Middle-range Proficiency in the Professional Organization of Architecture and Building (case study: Design offices of engineer?s council of Qom)

The constructions of the building professional body has been a main research subject
in recent two decades. In Iran, the construction industry is mostly based on an
overwhelming pattern of mutual design practices where the majority of expert personals
are design and construction technicians. But these human forces have always been
marginalized within research discourse as well as the educational context of architecture.
The study aims at clarifying the occupational position of draftspersons and construction
technicians and their impact on architectural designs. The first part of the article, proposes a
conceptual framework for studying status of architectural technicians from antiquity to present
comparing Iran and the west. For the second part, a logical analysis of official documents is
used to produce a general model of the subject. The ethnographical strategy is chosen for the
third part of the research where middle-range forces of the small design practices of Qom are
studied (using deep observation, deep interview, and objective questionnaire technics) to be
compared with findings of previous studies and make conclusions. The results of this study
show that draftsman place in its historical evolution has experienced a vast change from an
expertise-based hierarchy towards societal hierarchy. The all models of the varieties of occupation
patterns of building technicians around the world are summed up in four conceptual models.
The difference of the models falls into directness or indirectness of the mediatory role of the
technician between architectural designer and other human figures in design decision making
(clients, law agents, other engineers of building and operational forces). For Iranian small design
practices, official duties, integration with clients and designing of some small projects are three
common roles of the technician that are not within their official defined education as well as
professional place. This fact invites to a review of their education an occupational pattern