Part fantasy and part survival strategy, the developer-architect-developer is a key sandwich role to explore today. For architects curious about making the transition to a role with more agency, with a real improvement in ethics, there is some fear they could end up producing the same profit-hungry buildings just with nicer detailing. Can we keep the helpful parts of “developer” plus “architect” while abandoning the harmful ones?

Following an open call, to which applicants from eleven countries responded, we invited eight architectural thinkers to gather online for three weeks of intense research, interviews, discussion, and provocation. Together, they will produce a series of advice to avoid the usual pitfalls of becoming an architect-developer, and suggest other ways architects can reclaim ethical agency in the world. The selected participants are: Harriet Powell (Bristol), Mingjia Chen (Cambridge, USA), Rebekka Hirschberg (Vienna), Duncan Steele (Toronto), Thea Renyong (London), Ewa Effiom (London, UK), CoCo Tin (Hong Kong), Melanija Grozdanoska (Chicago).

To attend the public unveiling of our advice for avoiding becoming a developer, please register here.

How to is a series of intense annual residencies that bring small teams together at CCA to produce a new tool—which can be physical, digital, or somewhere in between—and address a specific opportunity or need. Past editions of the workshops are How to: not make an architecture magazine (2018), How to: disturb the public (2019), and How to: reward and punish (2020).