OAF Talks - Architects through Crises
Tin was invited by Oslo Architecture Association (OAF), to sit in a panel about the crises the architects are undergoing, with other panelists across five generations of architects. The invitees from the left represented different eras: 60-80’s Kari Nissen Brodtkorb, 90’s Elin Børrud, 00’s Kyrre Sundal and 10’s Tin Phan, with 20’s Theodor Bjerke both representing 20’s and moderating the talks. The event is the result of a news article in Arkitektur.no about the concerns of the younger generation.
Theodore posed three key points. On these counts, some of Tin’s reflections differed a bit, as his perspective stems from more recent experiences interacting with S/M/L offices of all ages.:
Professional struggles occurring throughout, and how the different generations dealt with it.
Tin actually struggled in good times, and was not born in the WWII as Kari pointed out about herself. He was not employable in the traditional drawing sense. He encouraged one thing: listen to the offices out there, what their struggles are, understand the liberal market is asking of us to deliver on. It is these few guidelines Tin has followed, that allowed him to access his niche that everybody yearned but found it hard to participate in: coveted but high-risk competitions containing answers on matters of sustainability.
Architects role as changing and relegated under the engineers/interdisciplinary teams.
Tin found this very hard to practice as an architect in the sense of the coveted competitions had call-for-teams listed higher complexity and interdisciplinarity. This meant, the integrity of architects intermingling with random constellations of consultants was most of the times at the cost of quality. Even worse, the architects were running the full risks of the competition, but if won, the engineers would often claim a large share of the gains without taking any risks. There is also the worst-case-scenarios: the architects not getting the invite anymore, as these engineering firms has acquired their own architecture offices in-house.
Tips on how young architects stay relevant in these times.
Tin posed a clean cut question and proposal: what is our core business model? It is still to design and get our designs built. If our aim is to do this purely as architecture offices, then our default business model seems to be faulty. Here, Tin encouraged the students to just seek out the offices for jobs and but ask the question of what they could give back to the firms? The gap between applying new AI technologies and implementing it to other offices are more likely to be done among the young generation than it is among the established offices. Offer these offices something viable, something that change their production line, there may be something more than a job at the other end!
The other panelists answers also reflect the different eras they lived in and what resolve they had to show during these times:
From Kari’s experiences from actually assuming the role of project lead, and then have it taken away and the practicality of borrowing rather than employing colleagues, Elin actually entering the 90’s crisis and pursuing a position in the public sector in a planning role, and Kyrre’s acquiring his job through Twitter (now X) in the financial crisis 08’. They all agreed upon this: your head and wits do not stop producing or looking for ways to still contributing to the profession.
Here Kari was quite stern in her assessment - we must take back our position, whereas Elin did not quite agree, as she believed the architect in the lead role is of the past. We must embrace the lead role that now exists in different formats - public sector, private sector, leading dept. under larger consultancies etc. Kyrre had a different view on this matter and that the role now is more nuanced than just top or bottom and pointing out different fights we do take on continuously to maintain architectonic quality. But he pointed out a real concern as there are less and less engineering consultancies out there, making it hard for architects to make the cut in for example the Government Quarters.
All the other was unison in their answers: keep at it, we are thinking and living beings, even thought there are no jobs out there. And look high and low - there are actually jobs beyond conventional framing of an architect.
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1960’s: Kari Nissen Brodtkorb
1990’s: Elin Børrud
2000’s: Kyrre Sundal
2010’s: Tin Phan
2020’s: Theodor Bjerke -
