Niels Barrett PhD.pdf - OpenAIR @ RGU - Robert Gordon University

The rise of a Profession within a ProfessionIntroductionThe Development of the Architectural Technology Discipline within the Profession of ArchitectureSuch an architect has to follow all new developments of the construction industryand requires the capacity to take a modern architectural concept and detail itcompletely with all technical information. In other words, he or she is required toproduce the coherent technical design of the building as a follow up on thedesigning architects’ outline sketches or conceptual design and do so whether we talkabout two persons sharing all design work or only one possessing both capabilities.Does such an architect exist? And if so, how was this new professional theneducated and trained? Is there a sufficient balance between the old area ofresponsibility and the newly arisen technical one when it comes to education?Can a single education of a standard duration cover all of it, or do we face a newspecialisation area within architecture?These questions drove the philosophical basis for this research, and link with realdevelopments in terms of an emerging discipline area. To distinguish between thetraditional area of activities in the architect’s office and the new demanding technicalarea we will call them respectively ‘architectural design’ (AD) and ‘architecturaltechnology’ (AT). This is in line with the terminology in use by the newly developedarchitectural technologist in UK. It is also necessary to distinguish between thediscipline of AT and what architectural technologists or their like in differentcountries consider their professional role(s) at the time being. The fact that it is anewer discipline within the drawing offices and that the new profession historicallyderive from different national traditions have caused different ideas on theborderlines of the professions of architecture and architectural technology as willalso be seen in the data from our chosen national examples of the UK and Denmark.However, the true international development is that of the AT discipline installingitself beside the AD disciplines in the drawing office – not how in detail the nationaltradition in different countries handles the situation right now. Using the UK andDenmark as examples the investigation of the thesis sought to explore the abovementioned questions through testing of two hypotheses:29