#215: WHO DO WE SERVE?

As architects, who do we serve? As a client business, we serve our paying customers. As licensed professionals, we serve regulatory standards and safety codes. As community members, we serve society. As creative individuals, we serve an artistic agenda and the zeitgeist.

What happens when an architect knows that a client request is not right? Do we serve the client or the project? Is the customer always right, as the trite retail truism suggest?

There is a difference between serving those who pay for our services vs. recognizing the end users. For example, a school district may sign our contract and pay our monthly invoices, but the educational buildings we design support the students and teachers—the end users.

In an unfortunate example, a colleague architect focused their attention on how students would learn at a new high school—serving the end users. The paying client felt the architect’s service—and loyalty even—were not prioritized appropriately. This architect was fired.

As state-licensed experts, architects are bound to ethical and professional responsibilities to “protect the health, safety, and welfare of the public.” When designing a theater for example, architects are required by building codes to design the appropriate number of emergency exits. Let’s say three exits are required, but the client wants only two. Here, we serve the safety and welfare of the theater-going audience, not the client.

Architects also serve the environment, as stewards of this planet. Whether a project’s goals prioritize sustainability or not, architects are charged with minimizing negative environmental impacts. We are responsible to consider the lifecycle of a building and its energy efficiency, waste reduction, and green materials. Though a project may be for today, architects’ decisions serve future generations of the planet’s inhabitants.

There are fixed values that architects also serve, some mundane and some obvious. As a manager of a project’s delivery, architects are beholden to a budget and schedule. Also, science forces a framework around our creative decisions. Our ideas are bound by constructability and the laws of gravity. Though we may envision a dramatic cantilevered structure off a cliff over the ocean, rules of engineering require reality checks.

For better or for worse, architects also serve their ego. We apply our skills to shape a world vision that buzzes around in our brains. If Frank Lloyd Wright generically served the client who sought a weekend retreat house in Pennsylvania, there would be no Falling Water. Wright’s ego—and even arrogance towards the laws of gravity—delivered the dramatic three-story residence that cantilevers over a small waterfall. (I mention arrogance, because as impressive as the design is, ignoring the laws of science has resulted in a home plagued with sagging terraces, sinking floors, cracking concrete, and water leaks.)

So yes, architects serve a creative agenda whether a personal one, a movement like Post-Modernism or Mid-Century Modern Revival, or current themes of the industry, such as AI, prefab, and resilience. Amongst such interests, we also serve our clients and projects, society as a whole, end users, the environment, and our present and future. And gravity. Juggling all this is no easy task.