To Specialise Or Not To Specialise?

In architectural education around the world, architecture students learn to be well-rounded design professionals. They learn to design anything from private residences to public buildings, from skyscrapers to airport terminals; they conduct academic research and typological studies. When released into the real world, they are quickly confronted with a tender system that favours firms with built experience, experience that recent graduates and young firms do not yet have. Regulations demand that architecture practices provide evidence of realised buildings of a similar typology, so they favour the large firm of practised architects. Only if an architect has built five town halls in the last five years does the (often) public dient believe that town hall number six can be successfully executed.