Local Professionals

Over the past ten years, I have been a little nervous about my lack of ability to leave this country and still support myself as the professional I have developed myself to be. My credentials would not be recognized or useful outside of this country. Recently, I discovered a distinction which should be made which might help free me from the place in which I am licensed, and might be a way toward a self-sustaining and better regulated local community.

In terms of the practice of architecture, all of the acts of planning, design and specification are considered to be within the realm of the regulated profession. It is technically illegal to conduct those activities on a project which requires the seal of an architect or engineer, if one is not licensed in either of those professions. Designers get around that by having an architect of record seal the documents, however, unless the project was produced under that professional's control, the designer is still practicing architecture without a license.

I have developed myself as an architect in the full sense. I see every part of planning, design and construction as an integral act, and therefore I see my license to practice architecture as integral to the design and consultation that I do. Perhaps there is an important distinction to be made which would help the practice of architecture as an art and as a profession and its impact on the public.

The profession of architecture comes into play in the integration of the prevailing laws with a built feature. Good planning and design need to respond to the prevailing laws, but, they are independent of them until the feature is actually built. Tension between design and the law is sometimes offers a great benefit to our culture.

If the professional architect were to collaborate with the designer as a matter of course on all built projects, our built environment would be regulated as our society demands while the true pursuit of thought and design would be integrated into the mundane world. The key to this is the coequal quality and mutual respect of this relationship that true collaboration would give.

I have always seen those two sides of architecture as residing in the same person, and dividing those roles as being degrading to one side or the other. In the State of New York I can be an architect who designs and applies the prevailing laws to the benefit of the public and the design goals. Although I could become licensed in another state in this country, how effective would I be applying that state's laws in a project there? Shouldn't the application of laws be a purely local function? There, I may plan and design, but shouldn't I make a local professional a coequal part of the process in non-local projects? Likewise, anyone who is competent to design should have the ability to do so, as long as the respect for the (letter of and spirit of) the prevailing laws is shown by involving a local professional to ground the project to the place. This is not a new idea, but it is different enough from the methods followed here now, that it seems new (and important).

Obviously, this solves my identity problem with regard to leaving this country behind. My ability to think, plan, design can be disengaged from the permission to cause buildings to be built. At this stage of life, the thought of architecture could be independent from building, but when building is needed, developing the ability to collaborate with others on the possible is the new skill to develop.

That is a comforting thought.