Benedict Zucchi, chair of BDP’s Global Board, speaks to ADF about his design philosophy, the role of architecture as a civic art, and how collaboration, context and sustainability will shape the profession.
After spending more than 30 years at BDP, how do you reflect on what has inspired you over that duration?
I’m still sustained by my original enthusiasm for BDP’s founding ethos, the idea that design should be centred on the specific characteristics of people and place; the clients and users on the one hand and the social, historical and natural context of the project on the other. Our contextual, interdisciplinary approach marked us out from our foundation in the 1960s and anticipated by many decades the drive for sustainability that is now at the top of our environmental agenda.
As recently appointed chair, what are your short-term priorities for the firm?
My number one priority is to ensure that we continue to think holistically about the complex challenges facing society and respond sensitively to the context of each project. This is the only path to innovative authentic solutions that will stand the test of time. As a growing global team, my role also focuses on drawing together the different parts of BDP, joining the dots between capabilities and alternative perspectives in different locations, always with a view to providing the best possible combination of talents for each project.
You’ve spoken about architecture as a civic art and why it’s more important than ever; what does that mean in practice?
It means listening to people and driving genuine engagement, what I call the ‘choreography of the collective’, making the design process a core driver of success. This is the idea that the journey we undertake with clients is as important as the ultimate destination because it’s the process, as much as the actual design outcome, that determines a project’s long-term success. Environments only last if people appropriate them and that only happens if projects are embedded in their context, from inception.
What has working across healthcare, education, housing and masterplanning sectors taught you in terms of transferable lessons that apply across all aspects of design?
Our success in all these sectors has been founded on a people and place-centred approach. Most of our work in health and education, where I have been most active, has been publicly funded, so there has been a common emphasis on collaborating with users, whether medical staff, academics, teachers, or residents, patients and students. In this context the role of the architect, or other lead designer, takes on a civic dimension because one is acting in the broader interest of a large group of people, a community, rather than a single client.
How does multidisciplinary collaboration lead to better outcomes for clients, communities and the built environment?
I would call it an ecosystemic approach. Through multidisciplinary collaboration, we grapple with the complexity of each project, harnessing its full potential rather than rushing to preconceived solutions which oversimplify the challenge and recycle generic responses. We believe that each project is enriched by the shared conversations it instils between people of different backgrounds and skillsets. Harnessing this dynamism is where true innovation originates, adding to our collective knowledge and the great work-in-progress that are our cities.
In your book ‘Big House, Little City,’ you explore the relationship between buildings, cities and ecology. How should architects be rethinking their approach to urban design to respond to environmental challenges?
The overriding message of my book is that we must reunite architectural and urban thinking. They are part of an indissoluble and delicate ecosystem which needs to be approached holistically. The subtitle of my book, “architectural design through an urban lens” underscores this reciprocity. I conclude the book with specific examples of projects conceived as “little cities,” where an urban mindset has underpinned the design process, facilitating user engagement, improving contextual integration and humanising the scale of large complexes.
Can you pick a project in your portfolio that best represents your design philosophy?
The benefits of this methodology are illustrated very effectively by our National Children’s Hospital in Dublin, a large high-profile building due to open next year. The image of the hospital as a little city, with internal daylit streets and individual buildings for different departmental clusters, made the design easy to understand for users. It broke down the scale of what might otherwise have been an intimidating institutional monolith. And allowed each user group to focus on the refinement of their ‘building’ without cramping the freedom of movement of other users to do the same with their areas, just like buildings along a street can develop independently of each other and of the street itself. In other words, there can be both diversity and unity, flexibility to cater for specific needs within a common sense of place.
With challenges on sustainability, housing delivery and social value prevalent in the industry, what do you see as the biggest challenge for architects?
Paradoxically, perhaps, the increase in complexity that comes with today’s many societal challenges (whether related to environmental imperatives, heritage regulations or social value goals) only serves to highlight the importance of informed, collaborative action. The great pioneer of user participation, Italian architect Giancarlo De Carlo, once said provocatively that “architecture is too important by now to be left to architects”. His aim was not to demean architects but to highlight that the environment should be a collective concern, in which everybody has a vital stake and a part to play. Architects are uniquely well-placed to develop solutions but these will only work if they are the product of a collective effort and hard-won consensus.
How do you see the profession changing over the next decade, particularly around sustainability, community engagement and interdisciplinary collaboration, and what skills will define successful future architects?
All these skills will become more and more important and will continue to require strong interpersonal abilities to develop briefs, articulate design visions, engage with multiple stakeholders and navigate increasingly complex regulations. These are aspects of the creative process that cannot and should not be relegated to machine-thinking. For the time being, at least, they will remain safe from AI!
As part of recruiting the ‘next generation of leaders’ in architecture, what advice would you give to young entrants to the profession?
Hold onto your optimism! Understand and cultivate the drive that first inspired you to become an architect, urban designer or engineer. It’s this that will give you the stamina to persevere. Doing the kinds of projects we do best at BDP is never a sprint; it’s always a marathon that requires long term commitment and the patience to follow ideas through, staying true to the original vision but with sufficient resilience to respond to change. In this sense, the design and implementation process is like a dry run for the future life of the buildings.
BDP recently published Guiding Principles of Good Design. Which resonates most strongly with you personally?
Our Guiding Principles are People, Place, Planet, Purpose and Process. All are important and intertwined. Tackling any of them separately reinforces the kind of siloed thinking that we need to avoid. A well-known ‘starchitect’ said to me recently that “there is no such thing as local culture”; in other words that the specific characteristics embodied by the five P’s are irrelevant. I disagree wholeheartedly!
Where do you see the practice heading over the next five years?
For the first time in our history, we are truly a global team. This comes with huge advantages in terms of insight, talent, breadth of collective experience and capacity for collaboration. But it also comes with understandable challenges, above all the imperative to stay agile, ensuring that we remain responsive and inventive as new challenges arise.