Redefining the Design Team, 1995

Professional Barriers

Psychological barriers only occur in the minds of men, and like any theory constructed by man these barriers can be deconstructed and replaced.
“Barrier absence” requires a way of thinking and attitude which is no longer territorial because respect and trust exist, which in turn encourages confidence with humility between people. Professionals should be as capable of realising this as anyone else, and in terms of their influence on society and the physical environment, should have a moral obligation to do so.

I know from my own experience with Peter Rice and Martin Francis, and the way our office in London functions with individual engineers and economists, that territories do not have boundaries, they are simply different landscapes which require different skills to negotiate well, but also through which, with one’s collaborators, one can be supported and supportive.

In an architectural practice which has at various times included engineer, naval architect, artist, anthropologist, photographer, landscape architect, poet, where none are regarded as technicians or draughting people, we are accustomed to the absence of barriers as we are to the absence of hierarchy. Since a small office cannot always sustain this diversity, we frequently collaborate with other professions in the usual way. It is important to do this with people who share the same objectives – for example design quality, and similar values. Thus we have, over the years, established working relationships with a selected number of consultants.

Mutual education and reorientation is necessary when a job comes to us with another consultant already attached to it by the client, and there is a “heat” period necessary to melt the engineering and architectural boundaries.