July 09, 2026
My corner office overlooks the waterfront. All of them do. It is quite the challenge to tell whether it’s the one in Boston, Berlin, or Basel. My brain is so fried from the last flight, I can hardly remember a room number. The view is framed by a multitude of corner offices. I am surrounded. Each one belongs to my fellow partners at Unique, the boutique architectural design consultancy of which I had become a partner in 2017. Our partner meeting is tomorrow.
“We” moved into this building in the summer of 2033. Years of playing it safe in our designs had created a substantial financial buffer. Our wealth yielded little interest in the accounts, so we developed and designed it as a partnership. BCG did it before us. It was the cheapest way to get things done now. The optics were good, the city – all cities – endorsed it as part of their creative city claims. The final design was based on a critical design proposal for a hotel by our founder in the 90s. Jeez, critical…
Classical design PR with so-called “press releases” was gone of course. Our photos have been generated for some years now. The hara-kiri year of 2029 – when the “old” design media had collectively seized – still felt fresh. The partnership decided it still needed some form of brand impression. The old PR budget was reallocated (to us). Partners having some fun ourselves for a change. Nothing too cheeky of course that would risk cashing out when shit hit the fan. The fact that it hadn’t already was a miracle in itself. There must still be too much to lose, I kept on thinking. I guess everyone thought that. Given the prominence the founder had amassed in the old world, a Norwegian state fund had submitted a running offer to buy the place for triple the money we had spent building it. The design aligned with our new corporate structure, which ensured we could change it into a Shangri-La at the snap of a finger, just in case.
The partnership’s decision to acquit all job titles in the firm drove the drafting process. When I became partner we still followed the hierarchical organizational structure inherited from Taylorism. The division of responsibilities enhanced our fee-rates (spiels) in job proposals. At the time, interns (800 Euro per month paid) were described in man count proposals as “Architectural Assistants” (70 Euro per hour billed), our lowest rate at the time. Every additional layer added more money per hour. Internally the whole corporate structure created a lot of envy, speculation, and the essential office drama. The days of crediting fights. The shouting matches with spit flying around about who actually made which model during the midnight hour. The occasional fist pounding the desk just to have your name in the credits. Careered professionals going berserk over the idea that just anybody could steal a bit of thunder for a piece of ubiquitous design somewhere in the suburbs. Nothing gets people going like the feeling of potential injustice! It had created a perfect excuse for developing the infinite amount of professional strata between “us” – owners – and “them” – the rest. As the reality of any actual “skill” faded, caught in the whirlwind of the AI revolution, every “promotion” cost us a small amount. Because we miraculously managed to convince clients these roles were still necessary, we got away with externalizing the costs for a few years. Keeping entry level salaries for staff low made sure the balance between loyalty and commitment remained on a knife edge. With the help of HR – another genius invention from the corporate world – job titles were incessantly renamed. Sometimes by simply adding junior, senior, or strategic (so smart!) to an existing role. We even invented entirely new ones like “officer”. HR came up with all kinds of diversions by offering tax deductible company training sessions and bi-yearly assessment exercises with suggestive questions like “where do you see yourself in 5 years?”
This worked for some time, but by 2030, 70% of the company was composed of “Sr. directors”. A mistake from the partnership. We had underestimated how the precarious state of the world had depleted the risk taking spirit of our employees. They simply stayed and kept increasing their demands. We fenced off unionizing quite successfully, but the careful balance between upward and outward mobility was lost. As getting rid of them was financially unattractive, HR proposed promoting the directors to “admirals” or “senators”; a strategy borrowed from the airlines’ reward leveling. The idea of military order still resonated in the corporate sector. Some partners were afraid that this would give them too much confidence and would only lead to a final assault on the partnership itself. After consulting with our banks, an attempt to flip the script was proposed – one of the founder’s classic design moves. The partnership decided to make everyone a partner. Plato’s democratic ideal achieved – “We” are all equal! Some partners proposed to introduce a new upward force by creating new “Sr.” and “Founding Partner” roles for themselves in order to reassert their stature and power. But when “Senior Founding Partner” was introduced, it went tits up. Who called the bluff remained anonymous.
I remember the call, it was a Tuesday, late afternoon. The founding partner of Unique asked me to stay. First, I thought I was getting fired. Then, I thought of quitting myself. I did so from time to time, as everyone. At least I told myself so. “We would like to offer you a partner position.” Every doubt was gone. On my way home, I called my love, I called my best friend, I called my parents: “Partner!” The idea of me being anointed in such a way felt good. It was like suddenly arriving, no more thoughts of leaving or angst of being fired.
What followed was the paperwork. The firm had a value. It was calculated, based on the past – better times – on hard facts from balance sheets and business reports and soft indicators from marketing and communication value. My small share of that value was a big number nonetheless. An amount I could not pay. Nobody could, at least not on a working salary.
That was the point, so the firm offered me a loan: internal, unbureaucratic and manageable. Monthly pay-offs from my now slightly higher partner salary. “Standard procedure, everyone does it this way.” Firms and partners. What nobody tells you is what happens after you sign. Maybe they did not know themselves? Maybe it was only me? I still don’t know, perhaps because I don’t speak about it. No one does. That’s the point.
You walk into the office the next morning and although everything looks the same – same chairs, same projects, same people – you are different. Because now, for the first time, a bad month is your problem. A lost competition is your money. A publication is your investment. A project over budget is your loss. Every risk becomes a line on a balance sheet that has your firm’s name on it. Everything becomes a balancing act of risks and opportunities.
The first time it got to me was one quarter when we were shortlisted for a mixed-used project: kindergarten/school/home for elderly people in Brussels. Public client, tight budget, complicated, already existing structure. Adaptive reuse, essentially. The exact kind of project I had joined the office for in the first place. Then I heard myself say, “The estimated risk doesn’t justify the project. Too complex. No margins.” I had never said something like this before. We took the office tower instead. Standard client, standard plan, standard margin. Essentially an iteration of office towers we had done on rinse and repeat. A different facade though. I told myself it was the responsible thing to do. The second time was easier, the third time I didn’t even notice.
Over the years, the portfolio shifted. Not because anyone made a decision, but because the partners were all making the same non-decision; independently, simultaneously. Unknowingly maybe? We never spoke about it. Every project that required explanation, meant negotiation, carried uncertainty – anything that couldn’t be reduced to a fee percentage, margin, and timeline – was filtered, not rejected, just never really considered.
And just like that, the margins stabilized and with it, the office grew. It got quieter, not quiet as in calm, quiet as in mute. I sometimes think about that project in Brussels. Someone else did it and it turned out pretty well. I drove past it once on the way to a site visit for one of our office towers, the seventh variation of the same scheme. I told myself it was temporary. I didn’t stop.
From Jan 1st 2031 Unique became an office of partners only: “Partnerfication”, as it was quickly labelled, spread like wildfire, also in other business areas. Ironically older design partnerships like SOM and Gensler had been able to retain their old-school hierarchy. Their workers had been so downtrodden for years that they didn’t even notice. Without ever discussing it, most design companies had come to the same crude conclusion: the essence of the architect is risk management and the partnership structure is the best form of immediate risk diversification. Mies was right all along minus a few missing words: “less risk, is more profit.” Taking more risk in our portfolio would threaten the partnership, which would threaten the partner meeting, which threatens the loans and the perks, the Marriott Bonvoy points and Skymiles.
The victory of “them” over “us” had initially threw the partnership into a death spiral of cost, mainly hospitality. The early benefactors of the new partnership were the airlines and hotel loyalty programs. Partner meetings – of course all locations should be visited by all – and partner perks with first class travel were to be upheld. The entire consultancy industry had followed similar restructuring forms which had serious inflationary consequences to my reward miles. Last time they didn’t even get me and the family to London. I made my AI agent carefully orchestrate a “potential client meeting” to fill the financial gap – others were doing it all the time.
To make up for the hospitality price hike, cuts were needed. Our building still had several shared spaces. In the design phases everyone had agreed they were the heart of the company and the intellectual core of architecture – this became the main source of debate. We developed a lease construction together with other design firms in which we could semi-own our shared spaces on Wednesdays and Fridays. Digital signage would ensure that no-one would know of the sharing. The alternative was politically impossible: giving up one corner office, would mean giving up every corner office. It could be yours.
It meant that partnership meetings became the only moments of exchange. The calendar says tomorrow, Paris, 9am. “The meeting room, or the city?” I asked my agent. Weren’t we meeting in Sidney?
The problem with partner meetings was that their toxicity increased proportionally to the number of partners: the more partners in the room, the colder the air. Setting the agenda alone became a nightmare, let alone discussing financials. (For years, Brainstorm Unique Vision 2050 had persistently been the last item on the agenda for each meeting. It was never reached because partner updates traditionally went massively over-time promoting their personal results.) The fact that no one really understood financials increased the chances that tribal instincts would take over. My PM-agent predicts the partners in Sydney – Miranda and Michael – were being kicked out at tomorrow’s meeting. In the new partnership we had added termination clauses in the fine print – a majority vote in the partner meeting sufficed to get canned. An enterprise management system, borrowed from the smart climate control systems and sustainability ratings we worked with in our buildings, sets financial productivity against company stock rates and creates a BREEAM like assessment of each partner. According to my agent, the odds are 65%-70% against Sydney now. They were once popular with the outside world because they had actually delivered on some of the social and cultural promises from our office profile. The ROI had been slightly below par, but positive. Some envied them for it, and if I am honest, so did I. During the last meeting they pleaded to work with the new-left government in Canberra, which sparked even more anxiety in the partnership.To eliminate the associated risk, my agent proactively shorted our own stock to build pressure. My own profile – carefully managed of course – remained A++. I lost my last + in a slight mishap: the biennale two years ago.The director, an old friend from Yale, had been desperate. The audacity of the installation was noted by colleagues. I still had “it”. I should have known better.
That moment I thought about leaving. I checked my loan; what I still owed the firm.
Soon after we were approached by the lawyers. Not our lawyers, an agency from the US, or at least their main offices are based there. They represented a Scandinavian engineering firm – a partnership of course – who wanted to take over, or as they phrased it: “Start a long-term comprehensive strategic partnership.” We had been buying their software licenses previously, which made up a fair amount of corporate costs. We quickly called an online partner meeting, very rare, to look at the numbers and the numbers were good, actually better than good. The firm’s valuation had gone up since the last round of partner buy-ins. Who would not value 72 partners.
Omnyia’s offer was a multiple. My debt, all partner’s debt, would disappear overnight. Some of us would even walk away with cash. Real cash. Liquid, not tied to any past, present, or future performance of the firm. The conference-room went quiet for seconds, before someone posted a question in the chat:
“Will we stay Unique?”
“You will stay Unique.”
What we didn’t know at that moment: we were number nine. Eight other firms had received similar mails, from the same agency, leading to the same call and similar reassurances about nothing changing: “You keep your name, your firm, your team, your building, your software. Nothing really changes.” Different cities, different names, different reputations but same owners.
It took a while to understand what it actually meant. We entered a competition in Lyon. Two other offices on the shortlist were also owned by Omnyia. Same holding, different names, another partnership. Essentially, we competed against ourselves, with different schemes, different ideas, different facades. One of us won and as such, the general contract went to the same firm regardless. It always did. The real architecture was not in the competition, it was in the business model behind it.
Omnyia had acquired the major design software years ago. The student license was free, which was big news back then: “Revolutionizing design”. Another strategic long-term partnership essentially. By the time you entered practice, it was the only tool you knew. Seamless integration from study into practice.
The software came with integrated component libraries: windows, wall systems, cladding, structural elements. Every component linked to a manufacturer and supplier, most of them being part of the same holding – Omnyia. And even the few exceptions had supply agreements with “us” because ultimately we had become a platform – a marketplace ourselves. You didn’t notice because you just dragged and dropped, convenient and seamless.
And I played along, because every element I placed in a plan generated revenue somewhere above me – not much – but multiplied by the numerous offices, partnerships, partners it summed up: forty competitions a year, thousands of projects across the continent – not much became enough to compromise. Hell, I could do eighty competitions easily. The building was no longer the product, it was the platform.
With it, the designs started to look the same. Not identical, but similar. Facades with similar rhythms, similar dimensions, similar depth. Not because we had lost imagination, but because the library had a logic. The windows came in sizes optimised for shipping palettes. The cladding panels were dimensioned for standard truck beds. The most efficient option was always the default one. And the default was always the option that generated enough, not too much, in this value chain. It was an inevitable architecture that you saw when stepping-out of the train-stations across continents. Maybe the others did not realize? At least, no one spoke about it. I tried once and mentioned it in a design meeting but the conversation was swiftly moved on.
We still had our name on the door: Unique. We still called ourselves architects. And the projects still had renders with people, dogs, trees, and warm light. But the decisions that shaped the buildings, our cities and ultimately the way we live together, were made long before a file was opened, in another corner office.
Let’s go to Paris. Let’s get this meeting over with, I told myself.