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10.4324 9781315851822 Previewpdf
10.4324 9781315851822 Previewpdf
This book provides a definitive guide for the future direction of the
practice and profession of architecture.
This comprehensive and practical handbook is a timely response to
the reality that the traditional architectural profession is dead. The old
model of fee for labor, based on the development of documents for
construction, has been failing for years and its demise is now complete
with the Great Recession.
This forces us to now reconsider our world: what type of profession
and practice will replace the old model?
Focusing on the concept of disruption, the book provides a set
of ideas and tools in order to create a new sustainable practice. But
what is disruption? A disruption is a process, product, or service that
disrupts an existing market or existing market solution. Combined with
innovation, disruption improves a product or service in ways that the
market is not expecting or prepared for. The disruptive innovative
solution provides a completely different business approach to the
market that isn’t just about lowering fees or pursuing a different set of
clients, but the provision of a new and different client solution.
In the five parts of the book, Cliff Moser provides you with all the
tools and know-how to implement changes that will serve you and your
practice in the short, medium and long term. Written at a crucial time
for the industry, this is essential reading for every architect.
The world is changing and Architect 3.0 offers both a roadmap and
a toolbox for architects who are willing to change with it. I’m not an
architect but I do build houses, and I look forward to the possibilities that
the changing landscape offers to working more closely with architects
to design and build houses for poor families that are simple, decent
and sustainable—to design and build for solutions. The future isn’t
bleak for those who embrace change. Cliff Moser offers a thoughtful
and optimistic look at what’s coming and how all of us who deal in
containing space can tackle the new realities and prosper from them.
David Snell, President and Co-Founder
of The Fuller Center for Housing
Cliff Moser
First published 2014
by Routledge
2 Park Square, Milton Park, Abingdon, Oxon OX14 4RN
and by Routledge
711 Third Avenue, New York, NY 10017
Routledge is an imprint of the Taylor & Francis Group, an informa
business
© 2014 Cliff Moser
The right of Cliff Moser to be identified as author of this work has
been asserted by him in accordance with sections 77 and 78 of
the Copyright, Designs and Patents Act 1988.
All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reprinted
or reproduced or utilised in any form or by any electronic,
mechanical, or other means, now known or hereafter invented,
including photocopying and recording, or in any information
storage or retrieval system, without permission in writing from the
publishers.
Trademark notice: Product or corporate names may be
trademarks or registered trademarks, and are used only for
identification and explanation without intent to infringe.
Every effort has been made to contact and acknowledge copyright
owners. The publishers would be grateful to hear from any
copyright holder who is not acknowledged here and will undertake
to rectify any errors or omissions in future printings or editions of
the book.
British Library Cataloguing in Publication Data
A catalogue record for this book is available from the British
Library
Library of Congress Cataloging in Publication Data
Moser, Cliff.
Architecture 3.0: the disruptive design practice handbook / Cliff Moser.
pages cm
Includes index.
1. Architectural practice. 2. Architectural services marketing.
I. Title. II. Title: Architecture three point oh.
NA1996.M675 2013
720—dc23 2013025438
Preface vii
Introduction 1
2 Design solving 23
7 Disruption 73
8 Two practices 77
References 289
Further reading 293
Index 295
PREFACE
Creating a disruptive
architecture practice
What is disruption?
Sustaining innovation
True disruption
Disruption in architecture
Professional irrelevance
In his book In the Scheme of Things, Thomas Fisher (2000) outlines the
negative perception of architects and architecture by a public which
is “numbed by an ugly and shoddily constructed built environment
and outraged by the cost of high-profile design projects.” This pub-
lic is now “disinterested and contemptuous of architecture as both a
profession and an art.” We, as architects in our Arch2.0 environment,
“isolated ourselves from the tastes and needs of mainstream society.”
We overspecialized, under-delivered, and created a profession that, in
most of the public’s opinion, served no purpose.
Arch3.0
Arch3.0 will create new opportunities while destroying others. That is what
disruption does. The rapidly continuing specialization within the profes-
sion will continue to create smaller and smaller activities and specialized
expertise that will test the ability of design professionals to understand
and leverage their project role. It will also create large, vertically integrated
global firms. Only exceeded by the size of governments, these mega-firms
like AECOM, Balfour Beatty, and Stantec currently employ thousands
of individuals globally in specialty design and construction roles across
multiple disciplines. These firms will be the other successful players in
Architecture 3.0, leveraging their ability to design and build massive
projects, but also to self-fund these projects. Acting almost as mini-
governmental authorities, these behemoths have paved the way for
public–private partnerships, organizations that can finance, design, build,
and operate entire cities, leasing the final space as an annuity to cover all
of their costs (including profit) for a 30- to 60-year life cycle.
2.0, licensure had been steadily declining, and the marketplace for
new licensed architects had become stagnant. Why get registered?
More and more graduates were not seeing the benefit behind the
costly endeavor (in both money and time) in order to achieve the intan-
gible goal of licensure. Firms were no longer helping to recover the
cost nor reward the achievement. Individuals who practiced the non-
building parts of architecture without the benefit of license were pro-
tected from liability issues that came with licensure. And as long as they
called themselves “designers” they seemed to enjoy all of the rewards
of being “architects” without many of the risks. These players don’t
even design buildings; instead they find themselves working on the
design-solving, problem-solving side of the equation, and their role as
architects exists only as much as their graduate degree informs.