Traditional measures of career success are salary, salary growth and promotions. In architecture, the metanarrative around success is defined in terms of winning architectural awards, publications, the size of the project one works on and being a director of a firm. The assumption here is that success has the same meaning for everyone. But, do these metanarratives of success hold the same value for all of us?

This is the second opinion piece written for ArchitectureNow based on a study that draws from the responses of architects, academics and students. The study grew out of sharing anecdotes about the differing expectations of students and staff with a counsellor and a support coach at Victoria University of Wellington. Responding to these anecdotes, I developed a survey looking at workplace wellbeing, temporal expectations and expectations around success.

One hundred and fourteen Wellington students, academics and architects responded to the survey. Although the size and the location mean that the results may not be generally applicable, they do suggest how ideas of success differ across an architectural community. And they provide a perspective for further discussion and debate.

This New Zealand-based survey follows two relatively recent surveys in Australia, which indicate that personal happiness and balance are more important to architects than traditional measures of career success. Paula Whitman, in her 2005 study of Australian architects, found that 69.1 per cent of women surveyed were willing to forego career success if it threatened personal happiness and balance in their lives.

Women “reject the scale of a project, practice size, awards and journal coverage as measures of their success, but believe that the profession generally values these factors as indicators of career progression.”¹ This survey was followed up by the Royal Australian Institute of Architects in 2007, which looked at male architects, and found correlations between male and female architects, with 61 per cent of male architects prepared to sacrifice career success if it threatens personal happiness.² 

For academics reflecting on how ‘students defined success at university’, the responses were brief. They believe students are focused on grades, prizes and scholarships, with grades being the dominant response (86 per cent). Other answers included: graduating, getting a job and developing marketable skills. In terms of what academics thought students would perceive as ‘a successful career’, the majority of responses by both male and female staff (70 per cent) indicated that recognition by others was key. The academics’ response reflects traditional ideas of what success means.

Students defined success in more complex ways than academics. Success still encompassed grades, which are a predominant measure of success in academia, but notably, the students also defined success in terms of “developing”, “learning”, “understanding”, and “expanding”, with success understood as a process rather than as an endpoint. Next, students were asked to respond to what a successful career might look like. Success for both male (75 per cent) and female (67 per cent) students was split between work-lifebalance and having a good job.

Evident in the students’ responses was their sense of altruism. Success was an ambition imagined and framed in terms of fostering community and connections, rather than individualistic and competitive desires. 

Both students and academics were asked what the profession values as success. Once more, students saw it more inclusively – with the main response being client satisfaction. Academics thought that the profession valued awards primarily, but practice size and journal coverage were also signs of success. 

But, among architects, there was one point of difference in this survey: for women, work-life balance was an important measure of success (64.5 per cent) while for males, this was less important (40 per cent). In the architects’ survey, success was also measured by happiness, client satisfaction and, significantly, creating work that meets the needs of public wellbeing.

To summarise, success for academics is considered as a singular and objective quality, understood in quite familiar and traditional ways. Critically, academia is both a meritocratic system and a powerful mechanism that affirms a particular view of the profession. It ought to be of concern if educational practices are complicit in fostering notions of success that value competition and comparison, rather than developing an ethic of interdependence, camaraderie and kindness. Of course, one is not trying to close down the courage it takes to create one’s own business and the self-belief one needs to achieve business success.

The survey also showed that success is not univocal but understood in multiple ways. Some advantage might be gained by insisting that norms of success are already pluralised within the discipline; this insight could then be used to question an understanding of success defined simplistically in terms of linear progression or through awards. The survey offers a way to examine what success is and to learn that not everyone values the same beliefs.

The diverse responses help us to recognise when a belief, such as success, is a product of our culture and of our education, bringing to light assumed ideals of success that we might have absorbed. Moreover, I would suggest that much can be gained from celebrating success if framed in terms of cooperation and compassion, as signalled by the altruistic desires found in this survey.

My note of caution concerns how we frame success in the discipline. A research project, led by philosopher Sarah-Jane Leslie of Princeton University and psychologist Andrei Cimpian of the University of Illinois, has found women are underrepresented in fields where success is believed to require brilliance. Architecture is often framed as requiring a certain type of genius, clichéd as this may be. But, this raises questions: if we only communicate success as measured by awards, publications and scale of a project, then women and those from more diverse backgrounds are more likely to be uncertain about their chances of success, of belonging, and even discouraged from pursuing careers in brilliance-orientated jobs.

The suggested solution, to deemphasise the role of brilliance in achieving success, supports more inclusive involvement.³ A shift in messaging to celebrate the range in the meaning of success already held within the profession is one step in this direction. A final note: as this opinion piece was completed within the current COVID-19 context, one hopes that perceptions of success will shift to encompass notions of flourishing, resilient workflow, celebrating our interconnections with others – and to take time to slow down.

Click here to read Smitheram’s first piece on perceptions of time among students, academics and professionals.

Dr Jan Smitheram is Associate Dean in the Wellington Faculty of Architecture and Design Innovation at Victoria University of Wellington. Her recent research looks at architectural practice through the lens of performativity and affect.