I’m a Jack of All Trades and a Master of None

Tools of the trade from a simpler time.

One of the reasons I enjoy being an architect is because what I do is so multifaceted. Every project presents unique challenges rooted in specific circumstances. My responsibility is to connect multiple and complex fields of knowledge and engage in multidisciplinary thinking to help the design team arrive at the most cost-effective, sustainable, and attractive design solution possible. Having a very good, broad knowledge about design and construction is obviously helpful, but being a generalist rather than a specialist means I am a Jack of All Trades and a master of none.

 
I’m probably wearing my rose-colored glasses as I look back, but I’m pretty sure life was simpler and the world a little less complex and hurried when I started in architecture than it is today. I’ve seen building codes become more voluminous, expectations grow unreasonably, and litigiousness rise to worrisome levels. The decisions we’re compelled to make on every design project have multiplied exponentially: What type of weather-proof barrier should we specify for the rainscreen assembly in our project? Should it be breathable? Liquid-applied or a self-adhering membrane? What thickness? Back in the day, we didn’t detail our exterior wall assemblies as rainscreens, and our weather barriers were often simply “building paper.” The scope of many other concerns has expanded as well. We worry now about a building material’s carbon footprint and whether its constituent elements are on “red lists”; such concepts didn’t even exist at the start of my career. 
 
Accordingly, it is not unusual these days for the demands of a project to require a large and diverse group of specialists to complement the architect’s limited skillset. This group may include consultants to address many or all the following areas of concern:

• Accessibility
• Acoustics
• Audiovisual Systems
• Building Envelopes
• Civil Engineering
• Cost Estimating and Value Analysis
• Diversity, Equity & Inclusion
• Electrical Engineering
• Environmental Graphics & Branding
• Historic Preservation
• Interior Design
• Landscape Architecture
• Lighting
• Low-Voltage Systems
• Mechanical Engineering
• Plumbing
• Programming
• Project Management
• Security
• Specifications
• Structural Engineering
• Sustainability

. . . and more.

The mounting burden of knowledge is pushing the architectural profession increasingly toward reliance upon specialists and a willingness to outsource more and more of its responsibilities. The underlying objective is to reduce immensely complex design problems to calculable and more easily comprehended packets. This goal-oriented focus favors traditional scientific processes—the gathering and measurement of empirical evidence—to achieve neatly categorized and reliable outcomes. This is scientific reductionism—silo thinking.

By breaking down complex interactions and entities into the sum of their constituent parts, the silo mentality effectively isolates disciplines. Those ensconced within their silos too often fail to see the promise inherent in a bigger picture.
 

Photo by D-M Commons, CC BY-SA 3.0 <https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/3.0>, via Wikimedia Commons

Some architects lament a diminishing of their control over the process of design and construction as the trend toward increased specialization accelerates. They believe this trend is inexorable and signals an end to the role of the architect as the “master builder.” I disagree. Mastering specific skills or focusing upon a single, narrow field of expertise is necessary to achieve success in many endeavors, but the advantage of being a generalist is the ability to see things in an integrated way. While the specialist can boast a great depth of knowledge in a specific area, the generalist can see the interconnectedness of everything demanded by a project. Generalists may sacrifice some depth of knowledge for breadth, but they also know where to seek specific knowledge when it is required. Importantly, generalists know what they don’t know.
 
The enormous value architects bring to projects is the ability to oversee the integration of the full range of design considerations. Systems thinking is the process of understanding how things influence one another. It emphasizes the interconnections between disciplines rather than what distinguishes them. In so doing, it more adequately addresses the infinite complexity of the problems at hand. Systems thinking leaps the barriers erected by specialization. The systems perspective is the antithesis of the silo mentality. Integrated processes and multidisciplinary collaboration are now principal tenets of designing for sustainability and resilience. Those dedicated to the development of sustainable communities increasingly recognize that the component parts of a system can best be understood in the context of relationships with other systems, rather than in isolation.
 
Fundamentally, architects bring to the project an understanding that a whole is greater than the sum of its parts. Effective generalists are strategists who visualize the big picture and approach solving problems from that perspective. Architects with significant design or project management duties still possess a considerable depth of expertise; however, that depth of expertise is necessary across the full range of concerns for which they are responsible.
 
During my career, I’ve acquired a remarkably broad range of professional experiences. I’ve been blessed with the opportunity to work on interesting projects of all types and sizes. As a child, I knew early on I wanted to be an architect. I may have thought I had chosen to be one thing, but I came to learn this meant being someone who assumes a broad range of duties, someone who is a generalist but not necessarily a specialist. I absolutely have no regrets about my career choice and its trajectory. I wear my Jack of All Trades label as a badge of honor.