Architects and Developers

For the first time we are going to be running a class within our  'Ideas in Architecture' course titled 'Profit'. Profit doesn't become an issue until it is hard to find; certainly the case today, as the traditional role of the architect is not so much under threat as under water.
It's been a long time coming and we've fudged it over and over. Joseph Paxton, as far as I know, was party to the first design and built contract designed to outmanoeuvre the bemused architects of 1851. By the early 1990's, the title 'Architect' was fundamentally challenged, and it took a big fight back, including a whole raft of prescriptions from the RIBA as far as education was concerned, to steady the ship.
Back then I was for deregulation; I thought good architecture would succeed without good 'Architects'; that talented individuals would take to the task who would be valued for their skills, working within co-operative organisations!
But the subsequent financialisation of everything has made Design and Build look a milestone. Today, just to succeed, small time architects have to become developers themselves (or work in giant corporations) that is unless they go to become in house architects within pub chains (apparently these are the best paid opportunities) where god knows what they do other than 'defurbish' properties with  cast offs.
Meanwhile those architect friends of mine who couldn't stand their developers (who suddenly started behaving like architects) gave up the business.
We don't teach any of this. An architecture course is not a real estate course. But we do encourage a lot of fantasy in the name of 'design', almost to the point that it is hardly design at all, but illustrated storytelling. Witness this exchange at the Bartlett:

Prof:       'Put a giraffe in that drawing, giraffes are funny...'
Student:  'But I don't think giraffes are funny!'
Prof:       'Just put a giraffe in the drawing.'

Meanwhile, if you are working as a developer, you'd better put your time into those gross to net ratios. An architect estimating 80% when it actually comes out closer to 75% is, in the end, responsible for people sipping their cappuccino on a postage stamp of 'public space' beneath 30 stories of office space. You can't blame developers for making money, but you can encourage architects to take lessons from Mies van de Rohe, who managed to broker that piazza on Madison Avenue and who certainly understood his gross to net.