Subsidiary Architecture: Multi-Firm Practices and the Blurring of Distinction Between Large and Small Firms

Over the past two decades, small architecture firms have begun to develop secondary firms to supplement their practices, including rendering firms, post-occupancy-evaluation firms, as-built drawing firms, and computer consulting firms. This paper examines how these subsidiary practices began primarily within large-scale corporations during the 1960s and 1970s, as well as how these practices are informed by histories of post-industrialization and moments of economic instability. Combining both historical analysis with interviews of firm owners and business leaders, this paper reveals how and why the tendencies of large corporations are now visible in small firms, and how these practices obscure traditional distinctions between small design-driven firms, and large, commercially motivated firms.

https://doi.org/10.35483/ACSA.AM.108.124

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ISBN
978-1-944214-26-5