The Necessity of Non-Linear and Experimental Architectural Practice in the Age of Financial Uncertainty

Since its inception in 1963, The Royal Institute of Architects (RIBA) Plan of Work has provided a linear framework of work stages allowing architects to clearly navigate clients through the necessary stages of a design project (RIBA. 2020). A document remaining unchanged until 2013 when ‘Stage 0 - Strategic Definition’ was added as part of a broader overview. In 2010 the UK Coalition government deployed an economic strategy that would attempt to rebalance the effects of the global economic crisis (Berman, Y. Hovland, T. 2024). These policies would herald the ‘period of austerity’, a time defined by severe cuts to all aspects of public funding. In 2025 this economic uncertainty remains with continued suppression of funding to local government, education, culture and the wider arts (Ogden, K., Phillips, D.,Winchester, N. 2024). This sustained financial uncertainty is consequently placing arts, education, and community organisations in precarious situations. Stymied by lack of financial resource, they are unable to procure the professional design services of architects to assist develop and deliver projects that would offer them more economically sustainable futures.

Our ongoing and varied collaborations with such organisations are a direct response to this issue. Repositioning ourselves as ‘academic practice researchers’, we uniquely operate in the liminal space between professional practice and academia, offering volunteer design services to assist instigate design projects, whilst documenting this work as practice – based research. Impactful, socially and community engaged work desirous and required by institutional research objectives. Emerging from challenging conditions, these projects reveal new, non-linear and experimental practice approaches that question tacit architectural protocols - more specifically, the linearity of standardised strategic frameworks. As a consequence of this multifaceted work, yet specifically through the lens of a practice-led research project carried out by the authors for an arts institution in Newcastle Upon Tyne (UK), this paper posits the RIBA plan of work requires further redefinition – the addition of ‘Work Stage 0.5’. A timely redefinition would bring potential benefits for the academic institution, enrich regional professional practice ecologies and bring positive social impact in this age of financial uncertainty.