To be able to call oneself an architect implies being an individual with a rigorous technical and academic education with defined and supervised practical experience. To call oneself an architectural designer… that could be anyone with a sketch-up licence. Building Design readers know this – but does anyone else?

Aside from the possible commercial weight of the word “architect”, there is the emotional weight. Chris Williamson noted his sadness once he was removed from the register this month, and I understand this.

It is a word to which architects aspire from their mid-teens, a word they have battled financially and emotionally to use. It is a hard word to give up, or to admit that perhaps it has less meaning than we have convinced ourselves that it does.

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