The accord between Architecture and Entrepreneurship
Architecture as a field acquiesces to follow Entrepreneurship. As a field, it provides freedom to open up a Firm of own and practice at any moment of time, provided being licensed and registered as an Architect.
The Construction Industry, however, along with accommodating talented architects, have become very competitive over the years.
Architectural entrepreneurship is not only dealing with the client and being good at it; along with it comes a lot of ideal coordination between Developers, engineers, site workers and all involved in that project to the minutest role. It just goes like the saying, “With great power comes great responsibility”.
Architectural entrepreneurship gives the power and freedom to exercise at your own pace and work of your own liking, but with that comes a lot of management, supervision and coordination.
And Currently, the building Industry endures architecture entrepreneurship, but with that, a lot of competition has been seen, and this has resulted in a gap between architectural design and project development, with the different layers participating and bringing them together like the Builders, developers etc. and without their ideal coordination, bought in low efficiency, energy, expense, buildability, and sustainability performance in projects.
In the dilemma between choosing to be a good designer and having good management skills, architects are expected to handle the architectural profession’s most important component, which is designing, and like every other industry specialist, they are assumed to know the art of finding and exploiting any possible strategic medium. And Architectural Entrepreneurship is said to be defined by that (Emmitt et al., 2009).
Architecture Entrepreneurial Odyssey
Through the ages, Architecture has been a very finagle field while entrepreneurship too is considered the same.
Business architecture or entrepreneurial architecture has always been a combination of innovation, and communicative coordination, which came together to give a close-knit enterprise working to its full potential.
The concept of entrepreneurial architecture started some decades ago, with the starting of establishment of firms of own by Architects—handling of projects through a multidisciplinary approach of handling and coordination.
The word was first ever introduced by Burns, who explicitly explained the relationship and deep understanding of corporate entrepreneurship to architectural entrepreneurship.
But, to flourish in as a firm independent to be called successful under architectural entrepreneurship, certain factors were termed necessary, like maintaining a definite strategic orientation and commitment and control of resources for getting in new opportunities from the market and being viable to grab them as stated by Stevenson in his research.
This is where marketing, selling or promoting an idea comes to play, which has to be sent out to the Industry and the public. Earlier, Marketing ideas, especially for promoting architecture or architectural ideas and innovations, was not easy as it was through clippings or through the construction market, and at times, it never reached the masses. Social media was not a thing, phones were not viable, the internet did not flourish as much as of today.
But, today, in contrast with the advancement of social media, it has been really easy for each and every one to reach out to the masses in a matter of a few minutes. Therefore, this has also immaculately helped Freelance architects in their entrepreneurial journey to reach out and promote their vision and ideas in a much more facile way.
The potential of Architectural Entrepreneurship in recent years
Architecture and Architecture marketing today have entered a new dimension and vivacious era. Promoting Architecture has become a task at the fingertips; therefore for freelance architects and entrepreneurs in the industry, Social media has become a distinctive platform for expression.
Many architects have grown famous, starting probably from a small room in their house but reaching many around the world. They can exchange knowledge and promote themselves through the mere existence of social media platforms like Instagram, Facebook, Youtube etc.
It has not been much easier and more accessible today until now, and many individuals have paved their way towards the public and the market easily.
For Instance, In youtube, as many as 120 channels have promoted architecture and marketing their ideas and views. One of them to be thought of well is the channel created by Steven called “Show it Better” dedicated to pure architectural visualisation. His content focuses on showing tips and tricks and in-depth videos to achieve better architectural graphics.
Another channel that grew famous through youtube is Eric Reinholdt’s 30 x 40 Design Workshop. He started off when he decided not to continue working under anyone as he used to, and he was forced to take a pay cut; his youtube channel grew over a million subscribers, and it is a channel providing a general insight into the architectural world. But youtube worked for him as a platform to open himself in front of the world and bring to the table for young people the idea that it has become much easier to share your knowledge and grow your own passion at your own pace and also earn good.
His book called ‘Architect + Entrepreneur’ shares his knowledge and experience on how entrepreneurial journeys are today and how freelance marketing has changed.
There have been many such names on youtube who have moved in, worked and grown by themselves just through a medium called social media. Marketing has become like selling hotcakes.
The new age generation of freelance architects and entrepreneurs has a lot of freedom and platforms to express and promote their ideas and shape their entrepreneurial expeditions from the very beginning with minimum investment and a prodigious amount of opportunities to ponder upon.
And the future of the generation of freelance architects will proliferate immensely, and social media, as of now, will continue turning tables for Fresh entrepreneurs and will lead to a platform for sharing, supporting and promoting knowledge, jobs and attracting clients. It presents a fair opportunity not only to the big shots to make more money and enable them to become famous by reaching out to the public but also to all entrepreneurs and freelancers to explore their target audience and grow in their name.
Social media has levelled up the game and provided fair competition, hugely resulting in a very much shift in Freelance Architecture marketing. With its advancement, it will continue to do the same.
References:
1.Kotusev, S. (2016) “The History of Enterprise Architecture: An Evidence-Based Review,” Journal of Enterprise Architecture, 12(1), pp. 29–37.
2.María Leticia Santos-Vijande , José Ángel López-Sánchez , Enrique Loredo , John Rudd , Nuria López-Mielgo (2022) “Role of innovation and architectural marketing capabilities in channelling entrepreneurship into performance,” Journal of Innovation & Knowledge, 7(2). doi: 10.1016/j.jik.2022.100174.
3.The Potential of Architects in Entrepreneurship (2021) Arch Daily. Available at: https://www.archdaily.com/961230/the-potential-of-architects-in-entrepreneurship (Accessed: July 2, 2023).
4.Reinholdt, E. W. (2015) Architect + Entrepreneur: A How-to Guide for Innovating Practice: Tactics, Strategies, and Case Studies in Passive Income: 2 (Architect and Entrepreneur).
5.Baldwin, C. Y. (2010) When Open Architecture Beats Closed: The Entrepreneurial Use of Architectural Knowledge. Available at: https://papers.ssrn.com/sol3/papers.cfm?abstract_id=1549645.
6.Oliver, S. R. A. (2021) Architecture Portfolio Review with Show It Better – Part 2. Youtube. Available at: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dyzcoA-aQh0.
