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Applied Architects

Are we sure that for an architect the highest ambition is to become a archistar?

Judging by the general sentiment of the approximately 150,000 Italian architects (who make up 10% of the world's architects, despite Italy's population being only 0.82% of the global population), it would seem so.

In reality, as far as we are concerned, we have some doubts.

Doubt based on the simple consideration that, on average, the projects of archistars certainly aim to evoke emotions, but at a high price... and not just in economic terms.

While maintaining the utmost respect for all archistars, in our opinion, the figure of the architect, in Italy and worldwide, should aspire to a broader and more transversal knowledge aimed at creating works without too many contradictions (beautiful, but expensive... exciting, but delayed... appreciated, but already deteriorated...). All of this, always and only keeping the quality of the project at the center.

The project is the true intimate mission of an architect; it is the architect who aims to conceive it, improve it, nurture it, and protect it throughout its journey, guiding it to its life, ensuring that external factors (public administrations, companies, finance, banks, interdisciplinarity, etc.) are managed to contribute to the project and not to become dissonant and obstructive to its realization. How many times have we heard architects complain about "bureaucracy," banks, companies, rising costs, extended timelines, etc., as if all this did not also depend on them.

In our humble opinion, for an architect to do good work and a good project, they must be able to systematize everything nowadays, and that is what an applied architect does.

Here are the 10 points of an applied architect:

  1. Finance: capital structure, banks, financial statements, brochures, due diligence;
  2. Administrative procedures: administrative law, relations with public entities;
  3. Interdisciplinarity: acoustics, digital, energy, structures, systems, anthropology,
  4. engineering, environment, fire safety;
  5. Communication: strategies, marketing, commercialization;
  6. Corporate: management, administration, insurance, guarantees;
  7. Industrial partnerships: technological know-how, innovative solutions;
  8. Regulations: technical standards for various disciplines;
  9. Construction management: contract management, quality, time, costs;
  10. Legal affairs: agreements, contracts, etc.;
  11. Post-work management: commissioning for the first two years of the designed building's life.

Here are, in our opinion, the 10 points of an applied architect.

Currently, in our view, the responsibility of the architect towards the city and society must include a design work that broadly contemplates and manages the various disciplines that inevitably impact the construction process and the life of the work. In all this, it may seem that there is no connection with the philosophical aspect of the project and architecture, even to the point of considering it disconnected and absent, but in reality, these are all points that an applied architect must be able to face and manage with knowledge and mastery to achieve balance and awareness in building a beautiful building... as beautiful as that of an archistar!