Evidencing and Communicating the Value of Architects

The aim of this Leadership Fellow project, to be completed in close collaboration with the Royal Institute of British Architects (RIBA) is to evidence and communicate the value of Architects - professionals who have completed the seven years requisite training at Royal Institute of Architecture accredited schools. In order to do this we need to facilitate a cultural change within the profession from tacit values and 'Archispeak' to evidence, research and clear communication. Our particular emphasis is on social value in the context of homes and neighbourhoods, but the project will have wider applicability to other sectors of the built environment.

It is not widely known that architects have very little involvement in the production of our built environment. Some 30% of planning applications are by architects, only 30% of architecture students go on to qualify as architects and the average pay of an architect is £36K with the majority of architects being employed by building contractors. Architects have become extremely marginal, not helped by negative perceptions of the profession. How can architects, who have had seven years of dedicated training making them well suited to help address spatial dimensions of the 'Grand Societal Challenges', be more included in the production of homes and neighbourhoods? In the UK there is very little understanding of the benefits that architectural skillset bring to the built environment - strategic, creative, spatial thinking - meaning that architects rarely have the chance to utilise their painstakingly and expensively developed skill set for the benefit of society. The results are there for everyone to see but are most notable in the extremely poor quality of Volume House Building in the regions.

This project builds on two previous AHRC projects Home Improvements Knowledge Exchange in the Creative Economy and The Cultural Value of Architecture in Homes and Neighbourhoods (CVoA) which allowed us to propose a framework for evidencing value in this context. These projects also persuaded us of the need to convince those business clients with the greatest resources at their disposal of the need to employ Architects.

The project explores the image and value of Architects from a range of different viewpoints, beginning with the UK profession itself before moving on to the business clients who might employ them and to the non-architect Academics who assess their work (and sometimes commission buildings). The research will be used to open up the field of Architecture to academics interested in interdisciplinary work. We will also work with academics across Europe to develop an understanding of the perception of the field in their own countries. The outputs are similarly diverse, including a report on Pathways to Post Occupancy Evaluation, a Client's Guide to Architects, an edited book on cross cultural perceptions of the architecture profession and a book on Why Architecture Matters. We are also deeply concerned with public perceptions of Architects, a highly complex area that we examined in the CVoA project, but have chosen here to focus on those most likely to commission or evaluate Architects as this is the way to achieve the most immediate impact on the profession.

This Leader Fellow project forms part of a wider three year project on Value led by Anne Dye, Director of Technical Research at the RIBA with whom the PI Samuel has a mature research relationship. The PI Samuel is an elected Council member at the RIBA and a member of its Research and Innovation Group and Housing Group and is therefore well positioned to promote the evidencing of value through Architecture Research Practice at the RIBA. Samuel is also leader of the interdisciplinary Home research group in the Faculty of Social Sciences at the University of Sheffield. The Leader Fellow project will enable to develop the research capacity of this group into Europe and beyond.

At the broadest level we hope to impact on wellbeing via the quality of the built environment in the UK - that the built environment impacts on wellbeing and learning is becoming increasingly recognised and understood. If we can disaggregate, evidence and evaluate what Architects do we are in a better position to make the case to policy makers and funders that they need to pay for these skills. As Bentre Frost, mayor for city planning in Copenhagen, the 'world's most livable city, ' stated: "Without the many studies from the School of Architecture, we politicians would not have had the courage to carry out the many projects to increase the cities attractiveness"(Gehl & Svarre 2013, p.157).

Although the Construction Industry is a major contributor to the UK economy it is well known for lack innovation as recent reports by Egan and Calcutt have shown. It is also notoriously adversarial. In developing Architecture Research Practice and in forging links between practice and academia we are developing the potential for innovation for the benefit of our economy. In promoting the Types and Skillsets we are opening the field up for the interdisciplinary work that is so badly needed, particularly in the field of housing where supply is nowhere near demand.

Architecture Profession - The Pathways to Post Occupancy Evaluation Report will provide an important new resource for Architects embarking on research. It is hoped that through the Design Quality and Performance group we will be able to make the case to Personal Indemnity Insurers that they should reduce insurance premiums for responsible research practitioners, in doing so delivering a real economic incentive for research practice. The project will give added impetus to Anne Dye and the Research arm of the RIBA, currently relatively under-resourced, in this way enabling them to send out a strong message about the importance of Architecture Research Practice. The project will contribute to the development of the RIBA Value project, giving it extra depth in terms of research rigour and credibility.

Business Clients - Our research has shown that businesses often want to invest in Architects but have difficulty making the business case for doing so. The Client Guide will help Architects to convince business clients and their boards of the importance of their input. In developing their own customised versions of the Guide SME practices will be encouraged to give more consideration to issues of value, strategy and good business practice - currently very few practices even have a business plan. The Client Guide should also prompt discussion on the importance of marketing strategy and on the ways in which Architect practices help organisations with the creation of 'identity', a very important aspect of marketing.

The project will also benefit Kernel Simpatico who are developing our Client Guide. It will allow them to expand their portfolio of activities and to deepen their understanding of the construction industry - several of their clients are manufacturers of construction components. In collaborating with academia it will also enable them to experiment with new ways of working.

Europe - Whilst our conduit to the the European Architecture profession is via the academics of ARENA and our nascent COST Action network the project will also be of use to practitioners in Europe in enabling them to contextualise the way that they work and to see the peculiarities of their own situation in relief. Most importantly the COST network will enable us to gauge the extent of Architecture Research in Practice across Europe and to ascertain how best to support European Architects who want to engage with Horizon 2020.