Architect As

The Architect wakes to the sound of an alarm. Morning light filters through the mandatory shaft window, once a symbol of possibility. Early in their architectural training, as students, the window had been an experiment. The Architecture Student would stretch the window horizontally like a modernist gesture, screening it off with breeze blocks or lifting it high to catch a sliver of sky. They experimented in tints, hues and shapes, trying to understand and define a fitting language for their early gestures.

Those days are long gone. Now, the Architects' windows meet minimum standards and arrive in white uPVC frames, a choice dictated by the norms of the profession, without protest.

They leave to work early to secure a parking spot within walking distance of the office. Traffic builds midway, agitating them. The Architect switches on the air conditioning. The new touchscreen in their crossover SUV feels pleasing beneath their fingers, a stark upgrade from the modest Fiat 500, which had served them since their university years. Incremental salary increases are well-spent. Staying with the same firm since their second year at university brought security and a quiet comfort, a small dividend of the earlier academic stresses and sacrifices they had endured.

Now calmer and cooler, they lower the fan and adjust the chromatic handle on their air-conditioning panel. Rush hour intensifies during the first week of the back-to-school frenzy. A landscape of construction stretches through their car window. White-plastered apartment blocks, hoarded-off sites, discarded concrete batches, and a forest of cranes dominate. They have grown numb to it. Not from ignorance, however, as they are one of the orchestrators of such chaos.

Arriving to their workplace, they edge their relatively new car into a narrow space, opening the door cautiously against a tight pavement. 

Black leather bag on desk, they head to the kitchen. While the coffee machine hums, small talk about the fading summer drifts by. The architects converse over as quickly as the cappuccino froth settles. They return to their desk and begin to condition space.

Their practice is pragmatic, and one goal prevails.

Secure the permit. Satisfy the client.

That is the mission. That pays the bills.

Moral friction once pricked at them, but years of repetition have dulled it. Policy dictates design; minimums become absolutes, and legislative loopholes their quiet boasts. AutoCAD, SketchUp, or Revit serve the cause. They carry out their mission through exploiting the castability of concrete. This delivers the value, of floor area as currency. Le Corbusier's Dom-ino lives on in their workflow, guiding every slab and column. The vocation had become accustomed to such practices.

Noon strikes. The Architect places their phone on the long cedar wood table to save a seat. They place their plastic tupperware in the microwave and warm their packed lunch. Contractually, the break lasts thirty minutes, though it routinely stretches to an hour. Some are strict and adhere to the minute hand, leaving the office once they finish their eight and a half hours of work.

The Architect is constantly subject to constraints. Deliberate client briefs, budgets, software limitations to work in linear planes, paper layouts, and room layouts are all confinements which they operate in. The Architect continues to design through the confines of the screen, nestled away from the physical presence of the site. They confine, divide, specify and detail for the duration of the day. Within the office, discussions often break out regarding the state of the island and the various monstrosities being constructed. This is followed by a condemnation of who carried out the work and how one can design such rigid, narrow, ill-lit spaces.

Shutting down for the day, the Architect gets back in their car, rolls up the window, taps the touchscreen and drives home. Traffic is lighter than the morning commute. They have around five hours of energy left, enough to do daily chores, and taxi their children to extracurricular activities.