James Tait
De-industrialising Architectural Practice: The work of architecture in the age of its (digital) reproducibility
First and second supervisors
Abstract
This proposal aims at a practice-led critique of architecture as it exists in the digital age, with the subtitle deliberately borrowing from Walter Benjamin’s famous essay about the transformation of artworks due to industrialisation. This thesis, as part of the PhD by Architectural Practice, makes use of a substantial foundation of 15 years’ design experience as a professional architect working in Britain – a period that will be contextualised, explored, and reflected upon to arrive at new understandings of how architectural practice could operate within an increasingly digitalised global environment.
The first strand of the proposal will examine the role of the architect as part of the wider construction industry in Britain, focusing on:
- An appraisal of the architect’s current role in an outmoded and harmful construction industry whose guiding principles are those of production, efficiency, and consumption, often at great environmental and social cost.
- The impact to date of industrialised and standardised modes of design on the nature of architectural practice and its outputs.
- An analysis of nascent or emergent post-industrial digital technologies and associated design methods which can offer better alternatives to our current model of architecture practice.
The proposal will then explore how nascent or emergent technologies and design methods could be implemented, at scale, to help future architectural practice. Through investigation of my own creative design process in practice in working with these technologies, I will test and evaluate how their implementation could:
- Offer new alternative strategies for architecture beyond the current contractor-led hegemony in issues such as production and standardisation.
- Focus and improve the profession’s response to the crucial issues of our time, namely climate change, resource management, and the destruction of the natural environment and its species.
- Open new channels of communication and notions of collective authorship between the profession and the panoply of makers, clients, and end-users of buildings.
The thesis aims to provide an original contribution to knowledge by demonstrating how a practice-led design investigation can help us to better address the conditions of architectural production in the digital age – thereby arguing how architecture in Britain could, and perhaps ought to, operate in the future.
Biography
Winner of the internationally renowned RIBA and RIAS Silver Medals in 2008, I have since gained considerable experience as an architect, leading a broad spectrum of high-profile projects at some of the best architectural practices in the UK. Key award-winning projects include the Olympic Energy Centres, London and the City of Glasgow College. I have recently established my own architectural office, based in Glasgow, working at the intersection of design, research, and community engagement. The office works across various scales to explore new spatial, tectonic, social, and environmental possibilities for our future built environment.
In parallel with this experience as a practitioner, I have established an independent body of research as the author of ‘Entering Architectural Practice’ published by Routledge and ‘The Architecture Concept Book’ (Thames and Hudson).
I also teach at the Mackintosh School of Architecture, The Glasgow School of Art and at ESALA, The University of Edinburgh.
Publications
- Tait, J. (2018) The Architecture Concept Book. London: Thames and Hudson
- Tait, J. (2020) Entering Architectural Practice. Abingdon: Routledge