The Illusion of Self-reliance
A troubling trend I’m seeing as of the past few years is the overall distrust of experts in many fields, largely in the medical community but it seems to be happening in our industry as well. The age of the internet has provided us with an amazing wealth of knowledge literally at our fingertips, and you truly can learn just about anything if you want. The problem is knowledge isn’t that simple. Just because you have access to information doesn’t mean you understand how to interpret and apply it in a meaningful and educated way, critical thinking is still incredibly important. Similarly to how some people will refuse to go to the doctor and rely on homeopathic remedies for their ailments, developers will basically design their buildings in house and find an architect to rubber stamp the drawings simply because they are required by law. What results is an inattention to occupant comfort, poor urban design, and a lack of consideration for the built environment. These developers misunderstand the role of the architect, it’s our job to be holistic with our design, and it goes far beyond making a building aesthetically pleasing.
I understand the inclination to only trust and rely on
yourself, it’s hard to trust people but I’m afraid we do not have a choice, we
have to put our trust in the experts as they do in fact know better. It’s our
job as architects to take the trust people put in us very seriously.
You have covered very significant points. When I used to work and take my projects in India, I came across a lot of clients who would send me pictures of desired spaces. Nothing is wrong in that but sometimes it's not always practical to fit exactly what they are asking for in the current scenario. This is a new challenge in our tech-savvy world! Therefore, I think the best thing that we can get from our clients is, TRUST!
ReplyDeleteJared, I wholeheartedly agree, I would also add that it calls into question what participatory design needs to then look like. For instance, in the medical field, a big critique is the lack of time doctors are able to spend with their patients, which has opened an opportunity for integrative medicine and alternative medicine. I wonder then if there is an opportunity for other specialists to emerge so that we, the architects, can focus on the architecture or if it is something we need to integrate into our own practice and approach.
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