Architect versus Contractor conundrum.

When someone wants to embark on their dream home, office or shop in terms of design, what or who do they turn to?

We have come to realisation that the architect is definitely not an option in this situation. Architects in Kuala Lumpur, Petaling Jaya and the Klang Valley in general has built this rather augmentated profile of handlers of large scale projects.

This is not entirely the fault of the architectural cohort, rather the manner that a developing country is inadvertently set up in the face of racing towards progress.

In Australia, more familiarly, Melbourne, architects usuallly deliver creative, intricate and inspired houses, retail and institutional architecture. These include renovations and extensions. Look up firms such as 'Austin Maynard', MODO, Sibling Architecture, BLOXAS, 'Freedman White', '6 Degrees' and let google provide plenty of other options and opinions on the overcrowded talent-per-capita situation.

The key word here is, inspiration, to make the world's most livable city, better.

Back home in Malaysia, one of the biggest problems an architect faces, is one created upon themselves.

Namely: The Part III Examination by LAM

or in layman's terms, Proffesional Registration by the Board of Architects Malaysia.

The exam focuses only on a very narrow band of issues faced by the modern architect. It is client focused to the extreme and this client is even more meticulously enclosed into only one segment.

This examination only consists of 2 components.

i) the development submission process and sequences.
ii) the adminstration of a development's construction contract.

We all have to ask whether the 2 above are completely crucial for the evolution of society.

Let me put it simply, the architect in Melbourne aims to inspire society. Whilst the architect in Malaysia aims to serve clueless developer and its throngs of speculators.

It is without a doubt that aspiring architects in Malaysia have no clue on what was set up by their cohort prior, the Part III examination. No one signed up to be a submissive servant to speculators.

The result of this uninspired approach is eputomised by the current crash of property price in 2018. No one wants to be a part of these uninspired SOHO, SOFO, MOFOs.

My point is, it is time for a change. 2018 is not 1968, whereby we need the architect to be competent in a submission process. That thought was implicit for a new born societal structure. Why is it necessary to ensure that an architect memorises all by-laws in 10 different 100+ to 200+page books to be regurgitated in a 3 hour written exam?

Isn't live itself already a great exam? Why deliberately limit the potential of a creative person?

Is it worth even practising as an architect in the Malaysian context?

Why bother suffer the humilation of being overlooked by dwelling and shop owners in favour of Ah Tan, Ah Seng, Ah Meng, Ah Hou, Ah Tuck?

The fact is simple, architects here have a complex and tremendous self enacted problem. Focusing on the wrong things in the last 2 decades has led to a dead-ended moment in time. Which is sad, because never in time the world had so many opportunities to leap to the next level of human prowess.

My intuition is still this, there is no point and purpose of being a part of the old architectural cohort anymore in thinking.

The future is simply, VALUE.

And architects don't give that to consumers. They think they do, especially to speculators. Today the property prices have responded to this in toto. And hence no one employs them in a inspired way.

The future is also understanding where the value is. And the future of architecture in Malaysia, is actually in the construction industry.

It is more worthwhile, and much more architectural in philosophy to be what the true to heart what an architect wants to be, in the Malaysian context.

In my next few posts, I will narrate more on the benefits of a being a contractor in Kuala Lumpur, Petaling Jaya and the Klang Valley and subsequently detail the pros and cons of hiring an architect versus a contractor for your design project.

See you soon,
Chian Quah
Founder, Studio-Asean.

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