An Architect's Role

In one of our discussions this week, Sai asked us what out role as architects is. Surprisingly (or not) all of us just sat there blank. There were a few vague responses here and there but none of us could really answer it. We spoke of understanding clients and interpreting them in design but kind of just stopped at that. That's when Sai put across an interesting statement - what's the point of a beautiful design if it can't be executed? And that got all of us thinking.

Is it an architect's job just to design or do we go beyond that. Aren't we also supposed to manage the execution of the project as well? A design has to broken down into a sequence of processes that will ultimately lead it to manifest in physical space. These processes he explained had to be broken down into a list of achievable tasks and only when all of these tasks are completed in order, do we get a finished product. I guess that's where project management really comes in. Making task lists for various projects has helped me understand the complexity of the construction process (which was something I had been taking for granted before this).

Now it may sound complicated when I put it like this, but there is nothing more simple than the sense of achievement that you feel when you tick off a task from your to-do lists for ongoing sites!

-Mannat