Architects and Draftsmen; reflections on practices models and the role of architects in their communities
At our office we value the discussion and brainstorming of different ideas and cultural backgrounds. One of the multiple forums we have, is the bi-weekly meeting of the head of architecture with the junior architects. Designed to ensure that young team members are given the opportunity to discuss their ideas, concerns, etc.; it is a forum that enforces the need to give future company leaders the opportunity to influence current ones.
Last Friday, in our bi-weekly discussion, we were talking about the type of work our juniors do, and what is a draftsman and what is an architect. The discussion led to two interesting points:
- The Draftsmen and Architects and in what role fall our daily activities.
- What defines and Architect.
The discussions held on the 1st topic lead me to a reflection that inspired this text.
It was interesting to note that for the young generations of Portuguese architects, the draftsman is someone that they are not familiar with, and in their large majority a professional they have never encounter in their working experience. Leading me to conclude that either the Portuguese Academia and Patrice developed an unique workflow culture where drafting has been abolished; or the practice has evolved to incorporate the scope of work previously allocated to draftsman into the architects scope.
I know from experience that when you evolve from a handdrafting worlflow to a CAD/CAM worlflow, international markets in fast developing urban context such as the Asian and Middle East fueled by their booming real estate markets, adopted practice models that kept both the draftsman and the architect roles.
The fact that this has not occurred in the Portuguese context is an interesting point for reflection. An interesting observation in Portugal the hand-drafting workflow to CAD/CAM workflow transition occurred almost simultaneously with the development of the Private Architectural Universities; resulting in a sudden influx of the market with a large volume of young architects, trained in the CAD/CAM workflow, resulting in an over supply of architects for the historical needs of the Portuguese market. We are all familiar with laws of the offer and demand and how an excess in offer tends to lead to a decrease in the price of the product.
Coincidence or not, the Asian & Middle East markets where faced with similar still opposite conditions, both had access to CAD/CAM trained professionals at lower rates than the traditional associated with architect; and both markets took advantage of this.
In the Middle East and Asian context, where the market needs demanded architects to take more work, the usage of draftsman was a blessing freeing up architects from drafting to take more jobs and their fore increase they response capacity, leading to the development of ever more cost effective large scale of response practice models.
Not fueled by the phenomenon of Asian and Middle-Eastern growing cities, in Portugal, the boom of fresh Architecture graduates CAD/CAM skilled at lower costs than the experienced draftsmen resulted a reduction of the production costs achieved by the replacement of the draftsmen by fresh graduates and a degradation of architects salaries.
History played its role, and in a way lead the development of the models we currently have; with extremely economically effective large scale international practices in the Middle East and Asian markets, that in its majority develop commercial architecture where the architects are a considerable respected and well played profession. and the Portuguese economically challenged small studios, producing boutique architectural jewels; with architects working in worst employment conditions than the majority of the working class market, and poorly paid, and with such reduced capacity to influence society that they even recently saw the Portuguese government pass a law allowing other non architect professionals the exercise of architecture.
The future generations will look back and evaluate what model will benefit more our society. For me, I can say that I’m proud to be part of a project that strives to give architects the respect and influence they deserve as professionals, while still trying to maintain the "boutique" quality of our product.
