Chapter 10: Architecture at the Crossings of the “Valley of Death” During Times of Digital Urban Transformations
Jack Self & Tommaso Davi
Architecture is perhaps the most complex field of design in existence today. The expertise and knowledge required to execute a building is immense – the architect must apply a design methodology, understand various histories, narratives and trends (of architecture and society in general), and be proficient in subjects as diverse as contract law, tort, material sciences, structural and environmental engineering, macroeconomics, microeconomics, political economy, project finance, time management, the art of persuasion, dispute resolution, and drawing (this alone ranging from sketching and seductive image-making to technical standards and BIM). In academia, the scope of potential research is unlimited. Everything could relate to architecture, from why and how flowers unfold their petals, to the dynamic forms of 18th century Dutch fortifications.
Such a broad spectrum of agendas, layers of engagement, and knowledge bases represent the consequence of architecture’s various domain struggles. In order to justify its own relevance, as well as succeed commercially, architecture has been forced to develop into a multifaceted discipline. Recent social and technological transformations have added an additional pressure: surviving the “crossing cycle” pattern associated with the so-called “valley of death” (which we will explore further on in this paper).
The architect’s daily battle is inextricably tied up with other agents of the built environment. Conflict and confrontation are the result of trying to reconcile some of the many complexities and paradoxes that result from these interdisciplinary relationships. Those agents do not have a unified scale of interest, or mode of operation. They may take as their cosmos discrete spatial and material units: the city, the block, or the home. Equally, they may concentrate on processes (both visible and invisible): construction, real estate transactions, demolition, insurance, design, and financial services. Innovations and technological advances in any one of these arenas inevitably impact the scope and relevance of architectural practices – and, by association, the agenda of architectural education.
Such dynamics push those in the profession (and those who might aspire to join it) towards specialisation, obscure fields of research, or other market niches. All the while, these specialists will be wrestling with their general obligation to making space and understanding the relevance of the new professional identities they now must assume. Worryingly, expert training in this rapidly evolving landscape is often lacking or disparate, and fundamentally at odds with the ideal stereotype of the architect.
Compared to those in allied fields such as engineering or property development, architects and architecture often struggles to prove its value to society. The challenge requires near heroic energy to communicate, explain, and provide evidence of the added benefits that professionals trained in the discipline are capable of delivering. This is already true when discussing the traditional role of the architect in the design and construction of a building. It is even more problematic when the architect is implicated in industries (like those mentioned above) that are currently disrupting the fundamentals of the profession and the formation of the built environment.
Some of the difficulties facing architects today are not caused by outside forces, but by resistance from within the profession itself: from deep-rooted preconceptions about what does or does not constitute a valid field of inquiry, to unquestionable principles of engagement with other professions (particularly planning, law, and finance). At the core of these anxieties is the assertion that all architects need clients. Without them, they are either “paper architects” or “architect-developers.” Both are terms that frequently appear as derogatory dismissals. However, the fixation on the client as the only route to realising the built environment seriously ignores potential business opportunities. If the architect’s desire is to influence the world for the better, it seems odd that they are so dismissive of certain marketplaces and arenas – specifically, everything else that gravitates around the ultimate output of the building itself.
For a new generation of architects who are thinking creatively about how to engage with these processes, there remains a lack of substantial knowledge about business practices. The dominant model of contemporary architecture is one established by decades of myths based on cult figures: it is a truism that success in practice relies on the logic that “you are your brand”, and that you can only “make it” by winning exotic competitions, or serving rather unconventional, eccentric billionaire customers, or prestigious cultural institutions, or corporations. Or, all of the above.
The ultimate ambition is to hit that tipping point where word of mouth from powerful people becomes a trigger factor for the creation of the star-architect. Through this route, the architect assumes they will enter the hall of fame – even if that merely constitutes a vague example of the existing paradoxes in the profession. In reality, there is little correlation between the development of a qualitative education and best practice in business and the stereotypical culture of the path to success according to such star-architect fairytales.
The balance sheets of architecture firms attest to the hard truth that being a star today is not proving to be a winning model. It is more likely a dying business, since it is driven by singular, hero-like personalities, and not continuous reinvention of its value proposition. Yet is interesting to notice how this star status is no longer considered appealing by many millennials. Students are increasingly driven by other ambitions at architecture school.
More than ever, there is a desire to participate with colleagues from other fields – the computer sciences, big data, or bio-tech – to develop new methods for realising the built environment. The Silicon Valley-derived tech culture of “incubators”, “start-ups” and “accelerators” is increasingly permeating architecture, to the extent that such ideas are normalised. The cross-pollination of architecture and entrepreneurship as a seamless culture is definitely part of the modalities of thinking of the new generation of architects. But is it a worthwhile investment?
In the contemporary environment, firms of all scale feel themselves pressured to learn and adapt to the fast-paced rise of the tech markets in the built environment. Innovation has become to them a survival mantra, with heavy investments (recorded in excess of billions of dollars) actuated through service diversification and specialisation. This process may include the acquisition of: new businesses, new intellectual property, a highly skilled workforce, and expansion into multidisciplinary work of all kinds. Architectural firms today, both large and small, are facing the greatest unknowns in the entrepreneurial journey than in any previous era.
Contemporary conditions of intense multidisciplinary competition favour the gathering of bright minds, architects not excluded. That might now mean developing proposals, starting companies, or working side-by-side with corporations in fields like UrbanTech, PropTech, Advanced Urban Services, “smart” and “better sense” cities or the Internet of Things / Internet of Cities. These types of endeavours might sound either exotic, or not profoundly serious, to old school minds – but they are increasingly the true generators of business, innovation, and promising solutions to real-world urban, suburban, and rural environmental issues. Customers profiles are also changing, and they can be as vast as transnational conglomerates or aggregates of corporate bodies, or as complex as non-profit boards, ultra-high-net-worth fund managers, family offices, or charities and foundations. These are just some of the many and fascinating narratives of societal change we are all witnesses to today, which are driving the development of new business in architecture.
Elaborating a coherent corpus of thinking to best understand the drivers for such narratives – or as some in the investment industries might call them “Equity stories” – is a priority. It is undoubtedly a relevant mission for any architect in practice today, in order to be competitive and ahead of their time. And yet the unprecedented pace of innovation is raising questions about the capacity of architecture to embody and address new concerns. In a broader sense, there is a question of whether architectural education is willing to reform its research scopes, academic agendas, and knowledge-base developments around principles aligned with business. Will the architect come to have a role in the execution and application of digital tech into our cities, or will they preserve their stoic stance as the sole defendants of architecture as the art form of social communication and making of it’s space to the very last?
One way to start developing an understanding of whether or not architects’ roles are still relevant is to adopt tools developed by experts in the field of entrepreneurship and innovation – by assessing the scalable analytics of contemporary successful and un-successful architecture practices according to the “Valley of Death”.
In venture development, the Valley is the moment when abstract research and innovation must be crystallised into a scalable value proposition with a market-ready product or solution. By its nature, research is open-ended – it can be iterative, or operate on long timescales (particularly when it comes to the built environment). The rewards of research are unknown in advance, and the costs involved are always high. This is fundamentally opposed to capitalist imperatives and the realities of time-sensitive real-world issues.
The Valley of Death exists because of this contradiction. Yet the difficulty of translating research into products or projects is more than just a technical question of feasibility. It also requires systemic integration of new knowledge – from managing capital flows and stakeholder interests, to considering how the entrepreneurial mission might benefit society as a whole.
According to industry estimates, more than eighty percent of technologies developed worldwide never make it to market due to their inability to cross the Valley of Death. The reasons for this scale of failure are intensely scrutinised by their relevant industries. Their conclusions about why certain forms of innovation cannot be easily commercialised is then incorporated into R&D. This it might be possible in the world of architecture, as soon as we will start harnessing market data and intelligence in order to spot recurrent fail/success paths.
To date, we don’t have a good idea of the scale of global attempts to innovate in the built environment. Nor do we know much about the scope of the agents and actors involved or their best practices. We don’t know who is taking the greatest risks. Even so, the rate of failure is presumably higher than the industry averages: a large amount of built environment research taking place today doesn’t ever exit the academy or the firm.
We don’t know how many architects (and their allied professions) are embarking on self-initiated or entrepreneurial activities. Nor do we know how many are failing, or for what reasons. We do know, however, that there is a lot of underutilised capacity in the field. To harness this potential, we would first need to understand what the specific qualities of the Valley of Death are for the built environment, redesign and discovery of its true boundaries will help architects get to a cultural shift in the discipline and hopefully a process of discovery for the better of its future.
The legacy of heroism in architecture means that successes are rarely dissected, and failures are quickly covered up.
This culture is the first thing to change. With greater data transparency and clarity about risk, we could adapt general innovation and resource investment models to better serve the built environment. Only then will we start to redesign the social figure of the architect.
London, UK, 29 April 2020
copyright Jack Self & Tommaso Davi 2024