Do architects feel well at work?

People working in architecture have a significantly lowerthan-average quality of life compared with Australian norms.

Seven years ago, I published a personal account of my poor mental health having endured architecture school and a decade of insecure work. I was burnt out, exasperated, and uneasily complicit. I ripped into the architectural education system and a profession that I held largely responsible for the decline in my wellbeing, and resented having to resource my own recovery.

Mine wasn’t an isolated story, and I’m grateful many others were open to sharing theirs, and importantly, many others wanted to help things get better.

There has been a lot of concern about the effects that studying and working in architecture has on the wellbeing of people. Until now, however, there has been a glaring lack of large-scale, rigorous research that sought to examine if these concerns had any substance; and if so, what might be contributing to them; and what can be done to engage with and improve the situation.

Building on research produced in the UK and Canada, and a literature review of mental health in architecture commissioned by the NSW Architects Registration Board, an interdisciplinary team of researchers formed The Wellbeing of Architects project, which has been funded by the Australian Research Council’s Linkage Scheme and numerous industry partners.

Words Byron Kinnaird

The project is a comprehensive three-year study, one of the first to use interdisciplinary, qualitative and quantitative methods to address the question of how workplace cultures and professional identity affect wellbeing in architecture, and to develop practical, applied interventions to address and improve wellbeing outcomes.

A project of this depth and design with wide-ranging industry support has not been seen before anywhere, and will have a transformative impact on the Australian profession, and we hope, the global community of architecture.

It’s important to say that we are not medical researchers, and our goal is not to diagnose the profession – but to understand the complex and interwoven issues of identity, culture and workrelated wellbeing.

When we talk about wellbeing, the State Government of Victoria’s Department of Health provides a useful definition: “a complex combination of a person’s physical, mental emotional and social health factors… In short, wellbeing could be described as how you feel about yourself and your life.” To date, we have conducted our first major surveys of architectural practitioners and students, and are now undertaking a series of focus groups to investigate emerging themes. Follow-up surveys will be conducted in 2023, informing the development of tailored toolkits and resources.

What have we learned so far? Most startling, was this:

Not to mention surprisingly low personal wellbeing scores, elevated levels of psychological distress, and higher-than-average levels of burnout. Reading back on my own experience, it’s all there.

We were wary that our surveys had taken place during a devastating pandemic, with Victoria and New South Wales both in lockdowns at the time – weren’t we all distressed and burnt out? Surprisingly our data revealed that this wasn’t necessarily the case, some respondents reported their quality of life had improved since the outbreak of COVID-19.

Byron Kinnaird is a research fellow at Monash University for The Wellbeing of Architects project.

The Wellbeing of Architects project is a collaboration between researchers at Monash University’s Department of Architecture (Faculty of Art, Design and Architecture) and Department of Management (Faculty of Business and Economics); and partnered with the New South Wales Architects Registration Board, Australian Institute of Architects, Association of Consulting Architects, and the Association of Australasian Schools of Architecture.

With an office in Shanghai, China and another in Antwerp, Belgium, AIM Architecture (AIM) has the best of both worlds when it comes to working and living design. With the classical architecture of Europe and the cultural traditions that China presents, a merging of these two spheres help influence the architecture and interiors of AIM, and the result is both compelling and original.

The studio is led by two gifted practitioners, Wendy Saunders from Belgium, and Vincent de Graaf, Netherlands-born, who both studied architecture and architecture/interior architecture respectively in their home countries then met in Amsterdam. As a couple, they were seeking adventure and so in 2004 they gave up their jobs and decided to take the train across country to Shanghai and, well, never left China.

It takes a certain openness to change, courage and an inquisitive nature to move to such a culturally different country but the pair fell in love with the energy and vibrant nature of Shanghai where it felt that “anything was possible” and set about finding work. Each commenced positions that gave them a taste of working life in China but there were limitations to climbing the ladder. After a year they decided to create their own destiny and left their positions to establish their own practice. With the patronage of a past client, a developer, AIM Architecture was born and off to a flying start.

In 2005, China was the new frontier for design with a plethora of large companies and practices setting up offices investing in the country. It was a good time to be working in China with the buzz of development and change in the air. AIM was small and agile with a new sensibility that set it apart from other architecture practices and, from the outset, the process and design-thinking of AIM was different to the norm. Initially there were lots of competitions to help the fledgling practice make a name for itself, then the first project, a gallery that put AIM on everyone’s design radar. Relationships were made and eventually the commissions came rolling in and AIM’s new perspective on creativity became its signature.