What clients actually hire architects for

I. Trust is now the scarcest resource online.

There's a good chance that as you're reading this, you can't help but wonder if this was AI generated, and if so, why bother reading it.

Reading something used to mean you were trading your time to pick someone's brain. Now you're not sure there's a brain to pick.

Is there even a human struggling to find the right words behind the screen? Because it was that back and forth, the wrestle between trusting your gut while simultaneously feeling like it makes no sense, that made writing flavoured and worth reading.

II. Now that everyone's vanilla, what does it matter. But again, now is also the time when we can't afford to lazy pick vanilla.

People don't hire architects for "innovation." They hire you because they're terrified of making a $500,000 mistake that their kids will inherit.

They need to know you've wrestled enough with their specific problem: how to make a 2,245 sq. ft. house feel spacious for a family of five. Or why desk placement matters as much as bed placement in a bedroom.

The difference isn't in what you build. It's in what you notice.

III. The point isn't to solve the 'brief' it's to solve how they have been living.

Also, rest assured, these words are human written, for you.