Are you taking advantage of "persuasion windows" to grow architecture's market share pie?
This is Part 6 of the series that joins the dots between legal protections for the title architect, architects’ salaries and fees, and architects’ well-being. In this article, we outline the new opportunities that exist for architects to reposition architecture in response to climate emergency.
Like architects, doctors, lawyers and pharmacists enjoy legal protection for their titles, although there are varying degrees of awareness in the community about what these protections actually mean for consumers.
Architects are different to other protected title professions because their clients don’t usually need to solve essential, stressful and urgent problems… yet!
Photography © Seventyfourimages via Dreamstime.com. Used under licence.
Thinking about doctors, lawyers and pharmacists, they have the added benefit of providing services that are usually more essential, stressful and time-critical than the services typically provided architects.
Most clients consult a lawyer with an urgent and stressful problem that needs resolving quickly.
Patients visit a doctor to address an urgent health issue.
Customers go to a local pharmacy to access important medications.
All of these problems have a different sense of urgency and importance to a typical client-architect relationship, whereby a client might consider consulting an architect to draw up plans for a new house or renovation.
(I’m singling out the residential sector for the purpose of this article, because that’s the sector where potential misuse of the protected title by non-registered architects are most likely to occur. Also, there are sometimes “urgent and necessary” drivers at play in other market sectors, and the benefits of using an architect are more readily understood, meaning that distinctions between architects and non-architects are more cut-and-dried).
Demand for architectural services – especially residential architecture – is therefore usually not as high as demand for services offered by other protected title professions, because people usually consult doctors, lawyers and pharmacists when they have a problem to solve that they just can't put off any longer...
Unless….
What new opportunities are emerging for architects?
We are living in increasingly challenging and complex times, and this is where things start to get interesting for architects.
The greatest challenges of our age - including climate emergency and housing crisis, and the shift towards diversity, equity, inclusion and belonging, which takes in Designing for Country - have created new “persuasion windows” that busines-savvy architects can take advantage of.
What are “persuasion windows?
This is a concept I came across recently in the book The Persuaders by Anand Giridharadas. (It’s well worth reading or listening to if you’re keen to learn more about persuasive messaging of all types).
The Witchcliffe Eco-village provides several car-charging stations, evidence that consumers are becoming more receptive to messages about good design. Photography by the author.
Giridharadas borrows the term “persuasion windows” from political campaigning. It describes a moment in time when a target audience has a newly heightened awareness of and interest in a particular message. The message itself isn’t necessarily new, but the audience’s appetite for it has markedly increased, making them more receptive to finding out more, participating in discussions and seeking out solutions.
“Persuasion windows” can open up as a result of news reporting or current events, or if and when new perspectives emerge around a key topic or theme arises, giving it broader attention and appeal.
Because I’ve been researching, writing about and actively promoting sustainable and affordable housing since 2003 - when I did my Churchill Fellowship on that topic - I can categorically say there has never been a better time for architects to provide proposed solutions that tackle all of the complex issues that we are facing right now.
We are right in the middle of a “persuasion window” around the nexus of climate emergency and housing crisis.
That means that audiences of all types - homeowners and renters, housing developers and investors, government regulators and policy makers, the broader community - are all showing unprecedented levels of interest in these topics and how to tackle them.
These problems are not new.
We’ve been discussing these issues in architectural discourse for decades, but because of recent developments - in climate emergency policy, starting with the Paris Agreement in 2015 which established the first global agreement with emissions reduction targets, and housing affordability issues that took on a new sense of urgency during and after Covid-19 - they are now at the top of the political agenda at every level of government in Australia, and globally.
Which means that your key audiences are ready to engage with - and act upon - these issues with a newly heightened sense of commitment and dedication. In short, where political will and commercial motivations were previously lacking, they are now evident in spades.
Which architects are best-placed to take advantage of these new “persuasion windows”?
This newly opened “persuasion windows” won’t make much difference to your architecture business model and marketing if you prefer to operate under the traditional “client-as-patron” paradigm, where your target ideal client is a high-net-worth homeowner with the funds, capacity and desire to build a one-off single-family home.
Why?
This segment of the residential market - the (anecdotal) 3-5% that architects typically serve – is not significantly impacted by these newly emerging factors and influences. The upper segment of the residential market isn’t subject to pent-up demand for services that respond to both climate emergency and affordable housing.
There is nothing particularly essential, stressful or time-critical about this market segment and its architectural service offering; it’s business-as-usual approach (as we’re seeing in high-value parts of Sydney, where older multi-unit blocks are being consolidated into single luxury homes for wealthy clients, resulting in a loss of stock and housing diversity in some of the city’s most desirable neighbourhoods).
But, if you are operating under the new “client-as-customer” model, where your target ideal client is a regular homeowner (or even a renter!) who exhibits:
a desire to reduce their overall energy consumption;
an intention to create a more resilient, comfortable, healthy and liveable home in a climate-changing world; and
a goal to reduce their overall impact on the environment to achieve broad scale decarbonisation targets...
… you can take advantage of the current “persuasion windows”. You can either frame your architectural services as essential, stress-reducing and time-critical in your marketing and messaging, or you can create new services to speak to these new opportunities, and emerging and pent-up demands in this segment of the market, which has traditionally been dominated by your competitors.
Setting aside the current challenges around the provision of new housing – and the pressures to create homes that are both affordable and sustainable – consider the fact that there are approximately 8 million existing homes in Australia that need to be retrofitted for climate emergency, in line with mandated carbon reduction targets.
Looking only at the existing retrofit sector of the residential market, we can see substantial opportunities for architects to take the lead in this space.
Why are architects the natural leaders for the impending housing retrofit revolution?
“Affordable” display homes in Tarneit, west of Melbourne. Many of architecture’s competitors in the residential market aren’t responding to all of the complexity in the operating environment.
Photography © Doublelee via Dreamstime. Used under licence.
It’s simple really.
Architects are the only design professionals who have the requisite skills, knowledge and experience to navigate the considerable complexity of the regulatory and operating environment, and to work with existing built fabric.
Most architects haven't kept pace with the changes swirling around the profession and broader community, and most aren’t able to clearly articulate their value in an increasingly complex operating environment, but there are new disruptors emerging.
As an advocate for good design who has a two-fold mission - to help architects thrive, and to enable more people to access the many benefits of good design - I’m excited to see architects architects stepping into leadership positions.
In the residential sector, practices such as The Architect GP have developed innovative business models that enable clients to consult an architect about their home in a limited capacity – in a consult as short as 30-minutes – via a partial services model.
Consumers can quickly and easily access targeted, specific and discrete advice about their homes from The Architect GP’s growing cohort of local architects, or they can tap into architectural expertise via online consults, in the same way they might consult a doctor about a pressing health issue.
What are these increasing complexities that only architects can navigate?
I’m referring to the increasing complexity in the built environment arising from Climate emergency. Energy efficiency. Counting operational and embodied carbon. Mitigation, resilience and retreat. Design for Country. Diversity, equity, inclusion and belonging. Spatial efficiency. Retrofitting and reuse. Adaptation. Legal and contractual issues. Legislative and code issues (at Federal, State and Local levels). Procurement issues. Budgetary and material supply issues. Design issues.
I'm sure there's more, but that list provides a decent starting point.
Because what other profession has the skills to be able to hold space for and navigate all of these complex and often competing interests AND produce a design resolution and built outcome?
Which architects are leading the charge?
Just last week there was a great example of architects taking the lead in Ireland, according to an article published in the Irish Mirror , where the headline proclaimed: Ireland's architecture schools to 'radically transform' teaching to tackle housing and climate crisis. You can read the entire article here.
Can you think of many Australian architects who have mastered this new messaging style in a way that their clients can readily understand and digest, so they are sufficiently persuaded to invest in architecture and good design?
And if you can’t think of many, why haven’t architects invested in comms to position themselves at the forefront of these new challenges.
Whose responsibility is it to explain all of this complexity to consumers and the public?
Unfortunately, most architects' marketing messaging speaks to the old-fashioned and outdated "architecture is for rich people" trope, not the emerging opportunities within the "architecture is for everyone" model, which is based on the belief that we are all worthy of – and have the right to benefit from – good design.
And the lack of business development and marketing training in the NSCA - which translates into an inadequate focus on these topics during university courses, in registration, and in CPD - means that most architects are ill-prepared to take advantage of these emerging opportunities.
The lack of business development and marketing acumen is actually a blindspot in the profession, in that most architects don’t even know they are hampered by this problem. And if you can’t see the problem to diagnose it, you can’t address it.
There are exceptions, of course, and I encourage you to look the examples provided by practices such as Breathe Architects and all of it’s collaborators in the Nightingale Housing space, Light House Architecture + Science, Cooee Architects, Maytree Studios, POD Cairns, MDC Architects, Leanhaus and Undercover Architect.
Sarah Hobday-North, architect and founder of Architect GP, with a client. Photography by Stephanie Perrins.
I’ll leave the final word in this series to Architect GP founder Sarah Hobday-North, who recently said:
“When I see an approachable, competent doctor, I feel their value. Professionally, architects are similar. A doctor’s advice can shift the way you feel about, act on and prioritise your health. An architect gives comparable guidance for how you feel, act and prioritise when it comes to your home.”
She anticipates that the perceived value of consulting an architect will start to shift as consumers (clients and customers) begin to access architectural services via the new procurement models.
In essence, architecture needs to change if it wishes to serve a greater proportion of the total market, and to ensure that everyone has equitable access to good design - and improve our quality of life - even as we respond to climate emergency.
“We believe the change will come when homeowners and renters alike *experience* what it's like working with an architect, over and above the lived-in results of the home,” Sarah said.
And that’s how architects can begin to take the necessary steps to transform and reposition architecture and good design as an essential investment for everyone, rather than an extravagant indulgence for a privileged few.
Ready to plug the gaps in your knowledge? We can help!
Sounds Like Design offers three services to architects in Small, Medium and Large sizes, as follows:
Small - the Acupuncture Service is a “book-an-hour” session with me, where architects can seek my input around any business development or marketing topic of their choice. You can book your session online and select an online calendar appointment at a time that suits us both.
Medium - the self-guided, online CPD course Architecture Marketing 360 is a 101-style course about modern marketing. It outlines Sounds Like Design’s proprietary Six Channel System and the processes that we developed to help architects navigate the complexity of the marketing landscape, so you can build a pipeline of clients and projects you love working on. You can work through the course at your own pace, in as little as three weeks and you’ll get an implementation plan to follow at the end.
Large - the one-on-one consulting package Review + Reset takes place over 3 months. It’s a deep-dive into your current business development and marketing activities, where we co-create your new blueprint, enabling you to delegate and automate key tasks, and free up your time for the creative work you really love doing.
If you’d like to get more clarity around which of our services is the best fit for you right now, you can take our quiz here.