When speaking about economics the majority of the people that are not economist think in terms of money, but even though it has to do with finance it is much more than speaking about expenses and revenues; it is about designing in a way that we can deliver additional value.
In countries with strong economies, architecture can be driven to be more eccentric, big buildings, and parametric shapes; which calls the attention to most human beings for the luxurious looks. In my opinion this type of design can seem silly when applied in countries like Colombia where the resources are limited and the social problems are many. Weaker economies can provide challenging architecture projects, since there are more situations to be solved. This is when thinking on economic terms, problems can be turned into opportunities.
The economic value of architecture should play a bigger role in reducing the energy consumption and the construction impact on the earth. Through an advanced design the energy consumption of the users can be reduced and even if this type of designs are more expensive in the short term than the traditional architecture, by showing the proper data, the clients can be convinced that spending more can be saving more. Its a win-win situation, the clients save money, the architect gets the money for the project and the new building is friendly with the environment.
I consider that to be successful in any discipline there are two main factors to take into account, creativity and economics. To make a business out of architecture we need to use globalization as an inspiration, by analyzing the global scale to apply architecture in a creative and useful way. A wider context can make us see what additional value we can add to societies, but it is equally important to also analyze the smaller scales. In this way we can collect all the evidence to show the added value and be able to quantify it.
