I recently re-watched a documentary on one of the world’s most famous and most under the radar architects – Louis Kahn. The doco is called My Architect and it charts Louis Kahn’s son uncovering his father’s life. Nathaniel Kahn was only 12 years old when Louis was found dead from a heart attack in the bathrooms of Penn station, New York. Due to his dishevelled state his body wasn’t properly identified for days even though at the time he was one of America’s foremost architects. The doco is a good watch; I highly recommend it!
It got me thinking though about the current state of architecture and the cost of capital ‘A’ Architecture.
Cost phase 1 – capital ‘Q’ for Qualifications
I taught sustainable design at the University of Technology and I always felt rather empathetic to the students just starting out in their careers. You see it’s a long (five years), arduous (92% of architect students report moderate to high levels of stress as a result of their studies) and expensive course (a full fee-paying student will pay over $100,000 over their five-year degree). Back when I finished Uni, the cost was much less and I’ve only just recently paid off my HECS debt. Current Commonwealth supported students will be leaving with HECS debts upwards of $70,000 and be experiencing a CPI increase annually of 4.7%. So on a debt of $70,000 and given your first pay is under the payback threshold, in the first year, that debt already jumps to $73,290. $3K may not seem much spread over a year, but I can tell you to a young architect living and working in Sydney, it could make a big difference!
Cost phase 2 – capital ’W’ for Work
Five years of Uni (most students take six), then two years learning on the job, then about a year for the registration process. With registration comes new responsibilities, comes more risk, comes more professional indemnity insurance. Salaries by this time should have gone up from about $65K in today’s dollars up to $85K on average. Most of the smaller boutique studios where students first cut their teeth have around six staff members. If we multiply this by $85k for a mid-journey architect, that’s about $510K in salaries for a small office. That’s a lot of moula that a small firm needs to charge for its designs!
Cost phase 3 – capital ‘D’ for Design
Custom homes and buildings don’t come cheap. I don’t recall one subject in my degree that taught the prudential method of detailing! There was never any “design to a budget” coursework and generally the more way out there designs were the ones that received the better marks. This might account for the fact that the number 1 complaint pointed at architects is budget blow-outs. Fine thin edge details, large spans and unconventional forms cost money. Not only in how they get built (cost phase 4) but also in how they get coordinated with the structure, services and type of construction. The thing is, the better the details, the better chance of winning an award and therefore of getting the better projects with the better budgets. You can see the spiral happening, can’t you?
Cost phase 4 – capital ‘B’ for Build
I recall a builder telling me that he could estimate the cost of a building just by the weight of the architectural drawings in his hands ie. the more details, the more paper, the more tricky details to account for. The issue with many drawing packages is that they’ve been designed in a cosy office, on paper, models and computers. There are no site constraints in our 3D programs. The weight of a steel beam destined for a roof ridge beam is just pixels on a screen. We can lift it up and spin it around with our mouse. There’s no cranes, rain, wind, gravity, health and safety legislation. If there was somehow a way to simulate the pain and difficulty of building every detail we drew, I can tell you now, those heavy drawing packages would end up being a few pages thick!
You might think that it ends at Cost phase 4, but no, there’s more…
Cost phase 5 – capital ‘M&M’ for Marketing & Maintenance
For the Architecture studio, they need to market the project. That means hiring an architectural photographer and a stylist, turfing the owner out of their freshly finished house for a day and hoping that they can get some exceptional photos good enough to win an award or two. For the builder, there’s usually a number of callbacks to deal with any defects and then waiting on their final payment. For the owner there’s the maintenance that can be on a whole new level depending on the building design. I recall a time when it was trendy to stick timber battens over a facade to give it a cool linear look. And, it did look great, until that is, the paint or stain started to wear away and needed re-coating. Just ask any painter how much slower it is to paint a flat wall versus a wall covered in battens!
There’s likely another cost phase in there. Probably at the time of demolition when it comes time to separate out all the various bits and bobs that can and can’t be recycled.
But, I think from this little piece, you can get a better idea of the cost of capital ‘A’ Architecture. I’m always amazed at how Architecture even gets built in this day and age of competition for resources and construction cost inflation. I admire the clients seeing through their grand designs. I admire the builders realising the heavy drawing packages. And, I admire the architects envisioning amazing spaces. Each building is an optimistic act resulting in a small miracle. As for Louis Kahn, he paid the ultimate cost of capital ‘A’ for Architecture but I daresay if you could ask him, he wouldn’t have had it any other way.
