Are architects doing enough to encourage housebuilding?

Yes

Simon Allford
Director at AHMM

There is much to be done by everyone involved in construction and government to address the housing shortage. But to say this national problem is the failure of architects is ridiculous.

In fact the last 10 years have seen ever more architects involved in excellent private and public sector projects (and combinations thereof) that show innovative responses to new models of tenure, use, procurement and construction.

Where we architects can be criticised is for focusing on what developer Crispin Kelly refers to as “cappuccino urbanism”. There are still too few design proposals that address the need for houses rather than housing and, as a large number of the population want to live somewhere outside the urban, we need to think more about what the design of this place might be.

That said, and as fascinating as a few samples of small-scale communal self-build in Argentina might be, for some to suggest that we can address the UK’s massive housing shortage through boutique bourgeois build is balderdash. Serious progress on this front would require the nationalisation of large tracts of land, a state-backed mortgage initiative and an “anything goes as long as it’s housing” planning policy. That this is very unlikely to happen is not the fault of architects.

I am up for this debate about land, tax and deregulation — but if it fails to happen, let’s not beat the profession up. The key question is, why have successive governments failed to address the strategic housing shortage?

If government is willing to address this question, architecture has a role to play in providing the answers. In the interim let’s highlight the positive role architects can play in helping to explore and then design the new models required.

No

Dickon Robinson
Chair of RIBA Building Futures

The architectural profession is in trouble. Fee levels have collapsed; salaries are low, hours are long and job satisfaction declining. Architecture is coalescing into big firms and micro-businesses. Will
a return to growth bring a return to the status quo ante? Probably not. The chances are that what we see today is the new reality.

Arguably, architects need to expand their offer and get much more directly involved with property development and construction. That is just what architects in Argentina have been doing in the face of a much worse economic environment. Fideicomiso is a process in which architects find a site, bring together a group of clients who want a home, organise funding, design the building and manage the construction. Now a well-established housing programme, it creates homes that wouldn’t otherwise be built and generates a greater fee income for the architects. Sounds like an inspiring example of getting
stuck in to tackle a housing crisis.

Architects of my generation might find this rather familiar. In the late 1960s and early 1970s, we were at the forefront of setting up new co-ownership and fair rent Housing Associations. I am proud of the 1,000-odd homes in London’s West End that the association I helped to set up provides today. Some of today’s well-known practices started with their own private developments but very few have continued to do so.

Yes, development and building carries risks and some of the skills may be specialised. However, architecture attracts the brightest students and they have a longer training than others, so they should be capable of mastering this territory. It’s time to climb down from the lofty peaks of design purity and create a profession with broader shoulders.