Reconciling architectural aesthetics and economic imperatives through complex, interdependent and contingent building design processes

Abstract

This dissertation explores how architectural aesthetics and economic imperatives are reconciled. It draws from observations, interviews and documentation assembled during a six-month ethnographic study within a large property development organisation during the detailed design phase for a 54-storey commercial skyscraper in an Australian capital city. By focusing on the architectural aesthetics and economic imperatives at stake as a competition winning design was subjected to intense scrutiny, debate and rationalisation in anticipation of planning approval, the dissertation identifies how the scheme’s architect, engineer, development manager and main works contractor worked to reconcile the forces at play to enable design decisions to be made. These decisions were often complex, interdependent and contingent upon of the nature of the development: its small site, the aspirational nature of the architectural competition design brief, the imposition of severe budgetary limitations and time constraints, together with ongoing uncertainties around leasing opportunities, planning regulations and organisational tensions. Key moments of reconciliation are presented as a series of thematically assembled vignettes, which consider the types of logic (and illogical formulations) employed in specific moments. These vignettes consider the design of the scheme’s structural bracing system; its environmental and sustainability credentials; design of public benefits spaces; the value engineering process; the opposing financial metrics, which the scheme’s legal structure established for its development manager and main works contractor; and, finally the scheme’s public reception. The close consideration of the interplay between the forces of architectural aesthetics and economic imperatives leads to an identification of 10 modes of reconciliation operationalised to resolve a multitude of design issues.