The RAs Architecture and Freedom season tackles the question of

architectural ethics - but where do such debates leave us?

For any follower of architectural debate whether in print or online it would be hard
not to be conscious of the crescendo of articles over recent months and years dealing
with the question of architectures political and social role, and, more broadly the
agency of architects. The conventional narrative sees the architectural profession
essentially under attack, constantly being eroded by the ever-increasing specialisation
of roles within building design and construction. The architect is but one more small, and
but no means, integral cog, in the building industrys vast and complex development
machine. Driven by the imperative to de-risk, the space for chance and the unexpected
surely fundamental to any creative process is shrinking in favour of the tried-and-
tested and commercial expediency. Architecture and the public that many still feel it is
ultimately here to serve is being sidelined by the inherent conservatism of much of the
building industry, whether large-scale city developers putting up yet another city tower
block or the volume house-builders, many of whom barely involve an architect at all.
Architects are useful only when their name or signature style can be used to create
value. Thus while the star-architect system is, on the one hand, a production of the
architectural world and media, it is heavily bolstered made possible even by the
needs of commerce.

The result of all this, as many have observed, is a gradual hollowing out of the
architectural profession, with architects merely players in someone elses game. Yet,
despite this, its the architect who is still held up as culpable, sometimes wholly
responsible, when something goes wrong, aesthetically, structurally, even commercially.
We could certainly add morally too. When there are questions over workers rights, for
example, its the architect who very often has to answer them, and, in the case of Zaha
Hadid Architects work in Qatar, repeatedly. When another luxury residential
development pops up with flats for sale at millions of pounds, its the architect who takes
the criticism, not the buildings owner, even if the architects design succeeds on its own
terms as an impeccable response to the brief. While the activities of developers are
allowed to be led by the market (and certain regulatory parameters, of course) architects
are somehow seen to be different, subject to a quite different set of standards of
morality, the public interest and of ethics. In short, architecture is seen as
exceptional.
There are, of course, important historical reasons for architectures exceptionalism.
Looking back to the late 19th century, we can see how the moralism of figures like John
Ruskin and William Morris helped to pave the way for Modernisms social agenda. While
much of the 19th-century moralism arose, on one level, as a reaction to the social
upheavals brought about by the Industrial Revolution, Modernism, in contrast, actively
embraced the new possibilities of modernity. For many Modernists, architecture was an
agent of social progress, while after the Second World War, now aligned to the ideals of
the welfare state, it became an actual instrument of social emancipation. Even after
Postmodernism and the triumph of neoliberal capitalism, which largely stripped
architecture of moral force, the legacy remains, leaving many architects with a powerful
sense that architecture has a purpose beyond a clients brief, if not, it must be said, the
opportunities to realise it.

Jonathan Meades kicked off proceedings

by claiming that ethics and architecture
should not inhabit the same sentence
All this is why ethics which we might define as the application or practice of a moral
position has become such an important and recurring issue for architects. And at the
Architectural Ethics debate at the Royal Academy, part of a season on Architecture and
Freedom, it was pretty clear that the architects in the audience wanted some answers.

The writer and broadcaster, Jonathan Meades, kicked off proceedings by claiming that
Ethics and architecture should not inhabit the same sentence, taking aim, essentially, at
the claims for architectures exceptionalism. Why, he asked, should architecture be
different from other professions or creative pursuits that are apparently unconcerned
with questions of ethics? It is a reductive argument, perhaps, but one with some validity.
Having ethics implies architects have a power that extends well beyond the confines of
their brief. What, Meades argument goes, gives architects the right to say that their
concern or influence should extend beyond that which they are contracted to do? The
answer is to do with architectures public-ness. And it was along those lines that the
writer and researcher, Anna Minton, cleverly reframed the question and spoke very
convincingly about how the public interest has disappeared from the lexicon of planning
and policy in favour of the broader economic interest, as if the latter is automatically
coterminous with the former. Approaching a project from the question of its public
interest offers, Minton argued, far greater focus and more positive results than testing it
against some kind of inevitably abstract and potentially nebulous ethical code.

The agency of the architect was the subject for Francesco Sebregondi of Forensic
Architecture, a group which explores the use of architectural tools and strategies to
document the spatial implications of human rights abuses. As Sebregondi explained,
this re-conceiving and extending of the architects traditional role and remit into societal,
moral and legal issues was in part a response to its aforementioned curtailment. If, as a
question from the floor pointed out, there is a clear distinction between architecture the
few buildings which have the involvement of architects and the built environment the
vast majority of buildings that dont then one can see the model of Forensic
Architecture as offering a very clear way for architects to reclaim agency over the urban
condition.

Ethics are, after all, a relative concept the

manifestation of a moral ideal and one
persons morality is anothers immorality
In a way the debate didnt really go anywhere as has been noted already elsewhere by
Rory Olcayto of the Architects Journal. Speaking from the floor Olcayto noted how the
municipal authorities of Oslo had recently imposed an ethical supply chain on all city-
procured buildings and services. This, he argued, was a real world example of what
could be achieved with political will, which architects could then take advantage of. But,
just as in the more explicitly architectural aspects of the debate, one is forced to grapple
with the inevitable question of what ethical actually means in practice. Ethics are, after
all, a relative concept the manifestation of a moral ideal and one need not have to
delve too far into the annals of human history to discover that one persons morality is
anothers immorality, and vice versa.

So where does this leave us? A clue, I think, was in the contribution of Jane Hall of
Assemble, the 18-person collective who have made a name for themselves for their
collaborative and interdependent practice that sees them work in close dialogue with
client and public in both the designing and making of their projects. In Assembles work,
it is the process that emerges as the architectural object, rather than the building.
Similarly, what, I would argue, is important in the ethics debate is not the end product
perhaps a set of regulated ethical codes that an architect must abide by or risk being
struck off the register but the debate itself. Why, despite Meades protestations, are
architecture and ethics discussed together? Because architects think they should be.
There is no more compelling reason. The question now is how to keep the debate
moving forward and ensure that architects are equipped to make ethical judgements
that they feel they can defend and hold to. There is usually no right answer to an ethical
dilemma, but there are certainly right ways of dealing with them.

n the latest episode of his 99% Invisible podcast, Roman Mars bravely takes on a
very sensitive topic: the design of prisons which contain execution chambers or
house prisoners in solitary confinement. More specifically, the podcast discusses
whether architects have a moral duty to decline these commissions and whether, as
a profession, architecture should have a code of ethics which prevents registered
architects from participating in such designs.

He compares architecture to the medical profession, where the American Medical

Association imposes an ethical code on its members which all but forbids them from
taking part in execution by lethal injection, based on medicine's general aim of
preservation, rather than destruction of life. The American Institute of
Architect's ethical code is both generic and meager in comparison: Members
should uphold human rights in all their professional endeavors.

However the organization Architects, Designers and Planners for Social

Responsibility is highlighted as a group trying to change this. They would like to see
a clause added to the AIA's ethical code, which prohibits architects from accepting
any commission designed for "execution or for torture or other cruel, inhuman, or
degrading treatment or punishment, including prolonged solitary confinement."

The debate is framed around the Pelican Bay Security Housing Unit, a prison in
North California designed by KMD architects which some have described as a
solitary confinement unit. The podcast raises an interesting point about this prison:
whilst many design features are oppressive, there are some architectural touches -
such as perforated cell doors and skylights in the corridors - which are described as
"good design features".

This could perhaps raise a counter argument: in the same way that medicine's
refusal to be involved in lethal injections has not stopped executions from
happening, it could be argued that without architects, prisons are at risk of being
designed by people with less design skill. In other words, by refusing to design
prisons themselves, architects could cause new prison designs to become even
more inhumane.

So should architecture have a strict code of ethics? Does architecture have a

primary goal (as clear as medicine's aim to preserve life) that could inform such a
code? Or should members of the profession be allowed to choose by themselves
what they believe to be moral? And does refusing to take part in designing these
prisons improve the situation, or just make it worse?