Julia Barfield is managing director of Marks Barfield Architects. Now 68, she co-founded the practice with David Marks in 1989 after working for Foster+Partners and Richard Rogers Partnership. Knowing what you know now, did you make the right decision to be an architect? Would you still be one if you were starting out today? Yes. I feel it's a privilege being an architect and creating things every day that are both useful and, hopefully, beautiful. At school, I liked both arts and sciences so architecture, a marriage of the two, was the natural outcome. However I was lucky, as all my fees at the Architectural Association were paid for by the local authority - I wouldn't have been able to go there otherwise. Today, I wonder if the cost of architectural education outweighs its value. Perhaps what's needed is more of a combination of practice and academic study, which would make it more affordable for many. We're looking at possibly getting people from the London School of Architecture, which is organised more along those lines. Certainly I learnt the most when I started working at Richard Rogers Partnership, and then at Foster's.
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