Apart from built works I have designed (at least partially) in the employ of other practitioners, items pertaining to my own independent activity (as signatory or co-signatory architect) are mainly :
Fixtures & fragments
Infrastructure works
Que dire ?… a word of warning, or by way of explanation :
Supervising the building of what has hitherto been conceived and decided on paper is, frankly, the most exhilarating but also most harrowing aspect of a sole practitioner’s trade. The reality of site-work is quite different from the ivory tower of conceptual projection, that illusory sense of being in control, with which electronic tools seduce architects and their clients. In the 40 years I’ve been involved with building projects, costs have soared, while workmanship has deteriorated dramatically, especially since the advent of computer-aided drawing (CAD), a veritable crutch for the under-trained.
As most journeymen architects know, almost everything that is conceived in design is in some way or another mutilated through execution, either through client choice, curtailed procurement opportunities (limited scope for the architect to intervene), or builders’ ‘acts of supremacy’. Unless of course we integrate such variance with respect to intention into our design ethos and modus operandi. Rejecting the control-freak model of site supervision and preferring to harness the intelligence of building operatives, requires faith, or nerves of steel, indeed both.
Sometimes the only way to get what one really wants, for an affordable price, is to make it oneself. (True for the client as well as the designer.)
Self-respect, and the discipline of design itself, demand that we deliver what projet coherence demands, only what clients deserve… rather than expect or want, which are almost always beyond their means. Of what then may the architectural designer be justifiably proud ?
Illustrated here are several schemes, none of which have escaped such mutilation, but which record certain design intentions perhaps worth noting.
Aménaement d’appartements & travaux divers, 75005 Paris (2006-2008)
Maison bibliothèque, 75005 Paris (2003-2006 ; photos A. Martinelli, 2008)
Conseils en aménagement de longère, Pervenchères (2001)
Atelier d’architecte, 06000 Nice (1997)
Mise en conformité ERP & modification de façade, E. E. Baptiste, 75012 (1993)
Despite the definition in French law (for Professional Indemnity Insurance purposes) as constructeur, a contemporary architect is no builder, even if historically the greatest architects (Adam, Vauban) also were.
Indeed a valid and honourable architectural stance is to advise against undertaking building works, to decline the offer to ‘build’, if proper conditions are not met. (They rarely are, when non-professional clients are involved.)
Writing about the fate of agricultural buildings in the Ticino, Aldo Rossi spelled it out neatly : l’abandono è anche un progetto.
This mindset rarely suits developers, but precisely sets apart those of us who would remain free-thinkers, from those who muddle along, implicitly relying on being told what to do. L’Ordre des Architectes clearly favours the latter, which is why I expect to soon resign from the register.
Related or parent pages :
Architectural Studies (signatory)
opus incertum 