About solutions

"It is a mistake to think you can solve any major problems just with potatoes." - Douglas Adams, The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy.

Once studying high scrapers I was intrigued by the Woolworth Building, I read about it and about Franklin Winfield Woolworth who built it. There is a “legend” about him and his "innovation", which made him rich and successful. In the second part of 19 century young Franklin was working in a shop as a seller, pretty bad seller - he was shy. One day he stayed alone in the shop and decided to put the prices on all the products to avoid communication with the buyers. First time in the history the buyers were free to choose and look through products by themselves and buy them without haggling. This day he sold an unprecedented number of goods. That is how he built his fortune - by proposing a new way of communication with buyers - self-service concept.

Self-service and direct connection with a product - that what was in the future of all services/industries. Now we live in a time of platform economy.

Architecture as a very conservative and “slow” industry is among the last one to understand this concept and implement it. But it is inevitable. It was/is difficult to understand that architecture is a service. Which does not mean that it should be provided without professionals, it is more about the role of this professional.

Moreover, architecture (in a way it is currently presented in 99.9% of schools) is dying (not in short term, probably our generation will have enough job to do). Architects should work not only with a building but with environment / community / infrastructure / research / technologies / art. An architect should provide more than architecture. Because all architectural knowledge are replaceable in near future, except the ability to innovate and communicate. People are getting used to individualization of the products and individual approaches to design, which contemporary technologies can provide, very soon without an architect in his/her traditional role. And if the architects want to survive automation and make it for the profit of the profession they should adapt fast.