A handful of hobbies may turn into jobs; some jobs can be vocational. Creative industries generally tend to accommodate both. But if one were to speak in architecture’s defence, it wouldn’t be exclusively classified as part of the creative industry; architecture is a service! For spaces to realise, architecture goes beyond an architect’s sole involvement quite early in the process. It is shaped by many minds and umpteen hands of various stakeholders; architecture is inherently collaborative than it is egocentric.
The aforementioned nature of architecture is rarely the academic advice passed on; de facto, the obverse prevails. The very perception of the field, then, is noticeably misconstrued by students and young professionals (entry-level) as an adumbrated romantic picture of egocentric, overworking, and unsustainable standards. They’re often left blindsided by the non-glamorous constituents of the job, setting them up for an obvious experiential shock. Substantial lack of practising academics at our institutions likely causes this effect, limiting invaluable exposure to the realities of the profession. Architecture institutions, hence, fail to prepare students to be young “professionals” at work [on and off-site], leaving them to rely heavily on their personal skills & temperaments beyond the theoretical framework of academics.
But is awareness and exposure to the “nature” of architecture the only challenge with architecture employment in India? Or is that merely the tip of the iceberg we’ve seemingly hit before drowning?!
Six constituents comprise the educational experience for architecture undergrads: Curriculum, Institution’s approach to the curriculum, Extra-curricular exposure, Peer acculturation experience, Faculty disposition, and Industry illustration. Excluding the curriculum, the rest all remain highly variable across multiple tangents, constituting unique educational experiences for all. The institution’s approach, faculties, and industry representation are the major factors influencing the quality of education, as well as the quality of exposure (often overlooked).
A CEPT graduate adds, “Institutions were not ready for the ‘shift’ where the industry demands that we are taught the art of business, branding, & marketing for practicing architects. It is the need of the hour.”
The Council of Architecture (CoA) ought to update the minimum standards of architectural education, including the curriculum of its orthodox temperaments, and do so regularly to reflect the needs of a fast-changing society.
As much as the flexible individual approaches by institutions add to the rich fabric of each region, these approaches should not depend on the lack of mandatories or ambiguities per se, being the reason for their variety across regions; they need to rather stem from a well-defined framework and sequence within which the flexible varieties take place. Leaving it unattended has led to a large pool of outdated standards of education and practice, far-from-professional graduates, inadequate skill development, unhelpful frameworks and overall dissatisfaction with investment vs. outcome expectation from a five-year degree course in a developing nation.
Synchronously, grievance and arbitration portals need to market themselves well, to infiltrate into architecture circles beyond the metropolis. Correctional measures like certification and grading to architectural practices could be beneficial, provided the undertaking is well-researched and takes into account qualitative, cultural, intangible, regional, and cost-of-living factors. The minimum standards of architectural education need to reflect the professional reality of today’s multi-faceted practices, so that their existence isn’t a revelation, but rather an orientation for the young graduates.
Formulating, upgrading, updating, and safeguarding the curriculum are distinctive responsibilities; each requires due diligence from the council that unforgettably and without fail reminds and fines architects on their expiring licenses.
To decide “who” should teach requires a balance of dispositions and clarity of intent. While discussing the role of academicians with people in architecture, across spectrums, it was established that the excess of any one kind is detrimental to the education system, particularly exposing students to the realities of the field. If all the academicians are full-time, they often run the risk of being too theoretical. If all are practising, it would subsequently mean much less time committed to educating and therefore, a neglect of enriching teaching practices and theoretical approaches that make architecture rich.
Seerat Dhuria, a young architect in Chandigarh, describes how the perception in Chandigarh heavily relies on their college’s homogenous culture: “Faculties and practices in the city are all majorly from the same college creating a strong sense of community,” but one that is dreaming of thriving in their own self-validating bubble, limiting permeability of discourse within the city’s understanding of the field. “The bubble does offer easily accessible job opportunities within the city, though it results in saturated workplaces and invites stagnancy in growth potential”, she adds.
Minaz Ansari, an academic from the past one and a half decade, reflects, “Bombay colleges have a healthy mix of practice and academia.”
Is it the institutional intent of academic richness and/or healthy inter-institutional competition in a region? Or is it the availability of adequate professionals (academic/practice) in a region to balance various qualitative dispositions?
“Architects used to make political statements, whereas now we aren’t collectively able to take a political stand for ourselves.”- Apurva Gupta, an entrepreneur from Chattisgarh.
It is of much surprise to realise that events, conferences, guest lectures, etc., at institutions rarely, if ever, talk about the processes, environment, failures, or larger consequences of an architectural design practice.
There is plenty about monumental successes and finished products, often taking away the credibility and involvement of the many others who contributed, let alone the conditions in which they contributed.
It becomes imperative that institutions curate the themes mindfully. Active involvement thus dictates the quality of exposure provided, rippling rich long-term benefits to the industry workforce and eventual entrepreneurs, further aiding them in making educated decisions, decisions that often affect many outside of the self.
“We have romanticised architecture so much that either young architects are repulsed by it or they have the same obsession! We, as people, have lost the balance of life.” exclaims one of the CEPT University graduate, practicing as an architect and academic.
Let’s address the elephant. The vast majority of architecture graduates are utterly unhappy, exhausted and battered with India’s state of architecture employment.
Architectural education, to begin with, is for the privileged, considering the fee, academic expenses, and time invested. Yet, very few are blessed with the connections and/or resources to be referred to good-paying jobs, join family workplaces, or start their own firms right after graduation. Most have to scavenge (yes, scavenge!) for employment to get employed at practices whose work we relate to. With tens of thousands of graduates each year and not enough job openings to accommodate all, it leads to cutthroat competition, migration, and compromises where not skill and talent, but often lesser remuneration, gets the cake.
Conspicuously, things don’t change for intermediate and senior positions either—scarce opportunities, large stakes, larger compromises. “Industry standards” forget to take into account that employees [of all ages] have families (parents, siblings, spouses, kids) to support, beyond constantly worrying about their own survival.
“Given credit for work, is not enough. They need to be able to take care of themselves, their families.” adds Smita Thomas of Multitude of Sins.
Minaz Ansari reflects when asked about the condition of pay scales in architecture,
“The idea of practice has evolved in so many ways. Evolved practices and opportunities have also created a great variation in payscale. Studios pay low, might not need senior architects, whereas project management roles at PMC, design management roles at MNCs, corporate companies, liaisoning, redevelopment projects, etc. have varied opportunities to explore better pay.”
“I’ve worked without salary for three months because I got it via reference post-covid, 8k salary for about a year as a fresher architect and then 18k after a year, all this while being paid with delays.” Tushara, a young architect practising for 5 years in cities like Mumbai and Calicut, recalls her experience as grim, a big shock, and shameful to talk about in society. “I thought about quitting the field the day I got 8k and many days ever since.”
Young architects experience their fair share of employment uncertainty, pay scale discrepancies across regions and abusive environments. When entry-level talent is made to feel replaceable and ignored for their contributions to the architectural workplace, it is importunate to trigger decay of the work environment. Lack of strong council standards and checks for pay scales across the country results in humongous discrepancies, from being paid 8-15k for entry-level jobs, to working for free in the name of probation periods, and sometimes having to pay “fees” to the employer under the pretext of volunteering and exposure by niche practices. Our institutions, historically, rarely offer placement support, and do not prepare students for interview conduct and professional negotiation.
The certitude that “Architects are craftspeople; architecture employees are apprentices” is a medieval one, that obligingly belongs in curated museum archives at vilās and garhs. But to allow it any amplitude in present-day discourse around architecture employment would be misanthropic, if not conveniently imprudent.
Most practices in the country are run on an egotistical hierarchical structure, leaving less to no room for collaborative inclinations or heterarchies to flourish. Decision-making authority flows down in an egocentric hierarchy, indubitably leaving no joy in work for young employees. Most workplaces do not propagate or entertain critique and inquisition, especially from the lower-level workforce, let alone work constructively on feedback to invite positive change and growth. Such power imbalances, seldom if not always, lead to observed credit imbalances. Architectural projects are generated by many hands; rarely are all celebrated the same. It is especially difficult for the younger workforce to articulate their grievances, given the lack of training in workplace conduct and communication within our industry.
Areen Attari, founder of a bio-architecture firm, PYHT, speaks in jest about the changing nature of interviews where young applicants often interview the interviewer, “they are clear of their choices, they know when to swipe right or left.” He adds how the display of clarity is rather good.
The average architecture entrepreneur often blames the lack of expedient training and skill development by the institutions for evading their professional and, more so, social responsibilities to support new architects, without whom their practices would be defunct.
Smita calls the industry to action, “If you are an organisation that has experienced growth, especially financial growth, you have to be the ones to set these examples and inspire others to follow these leads.”
“Accountability, ownership, and responsibility are the key criteria for selecting employees.” Areen Attari, Founder at PYHT.
Employability in architecture can not entirely depend on education itself; students, young architects, and practitioners believe in accordance with the fact that every workplace, including the place of internship, is responsible for training our workforce. It goes without saying that the role of a practice in training and supporting entry-level talent is imperative, a practice common amongst most industries.
Smita reflects on the systems she diligently continues to build at her internationally recognised six-year-long practice,
”Management needs to plan things better and communicate with utmost clarity with new recruits (not forgetting that they are not yet established in the practices’ ways of communication). Management and senior employees need to be reflective and mindful at all times and adjust their behavior accordingly. One has to acknowledge, accept, and work towards fixing mistakes as seniors (management).”
Reflecting on one of her positive experiences, an architect working pan-India points out how
“discussion-driven studios that are flexible and have collaborative inclinations, along with the security of finances and business management, create qualitatively rich work environments where employees are responsible, confident and liable for their work. That is true participatory design.”
Much of the prevalent issues leading to exodus from the industry, are a resultant of this phenomenon viz. interviews and negotiations around salaries, terms & conditions (neither well-documented generally), to commonly heard of misconduct, ill-treatment & exploitation of labour with unpaid overtime & strenuous deadlines, to disregard of individual talent & subjective ideas, to fear of losing jobs, to fearing harassment during exit periods and even the unfortunate cases of financial and paperwork fraud post-exit, the issues are multifold with no institutional or union support in sight.
When employers choose to repeat cycles of systemic failure they endured during their early years rather than attempt to revitalise said systems, it displays an unwillingness to address, acknowledge, and rectify traumatic patterns corrupting the industry at large.
“There are a lot of small processes, systems and documentation we have introduced. The senior is responsible for giving a clear set of instructions to juniors, establishing accountability at both ends. It purges miscommunication and fosters accountability.” Smita Thomas, Founder at MOS.
Moreover, enabling or worse ‘celebrating’ silver linings in unethical/exploitative practices of starchitects needs to be checked. “The passionate architect” phenomenon is proving to be less of a boon, and more as the bane hindering a constructive path forward.
As long as we are collectively willing to stay mute to these occurrences and continue rewarding unethical practices, revolution will be far from near!
What’s desperately needed are robust systems, safeguards, documentation, and contractual agreements with all parties involved, viz., the employer-employee-on-site ecosystem. Not only does it allow space for acknowledgement, but it also pushes all to take responsibility during conflicts; if created with ethical intentionality, it can help regulate a qualitatively rich workplace environment and mitigate possibilities of toxicity, abuse, manipulation, or harassment.
The discourse is not new. These emphatic demands are not new.
Smita draws out the urgency rather well, “It needs a revolution for things to change…, It is a collective responsibility that needs to be looked at, assessed and strategised to be able to see any results, over the next decade (if not later).”
While we assemble and acclimatise ourselves with the challenges, let us work towards reclaiming our role in society. Without the patronage of clients, our industry can simply not move forward. As long as the client sees builders, contractors, draughtspeople as an alternative to our services, we will end up continuing to suggest utopic measures for our industry in a bubble of our own creation. The issues around employment are mere effects of overall schematics at play; they might be complicated, but not impossible to rectify.
“Can we reverse osmosis in this situation and fix our employment milieu first, to re-solidify our roles as architects in a developing nation?” is a question worth cogitating over.
