Harvard Design Magazine 52: Instruments of Service' poses a simple question: What do architects actually make and how is this changing?
At a moment when the word "design" has come to refer to everything and thus nothing, this issue examines the hidden mechanics and visible output of design practice in order to track the shifting role of designers in society and to gauge the capacity of designers to effect change in a world of mounting crises.
The issue's title, 'Instruments of Service', carries a double meaning. As defined in standard American Institute of Architects contracts, "Instruments of Service are representations, in any medium of expression now known or later developed, of the tangible and intangible creative work performed by the Architect and the Architect's consultants under their respective professional services agreements. Instruments of Service may include, without limitation, studies, surveys, models, sketches, drawings, specifications, and other similar materials."
Instruments of service are the instruction manuals that architects-and other designers-make so that others can make something. They define the architect's relationships with labour, construction, clients, and society. And these relationships-along with the agency of architectural practice-are changing as a growing number of external pressures force instruments of service to change.
In the end, what we make is inextricably tied to why and for whom we make it.
Published by Harvard University
Softcover
220 pages
220 x 305 mm
ISBN 978193451094052
