Multidisciplinarity in Action: Defining Collaborative Design

That architecture is a multidisciplinary practice is not novel. In western history, architects describe their profession as an assemblage of expertise which, one might think, can hardly be performed by just one individual. This is the case in Vitruvius’ The Ten Books on Architecture where he stated that an architect has to be conversant in matters related to geometry, history, philosophy, music, medicine, jurisprudence, astronomy, and the theory of the heavens. This is repeated today in the Article 46 dedicated to “Training of Architects” included in the EU’s Professional Qualifications Directive 2005/36/EC where an architect should only be knowledgeable of a variety of disciplines other than architecture, but that the profession of architecture is to exist “in society,” mediating “between people and buildings, and between buildings and their environment,” responding to “human needs and scale”. What this being “in society” means and demands is at the core of architecture remaking today. This research focuses on the modes of collaboration between architects and users, drawing on the grounded theory research of the “Architecture’s Afterlife” research project funded by the Erasmus + Program between 2019 and 2022.