When we hear the word globalization used in relation to architectural practice, we tend to think of the geographic expansion of professional markets. This is a process in which design structures located in one part of the world receive commissions that cross the geographic boundaries traditionally associated to that given architectural region and culture. Not that this is incorrect. In recent times, the mobile nature of capital, the use of building imagery as a primary tool of corporate communication, and the reorganization of production geographies (with the various infrastructural dis-equilibriums between developed and developing worlds), have all generated a substantial increase in the demand for, and the supply of, international design services. In Australia, for example, the export value of architectural services has grown by more than three times since the early 1990s, and it is currently estimated that 22% of the gross fees of Australian architects are earned offshore (RAIA, 1999:5). The Department of Foreign Affairs and Trade now recognizes that the architectural relationships between Australia and specific Asian nations – Indonesia, Malaysia, Singapore, Hong Kong and Thailand at present, Vietnam and the Philippines in the future – should be considered as part of Australia’s export strategy (Productivity Commission 2000:48). There are, however, clear signs indicating the parallel development of another type of globalization, lower-key and much less blatantly acknowledged than the first, this time relating to the division of labour internal to the design process. For a few years now, traces of a geographic separation between design activities have emerged amid the grounds of the architectural profession. In an increasing number of circumstances, design conception, production of working drawings, and site administration for the same project are carried out by components of the same organization located in different parts of the world. The many (but by-and- large anecdotal) examples include: • US architectural firms opening design documentation shops in India, Indonesia and Mexico • US engineering firms using draughtspersons in the Philippines and South Korea • the Californian university outsourcing structural consolidation drawings to Czech office locations, the Singaporean firm farming construction tender packages out to Manila • and more recently – in light of favourable currency fluctuations – Australian offices being contracted by Californian firms for the production of working documents. International cooperation in building design is not new. The whole epic of twentieth-century architecture, with its supranational thrust, has been accompanied by temporary associations between foreign master (or foreign office) and local technical cadres. Le Corbusier and Louis Kahn are the quintessential examples of this arrangement with their projects in India, Japan and Bangladesh (eventually followed by Vinoly, Gehry, Rossi, Eisenman, and a panoply of other world-famous designers). The scenario suggested in the preceding section, however, combines two elements that are practice arq . vol 5 . no 2 . 2001 171 This analysis shows how the increasing availability of computers in architectural practice and the steady development of electronic networks around the world could encourage the relocation of professional structures into countries with lower production costs. Starting from the existence of sharp professional wage differentials between developed and developing regions, it formulates the hypothesis that, in a few years, most architectural work could be documented in places such as South-East Asia and transferred digitally over to America, Australia or Europe. A true south for design? The new international division of labour in architecture Paolo Tombesi Author’s address Faculty of Architecture, Building and Planning The University of Melbourne Parkville Victoria 3010 Australia p.tombesi@architecture.unimelb.edu.au practice