The idea of ‘Architecture without an architect’ has been explored numerous times, yet we are entering a new era with COVID-19 pandemic, Web 3.0, metaverse shaking the known world into the unknown, but a potential better future. Decentralization is disrupting the way power is distributed, and the norm of architects serving the privileged few is going to change accordingly. Facing the drastic changing future, architecture could be more proactive in responding. COVID-19 disrupted the entire global supply chain, which increased the construction price due to workers and materials shortage. The consequences will cause a butterfly effect, but if the architecture discipline is not adjusting, the damage might hit us even greater in near future. Considering a modern version of the industrial revolution, how would architecture respond?

What is the future for architecture?

From core to shell, architecture consists of a structural system that occupies a space and allows activities to happen. The shell might not change much overtime, but the core human activities are less predictable. The duality and conflict of architecture is a challenge, as some believe architecture is only about the shell while others on the core. In reality, both sides should not be viewed in vacuum, as everything is interconnected. Is there a way to capture and study both? A lot of the scholars are attempting so. Bernard Tschumi’s Manhattan Transcripts from 1981 was attempting to answer the challenge. “Architecture is not simply about space and form, but also about event, action, and what happens in space.” (website) Tschumi seeks spatial notation, and body in space, from cinema as a source of inspiration to understand better the “program” occupying the space. Forty years after Manhattan Transcripts published, the exploration is moving towards an unknown territory, for better or for worse.

How can the shell and core be connected to form a better spatial experience, while accommodating the flexibility of future development?

In many developed countries like Taiwan, we often find the urban landscape with intrusion into the public space regardless of others comfort and usage, as well as general citizens’ living compounds crowded with unused commodities. Design is not about the finished project, but everything outside the lot line; however, outside of the lot line is difficult to coordinate, thus most people choose the easier way out. In addition, to live with good lighting and fresh air is simple but easily forgotten. Buried in the fluorescent light, people complain about the politicians not making everyone rich. Bad environment makes people mentally ill and physically unhealthy without even noticing. Marie Kondo has become a popular show in the western countries, because Japanese people know how to manage living in a small space. However, if looking more closely, the root cause is not about having small space, but rather the desire of owning. Shared economy is booming, but people without the opportunities to experience it yet to know its beauty. Smaller personal space provides higher spatial utilization, and less space resolves in managing less clutters. In order to increase efficiency of space, one needs a flexible framework for space, and a platform to share.

Curation is the mindset:

According to Cambridge dictionary, to curate means “to be in charge of selecting and caring for objects to be shown in a museum or to form part of a collection of art, an exhibition, etc.” Curation can be extended to other forms including films, performances, events, music, documents, products, or even information on websites. With information overloading this generation, one has lost his ability to comprehend and digest all the information, not to mention to decide what is right from wrong. There are enough ideas and tools out there that can be selected and edited into a solution, instead of inventing a new one. To live gracefully, one needs to understand how to curate information and knowledge into a certain scenario in order to make sound decisions. Being mindful is part of the art of curation.

Theory

From design thinking to open possibilities

In higher education, “design” has been brought to a greater public when David Kelly and Bernard Roth founded d.school at Stanford almost two decades ago in an attempt to teach non-design-professionals “design thinking” and break the silos of each discipline. Looking back, there are a lot of methodologies to help break the boundaries, but not enough within the architectural disciplines. Even with the shift to utilize BIM, coordinations with different stakeholders are still as challenging and painful. The importance of communication simply cannot be neglected. For example, when the clients involve a large organization, there are too many decision-making processes, while the time required to reach a result is not directly related to the design-built time frame. In the end, the building with great ambition becomes a compromise out of bad decision-making results and endless arguments. How can an Architect's ego with complex stakeholders better be used to reach a mutual ground while not sacrificing the social benefits?

A non-profit model for future organization

At MASS Design Group, they have successfully put social mission on highest agenda while scaling to an international presence. The structure of the organization is a unique one that supports both research and traditional architectural services. MASS’s model is inspirational to all architectural practices, as non-profit organization is no longer an impossible dream, but rather an alternative to a better planet-centered future.

Decision making to organizational behavior

From the Starchitects era to non-profits like MASS Design Group, the industries have had some promising movements. To be honest, none of the architectural projects can be done by a single person, and a great team of talents is underrated. Design is a complex process, and sometimes even seems inefficient and unreasonable to others with so many iterations. Nonetheless, design also can reach a different end result that cannot be achieved through a linear process, as people start to appreciate a better designed product and space. Tech companies have started to invest in their knowledge workers, as they realize how good culture and talents can reach a different level of achievement. Architecture world, on the other hand, is still infamous for its long hours, bad compensation, and lack of social contribution. I am curious to see how rethinking architecture organization design to create a better work-life balance and an innovative business model.

Experience-driven design

Web 3.0 and metaverse bring us to wonder what space means, as people have more possibilities to experience the space differently than before. The physical space with the relationship to built-environment cannot stay unchanged, but there are still essentials to the new complexity. Decentralization can potentially bring great opportunities to better diversity and inclusiveness if carefully executed, however, as one learned from social media’s negative impact on psychology, we also need to pay extra attention to avoid side effects to reduce permanent damage.

Another example of experience design is on holistic design. Rem Koolhaas has been successful in terms of running AMO parallel to OMA, as a way to keep its research division close to its practices. Their special partnership with Michael Rock from 2x4 is also worth-mentioning, as the collaboration with graphic designers has pushed the representation and visuals to an even greater level. When design becomes a holistic narrative, the power of telling a story is much more effective.

Architecture without architecture

The planet is overcrowded, while everyone is competing for limited resources. Being planet-conscious, I begin to wonder if human beings are heading the opposite direction. What if there should be better use of less space, then we should think about how to share before building new ones. Frida Escobedo’s studio explored the eminent domain as a tool to re-energize urban context and convert sprawling. Escobedo’s studio at Columbia University pushed students to seek answers through system thinking without necessarily putting a fixed form into the proposal. It is time to challenge the world with architectural thinking, but without creating more carbon-footprints by constructing. If we curate better, there are resources available somewhere, as circular design states, someone else's waste is another’s resources.

Expressions

About future

All humans likely want to be happy. A human is happy when reality exceeds the expectations of the mind. The ideal state––consistent happiness––can be expressed in Confucius’ words, “follow the heart’s desire without transgressing the norm”. There are two approaches to achieving this: to change either the internal desire or the external norm of this world. If 1 billion people are still living in poverty without access to schools and jobs, we are losing millions of artists, scientists, engineers, doctors, and potential problem-solvers. Even more fundamentally, it agonizes me to see others in a worse place just because of lacking opportunities. If doing nothing, the world might continue to tilt toward unevenness, but we simply cannot sit doing nothing.

In response, the following three representative works demonstrate the research directions with supporting progress and evidence of relevance in continuous dedication. The following relevant works include collaborations with other designers and architects, and collaborators will be noted.

1. Future of work: Collaborative workspace fostering creativity

Learning from previous professional experience, we learned that workspace is an ecosystem where the companies grow better from a thriving environment, which provides better employee experience. Higher employees’ satisfaction brings more positive work energy into the workspace, and this is valuable especially in knowledge worker based business. Culture is one key driving agenda behind the successful stories, as it builds trust into knowledge workers’ relationships. It helps foster innovation and connectivity, and information is shared more fluidly. At WeWork and other innovative real estate companies, they treat space as a product, where fitting a great range of personas is key. At the same time, group actions can be directed through environment design, for example, one plays the background ambient music to promote speaking.

As a Development Operations Specialist, I played the role of observing the team dynamics and improved the internal processes. Without a clear job agenda, I found the trust in my ability helped me to work even harder to prove. In addition, working closely with the People Team, traditionally known as Human Resources, provided me with the trending view of treating employee experience in leading companies. As knowledge workers are the assets of a company, employers are looking for numerous ways to recruit, develop, and retain talents. Likewise for workspace, the typical cubicle is not desirable anymore. Greater flexibility in the work nature is changing how people regard essential workspace.

At higher education, institutions are asking the same questions. If businesses are evolving to attract new talents, education institutions incubating these young talents are seeking ways to bring people outside of their comfort zone to interact. Knowledge Hub - Macronix Building is a recent project attempting to bring an innovative education model into school. A new operational model is being discussed with multiple internal and external parties. With potential collaboration between internal and external parties, the model benefits from the strengths of both sides, while maximizing the impact to serve a greater community including students, faculty, and citizens. Traditional universities are strong in individual research areas, and to catch up with other international institutions, interdisciplinary plays a huge role. Schools are desperate to seek ways to bring smart and bright students together and form missions for them to inspire our future. MIT has even been talking about anti-disciplinary, as if labeling disciplines becomes a limit. Students should be trained to find good questions, and have the ability to answer. It is the end of the textbook memorization era.

In current institutional buildings, the operational responsibility easily relies on the department in charge. Institutions run under the annual budget-based management system, the operational cost is commonly underestimated. Each department office is not usually trained with facility management, thus operations in the end become a burden. As a result, it is easier to keep it vacant than open up with all the issues. Space utilization rate is predictably too low, while the institutions are always fundraising for new buildings. The entire facility management model should be rethought, and having a realistic operational budget model will help institutions to ask for external help. At Macronix Building for example, we are proposing a new organizational chart that could potentially benefit both users and the department in charge.

2. Future of Talents: YS SPACE DESIGN with 97 STUDIO as future talent platform experiment

As discussed from the last chapter, workspace is only one part of the equation. It is the people who work inside the space; I call it talent. The traditional employer-employee relationship is not the best solution for Millennial and Gen-Z anymore. Younger generations look for mission-driven task forces, and also a flexible work format. Bright fluorescent lighting and cubicles drive them away. Bureaucracy makes them nauseous. When closely looking into the working habits, they do not work less, but they fight for their own value and balance.

As the founding partner of YS SPACEDESIGN, an architecture and interior design studio based in Tainan, we constantly fight for work-life balance while searching for value to work on various scales and audiences. The goal is to find an outlet from meaningless competitions and deadlines, but searching for a mission to deliver a role model for a hopeful next generation architecture. Not just in terms of formal exploration, we experiment with business models and operations. Since it was founded in 2019, we have formed partnerships with various talents, licensed architects, foreign design studios, local artists, recent graduates, and students. Because both founding partners teach at National Cheng Kung University School of Architecture, and they are close to the younger generation to find the balance for the future. We see bright minds struggling in the slow changing systems, and we feel restless to do nothing to help improve.

By establishing a platform for different talents to hop on and form alliances based on project-need, talents can share resources and knowledge much quicker than larger companies. In exchange for more freedom, everyone is also more likely to share their knowledge to win. These interdisciplinary teams are something the school did not teach us, but wish to see happen. Successful team members have strong communication and collaboration skills, while also have strong professional and technical skillset to establish their role in a team. The role might not be fixed, depending on what the configurations are, but the highly flexible team structure lowers the overall budget while increasing autonomy. This type of platform of talents exists in many formats already, but there could potentially be more structured ways to organize and even scale, and perhaps in the near future larger companies will seek for similar settings in order to attract more talents. I am interested to understand better how organizational behavior looks in the architecture and design industry, and how future talent platforms can be duplicated and scale.

At the Yunnan Banshan Hotel project, we acquired the project from our partner at 97 STUDIO, where clients have interests from the earlier market research. The design is a conversation and collaboration between the Kunming and the Tainan team. The team forms concepts and inspiration from local elements, which has to be carefully studied and interpreted. Through remote discussions, the design is developed with multiple options to study. Once the design framework is confirmed, the local Design Institute carries the drawing set forward for construction. Except for paper architecture, projects aim for construction and realization, thus the local connections for construction and resources are important. To have international projects, the alliance of the partnership is important. By sharing different expertises, the alliance is able to win larger projects from shared backgrounds.

Another hotel project took place at Taitung, Taiwan, but had a different working scenario. The client is a Chiayi businessman, and has been known for being financially conscious at making decisions. He would prefer a younger and more eager architect than other famous and established firms, for exchange with lower fees. It is a mutual benefit for client and design team, as the designers are hoping to grow as well. The communication was based on trust and persuasion. The COVID-19 hit the market badly, but did promote domestic travel, so the hotel is aiming to move forward. Unlike projects in China, the financial support is slower to get ready.

QurE project is another project-based partnership example. In 2020, when the COVID-19 impact was still at its prime, principal architect Chang from BaF (Bio architecture Formosana) and Dean Jeng of NCKU College of Planning and Design had a conversation to form a mission project to collaborate. The goal was to create a quarantine unit prototype that was open-source and can be implemented elsewhere. The project team included teachers from architecture school, designers from BaF, doctors and engineers, and the multidisciplinary team had to deliver a constructed prototype within a month. The project showed how an aligned value can quickly form a missionary team and deliver impact.

How is this model mentioned above different from before? The main difference is about understanding each other’s uniqueness to work better together. Unlike the previous era, business creates the role and finds people to fit into it. Since the way people work and acquire works has evolved, the closer we understand each other the better we can form a unique base of talents. It is not about hiring a human resource manager in the company, but rather everyone should have the mindset to be willing to listen and work together.

3. Future of Education: National Cheng Kung University Design Center

To put theory into practice, National Cheng Kung University’s Design Center was founded in 2018 under the Department of Architecture, while the mission is to serve the university campus with continuous and comprehensive master planning strategies. With a team of architecturally-trained designers, the day-to-day tasks usually involve people and coordination. The systematic thinking from the architectural curriculum helps the team members be good at seeking problems and experimenting possible solutions. In 2022, Design Center was reorganized and elevated to the central strategic organization, as the impact and contribution were recognized by central management.

As one of the four leading Project Lecturers, I have helped the team set up a centralized project management platform and bring in my previous experience from a fast-paced startup. As I shifted from industry to institution, from profit to education, I found that the mission might seem extremely different, but the core values are closer than ever as Gen Z cares about working for what they care about.

One focus area for the Design Center is the value of aesthetics. It not only represents the institution as a front-facing identity, but also influences the residents including faculty and students. Elevating everyone’s day-to-day encounter is not an easy task, as people can be easily ignorant and questioning. However, from our recent renovation projects and events, we have found that the real influence comes silently. People not understanding the changes behind notice it being different and better. It is an experience. To make changes happen in a larger organization is not easy, but understanding time is a key element while keeping track of progress is crucial to success. I am enchanted to see every good intention being slowly realized, so I see hope.

​​To think about architecture five year curriculum:

Year one and two are laying foundations with more exposure to other liberal arts study. Year three students can have greater freedom to choose from different instructor’s approaches and focus areas in order to form their own interests and research. Year four is a turning point for them to select a studio with a focus field, and at year end declaring their concentrations. Year five is graduate thesis year, and other courses should be supplementary to their final thesis.

Processes

Teaching as a technique:

To change the world one needs to educate planet-conscious and humane students. Living on an island, its citizens need even more connectivity to the outer world to gain impact and resources. If focusing on narrow issues rather than open up to other global situations, one can only compete against each other. It is not a blame on politicians or any single person, but rather an awakening call from inner self. Having explored internationally to different continents, the change must happen from within the system, including education and the built environment. People must see values beyond tangible and quantifiable surfaces, as intangible values can be even more impactful than imagined.

Teaching inclusiveness and diversity is especially important nowadays. Without empathy, future citizens are not able to live respectfully to other global citizens while we are becoming even more connected than ever in this world. Architects' or designers' ego has been overrated. Unlike fine arts, architecture and products are built not single-handedly. Collaboration is essential to accomplish the tasks. In order to transform Architecture education to better fit tomorrow's world, one cannot ignore the importance starting with today’s higher education.

Bringing new work mindset into institutions:

Academic institutions prepare one with professional knowledge in order to apply to practice. After graduation, one spends most of the time at work. As generation z is starting to occupy the workforce, we have noticed the shifts in attitudes towards work. Work is no longer a routine schedule with repetitive physical labors which support our lives. Gen Z looks for values and missions for them to work, and if the core values contradict with their beliefs, they would rather quit. Instead of a nine-to-five schedule, they would prefer flexibility in schedule and locations, and the pandemic has pushed this trend further and quicker.

Coworking space was the first revolution in workplaces. Companies no longer need to worry about rent and electricity. For coworking providers like WeWork, the global presence gives international companies a great choice to provide continuous workspace services to their employees across continents. Coworking space also forms a sense of community, whose network and diversity benefit its residents.

The design of WeWork is centered around a communal lounge space. It should be at the focal point of circulations, and near the community managers front desk where they can observe and engage with members. Starting from my experience with workspace design, the work is not as merely disconnected from architectural discourses as it might appear. From workspace design going back to architectural institutions, one should anticipate a greater disruption from inside out to catch up with the world. My work is about the workspace of tomorrow and how the higher education of architecture should be rethinked.

To be the force of change, one must lead first.