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WANTED

It's 2011! A new year, a new website and a new blog. How exciting. Well, for the first couple of paragraphs at least.

As with most new years, in Scotland, this one starts with wonder and promise tinged with a mildly sore head and the taste of _______ (insert preferred morning after placebo here).

Once the hangover finally and naturally subsides (I don't understand it – Lucozade never fails me) you realise that the optimism for the forthcoming months has been inevitably replaced by a feeling of lethargy and foreboding. Since the turn of the year I have had this feeling in greater abundance than usual with the sole reason being that I have been trying to mentally assess the prospects of architecture in Scotland for the coming year.

While those who know me may already have pigeonholed me as a doom-monger, you haven't yet had that opportunity, so allow me to elaborate on where this sentiment is coming from.

For the past two years or so I have seen the architectural profession in Scotland change. It has gone from one of relative self-confidence with members who shared something of a commonality in furthering aspirations for themselves and the collective architectural output of a relatively small nation, to what we have now; a group of organisations squabbling over limited work and cutting themselves and each other to the bone.

This may seem a bit dramatic but unfortunately it is not the good old clandestine, handbags at dawn, borne out of stylistic differences (‘Parametricism’ is pure baws by 'ra way), architectural critique, or pub chitchat. It is a far more serious situation that has arisen through the cutting and cutting and cutting of fees to a level that is now unsustainable.

As strong as this sounds I am not suggesting that it is something that practices have intentionally undertaken to achieve, but that it is simply the outcome of many bodies vying for limited work in the absence of leadership or direction in a country which, if we're honest, doesn't wholly appreciate the value that good architecture and design can add.

These aspects are mainly circumstantial and can be helped only to a limited degree but the one that I believe can be addressed is our own abilities in identifying a clear strategy through times where work is scarce.

Other professions have been through the same recession as us yet have somehow made it out the other side relatively unscathed. To me it seems that a central tenet of this success is their ability to organise themselves with clear leadership from a central body – a voice which the practitioners listen to and which is also heeded at higher levels. When they make the case for the importance of their service and the value they add to society they are heard.

This leads me to the question, and the crux of my winter blues - where is our organisation and representation? Who is the voice of the Architect in Scotland and the UK and what are they doing to benefit the profession.

Perhaps it's just the Seasonal Adjustment Disorder or the grumbling of my festively overworked internal organs but I can't help but feel that the position we are in is one that requires careful manoeuvring to get out of, and I'm just not sure who's at the wheel.

Donald Shearer is an Architect now working as a tutor and researcher at the Mackintosh School of Architecture within the Mackintosh Environmental Architecture Research Unit (MEARU). He has previously worked with Elder & Cannon and was project architect on the 2010 Best Building in Scotland Andrew Doolan Award winning project, Shettleston Housing Association Offices.