Role of the Architect

Being in a multi-disciplinary project group invariably calls into question the levels of participation of each team member (who necessarily represent their professional training). The dynamics of the working relationships are interesting to address, with each member bringing the baggage of his field of expertise and putting it on the table.

While the team has just been formed (and thus the specific responsibilities remain vague), I've had the opportunity to interact with a film student, a computer-science major and researchers in mobile sensing technologies. In my five years of architectural education, this is indeed the first time that this has happened. I have never done an architectural design project that involved any contributor other than myself (or other architecture-trained students, for that matter), and this therefore represents a rather new experience. (It also means that the "architect ego quotient" within the group is therefore very low!)

Within the past month, the exposure that I have been given, in terms of contact made with firms and organisations which deal with technology, community, grant-endowment, and so on, is one that is refreshing and highly relevant in the career of an architect. Indeed, the architect (or the architect-to-be, in my case) has to see himself as a cog in a gear, or even a cog in a larger series of gears. This has become especially apparent in the in-group meetings that REMAP has had - the success of the park (from its conceptualisation to eventual realisation) can only be effected through careful participation and employment of relevant talent, skill and technology from every participant.

Naturally, there is a flipside to it - the level of architectural and urban discourse within the team remains, for now, low. I foresee having to argue with myself on many design- and architecture-specific decisions for the interactive park. Yet, the views of the team members who are not in the same field might be highly useful. This runs in parallel with my perception of the Remapping LA project as a convergence of a series of bottom-up and participatory actions, needs and wants, rather than a dictatorial 'masterplanner' pre-empting a design which the community may reject.

There is, however, a fine line to draw between prescribing a design and having a community design the interactive park in a completely democratic manner. Indeed, in drawing back to the previous post on the individual and the multitude, the challenge is to design something that caters to all, even if it means having to compromise some interests.

A balance has to be stricken somewhere.

Perhaps, at the very same point that I have to strike a balance between being a 'masterplanner' (at least in the urban / spatial sense) or a mere participant in the Remapping LA team.

Added on 17 Jan:

On another note, after the discussions with REMAP and WDI R&D, it amuses me at how idiosyncratic each individual profession tends to be, and how these idiosyncrasies manifest in the ideas that are laid out on the table. The ideas from the WDI R&D members would almost always involve physical objects - a physical installation, a running cart accompanied by music, or the like. The media artists would shun from anything that would leave a physical imprint on the park; the computer scientists would be more interested in the network topologies that would facilitate content collection/distribution...

All this, naturally, adds to very engaging discussions, and it is indeed interesting to look through the eyes of the various professionals.