The Future of Architecture

(Part 2) Reflective Essay on the Context of the Profession in the Construction Industry

Architecture?

What is architecture and who are ‘Architects’?

What is currently happening to the Architectural Industry?

Why is this happening to us?

Architecture without Architects

Dawn of a new hope

Save the Architect, save the World!

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Architecture?

Are architects cultured designers or merely glorified surgeons, rubber stamped by planners and working in a metropolis shredded by a commercial and political convenience who caused this architectural collateral damage? The architectural industry less concerned with the public interest and instead it is filled with over aestheticized imagery of the new architecture, which doesn’t resemble the images is seen as compared to real life (Independent, 2011). Instead using architectural jargon, their primary focus is on design and new architecture instead of having discussions in regards to the cultural and public relevance, let alone the financial models and politics behind which it is based. A prominent archicritic thoughtfully skewered the ideas of the starchitect and reflecting that “architecture is a social art rather than a personal one and a reflection of a society and its values rather than a medium of individual expression.” (Hyde, 2011) Despite what many critics says the need of starchitects is constantly increasing due to the branding of its company, as the clients value the brand more than the “value for money” that starchitects could provide. They are not as many as one might think as the exclusion of the bulk of the work were not documented by the media who is obsessed with the fame and glory of these starchitects, despite 95% of the profession engaged. These remaining professions comprises mainly of specialist niche practices whereby there is a whole range of people doing different types of specialised works; and traditional regional practices who are doing a vast bulk of commercial work and are very much part of the local economy.

Has there been none to challenge that architecture is not all about producing polished and remarkable renders and enthralling design concepts, articulating technologies and outrageous buildings, or monuments as many would call them? “Why is it then that you rarely hear architects defending architecture?” Why don’t we instead introduce the obscure world of unnamed architecture in which we have so little knowledge, that will break away from the definite concepts of buildings and the art behind it, which is foreign in most of the architectural industry? Alternatively, perhaps that the architectural world does not need architects to determine its future. Unfortunately, due to the shortage of visuals and documents contrarily our aspect of the whole picture in the unnamed architecture is inarticulate. When archeologists and historians unearthed fragments of historical cities dating back up to only a tenth of a millennium, they are to be considered fortunate enough (Osten, 2009). As compared to how well informed we are about the technical proficiency and artistic objectives of another historical background that dates longer that millenniums before our time.

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“Architecture is largely a discipline that sits on stilts, away from the flood lands of the people that use it in everyday life. These supports which keeps the art and science of building design; and to some extent, the appreciation of buildings themselves, accessible primary to card carrying intellectuals, were erected, consciously or otherwise in the last 40 years by a team of masterful thinkers and artists; Starchitects like Frank Gehry and Zaha Hadid, and journalists who are quick to glamorize the field, like say by using terms like Starchitects“ – Amy Schellenbaum

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What is Architecture and who are ‘Architects’?

In the western world where architectural history was taught and written in, has never troubled it beyond what is comprehensive in their selected cultures (Rudofsky, 1964). Despite what many thinks about architecture, it is not like medicine, nor is it about structure and management. What makes up a body of knowledge in the wide-ranging field of design in architecture instead is symbolism, social policy, environmental psychology, aesthetics and a whole lot of combination of other things to which we have kept to ourselves. Despite the knowledge that was built upon piece by piece by adding it to the interest of the other professional practitioner in the medical profession it serves, the growth of architecture is handled only in its late phases and has been conducted differently. (Stott, 2013) As a capricious way of introducing the art of building, historians have presented us with a full evening gown of formal architecture despite skipping the first fifty centuries away. It is as proportionate as dating the birth of a gastronomy with the creation of the French Cuisine. We have methodically disassemble our knowledge twice in the last century, alleging that all the knowledge we have obtained is irrelevant. We have shifted our understanding into fragments from the traditional design to Mies van der Rohe’s modernism, and then deviated to postmodernism. (Stott, 2013) Although the bigoted approach of the historian of dislodging the first fifty centuries can be elucidated by the shortage of architectural monuments, it is not excused mostly due to his parochialism.

For many centuries, the expression of architects has been in existence. However, the title of the architect as its accredited profession is comparatively a current conception. Likewise, the history of architecture, as we have known, is fairly tendentious on the social stratum. The magnitude is a little more than just a well-known person employing architects who memorialized wealth and power by a compendium of buildings. These buildings are for the aristocrats, of merchant princesses and prince of blood, and houses of false and true gods; yet none a word about the houses of transient (Rudofsky, 1964). From the days of Vitruvius Pollio, having absolute authority on a project to coordination vocations of toady, the role of the

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architect has changed drastically. Decades ago it may be comprehensible that such fixation with architectural nobility and noble architecture for the segregation of all other kinds exists when the remnants and monuments of ancient provides to the architect as his lone symbol of supremacy to which he helped himself as a matter of amenity and course. However in the present day, whereby railroad stations or banking houses does not have much resemblance to the prayers carved from stone to provoke assurance, as when duplicating the classical styles is on the wane, such self-imposed limitations appears absurd. The position of the architect as at the top of the food chain in determining the shape of the built environment has been under relentless assault. However, the profession still sustains their view that overall control of the building process should be entrusted to only one profession, which is theirs.

In truth of most of the specialists, architects included are interested more in the prestige and business of their profession with exceptional insight into the problems of living, which accumulates part of our troubles from the tendency to accredit them. Besides, the art of living is neither encouraged nor taught in this era this situation came about, to no small degree; through the diligence of the historian (Independent, 2011). We have obscured the achievements and talents of the anonymous builders by undeviating accentuating of the parts played by architects and their clients, whose esthetics approach the sublime and whose approach sometimes “verge on the utopian”. The knowledge gained throughout has long been dismissed as fortuitous though beautiful. However, the tools that have been developed through transmission from generations upon generation seems eternally valid, we should allow recognition for that knowledge as a “rare good sense in handling practical problems” in shapes of the built environment.

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What is currently happening to the Architectural Industry?

The architect is above all the in-thing in the image of Koolhaus, as he has become an artisan of a wholly new kind who launches a new promenade for Armani’s marketing not simply by inspiring them with a new spirit, but also by supplying packaging. In the show-business economy, in ensuring the continuity of the spectacle, the artisan is the main ingredient and is competent of conceiving a new staging.

As David Harvey argues, the creative arts may have been said to save the day that applied to the fabrication of styles, tendencies, formalsimalcura and surfaces if it is true that the property industry saved capitalism.

Because the megastar “ has his name as a logo, a magic formula that makes it possible to commandeer an area of the city,”. Adds his signature to an island of Dubai, a museum or a boutique as one might place it on a t-shirt, he no longer works for the fashion. Thus from Debord’s theory, we can conclude that art has arranged for its dematerialization and is no longer pure spectacle, diminishing itself into a dubious impression of the related plan. Only the allure is all that remains, the atmosphere. Moreover, architects who serve the monetary forces are commonly weary in convoluted history, aesthetics and cultural character of the area; placing our planning system in hot water to cope with the bad architecture and the tensions generated by this situation. Architecture has been re-calibrated and corporatized as part of a refined management system from the brief up until the dispatch of the building. The image of architects as a service operatives have been increasing and it won’t be surprising that in the near future, reading files of the students comprise of volumes on the production and management structures of ideal international collective efficiency such as Tesco and Toyota (Rudofsky, 1964).

It is also fascinating that the media seems to public flamboyant images, though with a definite motive; as the architectural office’s prom talk has too often been plainly presented with topics about sustainability, social engagement and other standards of honeyed words with the absence of any analytical perspective (Loerakker, The Day Architects Stopped Reading Newspapers, 2013). The fact that the media Page | 7

“Architecture was like perfume brands at Duty-Free, on a pedestal, singular and isolated” – David Chipperfield

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regularly look upon architecture as if it were acerbic entertainment does not help the situation, and that it has more to do with the postmodern and Orwellian versions of Big Brother without discreet discussion to architectural quality. We often tend to perceive the project descriptions and images as a portrayal of the prevailing conditions of present-day general architecture rather than the best practices, and have become petitioners to the iconic and it’s Zen of architectural bling (Independent, 2011). “If architecture and architects are perceived as faintly trivia, why should governments or the silverbacks, roaming our towns and inner cities in search of development parcels, pay more than lip-service to what architects think or say?” Of course the media is not solely to blame as not everything on the main media is bad, and they merely publish architects’ descriptions, however it does highlights too many cheesy images, bombastic promises and bad projects often without the website editors placing any critical notes. Even the worst projects can sound like heaven if the editors simply publicise instead of engaging the fact of sourcing analysis and checking project descriptions written by the architects themselves (Loerakker, The Day Architects Stopped Reading Newspapers, 2013). Thus, the media’s mission of inspiring and educating is endangered.

“The underside of architecture, stories of losers and unfulfillment are often ignored by an architectural criticism that values novelty, fame and virility over fallibility and rejection” – anonymous

During the research conducted for the Venice Biennale, Jan Loerakker was amazed of the fact that in order to sell metropolises constructed from point zero, large governmental institutions and big international firms is willing to go through anything even though it would house millions of inhabitants in the near future (“City in a Box, Volume #34”) as such are by producing an invariable number of glistening renderings, insincere flattery and a critical design (Schellenbaum, 2014). Not only do project descriptions like these heighten an acute skepticism in regards to the diversity and quality of the proposed designs, it also erodes the meaning of words like ‘sustainable’ and ‘public spaces’. What is currently considered as monumental architecture has also greatly puzzled many younger architects. As why undeniably should anyone assume frivolous contribution to our built environments and lives were contributed by architects when they confront tinny, uncannily provisional looking developments yet “more colour-saturated urban stage sets littering Britain’s so-called urban renaissance with cynical gimcrack architecture that might as well have been designed by marketing wonks”. As these are extruded from the pages of JG Ballard’s novel, The Atrocity Exhibition: “Desperate for the new, but disappointed with anything but the familiar, we Page | 9

recolonize past and future.” The fact that young architects no longer have the appetite to acquire the knowledge of their forbearer is becoming an epiphany as they are rejecting to uphold into the profession.

The architectural knowledge may be at the threshold of being build back from scratch one again by outraged young architects at the unresponsive and unsustainable design of earlier generations. An excess of competing factions are all what we are left with, all declaring to be architects yet with each insisting a different form of knowledge (Stott, 2013).

Contemporary architectural practices have been forced to abide by ‘sustainable’ design strategies using plug-in technologies as a means of minimizing or solving the issue of environmental problems.

“Sustainable politics have become forceful and monolithic in recent years, resulting in new codes and protocols for material practices.” However, new technologies which architects are adding onto building facades do not change the way that the building is constructed or the overall material used but rather the plug-ins increase the resources and energy required in an architectural project to construct them and whilst in use, require continual maintenance and energy, which the results of the technologies are not sufficing to meet the environmental demands. Recently a group of young Danish architects seems to take the world stage, with an ingenious mix of hefty statements, gaudy images, and clear-cut concepts gave them an enormous reputation among young architects and students worldwide (Loerakker, The New Wave: Drifting Towards the Shores of Simplification, 2013). A positivist and pragmatic approach to design are the generic mindset of these architects, by what in crucial financial times, it is usually required but often it becomes a “cardboard-thick layer” of sustainable greenness and social engagement. Occasionally it runs the threat of scraping little too convenient to cheap marketing conspiracy, commercialization and non-critical mindset towards clients.

“An indictment against the laziness of a profession that used to promise a lot and today is a washout” – Franco La Cecla

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Why is this happening to us?

Architecture quite often fails in the fact that an unfavorable social pattern is established on its inhabitants with momentous consequences. In a world where architecture is criticized mainly by their ornate renders and one-liner concept, we might find the idolization of image and idea are at the core of the problem (Loerakker, The New Wave: Drifting Towards the Shores of Simplification, 2013). In a current column, this is what Sam Jacob calls “a stream of Photoshopped incontinence.” A story of social obligations that “sells like hot cakes but melts like snow”, a rarely ever-built push-and-pull architecture but easily interpreted. The term “Viagra Urbanism” was coined by William Curtis, shown in the event of how seductive images and hollowed out concepts such London’s high rise can become a ridicule of themselves.

These are often associated with the arrogance of the architect, as they tend to hold fast to a romantic or idealized view of their role. There is a reluctance to relinquish the artistic and creative side to the increased need for the programmatic and more technical aspect of the practice. The idea that architects were somewhat God-like is difficult for the majority number to not harbor since they are after all the ostensible heir of geniuses such as Hawksmoor, Palladio, Alberti, Lutyens, Aalto and Le Corbusier. Besides their role model have tended to behave with insouciant arrogance since the beginning of the 20 th despite those autocratic days have gone but the aura remains (Independent, 2011). The services architects can offer to society needs to be redefined at large for the public only sees them as the ones engrossed only in fussy detailing and explicit novelty, making everything costly (Minkjan, 2013). In the context of how feeble the appreciation for the architect is, the former Prime Minister of Sydney, Paul Keating recently claimed in the debate about Barangaroo, which is the largest development site in Sydney; that architects “know more about kitchen amendments than the rest of us. That is about the limit of their expertise.” In another case in the context of Spain, labor regulations will be modified by the Law of Professional Services (LSP) in order to allow engineers, or literally anyone “competent in construction”, to undertake the work of architects (Quirk, 2013). They claimed that:-

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“London has emerged as the epicenter of double speak…it is yet one more pile of luxury accommodation and foreign investment promoted as if ‘giving’ something to civic life. A preposterous website asserts that…it is inspired by historical church spires and the split masts of ships shown in Canaletto’s view of the Thames.”

– William Curtis

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“Exclusivity is eliminated. Architects or engineers with competency in the construction will be able to design and direct projects, including residential, cultural, academic or religious buildings…if a professional is competent enough to execute on building’s construction, it is understood that he/she will also be capable of executing other kinds of buildings, regardless of its intended use.”

- LSP

This opinion is not only established outside the expertise of the architectural industry but also within it. In my own experience when working in a firm, someone from the 3D visualisers’ field explained to me how they see architects no more than dreamers as the standard practice there are architects who will sketch his idea and sent of the Architectural Assistant and the visualisers to figure out how to model, construct and re-establish sense into the building. When questioned, the architect will quickly disregard the technicalities of it and respond that it is the engineers’ job to figure that out and the contractors to build it.

This cycle has been going on for decades in that practice, but the visualiser said that it is no use of talking sense into the architects as they disregard him as inconsequential to the title that they have been awarded.

It is nonsensical as despite the fact that both of these men had undergone the same process of 6 years or more in architectural education, a title could change the level of superiority just because the other decides not to take the regular path. An argument made by Rory Hyde, states that we have “constructed such an exclusive professional fortress of institutes, awards, accreditation and even our own discourse that we lost touch with other people and adjacent disciplines and what we could learn from them.” up to the necks

“Architects spent so much time policing the fence that you forgot to open the door” – Bruce Mau

However, as harsh the criticism may be, we must admit there is a “kernel of truth” in them. Our opinions are seen as insignificant, in this case, despite the skills, experience and training we’ve undergone in deliberating through queries of strategy, urban vision and developments (Minkjan, 2013). Seeing as how aligned we are with the interest of the developers, why then should architects be consulted on building a city impartially. Architects are neck deep grueling with often turgidly repetitive client consultations and meetings, which is why most spend roughly about 5% of their time designing (Independent, 2011). The Page | 13

clients’ vale engineering software is being fed with early designs of architects, and these ideas will be shredded if the projected commercial outcome does not match the expectations of the client (Hyde, 2011).

Ultimately this encourages a passively compromised design though not necessarily a bad thing; but creates architecturally dumbed-down places. Ironically we need to be able to articulate our unique value as we are further marginalized by professional protections within these forces. Reframing the architectural profession is more than about perception and marketing despite many strategic integrators and practical visionaries are being operated comfortable by architects, but the way we operate must also be changed in order to meet in the middle somewhere. As public voices and integrators, this method at a civic scale lies in our strategic thinking; for as visionaries with an active narrative. The dark art of combining the storytelling impulse together with technical constraints is still owned by us architects which we have to monopolise it if we were to hope that young architects to manage adopting a more actually contextually and socially engaged architecture which is rooted in critical attitude, knowledge and crafts; not just on a smooth-talked concept.

The monopolisation hopefully will create a brighter future for there is nothing wrong with telling a story well if there is a genuine great one.

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Architecture without Architects The idea of Architecture without Architects was inspired by a hybridization of two existing titles whereby one is by architect Bernard Rudofsky who managed an influential exhibition with the same title at the MoMA in 1946, whereas the other is inspired by “Housing; An Anarchist Approach”, a famous book whereby the author proclaims the productivity and rights of self-built squatting and housing in postwar Europe; named Colin Ward who is an anarchist and a British architect (Osten, 2009). Whilst Colin’s is a case of Latin American and European squatter movements with a series of collection essays discussed explicitly about the squatter movements from the 1940s to the 1970s, Rudofsky presented pictures of regional vernacular architecture which claims that architects should learn from all of the world’s premodern architectural forms. Both of these perspectives identify a condition, in which a massive crack appeared in its vision of top-down planning and the modernist movement; that emerged during decolonization (Lambert, 2012). Because Coin’s approach was a political reading of spatial self-expression that might offer an alternative understanding and new methodologies of society, Rudofsky suggested a methodological and aesthetical shift. It is a simple fact from these two very different interpretation that throughout the ages and around the world, architecture has been composed without the interference of neither planners nor architects. Through the limited understanding of life as an architect, what was thought as a “living machine”; the modernist dream of architecture could not be achieved no matter if it claims that it can adapt to any need of its users (Osten, 2009). On the other hand, a negotiation for such an adaption could be attempted if these immanent architecture is to be freed from the urban legal framework and architects (Lambert, 2012). In the introduction, Peter Popham writes for Girard and Lambot’s book:-

“What fascinates about the Walled City is that, for all its horrible shortcomings, its builders and residents succeeded in creating what modern architects, with all their resources of money and expertise have failed to: the city as ‘organic megastructure’, not set rigidly for a lifetime but continually responsive to the changing requirements of its users, fulfilling every need from Page | 16

water supply to religion, yet providing also the warmth and intimacy of a single enormous household.”

A defensive device is created, voluntary or involuntary; by a bright border from most of this immanent architecture that territorialism this other behavioral and legal systems that protect them from absorbing the outside. However, it is “the degree of intensity in which life unfolds itself at every level” that this architecture and their complexity are also social and political. In a mix of voluntarism and fortuitousness, self-construction provides a complexity of spaces and material; forcing people to negotiate social protocols and communicate due to its density (Osten, 2009). The multitudes of needs that provide a firm political stand towards it is surrounding based on the tinkering and sometimes hijacking process triggers a local economy from the very existence of such architecture. The otherness of the territory and all of those elements, probably much more as well were allowed to be articulated with a different behavioral and legal system which offers something that no architect is able to plan and think of. A few catalysts in his/her design and construction can only be added, in the hope that they will trigger situations; by throwing here and there by he/her which life could unfold. Rather than a disappointment it should be considered a relief as the fact that his eventually does not depend on him/her. In this argument, architecture would no longer be deemed a significant part of the solution and hence arguable and for this reason a semi-redundant factor (Lambert, 2012). Architects then need to equip the idea of ‘failed’ design concepts and ‘failed’ architecture as if this is the case, because it unravels a beneficence of supposedly architectural problems and solutions as it is central to the profession. These factors are relevant even when the determining or casual factors of these problems are not necessarily architecture.

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Dawn of a new hope It was argued by Ellis Woodman that “The crisis in architectural education is not that the schools are failing to deliver an education to business but that too many of them are failing to provide an education in architecture.” On the other hand, Amanda Baillieu concluded that the architectural education must change as “they are not equipped to do anything other than design buildings”. At a time when more architectural practices are fragmenting, these views are the yin and yang of a vital debate and should not be seen as crudely contradictory in search of work. A trend, of the effect on the quality of places and lives and its relationship between the works of individual architects; that may further separate them from the need to care about and understand it. Despite what others believe, architecture is an art, and it is subject to the same types of pendulum swings and paradigm shifts as any other medium (Schellenbaum, 2014). The industry is not going to be entirely cut down and re-erected in some sort of micro home revolution, but there is a real momentum building, a shift towards a new kind of practice which is civically diverse, relevant and engaged.

Therefore, there are two options which we could choose in our current situation; which is either the obsolete notion that we are a profession will be buckled under us at all, or we could remove the ideological boundaries between factions and start making friends with other disciplines. This would mean we were to pierce our tattered knowledge together into something we all agree on or the latter of at least consigning these aspects to a severely diminished role of doing away with the protection of the title, governing bodies and so on, and getting on with the serious business of designing and making buildings a job worth doing again. (Stott, 2013) Architects going out into the wider world will establish the relevance by demonstrating their value with hard work and delicate skill, and not by institutions building a fence around architecture.

There are architects who are crossing boundaries and experimenting with other approaches, taking up new roles while letting other professionals reinforce the importance of architecture in their discipline (Hyde, 2011). People have started building their interventions of systems to help the community, using built environments to solve small-scale problems, crowd-funding their building projects; to shake the pillars architecture sits on. These projects are not blessed by the powers that be in the architectural world, but they are happening (Schellenbaum, 2014). The proof that architecture is moving away from the elite, perhaps disintegrating and reconstructing it; is in the proverbial ‘snack pack’. Al-Jazeera just announced a new sixpart series of architects working to solve social problems such as lack of low-cost housing in Vietnam or Page | 18

“Whether we do buildings or not is that it is the wrong way of framing the discourse… the focus is the outcome, and we happen to do built environment if that is what required” – Indy Johar

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flooding in Nigeria’s slums. One of their featured architects looks at the role architecture plays in Israel’s occupation of Gaza. Some Danish offices such as the Powerhouse Company based in RotterdamCopenhagen with their recent critical publications ‘Shifts’, or somewhere in Nordvest where an impressive library has been realized by a Berlin-Copenhagen based COBE which develops a more authentic social engagement and a critical academic view (Loerakker, The New Wave: Drifting Towards the Shores of Simplification, 2013). Prominent architects such as Tadao Andao, Toyo Ito, Fumihiko Maki and Kengo Kuma drafted a petition in May to nudge fellow starchitect Zaha Hadid to scale down her widely expensive plans for Tokyo’s Olympic Stadium, which they deemed ‘too big and too artificial’. Perhaps the greatest indication of change came in last year when the Pritzker Prize, which is an architecture award so acclaimed that those who earned it gets the epithet ‘Pritzker Prize Winner’ attached to their names for all eternity; was presented to a guy famous for reconstructing an earthquake damaged cathedrals with cardboard and designing and building disaster relief housing out of reclaimed materials (Schellenbaum, 2014).

“Architects are mainly perceived as working to create building in urban spaces, yet buildings are not why cities exist; they are simply a side effect of cities,” – Dan Hill

However the trick in drawing a line between abandoning the idea of an architect and expanding the idea altogether is to see buildings rather than as an object in space but as a social change of much broader strategy, and therefore an end in itself; as usually buildings are quite often required (Minkjan, 2013).

However, a more expanded set of procedures is necessary to inform our design decisions in order to ensure that these effects are positive. When done well informed by the right research and understanding and for good reasons, over an extended period of time they have an incredible capacity to embed a positive social pattern into space and provide a resource lie no other. That is the power of architecture that only a few disciplines can do this. By nature of the permanence and expense of its medium, it takes a long time for architecture to change, and it has been roiling under the surface for years. For example, at the 2012 Venice Architecture Biennale; an event that is considered the most important architectural exhibit in the world, famous architect David Chipperfield directed a show under the theme ‘Common Ground’, which a term Maclean once wrote that is “freighted with connotations of civic engagement”. The entire event was considered a “veiled attack on…a big budget, signature style buildings that dramatically transform cityscapes, often with blatant disregard for the neighbours”. His Biennale was about ‘architectural culture’, and not about architects themselves. When asked that in the near future which closest to the idealist type of Page | 20

future practice in the protagonist architect that we need, inevitably it is going to be a handful combination of roles, whereby you would want the ecological thinking of Natalie Jeremijenko, combined with the activist attitude of Camila Bustamante, the whole earth perspective of AMO and the generalist approach of Studio Gang (Minkjan, 2013). The point is for a particular situation or a specific project; the practice may adopt a presented approach, a particular strategy that is not exclusive; by the various roles.

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Save the Architect, Save the World.

Architecture is changing in a way that prioritizes the built over the philosophised, the rudimentary over the sophisticated, and the fulfillment of the community over the fulfillment of the individual, and what has been stewing on the corner burner since the economic collapse of the early 90s is starting to bubble (Schellenbaum, 2014). If the only people qualified to make judgements on architecture has become architects themselves then the isolated historical incident that is the cult of the high profile signature commission is going to have to take a back seat. However, we should not be ignoring this shifts and behaving like ostriches, for if we deny these new developments others will take over this industry.Thus it is our responsibility to the future generations in the architectural field to create awareness of what is behind the architecture and the urban environment we live in and provide answers to the political agendas of contemporary society and contributing to living some of the pressures on the economy, environment and society. We have the potential of bringing about positive change by adapting the current practices and ways of designing to meet the challenges and demands of today as architecture should be seen as an articulation of a broader societal process. Observing and living in a time in which the position and meaning of architecture is increasingly being questioned, we must embrace the deviation of the architectural world with the emergence of new materials, technology and tolls and we have to acknowledge that saving the world is of higher priority than saving our titles.

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Bibliography Davies, G. (2013). Why Do You Rarely Hear Architects Defend The Architecture of Mass-Social Housing? Retrieved from failedarchitecture: http://www.failedarchitecture.com/pruitt-igoe-isfailed-architecture-central-to-the-architectural-profession/ Hyde, R. (2011). Future Practice: Conversations from the Edge of Architecture. London.

Independent, T. (2011). The Death of Architecture. Retrieved from http://www.independent.co.uk/artsentertainment/architecture/the-death-of-architecture-2261212.html Lambert, L. (2012). Architecture Without Architects, Why Do Architects Dream a World Without Them?

Retrieved from TheFunambulist: http://thefunambulist.net/2012/08/16/architecture-withoutarchitects-why-do-architects-dream-of-a-world-without-them/ Loerakker, J. (2013). Architects Talking Architecture. Retrieved from failedarchitecture: http://www.failedarchitecture.com/architects-talking-architecture/ Loerakker, J. (2013). The Day Architects Stopped Reading Newspapers. Retrieved from failedarchitecture: http://www.failedarchitecture.com/the-day-architects-stopped-readingnewspapers/ Loerakker, J. (2013). The New Wave: Drifting Towards the Shores of Simplification. Retrieved from failedarchitecture: http://www.failedarchitecture.com/the-new-wave-or-why-we-drift-towardsthe-shores-of-simplification/ Minkjan, M. (2013). Is The Architectural Profession Still Relevant. Retrieved from failedarchitecture: http://www.failedarchitecture.com/is-the-architectural-profession-still-relevant/ Osten, M. v. (2009). Architecture Without Architects – Another Anarchist Approach. Retrieved from http://www.e-flux.com/journal/architecture-without-architects%E2%80%94another-anarchistapproach/ Quirk, V. (2013). Law May Render Architects Unnecessary in Spain. Retrieved from Archdaily: http://www.archdaily.com/390072/law-may-render-architects-unnecessary-in-spain/ Rudofsky, B. (1964). Architecture without Architects: A Short Introduction to Non-Pedigreed Architecture. United States.

Schellenbaum, A. (2014). Hey Architects, The Future of Architecture is Not About You. Retrieved from TheVerge: http://www.theverge.com/2014/8/19/6045819/hey-architects-the-future-ofarchitecture-is-not-about-you Stott, R. (2013). Does the Title of Architect Deserve to be Protected? Retrieved from Archdaily: http://www.archdaily.com/446771/does-the-title-of-architect-deserve-to-be-protected/

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