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This is the beginning of “Architects Talk Ethics,” an advice column designed to discuss the values that architects embody or should embody. It is designed to answer real-world ethical questions asked by architects, designers, students, and professors.
As the three original authors of this column, we believe the industry is lagging far behind in addressing ethical issues. We believe architects should explore our own ethics, as other fields have long done.
In our teaching, we sense that students are eager to talk about ethics. The “ethical turn” in our profession has a lot to do with equity and environmental responsibility, but a typical course might have a lecture on ethics during a professional practice course. The time and attention we devote to ethics in schools and professions is not commensurate with its importance. Perhaps, through this column, we can stimulate more interest.
What is the professional ethics of an architect? What questions do you have about ethics and architecture? What ethical dilemmas do you face or have faced or expect to face?
Our first project involved reparations. It’s kind of a meta question because all three of us are responding pro bono. What does it mean that the three of us have agreed to write this ethics column without compensation? What are the ethical implications of us doing this for free? Who do we agree will negatively impact this?
Send your questions to ethics@archpaper.com for consideration in a future column.
When, if ever, does it make sense to work for free?
In an ideal world, all work would be paid, directly or indirectly (think Universal Basic Income). This question raises questions about what “work” is and different kinds of “freedom.”
We all enjoy gardening in the vegetable garden, it’s a job: not all jobs are selling one’s labor time. But let’s assume that the question is really about providing labor to others for free…. This hits home because we write this column for free. (We will return to this point at the end of this column.)
But what are the different kinds of “free”?Free in the sense of donating, as in pro bono work; doing so is free freelike loss leader (where you try to attract business by discounting a product or service); having free volunteer hours (whether in the form of noblesse oblige or activism); and “free or deferred payment” ( Work experience will translate into good payments later).
Bringing the two together, it is useful to acknowledge different positions: younger and more unstable/older and more secure; historically marginalized/privileged from the start. This is not to say that offering free labor is justified in some circumstances but not in others. On the contrary, deviation from the ideal of “all work is paid” is often a reasonable step towards greater autonomy. Nonetheless, the bottom line is: No one should work for free unless the decision is made freely.
The moral question here is: Do the ends justify the means (consequential choices), or do the means justify the ends (responsibility-based choices)?
In the context of an architectural office, the temptation to work for free as an employee or to obtain work at a reduced fee as an employer is tempting but ethically wrong. Giving up work to get a job because the business model doesn’t work is not only self-defeating, it’s also ethically wrong because it will have a negative negative impact on everyone else doing the job.
This ethics is an issue in all work, but in the context of professionalism, the ends and means of ethics are special and unique. Professionals are expected to occupy a social or economic class that upholds our independent judgment, enabling us to refuse commissions that we believe are wrong, or to persuade clients or communities to do what we believe is right. At the same time, professionals cannot focus solely on creating great wealth, which may become its own motivating factor and hinder our independent judgment. Architecture does not always find the best balance between financial independence and economic drive.
As professionals, we need to have enough financial independence to be able to decide when and where we are willing to give it up. Professions with self-regulatory charters, such as medicine and law, remain independent and self-regulatory because they are considered vital to our society – saving lives and protecting people’s freedoms. The socioeconomic class in which professionals should belong is the class that retains our independent judgment.
As with all “learning” professions, this is an ideal that is rarely realized, but is particularly problematic for architecture, which has its own unique dilemmas. One of them stems from the history of our profession. Some parts of our field historically grew out of guilds, with close ties to the architecture industry, while others grew out of a tradition of amateur architects, people who did not need to be paid and designed buildings for enjoyment. Further confusion comes from not knowing whether we are providing a service (as in law and medicine) or a product (if the latter, is it aesthetic or performative?). Another dilemma is that we have difficulty understanding ourselves as an industry.
When we’re taught in architecture school that the goal after graduation is to start your own company, it excludes a worker-forward mentality. This is one reason why we will never see anything like the female students at Yale Law School who research and publish the top 10 family-friendly law firms in architecture schools.
Finally, the precarious nature of architecture’s relevance to society makes it easy for corporate owners to think: “What if I could only keep the lights on in my office, pay my employees, and pay my staff by agreeing to build an office campus in a protected wetland?” Provide food and I’ll do it.”
These difficulties do not prevent us from claiming legal compensation.Despite the lack of clarity about the type of work we do, we are knowledge workers—we design buildings, rather than constructing them, thus being able to inhibit labor. Unionized construction workers will join other knowledge/care workers in journalism, screenwriting, acting and care fields to fight for fair wages and control over our lives. As construction company owners, we need to charge fees that allow us to maintain independent judgment and be able to say, “I don’t need that commission,” “I’m going to try to convince my potential clients to build a better place,” or “I’m going to lobby Fight this project and make sure it doesn’t get built.” As an industry, we need to organize and regulate ourselves so we can stop letting developers exploit our existential identity crisis to marginalize our pay and input.
We’re back to writing this column for free. Here are the (ethical?) reasons why we do this. First, the three of us are not only financially privileged, but as white professionals have nothing to lose when articulating controversial positions. Second, we wrote this article for free because this conversation is not happening at a more institutional level, whether that institution is the American Institute of Architects or an architecture school. This commitment to ethical pay and work is long overdue. Third, we wrote this article for free because the two major codes of ethics in our field, the AIA and NCARB, are used only in a punitive manner, condemning those who accept bribes or steal clients. Unlike medicine and law, which have ethical codes that require professionals to work for community health and underserved citizens, architecture does not. There is a curious resistance to broader aspirational conversations about the ethical mission of architecture. We hope to change this situation through this column.
Send your questions to ethics@archpaper.com for consideration in a future column.
Victoria Beach is a faculty member at Harvard University’s Ethics Center and wrote the textbook for GSD’s first ethics course. She has owned her own architectural practice for nearly 30 years and was recently elected to public office in California.
Peggy Deamer is Professor Emeritus at the Yale School of Architecture and a founding member of the Architecture Lobby.She has been working in construction for 45 years and is the author construction and labor.
Tom Fisher is a professor at the University of Minnesota School of Design and director of the Minnesota Design Center. He served as the dean of the college and also served as the ” progressive architecture magazine for 14 years.
The views of our authors do not necessarily reflect the views of our staff or consultants architect’s newspaper.
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