I’m not one for snappy headlines, but I was recently the centre of one, when quoted from a speech saying “architects are sleepwalking into irrelevance”. Perhaps I could have been more careful with my phrasing, but the message is consistent and I’ve been saying it for some time.

Last July I wrote a piece here noting that as a profession architects have to think hard about our relevance in a world where technology and digital advances are likely to change the built environment beyond recognition. And I’m not alone in sounding the warning bells; my partners in crime are not disgruntled naysayers but friends and advocates of the profession. As such, their critique should be taken in the spirit in which it is given – in good grace. 

The developer Mike Hussey, sponsor of the Stirling prize, recently joined the debate by claiming that “the design industry [is] in danger of being, not just marginalised, but wiped out”. He went on to talk of the “massive disconnect” between designers and the rest of the industry, and urged them to engage more with the construction phase and with “the commercial pressures that we have as a client”, as well as with rapid change in the industry. 

…