Process & production - architecture in the making: researching the role of the architect in the design or selection of components and products

Abstract

This report investigates the design role of the architect. The design of building elements, materials, components, details, furniture and related products are not often considered an essential or major part of the architectural design process. Instead, the architect's role is primarily the design of space through the assembly of specified building products that have already been designed and which are usually available off the shelf. It examines architects who have dealt seriously with these issues and questions the potential that an expanded role of the architect may have in extending the concepts, themes and ideas that are being explored & developed within architectural projects. The report begins by outlining a history of the architects' role in the process and production of making architecture. It focuses on the role that architects have traditionally played in the detail design of an architectural project. The report then describes the events that took the detail design control away from the architect and into the hands of the product designer and manufacturing firm. It then discusses relationships between the professions or architecture and design, advances in technology and the architect as consumer, followed by conclusions drawn from the research.