Editor’s Note:

This article is part of Entralon Hub’s Leadership View series, where senior real estate leaders examine the structural forces shaping the next phase of residential investment and market behaviour.

In this feature, Iwein Meyskens, Managing Director at archipelago architects, examines how long-term contractual frameworks are expanding the architect’s role from a designer of fixed outcomes to a contributor shaping life-cycle value, long-term performance, and the future behaviour of buildings.

For much of modern practice, the architect’s role has been clearly defined.

Design the building, deliver the drawings, support construction, and step aside once the asset is handed over.

Long-term contractual models are quietly dissolving that boundary.

In DBFM(O) and similar frameworks, buildings are not evaluated at completion but across decades of use. Performance, adaptability, and operational reliability become contractual obligations rather than abstract aspirations. As a result, the architect’s contribution is no longer confined to the moment of delivery.

From designer to life-cycle contributor

When responsibility extends over 30 or 40 years, design decisions can no longer be isolated from their long-term consequences. Choices related to structure, materials, layout, and systems directly influence maintenance cycles, operational flexibility, and the ability of a building to evolve.

Within this context, architects are increasingly drawn upstream into earlier, more strategic conversations. Their role expands from producing design outputs to shaping how a building behaves over time.

This does not require architects to become operators or owners. But it does require them to understand how design intent translates into long-term performance. The building is no longer a finished product; it is an evolving system.

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Designing scenarios, not just solutions

In performance-based projects, uncertainty is not an exception, it is the baseline.

Architectural work therefore shifts from delivering a single, fixed solution toward designing for multiple future scenarios. Buildings must accommodate changes in use, regulation, technology, and social behaviour without losing coherence or functionality.

This requires a different mindset. Drawings are no longer endpoints; they are instruments for anticipating long-term use. Design quality is measured not only by clarity at tender stage, but by resilience across time.

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A redefinition shaped by contracts, not ideology

This transformation is not driven by architectural theory. It is driven by contractual reality.