Dr. Akash Angral is an experienced architect, having worked in the field for 14 years in his native India. His knowledge comes primarily from working on the process of planning, designing, and managing the construction of small to large scale industrial and residential buildings.

This knowledge and experience stems from the founding of his own practice in 2001, employing only 2 members of staff. By 2010, the business experienced great growth and success with the addition of architects, interior designers, site supervisors and business development executives.

His success in practice opened avenues in tutoring design and building construction models within architecture schools. It is was here where he discovered that academic curriculums in architecture did not prepare emerging architects for professional practice, in other words, programmes focused more on theoretical knowledge over practical.

Motivated by increasing his knowledge on this issue through delving further into social situations and technological advancements that confront architects in their day to day practice, as well as ‘informed clients of the digital age’, his observations made him think critically about the future of emerging architects amongst the changes that the profession is facing.

Particularly, he questioned the reasons that might discourage emerging architects from practicing in the age of digital technology, especially after paying hefty tuition fees, only to be left with job insecurity and a lack of practical skills in both practice and client relations.

His thoughts, discoveries, and motivations, coupled with his enjoyment of sharing his practical knowledge of real-world projects with emerging architects led him to ponder why this issue had not been addressed and whether such thoughts were commonly perceived.

His desire to answer these questions through further research began in 2014, when he arrived in Scotland to fulfil his ambition of completing a PhD and achieved this 5 years later in Architecture and Digital Design from the School of Simulation and Visualisation at the prestigious Glasgow School of Art.

It was his PhD thesis, entitled ‘Reshaping Architect-Client Relationships and Digital Technologies’ that helped pave the way for his future, with analysis of his research concluding that there was a commonly held misconception that architects were only affordable and accessible for affluent clients.

He also concluded that, despite a demand for their services, architects’ salaries were increasing at a slow pace and that this could be attributed to the idea of architects being marginalised by potential clients, whom instead, employed the services of cheaper and less experienced tradesmen who mostly completed jobs to a basic standard, which in the long run increased client expenses in terms of maintenance and overshooting of budgets.

Driven by his findings, as well as past experience within the field, he devised a solution in the form of a lucrative business venture that would directly address all issues.

This venture has come to be known as ‘ArchiPal’ and his goal is to revolutionise and transform the way architecture services are sought and delivered.

The Solution – ArchiPal