibility/change in job description; uncertainty is most
apparent here, period of greatest ambiguity (pp. 137)
- Major change is from worker to manager: overseeing work, keeping work
effort/fee in check, monitoring progress; also meeting with
clients/consultants; this is the case unless you're a specialist, where
oversight isn't necessarily part of your job (pp. 140)
- A few possible routes: lead designer, manager/supervisor, specialist (pp.
140)
- Includes a change of office usually (pp. 140)
- Becoming an associate has nothing to do with length of tenure (pp. 141)
- "Rites of passage" to becoming full-fledged architect: (pp. 141); main rite
of passage is one from dependence to autonomy (pp. 145)
- Licensing exam: various tests, two of which are design problems; most
applicants don't pass all parts on first try (pp. 141); in 1991, it is not a
prerequisite of entrance into the profession, but is a legal requirement for
independent practice (pp. 143)
- Starting an office: another expression of independence; two stereotypes of
starving artist and entrepreneur (pp. 143)
- A Note on Gender (pp. 145-146)
- The difficulties of women in the "middle years" due to concealment of
mechanisms for advancement; concealing everything means discrimination
happens (pp. 145)
- Concealment also provides clarity of gender bias in advancement; due to this,
more women going out on their own earlier (pp. 145)
- Vagueness of criteria for advancement, clear that principals whims are the
only criteria; those who move up the ladder hoard responsibilities in a
self-perpetuating system where those higher up don't want to lose anything and
those lower down grapple upwards (pp. 146)
- The Full-Fledged Architect: Authority and Buildings (pp. 146-153)
- Meaning of "full-fledged" for this group is attached to buildings produced,
especially the production on large-scale projects (pp. 146)
- Means having the responsibility for something big AND getting credit for it
(pp. 147)
- Responsibility = design control and cost responsibility; f-f practitioner is
one who can lose money if things go south (pp. 147)
- Balance of activities shifts away from doing the work to getting the work;
established practitioner actually does less design than those lower down the
ladder, but gets all the credit (pp. 149)
- Evolution after reaching "f-f" status, searching for stability and security
through steady flow of work (pp. 149) for insurance; this attached to desire
for greater profitability, both monetary and in prestige (better projects) (pp.
150); and in expansion of intellectual influence, ie. having power over others
and ultimately having power over time through archival inclusion/leaving your
mark (pp. 151)
- Conclusion (pp. 153-154)
- Notes three rites of passage: 1) rites of separation from student to
entry-level; 2) rites of transitions from entry-level to middle years; 3)
rites of incorporation from middle to f-f years (pp. 153)
- Constructivist model of identity: one becomes an architect before one is one
(pp. 153)
- Becoming an architect is essentially a process of assimilation: becoming
different but not too different (pp.154)
- Argues that the profession should expand its creative domain (pp. 154)
5 -- The Architect's Milieu (pp.155-1940
- Intro Section (pp. 155-157)
- Recapitulates earlier material on sociology of practice and economic trends
to centralization (pp. 155)
- This chapter focuses on how architects work in groups to form meaningful
worlds for themselves and their actions; milieu as a means of expresses
personal identity (pp. 157)
- Characteristics of milieu: office heritage, language, power structure,
practices/values (pp. 157)
- Office Heritage (pp. 157-162)
- Based on mythos of the practice founders (pp. 157-159); old-timers as
"elders" who pass on stories/ideology (pp. 159); inheritance of behaviours
through aping; principal(s) personal values are determinant in shaping office
values; values passed through the portfolio of buildings as well (pp. 160)
through shared interpretation by senior members (pp. 161)
- Firm Growth and Change (pp. 162-164)
- Various modes: growth not change (charismatic leader), no growth no change
(subsidization or stuck in small scale), shrinking (economic downturn),
growth and change (pp. 162); evolutionary paths based on internal upheaval and
external pressures; material conditions significantly influence office heritage
(pp. 164)
- The Cultural Scene (pp. 165-171)
- Recapitulates Geertz (pp. 165)
- Dialect (pp. 165-166)
- Definitions of culture which centre language; practitioners acquire common
lexicon to make sense of projects inside of which lurk values (pp. 165-166)
- Values (pp. 166)
- Differences in values between management and workers; however there are
enough complementary values or common values to keep things going; learned
from experience/demonstration; totality cannot be known but act as if they
could be known (pp. 166)
- Prevailing Practices and Rituals (pp. 166-169)
- Prevailing practices = how architects act with the values in mind (pp. 166)
- Rituals (recurrent patterns of activity) existing at every firm which are for
group cohesion: activities that co-opt labour for management objectives;
noting that management/worker split is ambiguous in architectural offices, yet
there are significant power relations (pp. 167)
- Power relations = ability to move someone or something within an organization
in a desired direction (Zaltman 1976); persuasion, design idea strength,
status within office through support from powerful individuals (pp. 167);
formal and informal power [more effective]; voice through esoteric knowledge;
access to power = power (pp. 168)
- Roles (pp. 169-171)
- Recurrent patterns of activities = "roles"; theatrical analogy; outlines
"role theory"; people temporarily assume roles, changing roles, taxonomy of
roles (pp. 170)
- Architect and Client (pp. 171-173)
- Architecture firm as cultural microcosm, mediation between public and
individual architect; architect's relation to client as important as internal
workings of office (pp. 171)
- Office as virtual, safe context of shared worldviews; clients interface
architects with public (pp. 171)
- Differences between art patrons and architectural clients; client plays
active role alongside practitioner; approval is key to continuing the process
(pp. 171)
- Proposes clear discursive patterns of interaction, interactions are designed,
meetings as design problems (pp. 171)
- Lists the patterns (see next section); notes how the taxonomy is
subject-focused rather than deliverable focused like the AIA (pp. 173)
- Design Interactions (pp. 173-188)
- Notes intensity of interactions (pp. 173); presents approximated quants model
of intensity (pp. 174-175)
- Presents the case study of a mosque project to explore the stages/patterns
(pp. 178)
- Courtship: architects and clients ask for and present information based on
preconceptions (pp. 178-179); Building Rapport: must be maintained constantly
through effective communication, cultivation of a shared enemy (pp. 179-181);
Unveiling Boundaries and Preferences: amendment through addition of new
information/amendment of information, three "types" (pp. 181-183); Avoiding
Disputes: main unwritten law of architectural practice is to avoid
confrontation and find other ways to get what you want, this through "spacing"
around an issue or altering the "timing" of design (pp. 183-184); Constructing
Progress: making agreements tangible, suspending bias to produce virtual space
(pp. 184-185); Improvisational Talk: discussion as improvisation with emergent
outcomes, extensive section of discourse analysis, client dominates early
meetings with shift to architect later, visual discussions through sketch,
collage, etc. (pp. 185-188)
- Design Talk (pp. 188-191)
- Presents a different case study that will be examined in depth, a ski resort
in Colorado (pp. 188-190)
- Discussion's objective of mutual understanding (pp. 190)
- Decisions, Agreement, and Sense Making (pp. 191-194)
- Deeper analysis of previous example, focus on difficulty of tracing
decisions, discussions are about gaining power in the process (pp. 191)
- Manipulative tactics, positioning and displaying positions (pp. 192)
- Emergent issues and linked issues (pp. 193); literary techniques of
simulation (pp. 193)
- The question of whether the influences from within the office and from the
client have positive or negative effects on good design (pp. 194)
Appendix A -- Original Research (pp. 265-266)
- Lists the instances of interview and observational data collection along with
the series of roundtable discussions and their institutional supporters
Appendix B -- Partial List of Architects Interviewed (pp. 267)
- Exactly as the title says; all architects are named and not under pseudonyms
Appendix C -- Attributes of Excellence (pp. 269-270)
- A summary of the attributes extracted in chapter 6, formatted for
appropriation as a kind of scorecard
Appendix D -- Problems in Three Spheres (pp. 271-272)
- Outline of major problems in education and professional institution; these
are formalized/summarized versions of what is explained in chapter 3
