In most countries across the world you get yourself a job after graduating in architecture. You’ll still probably continue to pull all-nighters every now and again in an attempt to please your boss and because working overtime is a given in architecture even when you work for yourself.

In Ghana, you graduate from your Postgraduate Diploma, complete your one year National Service, and then find yourself a paid job. In most cases, your job will be greatly demanding and yes, you’ll end up doing overtime. That’s not all. You also have to work on your Private Projects (PP). That is if you have private clients at all. Private Projects are projects you take on outside of your official job – your second job. Why? Because as a professional, having spent the most part of your twenties preparing to embark on a reputable career, you can’t financially rely on one source of income. Not in Ghana. There is nothing wrong with having two jobs. The problem is how do you manage your time and resources between what your boss expects from you at work and what your Private Project Client demands from you? Is this a sustainable method of practice? The Architects’ Project used tap:Exchange to introduce some of the challenges often faced as both employees and employers in practice when it comes to issues such as time management, resource allocation, productivity and commitment.

The Architects’ Project asks “where do you draw the line between “your job and your Private Project?” The ultimate question is, must we draw a line between the two? Or can we engineer a revolutionary method of practice to satisfy both what the employer and employee wants as architects, whilst releasing the financial burden which often is the cause of working on Private Projects. How do we make architectural practice sustainable economically, socially, professionally and productively when we find ourselves stuck in constant conflict of interest? As a research project, Tactics and Resilience in Architectural Practice explores emerging forms of practices in Ghana. The aim is to define a sustainable method of practice that reflects the changing norms of architecture in its context.