Libby Heathcote, an associate director at Reiach and Hall Architects, is the new president of the Royal Incorporation of Architects in Scotland (RIAS). Libby recently told Project Scotland about her priorities for the role and what the future holds for Scotland’s architecture industry
Q) What will be your main areas of focus during your presidency?
A) To help clients, public bodies and construction project managers understand what a healthy design process looks like. We must demonstrate how a rigorous design process is in their best interest, takes time and requires their active involvement.
I propose to build on the work done by the Royal Incorporation of Architects in Scotland (RIAS) to address major issues facing architects in Scotland, including an over-stretched planning system, procurement reform, and building safety. By leveraging a new overarching member-led policy working group (Praxis) and online forums there are now many ways for members to share their views and expertise.
(I also want) to communicate our skills to a broader audience, ensuring our value is clearly understood by society at large.
Q) How important do you believe professional bodies like the RIAS are in the modern era?
A) They are very important, now more than ever. Architects have less and less time in the challenging market we face. We need trusted, professional support, sources and guidance. The RIAS reviews and researches new initiatives, legislation changes, technologies and all aspects that impact the profession. It produces fortnightly practice notes that can be digested by the membership in their own time in addition to providing access to over 50 hours of structured CPD. In short, the RIAS provides the infrastructure to enable its members to demonstrate competency.
We need our membership bodies to advocate, promote and defend the architectural profession, to highlight the invaluable impact of architecture on society.
Q) What do you see as some of the biggest challenges and opportunities for the architecture profession in Scotland right now?
A) In terms of opportunity, this is a pivotal moment for the profession to restate what it is we do. Over recent decades, deregulation and procurement models have fragmented traditional architectural services. As a result, many core functions have been redistributed, renamed, or split across different roles, including project management, contract administration, BIM coordination, design coordination, site supervision, design team leadership, and Principal Designer duties.
A consequence is that these gaps were/are not always clearly or consistently filled elsewhere. Instead, responsibility has often become diffuse, with risk increasingly transferred without equivalent clarity of control or accountability.
At the same time, there is now a noticeable shift in industry expectations. Following long-standing criticism of design & build procurement — and considering past failures —clients and public bodies are increasingly prioritising design quality and encouraging more design resolution in the pre-construction phase. Scottish Government recent guidance, for example, reflects a move towards earlier design completion. Contractors are also seeking greater design certainty before fixing a price, reducing tolerance for unresolved design risk.
Within this context, the profession faces a fundamental challenge: architects are still expected to deliver a wide range of critical coordination, design, and compliance functions, but are often not remunerated in a way that reflects the responsibility involved and the resource required to discharge. This imbalance has significant professional consequences. Many architects experience what the medical profession describes as moral injury or moral distress — the psychological strain that arises when professionals are required, by systemic constraints, to act in ways that conflict with their professional standards or obligations.
Ultimately, the key issue is not whether these functions are necessary — they clearly are — but whether architects are properly recognised, commissioned, and paid to deliver them safely and effectively.
Without that correction, the profession risks continuing to subsidise systemic inefficiencies in the construction industry. We must address this now.
Q) What, in your view, should we be doing to ease the pressure on SMEs and help them to flourish?
A) Reform the procurement of architectural services: Public sector contracts should be broken into smaller, accessible lots that align with the capacity of Scottish SMEs.
Bundling the design of a number of the same building type together under a contractor framework effectively locks out smaller local practices (and) reduces design quality by creating an efficiency in numbers approach, which means the only way to break even/not make a loss is to reduce time spent, therefore a stock response that doesn’t necessarily put place and people at the centre.
Q) What role do you see for AI and other new technologies in shaping the future of architectural design?
A) I just finished reading that ‘AI will not replace architects, but architects who use AI will replace those who do not!’ We need to embrace it as we have continued to do with all new technologies.
However, the great potential of AI needs to be balanced with responsible use so as not to risk undermining and corroding the reputation of the profession. We all need training and support.
I do remain positively sceptical about AI’s ability to worry, question, and possess the level of doubt and compassion needed to be an architect.
Q) How pivotal will architects be in helping Scotland achieve its sustainability ambitions?
A) The built environment generates a massive portion of national emissions and therefore architects must ensure that their clients/commissioning bodies are in possession of the facts and are properly informed to enable them to make the right decisions.
Architects can take horses to water, but we cannot make them drink. We can promote adaptive reuse and EnerPHit over demolition, specify low-carbon materials, push for Passivhaus, BREEAM, LEED, however, whilst architects can directly translate net-zero policies into reality, it is the clients, commissioning bodies and project managers that have the power to approve or not the proposed designs.
Scotland suffers currently from a culture of cost driving the bus, where upfront cost trumps long-term value. As a society we urgently need to address this.
