As architects, many certified professionals, but not all are good: the service provided, the commitment, the ability to solve problems, the honesty and the handling of the design vary greatly. We can find large firms, where the processes are standardized, medium and intermediate teams, hopefully diverse in their disciplines and professional profiles, and then, the solitary ones, often young and inexperienced, who are malleable, but their margin of error is much greater.
If we approach the subject from the investor’s perspective, the evaluation would be summarized in the ability to achieve the greatest efficiency: that it responds to the needs, is photogenic, marketable, the cost and time as small as possible. If we talk about personal projects, things can be extended a little more, without compromising the client’s satisfaction, since, in the life time of the building, things are diluted quite a bit, and what matters most is to receive a project that responds to personal dreams and needs.
Every process has its ups and downs, and we can encounter difficulties at some stage, such as permits, budgets, construction deadlines, equipment operation and many other facets that may affect us. If we think about it in perspective, it is a crucial stage in the project, but it is only a short period in the useful life of buildings.
What is never erased is the gesture of the project itself, its relationship with the environment, its durability, its performance in comfort and health, the energy consumption it demands, the cultural image it projects, and the lifestyle it encourages.
Businesses come and go, and depend not only on the design and construction team, but also on market behaviors, policies and climatic factors; but the built landscape endures, it affects daily living, not only of humans, but of multiple forms of life, and that alters the course of history, and how people perceive the world and humanity.
A good architect or design team, in addition to being able to respond to the client’s technical requirements, has this ethic (or moral), one could say, that despite the demands of speed and costs, feels a responsibility with the impact of his profession on the world, reacts to harmful, short-term, polluting or high-consumption practices; this does not mean that doing things well is more expensive, but it does require greater effort.
Architects design a way of living, personal and communal, and whatever the project, it will determine to some extent the behavior, encounters and reactions to urban and internal spaces, and will affect the opinion of ourselves, and that is what will ultimately be judged.
