“Bring home the Bacon” is an idiom from the 12th Century. The quote became famous in 1906 after Joe Gans won the World Lightweight Boxing Championship in an epic 42-round battle. His mother’s telegram from the night before stated “Joe, the eyes of the world are on you. Everybody says you ought to win. Peter Jackson will tell me the news and you bring home the bacon”. The New York Times quoted Joe’s post fight telegram reply to his mother stating he "had not only the bacon, but the gravy”.

As 2021 draws to a close we find ourselves in a world where bacon has recently soared 20.2% in price and the consumer price index is at an 18 year high. If the gravy of Joe Gans’ era was modern maple syrup it would have recently risen 12% in price.

The amount of compensation paid to an architect for the provision of specific services has always been a challenging and polarizing discussion. Since its release in 2019, the RAIC Guide to Determining Appropriate Fees for the Services of an Architect (RAIC Fee Guide) has been accessed over 3500 times. Historically that access has been at no cost to members and at a small fee for others. The RAIC is proud to announce that as of January 4, 2022, the Fee Guide will be freely accessible by anyone, public and professional alike, at no cost.

Removing access restrictions to the RAIC Fee Guide at this juncture is not a whim or website update. It is deliberate and gives the architectural community the opportunity to reflect on the profession’s state of resilience, the upcoming salary challenges– felt by both employer and employee–and the rate and method by which we monetize design services for sustainability.

Undervaluing design fees today means betting your future against the existence of hyperinflation that will elevate the price of everything from software to hand soap, the Central Bank’s stated intention to raise interest rates and end quantitative easing, the continuance of stressed and damaged supply chains, building materials and oil futures going up, digital currencies with programmable expiration dates being released by Central Banks, increased wage demands by employees, food prices shooting up 15% within the next 12 months, the stock market being relinked to the real economy and the COVID-19 virus sticking around for the foreseeable future.

While architects have no poverty of culture, they are displaying signs of a culture of poverty.  This manifests itself in interns not being paid a living wage that accounts for debts incurred from years of restricted income to mid-career professionals considering new career paths, and professionals having to extend careers past traditional retirement. We need to reconsider our current cultural biases and learn to adopt new business models and billing practices if we are to empower learned, skilled, and licensed design professionals from internship to retirement.

The RAIC Fee Guide is not a salvation, but it may serve the profession well given that the offer sought by clients now extends beyond price, quality and service to include speed.  Providing quality- service and speed with an undervalued fee increases the likelihood that the architect’s personal income will be the residual left over after all other expenses are paid.  Architects are not residuals.

Enabling open access to the RAIC Fee Guide is a step in the right direction to achieving these goals.