The push for virtual reality, automation and BIM may not grow the architecture industry. At the same time, computational design and modular construction will place greater emphasis on engineering and construction.
What is the Middle Innovation Trap?
The “middle innovation trap” is a borrowed phenomenon from the economic development community. In short, as the economies of different countries grow, there is a situation called the middle-income trap, where a country loses its competitive edge, and gets stuck at a certain income level. More specifically, the middle-income trap refers to a transition from a resource-driven economy, relying on labor, to an economy with high productivity and innovation.
We see this situation in architecture right now. Producing drawing for buildings requires a large amount of dedicated resources. While the industry sees productivity gains in the transition from hand drafting, to AutoCAD and now to BIM, the design process takes large teams and relies on lower incomes to maintain profit margins. As new technologies are developed, we can see the process begin to shift, where automated workflows are the key drivers of the design process, and the architect’s role will be to oversee and coordinate these workflows.
While the industry is slowly developing and adopting tools to delivery performance-driven and efficient buildings, the engineering and construction fields are developing their own solutions. Without proper input from the architectural community, their solutions have the potential to conflict with design goals and restrict the role of architects in the process. If engineering and construction can offer more efficient solutions, simple economics will drive owners to trust the design input of those industries over architects.
Let’s dive into the issues at hand…
Productivity & Marketing Don’t Expand the Field
BIM Innovations as a Productivity Solution
From managing family libraries to standardizing model properties, BIM models require a Herculean effort to be useful beyond the scope delivering a single project. It is the modern-day problem of coordinating AutoCAD standards and workflows across offices. As approaches to BIM mature, firms are increasingly in need of highly skilled individuals to support project teams and ensure that BIM models perform correctly and are useful sources of intelligence for benchmarking and analysis. Solving these challenges is a core component of the success in the future. As a result, delivering a project in the future will take less people and happen faster than it does today.
Virtual Reality as a Marketing Tool
From the virtual reality angle, we can see a clear competitive edge for firms that master the technology. As the world becomes increasingly digital, these virtual models may serve as viable replacements for physical models. They do not require labor intensive efforts to build, and tie directly to the computer models already built inside the computer. In the current state, virtual reality serves a marketing purpose as part of R&D efforts and a key way to let clients experience the building before it is built.
The result of these efforts, however, don’t change the challenges for the industry. In both BIM and virtual reality, we can see a natural evolution of existing processes. These technologies do not fundamentally change the practice of architecture, and crucially, these technologies do not expand the field.
Computational Design & Modular Construction Give Engineering and Construction an Edge
For many people coming from an architecture background, computational design seems like a purely architectural endeavor. Groups like SmartGeometry have solidified a common understanding of computational design within the architectural community. When we take a step back, however, an increasing number of firms are having engineers lead their computational design groups.
The leadership structure makes sense when you think about the skills on which computational design in built. At the core of environmental analysis and building performance are established algorithms and engineering disciplines. The reliance on algorithms also exposes a key weakness in architectural education, math. Even artificial intelligence, with all its promises, is fundamentally a mathematical construct relying heavily on calculus and linear algebra. With ultimate performance of the built environment in mind, the industry is increasingly pushed to engineer optimal built solutions according to performance models.
From the construction perspective, modular construction promises to bring the assembly line to the building process, greatly increasing productivity. As noted in reports, construction efficiency has remained stagnant for a some time and the industry is in need of a productivity revolution. Modular construction, as one potential solution to this challenge, reduces the influence of the architect on spatial proportions, schematic flexibility, and facade options by offering pre-specified units. When championed by contractors alone, the economic advantages of modular construction push owners towards the solutions, thereby reducing the role of the architect in the process.
Between computational design and construction innovations, we see the architect being squeezed by two rapidly innovating industries. Of course, there will always be a role for architects, but preserving the role of design in the process will require architects to expand their role, rather than maintain it.
Here we see the middle innovation trap for architecture: in a technology and efficiency-driven process, the design side of an architect’s responsibilities are not innovating fast enough to maintain a competitive edge.
A Mandate for Architectural Innovation
At the end of the day, technology should work for our needs, it should not limit what is possible.
With the pressures of efficiency from engineering and construction in mind, we now need a mandate for architectural innovation. While daylighting analysis, view analysis and shadow analysis create better buildings, they do not tackle the fundamental efficiency issue driving engineering and construction innovation.
To make an impact, and architects must accept that constructability and engineering efficiency are key facets of the industry. Instead of accepting the products created by outside suppliers, architects must position themselves as key stakeholders in new technology that may not be design oriented. Modular construction needs architects to ensure their products meet the flexibility requirements of design goals, and engineering advances will fit the least common denominator without input from the architectural industry.
From a technology standpoint, this can mean software tools that consider constructability in the conceptual design state. In massing diagrams, shouldn’t we be able to see options for structural grids and construction requirements? Several firms are already developing artificial intelligence models trained to show this information under narrow circumstances. Our goal then, should be to expand these tools across firms, and expand their coverage across building typologies. These technologies will take a shift in thinking, just like BIM and CAD technologies before it, but expanding our conceptual idea of the design process will ultimately bring us a better understanding of architecture and what the industry can do.