Having just finished Walter Isaacson's biography Steve Jobs, I would like to comment on, "... the great debate of the digital age: closed versus open, or as Jobs framed it, integrated versus fragmented. Was it better, as Apple believed... to tie the hardware and software and content handling into one tidy system that insured a simple user experience? Or was it better to give users and manufacturers more choice and free up avenues for more innovation by creating software systems that could be modified and used on different devices?"
This issue of "integrated versus fragmented" is just as relevant to architecture as it is to digital technology. For the last 20 years, Marmol Radziner has been expanding our professional services beyond the traditional practice of architecture. We design landscapes, interiors, furniture, prefab housing and architecture and we build it ourselves. Half of our office concentrates on design while the other half figures out how to build it, and the two halves are in constant dialogue. Our goal is to take full responsibility for every increment of design and construction from beginning to end. But, our office is an anomaly.
Back in 1857, the American Institute of Architects established the professional competencies of the field by distancing architecture from engineering and construction, effectively limiting the role of the architect to that of aesthetic consultant. No longer the master builder, today's architect is generally incapable of constructing what he designs. As a result, a client may hire an architect, a contractor, an interior designer, a landscape architect, and a structural engineer just to produce a home. In this leaderless process, the client may unwittingly play the role of "design coordinator" or "mediator" and the results are usually fragmented rather than integrated.
I believe that the reason why Apple products work well and are beautiful is because they were designed and built by one company. Similarly, in order to provide clients with a "simple user experience" architects must begin to take responsibility for the entire process of design and construction. There were some notable professional innovators in the last century, such as Rudolph Schindler, who in 1922, designed and built the Kings Road House and all of the furniture within it. For Marmol Radziner Prefab, we created an entire factory for the production of our prefab homes. In the coming decades, I hope to see many more pioneers who choose an integrated rather than fragmented approach.
