Lecture by Brian Johnson of Aedas at The Manchester School of Architecture on 11th November 2008
Lecture brief:
What are the advantages of being a large multi-national practice? How has this come about? How do you run so large a practice? Has the individual been lost in the organisation? What happened to the “Public Offices” of old? Who does their work now?
About the lecturer: (from the Aedas website)
Brian’s extensive experience and knowledge in educational design earned Aedas the top spot in the Architects Journal ‘Top 10 Firms Specialising in Educational Design’. Brian is currently the Project Director on six City Academies for United Learning Trust, Manchester Schools BSF (17 Schools) and Bassetlaw PFI (8 schools) and he recently completed the Manchester Academy and Canon Sharples CE Primary sustainable school project for the diocese of Liverpool. Brian is a founder member of the British Council for School Environments, a RIBA Professional Practice Examiner and a visiting lecturer to Manchester University on PFI and the globalisation of architectural practices.
Lecture Review:
Johnson graduated in 1979, and joined Holford Associates in Liverpool in 1983. He moved to their Manchester office in 1986, which then merged to form Abbey Holford Rowe in 1999. Further mergers in 2001 with Temple Cox Nicholls and Liang Peddle Thorne saw the formation of Aedas. In 2005, Johnson became Aedas’ research and development director, before moving on to become design director in 2006. He became head of Aedas Manchester in 2007 and has been made Chairman of Aedas Europe this month. Aedas are fourth largest architectural practice in the world, employing over 2,200 staff.
In the 1950s, 70% of architects worked in the public sector, by the 1970s this had dropped to 55% and in the 2000s just 9% of architects worked for governmental departments.
86% of architects are solo practitioners, but architectural firms with only one or two staff make-up just 9% of architectural industry’s fees. Medium sized firms (3-10 employees) earn 25% of the fees, whilst large firms (over 11 employees) earn 66% of the fees.
“[There is] little convergence in the views and experiences expressed by individuals from the construction industry and those from the built environment professions.”
Johnson states that the rise of PFI (private finance initiative), D&B contracts (design and build) and frameworks agreements have led to wholesale changes in the architectural industry. He stipulates that the traditional JCT ’98 contracts are inappropriate for most large projects. 25% of all architectural fees are now earned through D&B contracts and 50% of Aedas’ clients are contractors. PFI, frameworks, partnerships and other collaborative ventures seek to keep contractors and construction professional teams together and due to large-scale nature of projects (e.g. a batch of seventeen schools) exclude small and medium firms. These long-term agreements seek to close the knowledge gap between contractors and the professions.
Aedas’ mergers help the company answer its:
Ambitions: to grow, to fund full-time management, to release architects from non-fee earning duties
Needs: public sector, international, PFI, BSF, staff training, competitiveness, and limit exposure to recession
Desires: to be better, specialism in education and health, invest in research and development.
As Johnson is head of research and development at Aedas, he went on to demonstrate how they seek to improve their designs. Every project is subject to a performance evaluation that is completed by the end user. The data is analysed to identify areas for improvement and those that are successful. Aedas is a key collaborator in RIBA’s CarbonBuzz project that aims to track carbon emissions from recently completed buildings online. Aedas has developed links with the BRE, universities and governmental organisations to encourage the implementation of the latest research. Johnson was keen to state that he sees the sustainability agenda as a field in which architects should lead the construction industry; architects should not leave it to engineers to deal with.
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