ABSTRACT
Collaboration may have got a bad name in the Second World War but architects know that to get a good outcome a project needs a client with ambition, a design team that can listen, imagine and deliver, and a responsible construction team, all working together. Most of them like to talk about those special projects that really flew, where everyone collaborated without resort to risk-dumping contracts – and the users love the result. In 1995 the late Sir Jack Zunz, the then chairman of the Arup Foundation, invited the presidents of the RIBA and the Institution of Civil Engineers to propose ways for their members to work better together. In 2015 architects published the report of the Edge Commission on the Future of Professionalism, Collaboration for Change, by Paul Morrell. This built on four debates in which the Edge invited eight institutions and a group of younger professionals to consider their prospects.
