Densification

Well, that is an interesting point,… because Ormerod, prefaced the above quotes, in his book, by recounting, how in the field of Economics,… the ‘Business Studies’ students and graduates were ridiculed, because they didn’t have the same grounding in mathematics and theory that Economic graduates tended to have.

But Ormerod, in his book, Butterfly Economics, points out, that some of the major battles lost in the world of commerce, were due to a lack of perspective of the overall picture. That is the kind of picture apparently he says, that Business Schools try to give their young management graduates,… rather than that of Economists, who employ mathematical modelling, which is always going to be just an approximation to reality,… heavily dependent upon the way you build your equations and the factors you consider in those equations.

Brian O’ Hanlon.

Economic models can look very complicated in mathematic form but they tend to simply take account of one or two new factors on existing principles which is a little like good strategic planning which thankfully now has most of the equations stored in existing models where only the new factors need to be considered in mathematical form.

Care to expand slightly on that one? Flesh it out maybe, if/when you get a chance?

Brian O’ Hanlon.

Yeah, I see now where you are coming from. One of the ways that Ormerod looks at the same problem,… but instead of using mathematical models, has used the idea of ‘agents’,… based on observations, of how ant colonies behave,… with kinds of bottom-up intelligence,… so that Ormerod thinks that all capitalist societies follow a very similar pattern. You can build a simulation of this, with average industrial output increasing by 1.5%-2.5% per annum, over a period of say 100 years, and what happens is a very similar pattern always emerges,… the few companies get to huge heights in terms of output, dwarfing those beneath, who actually ‘lose’ productivity enormously in relation to these ‘giants’. In the third world countries, starting from a non-capitalist base, which starts the initial high rates of productivity,… in the third world countries, the gap between large and small companies isn’t very wide at all. In the Western economies, it widened to factors of 800,… between large and small. While in the third world, the productivity gap widens about 1:3 or so, over the same period. Apparently, according to Ormerod, the current Economic models, just don’t predict this kind of behaviour which you can observe, if you look at the reality. While the Ormerod models aren’t pinpoint accurate or anything,… they give a very useful idea of what happens in reality, compared to the mathematical approximations.

The only trouble with the few companies getting to peaks of 800 times larger than the smaller rivals, is that the large companies then become very hard to manage effectively. Although size matters in westernised industrial economies, your complexity also gets un-manageable. I am trying to compare this ‘scale’ of things like the American car industry, or the Japanese electronic industry, with the ‘Emergent’ behaviours of the property building industry here in Ireland. Obviously, the property thing here in this country is just simply too large, for anyone to get a good ‘overview’ of things, just using the existing mathematical approximation. Obviously a much larger brush stroke needs to be used, maybe not as accurate, but something more generic, something to lend some clearer picture of what is going on in the reality we see around us everyday now in Ireland. That is why I think, that professions like Architecture are being really under-valued in Ireland at the moment, because they contain the only people we now have capable of working in this space, where an overview or concept of the larger spatial problem, is necessary. Unfortunately, the architectural profession’s lack of success, relative to it’s engineering and ‘numbers’ professions, means that architecture isn’t really able to contribute to the debate effectively at all. Well, apart from the usual radio show appearances made by Sean, Frank and Tony. Like the father, son and holy spirit of Irish architecture. 🙂

Brian O’ Hanlon.

@Thomond Park wrote:

Back to Ormerod, I find his type of economist impatient and generally flawed, the World economic system is constantly changing at an ever increasing pace but it is doing this in a way that involves changes in very accepted components. With the odd revolution aside which generally tend to occur in places that impact little on the greater global economy most changes both at National and corporate level occur over time and can be adequately assessed by making observation of the principal economic components.

It more than likely is flawed, because a lot of what he wrote was about the 1990s, at the height of enthausiasm post-Berlin-wall-collapse, that America would never again see a recession etc, etc. A lot of grand ideas were found to be deeply flawed by the time the 1990s had wound up. But, I think Ormerod does offer us an alternative way of looking at our world. Especially nowadays, as we are trying to establish here in Ireland, why a certain unique kind of housing solution has won over total domination in the marketplace. These aren’t issue to do with architecture, but with economics, and most importantly, about the way we approach economics. Here I think Ormerod still has very useful guides for us here in this country. For instance, from the use of very basic simulations, you can predict how the simple rules used to adjust how an individual ant behaves, has effects on the the behaviour of the system at a much, much larger level. I think this is a useful way to look at the Irish environment, and the way housing happens. Rolling on the ‘holy trinity’, the Frank’s, Sean’s and Tony’s to explain the built environment to us, is all greatly amusing, but honestly, the reality out there is more complex than these guys ever get to describe in the short space of a radio or TV slot. This point about TV and radio interviews, about the idea of ‘propaganda’ is a really interesting one, and one I will examine a little more closely below.

But the issue that I am looking at now is that the cost of the architect will come to over €48k!! In comparison a engineer / draughtsman will cost only 3k. That is a massive saving for my budget. WHY?

Honestly – what is the difference??? I presume that you are going to say it is the same as Monet v a 3 yr old kid – but try and tell me the real difference.

As to the Architectural profession itself, as to the ‘over-pricing’ of the architectural profession,.. the answer here is very simple. It is no wonder the design professions in Ireland are in-efficient, because they were never allowed to be anything else other than in-efficient. In times of recession, the government does need to step into the breach, and provide some level of subsidy to these struggling professions, to ensure that unemployment doesn’t rise to staggering heights for architects during harder times. I know several relatively young architects nowadays, who spent the 1980s here in Dublin doing basically the same work, we take for granted that Chinesse people do in the service industry nowadays. That is absolutely no exaggeration – I mean, how many people are going to struggle to qualify, in times of recession, simply to bus tables in some crappy restaurant someplace? But that is what some were forced to do for a living. The salary situation for those working back in those days was ridiculously small, so that it made busing tables look quite attractive. The government might have done a lot more to help regulate that. Indeed the RIAI and many more should have blown more whistles at the time, but simply chose not to. We now might have a cost-efficient spatial design resource to fall back on – but the simple truth is, we do not. Architects mainly quote exorbitant fees for doing projects, because they know they cannot simply cope with it all – they need to drive away the smaller players – it is not that architects want to earn 48K per job exactly, but lack of resources forces them to do so.

Quote from Ormerod:

But these are arguments about what to do once an unusually high level of unemployment has been created, once unemployment has been placed onto a higher pather. Governments can never know in advance either the scale of a recession or whether it will lead to an unexpectedly high increase in unemployment. But when the economy has actually begun to slow down sharply – when a deep recession is beginning to be a matter of fact rather than one of prediction – measures should be brought in very quickly which reduce the possibility of a particularly massive loss of jobs taking place. Such policies could only be temporary. Further, there will inevitably be a degree of waste involved in widespread job subsidies. But once jobs have been destroyed on a large scale, it seems very difficult to generate the environment in which they can be created again. Unemmployment can be placed on a high path which may persist for decades. It is more effective to try to head off the possibility of massive and rapid job loss, and then to wait for the natural upturn in the economy to reduce unemmployment once again.

When I spent some time working in Malta, a small country with a very prestigious history in ship building on the Mediterranean, the debate was whether the government in Malta should or shouldn’t pay skilled ship yard workers to come into work every day, to sit on their fists. One side of the argument said, well, this is waste. While another side, a more far-sighted type of people argued that it was important that a small nation like Malta should have some industry of it’s own. As soon as apprenticeships in the ship yard ceased, then that whole industry that went with those apprenticeships, would cease to be also. The idea then of re-invigorating an industry like that later, would be impossible. I think that the design and spatial professions in Ireland were allowed to slide down much too far by the 1980s, and now you are just seeing the results of that. Sure you had managed to keep isolated ‘outposts’ in disiplines like Architecture, Engineering, Surveying, Planning and what not. But mostly, it all served to keep a few miserable jobs for the offspring and ‘extended family’ of those working in the professions. There wasn’t any way in which a person from the outside could try to ‘break in’. I spent most of the 1990s searching for the ‘apprenticeship’, similar to that described in the Maltesse ship yard workers situation – but it simply wasn’t there – and a lot of my friends exited the design workforce sometime around then. I mean, as a country we are able to subsidise farmers to grow ‘over-priced’ cattle in fields – but when it comes to spatial design – there isn’t a buck in sight anywhere! And apart from anything else, it makes it far too easy for the ‘insiders’ in the architectural profession to create a monopolistic haven for themselves and their ‘friends’. I am not saying that subsizing small farmers is the only answer, but certainly, when you just have a handfull of massive players controlling the whole situation – then that is unbalanced. Of course, Architects greed has gotten the best of them nowadays – but they can do precisely what they like – the government’s lack of subsidy for struggling young professionals down through the years – has created the perfect environment for architectural design monopolies and dynasties to thrive – it almost brings to mind a medieval monarchial system at times.

There has always been a very few famous architects who are mostly middle aged at this point. But all those old guys can manage to do today, is to simulate ‘youthfulness’ by taking on serious amounts of non-native and often non-English speaking labour from all around the world. That suits them perfectly, because non-natives have to leave as soon as the visa runs out, or whatever. Which leaves you right back with the same monopoly and dynasties you started out with. When Hitler invaded other countries, often the locals would receive uniforms and be forced to fight for the fatherland. Things weren’t grown when they should have been grown, and now it is just a scramble to ‘simulate’ a design tradition all of a sudden – is basically a theatre performance – something like the Nazis did in WWII, when they made show reels to try and convince the world they had a lot more military power, than was actually the case in reality. But heh, Gobbels and these guys were brilliant PR specialists, with the ability to manipulate a mass audience. The main trouble with the architects, is that some of them do also sport a talent for showmanship. I wouldn’t mind seeing what hardware they have though, put to the real test on some serious design problems. I am pretty sure the whole ‘design’ war machine would collapse around peoples’ ears. Just too much of it, is showreels, smoke and mirror kind of stuff. Indeed I often feel like the education centres for design in Ireland, are like the central bureaus of the ‘propaganda’ machine, of the Irish architectural effort – and the poor students as elements in the ‘showreel’ asked to run past the camera hundreds of times, to simulate a young, healthy, vibrant army of pro’s. 🙂 The Hitler youth, of the spatial design tradition here in this country,…

https://archiseek.com/content/attachment.php?attachmentid=596

https://archiseek.com/content/attachment.php?attachmentid=598

Or dare I say, a bit like that poor clown the Iraq army put on TV, to talk to the west. Yeah, you cannot discount the contribution of ‘propaganda’ in something like this. This is really why I do question the validity of what the AAI puts out each and every year, in more and more glossy publications, for their so-called ‘Awards’. All they are attempting to do, is to sell a nice ‘smiley, happy’ image, which doesn’t match up to what is there in reality. And in doing so, allowing themselves to be ‘used’ as a further extension of the design tradition’s whole nasty propaganda machine. Sure there is tonnes of money now pouring into the design professions, but it certainly isn’t finding it’s way back to those foot-soldiers fighting on the front lines – I have no idea where it is going – It might be smuggled in suit cases to Argentina for all I know. A lot of the points I collected on this thread:

https://archiseek.com/content/showthread.php?t=3594&page=5

manage to reinforce most of what I have said just above. But it is just crucial to appreciate, the impact of a serious recession on a profession such as Architecture. It can easily create the ideal environment in which monopolies can grow to a quite staggering scale – and thereby, in turn create the exact environment, in which a smaller player just hasn’t got a hope. I often believe myself, that Ireland is so attractive for foreign architects to come and work here – not because of the usual reasons – we do so much ‘exciting’ design – but mainly because Ireland is such a monopolistic environment for architecture – one in which it is too easy to make easy money and just ‘f*** off’ again. In other words, what is left behind isn’t the healthiest architectural design tradition in the world – but a very small few practioners can make a ‘f***’in packet’.

Brian O’ Hanlon.

Well now, having dealt somewhat with the people and the organisations charged with the responsibility of designing things such as high-density residential buildings, I am going to look back again, at the people ‘who buy things’ designed, built or otherwise provided on the market, in terms of accomodation. This piece was written by Paul Ormerod, in ‘Butterfly Economics’, influenced by complexity theory in the field of AI, ant behaviour and computational modelling of wicked, seemingly contradictory problems. I cannot help but keep in mind the Irish Housing market, for 2-story semi-detached houses, with front and back gardens, when reading the piece quoted below.

In many ways, complex systems analysis formalises what sucessful business people know instinctively. But there are several implications which are worth mentioning. Once we admit the possibility that individual tastes and behaviour can be influenced directly by those of others, gaining a lead on rivals can create a virtuous circle in which the market position of a company or brand becomes stronger simply because it is already seen to be popular. So it is impoprtant not just to innovate but to test such developments in the markplaces as early as possible. A new product may seize the imagination and rapidly build up a powerful position, while if it is endlessly tested and refinded within the confines of the firm, rival companies may themselves introduce concepts which pre-empt its potential success.

The self-reinforcing nature of success rarely means that a company thereby gains complete dominace over its competitors. The simple reason for this is that it is usually quite easy for customers to change their minds – indeed, switching opinions or behaviours is the whole essence of the basic ants model. In the case, say, of the appropriate choice of techniques to be used in nuclear power plants, the successful technology can certainly gain 100 per cent market share. The investment is extremely expensive and very long-lived. Once the plant has been built, it is not really feasible to pull it down and construct one of a different kind. With a bar of chocolate, in contrast, consumers can experiment with rival brands at minimal expense. Buying a particular brand today does not preclude the purchase of a competing one tomorrow. The principles of positive feedback, of the reinforcement of the position of dominant brands, still apply. Popular products sustain their popularaity in part simply because they are popular. But, except in the case of extremely expensive purchase, this mechanism does not lead to the elimination of rivals and permanent market control.

Orthodox economics is not a completly empty box, and my arguments do not involve its complete rejection but rather an extension, a generalisation which takes into account, unlike conventional theory, the fundamental fact, that people are influenced directly by the behaviours fo others. The challenge of provideing a tolerable description of a complex world with interacting agents is certainly hard. This may have tbeen the basis behind the great physicist Max Planck’s alleged remark in the 1930s to the leading economist John Maynard Keynes. The mathematics which is actually used in most of economics, not just then but even now, was perfectly straightforwared and even trivial to a man with Planck’s background. But when Keynes asked whether he had ever thought of taking up economics, Planck thought for a moment. ‘No,’ he replied, ‘the maths is too hard.’ Yet the gains from a better understanding of how the economy and society operate are potentially enomous.

One of the things I like about Paul Ormerod’s book, is how he attempts to find ways in which to explain seemingly contradictory phenomena – for instance, how an inferior product, can often shove a much more superior one out of the market. The important line in the above I would like to highlight is:

while if it is endlessly tested and refinded within the confines of the firm, rival companies may themselves introduce concepts which pre-empt its potential success.

While listening to the contributions of various ‘Architect’ speakers to the planning radio programme yesterday evening, I was again reminded of how much these ‘design professionals’ love to test and refine stuff within the confines of the company. We need to grow a much stronger, more resilient architectural profession here in Ireland, that is able to get the range of products needed, out to the market on time, in order to provide the consumers with some alternatives. In short, Architects really need to start to understand the fundamentals of business, just like other people in society:

In many ways, complex systems analysis formalises what successful business people know instinctively.

I don’t know if I am the only one who thinks this – but certainly the lack of ability of the architectural profession ‘to gel’ together and cooperate on these ventures – must take a lot of the blame. It is like listening to a bankrupt company crying because its product launch went all pair-shaped on them. Boo-Hoo, get over yourselves guys. This process needs to begin I think in the design schools, at the most basic of levels,… and how those same schools are being funded and managed,… basically, you reap exactly what you sow. It is exactly the same in architecture as in any other business, and no amount of debate will change that.

https://archiseek.com/content/showthread.php?t=3594&page=5

Anyone else care to comment?

Brian O’ Hanlon.

Okay, I think I need to finish off this current rant, with a good example of getting stuff to market and getting it on time – or not. Well worth spending the time to read through I think.

Brian O’ Hanlon.