The extreme commoditization of architectural services has created a strange dichotomy in the industry. 

An ongoing inability to recognize the true value of design professionals now clashes head-on with increasingly expensive subscription models—where design solutions and creative processes are locked into specific software ecosystems. This is all happening alongside a growing burden of required insurances and regulatory standards that weigh heavily on the day-to-day operations of any practice.

While the original premise behind these software platforms was to enhance the profession’s productive capacity, architects have largely failed to capitalize on the growing value these tools generate—something authors like *Bernstein have pointed out. That hasn’t stopped the profession, however, from being trapped in a cycle of ever-decreasing revenues and ever-increasing responsibilities.

This makes sense, as the architect—once the natural head of the construction site—is now under siege by an ever-growing range of design specialties. BIM and information management, along with sustainability, are just two of the most aggressively expanding domains chipping away at the architect’s central role.

While this is happening, educational curricula—which still tend to focus primarily on design as a standalone skillset—are failing to catch up with the reality that many of these emerging skills are no longer optional for new practitioners. 

The rationale is quite simple: as senior positions renew, the foundational skills that once offered a path into the profession have been displaced, replaced by the need for fluency in digital-specific design processes—a shift that began with the digital revolution and is now deeply entrenched.

This leaves us with a pressing question: where are the practitioners of the future going to acquire the skills that will allow them to be both economically viable and genuinely useful within the operational needs of today’s architectural firms?

Our education systems largely emphasize a subset of abilities that might indeed produce a competent future senior—or even a solid middle manager—but they don’t provide a feasible starting point for most new practitioners. The outright dismissal of technologies that we ourselves have already integrated into the profession undermines the natural process by which skills are passed down. This weakens a critical stage of knowledge transfer—precisely when students should be moving from theory into practice.

This, after all, is how our profession has been taught since the Middle Ages—apprenticeship, where technical drafting evolved into design competency as new practitioners gradually integrated into the market. However, many of those foundational roles have now become the domain of new hybrid professions—like the BIM technician—which don’t necessarily have any relation to the practice of design itself.

The result should not be the hostility we’re now seeing between academia and more hands-on education, but rather a recognition of the shifts that have shaped our educational landscape—and a willingness to propose new pathways that offer a way forward for emerging practitioners. 

After all, when I was a student (a bit over 10 years ago), it was probably the last time students could freely choose their platforms and software. Today, the guidance they receive from our institutions should naturally address practical questions as well—so that education becomes, in the words of Freire, a form of individual liberation, not a future regret filled with lost time and missed opportunities.

Notes: Phil Bernstein/Machine Learning

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