Can’t get no satisfaction

Getting things built is hard. If it takes superhuman effort to get even the most ordinary building completed, to deliver something game-changing over and above the ordinary is something else entirely. No wonder much of our development industry has a reputation for doing the bare minimum required to deliver a profit with little thought for the quality of place.

I am often asked by architects how they might persuade their developer clients to allow them to better use the skills for which they were hired. How do they persuade their clients to invest in quality? To spend that extra budget on quality materials, better landscaping, a more inspiring mix of uses?

我的回答总是关于呈现一个商业论点，而不是一个美学论点。你如何向你的客户展示，你所建议的更大投资能创造指数级的更大价值?带他们看看拐角处的公寓，市场上的价格要高出20%，因为它比他们提议的公寓设计得更好，空间也更大。

The architects then ask: “But why is that my job?” Well it shouldn’t be your job to show the developer how to get more out of their investment. But let’s face it: it is in your interest to do that.

Of course, spending more isn’t the only way to deliver better. It can also come from working harder – from ambition, tenacity and finding perverse pleasure in never being satisfied.

In our market-driven world, where most of the affordable housing we can deliver is a function of private-sector development s106 agreements, we are locked into a set of assumptions about the viability of delivery that cuts out swathes of the country simply because “the sales values aren’t there”.

The planning system currently allows simple arguments to be made by developers that viability appraisals show no, or very little, affordable housing is possible in schemes in low-sales-value areas. Where is the incentive in this system to work harder on delivering lower build costs through clever design and construction solutions when there is such an easy lever to pull as the margin designed to pay for affordable homes? Could part of the public investment in homes needed to plug this gap be allocated to a research programme to deliver clever design solutions that both increase quality and decrease cost?

This is where ambition comes in. How are we ever to win if we don’t start with a collective, soaring ambition to solve a big problem?

为这个过程加油鼓劲是谁的工作?我认为也许是政府里的人，软硬兼施。但事实上，我想说的是，我们这个行业的每个人都有责任多关心一点，把事情做得更好。是RIBA吗?是英国房地产联合会吗?皇家特许测量师学会?还是所有人一起?还是由我们每一个人来做出承诺和贡献?我可以建议与我交谈过的所有建筑师，说服他们的客户看到委托更好的设计的商业价值，但最后我必须告诉他们，这归根结底不是一个电子表格，而是一个(原谅我)给人***的人。因为如果没有努力改变的意愿，电子表格永远会胜出。

But ambition is only the start. One workshop does not a problem solve. That comes from relentless tenacity to make something work. Innovation is hard. James Dyson claims it took 5,127 prototype iterations to develop the first bagless vacuum cleaner. That’s some belief that he was on to a good idea. Who can give me an example in our industry of that kind of determination to change, fundamentally, the way something is done to deliver a better design with huge commercial potential? It’s not rocket science to understand the problems our industry faces. Where is the experimentation with open-source design thinking and collaborative working across our industry to find solutions that everyone can benefit from?

Finding pleasure in never being satisfied is a very personal thing. You have to be a very particular kind of person to enjoy waking up every day dissatisfied with the status quo and determined not to go to bed until you’ve done at least something to improve it. Maybe there aren’t enough of those people in our industry. Maybe we need to train for it. What I’m certain of is that the personal and professional rewards from thinking this way are great.