The celebrity architect

I like a TV show called Room to Improve. In the show a celebrity architect called Dermot lends his expertise to people who are renovating their houses. He’s been doing this show for years. I’m sure he’s standing on a platform of enough fails, mistakes, learnings and successes over the years to really cement the label “expert” because he seems to see every single detail of what the renovation should be. Not just the architecture, he sees interior design detail too, colors, textures, tiles, kitchen units, lighting etc. right throughout the design. And he doesn’t neglect a single detail.

People get him because they know he’s good.

Yet, in every episode when he presents his design, the clients will often question everything and suggest changes much to Dermot’s friendly annoyance.

Objectional

As the build progresses and the detail starts to emerge, Dermot is all over it. Yet, like clockwork, the clients will find some aspect of the design or some aesthetical detail objectionable. Inevitably, there will be a prolonged back and fourth between the clients and Dermot. It will generally escalate to include the builder and the quantity-surveyor who is responsible for keeping the build within budget.

Words such as “function”, “space”, and “aspect” will be thrown about with great conviction by the clients who now appear to be experts on such matters much to Dermot’s dismay. It’s often (but not always) blatantly clear that the clients should trust Dermot and not compromise his design by making arbitrary changes that do not align with the overall vision.

Why does this inevitably always happen?

1. It’s orchestrated by the TV show producers for drama?
2. The clients do actually know what they want and their opinions should be respected?
3. Something else is at play?

(Nope, the clients are not narcissists.)

Well, it’s all of the above in different proportions depending on the specific situation. However, what is the “something else”?

Something else

The something else is of course quite simply that people do not like to be told what to do. People like to be autonomous, in charge of their own affairs, like what they like and want what they want. I.e. people like to be in control.

This is not narcissism, it is basic human nature to seek control.

The show often ends up in a situation where the clients are digging in their heals about some detail of the design yet a proven expert is telling them in no uncertain terms that they are wrong and that they are making a mistake and it is going to cost them money. Viewers, I’m sure, myself included often see it as the clients knowing their own needs and knowing their own home, and this is fair.

However, in reality, is it likely that a significant proportion of the dynamic is simply a power-play, a push pull struggle for control? Is it possible that the detail being contested is often secondary to the struggle for control?

Has the struggle for control taken over the entire thing?