Harvard Design Magazine 52: Instruments of Service

The issue poses a simple question: What do architects actually make and how is this changing? Instruments of service are the instruction manuals that architects and other designers make so others can make something. They define the architect’s relationships with labour, construction, clients, and society. These relationships are changing as a growing number of external pressures and divergent interests force these instruments to change. In this respect, architects and designers can also be seen as instruments of service to society, responsible to a continually shifting set of values. At a fundamental level, the designer’s job is to imagine and articulate a better future.