How can you say this when you know next to nothing about this guy, his family, where he may have to live, his financial situation, etc.?
no, i didn’t expect to design multimillion dollar buildings. i did expect to work on interesting projects in various capacities. i was promised that. what i got was two years of drafting.
i know that i’ll get saddled with production work wherever i go. i expect that, and i need that. i want to learn, and that’s the place to start. but working ** with ** architects on projects is different than working ** for ** architects on projects. being a designer at heart, and working for people that have only a passing interest in design begins to wear on you after a few years. that’s why i quit. after 2 years things aren’t going to magically get better. and in the worst possible scenario, pumping autocad on projects that are interesting to me at my new job will beat out pumping autocad on terrible projects at my old job any day.
i’m no veteran, but i know how things work in our office and i assume that things are pretty similar in a majority of firms across the nation. sure, coming out of school was pretty shocking, but who isn’t thrown for a loop when they start their first job?
People spend, on average, 93% (OK, no cite, just from lectures at Uni) of their lives inside man-made artifical environmnets - whether this is at home, work, pubs, shopping, cinema etc… or travel in cars, planes, buses.
All those buildings have been designed by someone. Many lovingly designed, sweated over for months or years. Regardless of whether people recognise or notice the design, they carry an enormous influence in the quality of your life, they affect almost everything you do.
Architecture is the mother of all arts.
Downbylaw , I guess it depends on which practice you work in or even in which city / country. I walked straight into a job from Uni and am designing mulit-million pound buildings. Maybe thats just lucky.
I still have my share of house extensions to do, and crappy retail fitouts and college maintenence works etc…
But, the big jobs are not the pleasers - The small intervention in someones life, the low budget challenge to create the best possible space is definitely more rewarding than the corporate office blocks.
OK, that was a little harsh. Chalk it up to an end-of-the-day post. I shouldn’t say that he shouldn’t practice, or even that he shouldn’t buy that house. But I was responding to this:
Now if the co-worker is a drafter who doesn’t intend to become an architect, then I shouldn’t expect him to have the same sensibility to design. And since he is being paid diddly-squat, cost is an important factor in the decision.
But getting people to focus on QUALITY over QUANTITY is exactly what architects should do - its one of the fundemental things we provide.
A good book about this subject is “The Not-So-Big House” which discusses how you can reduce the size of a house by designing how it will be used, making it more efficient, and then you can take the savings (because its a smaller house) and use them to increase the finish of the house. So it costs the same but it fits your life better. And it has personality. And etc. etc.
But I will stand by the intent of what I said: if architects don’t care about where they live they shouldn’t be architects.
exactly.
this guy has his 4 year environmental design degree and is planning on getting his masters and eventually getting licensed, i’d assume.
when i was on my interview we started talking about architects’ homes, and he said a lot of his coworkers when he worked back at ** the big-time firm ** didn’t care about their houses. their wives took care of that. man, i just can’t understand it. designing is what you do. i can’t imagine being so apathetic about your home. i told my girl if we ever get married, it’s my show. hey, if you married a chef, you’d have to let the guy cook. a gardener is ging to have a garden. that;s just how it should be.
I’m an urban planner, and architecture is something I care about deeply. While I’m interested in the artistic aspects of it, I’m also aware of how the building fits in the space provided for it, how people move through it and around it, and how it functions.
How many floors? Devoted to what uses? Where is the parking? Where do the parking structures empty onto the street? What’s next to the building? What does it do to the amount of light getting to the street? Does it encroach into the public right of way? What does it do to the viewshed? All of those things have to be taken into consideration.
Next time you’ve got a few minutes and you’re out and about, take a look around you and notice the “look” of your surroundings. Do the buildings “fit?” They don’t have to all be of the same style to do so. The best example of this I"ve ever seen is in Richmond, at the university I attended. You can stand at a T intersection and look down a one way street. On your immediate left is a Gothic cathedral (stone, massive). On your right is a high-rise dorm constructed in the mid-1950s (brick, vertical, with stone cornices). Right behind the dorm, but till within your view, is a series of early 20th century row houses (brick, two story, front porches, small lawns in front). At the end of the view shed is a hybrid Greek-Revival/modern library (temple facade with glass - it works oddly enough). Across the street, and still within the viewshed, is a mid-1960s four story classroom building (brick, thoroughly modern looking box). I’ve taken several pictues of that view over the years and it really does hang together pretty well. People use the space, the variation in the buildings keeps the space interesting (mixture of scales, materials, setbacks, facades).
Every once in awhile you’ll find interesting little niches of space. Keep your eyes open.
Myself, I like dancing about architecture. 
\slight hijack
epeepunk and downbylaw
As an HVAC engineer (EIT about halway towards getting my PE) I realise that art in architecture is very important, but don’t forget about the MEP (mechanical, electrical, plumbing) aspect of design. You will have others design these parts for you, but if you don’t give them the room they need then your design may be ruined. I can’t tell you how many projects I’ve worked on where the architect doesn’t give us a large enough mechanical room or not enough space above the ceiling and had to change the design to the point where he isn’t happy with the design or with us. So once you start really designing keep us little poeple in mind and be willing to compromise.
\end of hijack
downbylaw said:
Not knocking you, becuase I think you’re right. I love architecture, though I admit to not knowing much about it. But most people see building in most cases as just boxes to walk into, until they’re confronted with something strange and wonderful (or not so much so). Our library was designed by Michael Graves, and got a lot of attention from normal people when it was going up. Most still love our Ponti-designed art museum, and the new Libeskind addition has been talked about a lot. I think, though, that, like most everything else, 90 percent of architecture is crap, and people don’t pay crap too much attention.
But let me turn it around for you. You bemoan people not being able to name architects. How many automotive designers can you name?
That makes about as much sense as “if architects don’t care about where they work they shouldn’t be architects.” Families and businesses often have to make do with what’s available to them. If you want to start up an architectural firm in, say, midtown Manhattan, are you going to build your own office building? No. You’re going to find a couple floors in an existing building that’s suitable and tailor them to your needs. I would imagine you would care insofar as you would want the office to be inviting and impressive, but in terms of the building itself, to build your own would be impossible.
The problem with this particular architect is that it might be the case that he can’t design his own home. If he wants to live in the WonderView Acres subdivision where his kids can walk to school and the playground is just across the street or whatever, there are probably only a half dozen or so models that he can choose from. He has to weigh that against maybe building a custom place further away. And guess what? The kids win. (I’m just making this up for the sake of argument, you understand). Should he not practice architecture because of that? Maybe cut the guy some slack.
architecture has been an art since art began. automotive design is an infant in comparison. i don’t think you can compare the two.
i can name the bmw lead designer, christopher bangle. pininfarina is a design house who has worked with ferrari and maserati. jay mays designed the new beetle. i think he defected to ford and designed the new mustang. i used to know who designed those terrible pontiacs, but i’ve blocked the memory since it’s so horrid.
I like to think I am somewhat interested in architecture - my sister almost got a degree in architecture, and I was at least introduced to architecture in two semesters of humanities class some 35 years ago - but I am afraid that the only architects whose names come to my mind are Frank Lloyd Wright and I. M. Pei. I’ve heard the name Mies van der Rohe before, but I could not have told you he was an architect. There is at least one medival designer of churches whose name I would recognize if I heard it. But that’s about it.
I might be able to come up with the names of 5 sculptors if I thought about it long enough.
And the previous comments are right. I can easily come up with the names of twenty or thirty painters, probably many more, with just a little thought. Not only that, I can recognize who painted what, in many cases. For several of those painters, I can properly identify quite a few of their works. In the case of the architects, I can name five of Wright’s buildings but there are only three that I am sure I could pick out of pictures of similar buildings. For I. M. Pei, I can only recognize one.
I have not spent any time in art classes - just those same two humanities classes 35 years ago. So why are the painters so much easier? Several reasons, I think. It is much easier to reproduce paintings in books, on TV, etc., without loosing much of the beauty of the original. To appreciate architecture, you really need to spend time inside and outside the building. Like sculpture, you have to see the work from many angles to really see what the artist has done. With a painting, a two-dimensional photograph can give you a large percentage of the effect that seeing the original would give. So we enjoy and remember reproductions of paintings much more than photos of buildings. This also means that painting get reproduced and displayed more often than buildings.
Also, painters are more free to be distinctive. To be a successful architect, the architect must design buildings which are more or less practical. Once you say that a building must protect its contents from the weather, must support its own weight, must allow for lighting and plumbing, etc., you have placed limits on how different it can be from other buildings. Painters have no such limits. (Would you want to live in a house designed by Jackson Pollock?) I can identify only a few schools of architecture, but I can, as I said, identify the works of many individual painters.
Automotive designers? Henry Ford. Ransom Olds. The Duryeas. Porshe. That’s about it. But how many cars today are designed by one man, instead of a committee?
I guess downbylaw can come a lot closer to answering my last question than I can.
And I do know the difference between “loosing” and “losing,” really I do.
downbythelaw,
I am in complete agreement with you about disallusionment.
I Studied Architecture up until my senior year. I also was studying art. I was dumbfounded by the amount of architecture students that didnt consider art important. Or that weren’t even remotely interested in art in the least.
So I left and got my art degree. I then worked in the arts for a few years and decided to go back to architecture.I went back to architecture school. I am now 3 classes shy of my degree, but i again dropped out. I could not bear the pretentiousness of it.
I have been working at in architecture firms for over 4 years now. (i went while going to school the second time around).
In architecture school, depending on where you go, architecture becomes a lifestyle. you eat drink and sleep (just barely though) architecture. It kind of reminds me of the poets society in that you have groups of people living passionatly.
then
reality
hits.
The real world is nothing like what they lead us to believe in school. Schools for the most part (at least mine) are more interested in teaching design rather than how a building actually works and is put together, believe it or not. I can not believe that my school still DOES not over autocad. That students are graduating not knowing a damn thing about gyp bd, hat channels, and in short, all the MEP stuff. You have a nation of clueless architecture students flooding the field.
and yes, we do learn the ropes at our firms. But often times, you are put to work in an office where you do the same thing all day long so you never really learn the ropes. You know one thing and one thing well.
The disallusionment is very high in our field. Here in Texas you need to have three years in internship before you can apply for the tests (5 years if you only have a bachelor’s degree). THEN you take 9 tests. ANd this wouldn’t be so bad but honestly, the pay really is not that great. Especially when you consider the very long hours and the liabilty and work load. The number of people registering as architects dwindles every year. Why work as an architect when you can make twice as much as a web designer, for example?
and I don’t know why, but architects on a whole seem to be bitter jaded highly critical people. It gets tiresome especially when you find that you are drifting there yourself.
It was a shock to go from architecture (where teachers would critisize everything to death and in short would be rude pricks) to art (where everything is beautiful and nothing is ugly :rolleyes: )
so now I find myself in a similar boat. The older I get the more art lures my heart. But then, I always did consider architecture to be a giant sculpture. (which reminds me of Frank G. Hated his early work. love his new stuff).
I could go on, but it depresses me to think that everything I lived passionately for I now question.
epeepunk,
additudes like yours are exactly what I am talking about.
your statement about architect’s houses…
um…You haven’t entered the ‘real’ world yet, have you?
You still are wet behind the ears it seems, with a statement like that.
Do you not realize the cost of things?
even taking the cost of the home into consideration, there is the cost of land.
I have a friend who studied architecture with me. He has kids. He can’t afford to design his own home. this makes him less passionate than me simply because I bought a home that was designed by a ‘real’ architect? Maybe he should move far into the country so he can afford a lot. maybe that will make him less hypocritical?
that’s awfully niave of you.
I am very glad to hear that you won’t be moving into apartmentland when you get your first job. That would be hypocritical, no? I hope you can afford to live in a Koolhaus designed flat in NYC.
and
“Now if the co-worker is a drafter who doesn’t intend to become an architect, then I shouldn’t expect him to have the same sensibility to design. And since he is being paid diddly-squat, cost is an important factor in the decision.”
wow are you in for a rude awakening.
all the firms I have worked at, CAD jockeys get paid a lot more than interns. This is mainly because (A) they are hired through outside sources (B) CAD jockeys are actually know CAD and are fast at it. Interns tend to not know the program well and make many mistakes in learning it. and (C) as interns, we need the time under our belt for internship requirements. The firms know this and pay accordingly.
capybara:
“I do like the de Stijl kids, Mies and Gerrit Rietveld and that crowd.”
Mies is not a destijl architect. Just wanted to clarify.
anyway,
I wish you guys the best in your careers in architecture.
I live near the new museum Ando is building and driving by it everyday is simply inspiring. It makes it worth it at times. 
downbythelaw,
I am in complete agreement with you about disallusionment.
I Studied Architecture up until my senior year. I also was studying art. I was dumbfounded by the amount of architecture students that didnt consider art important. Or that weren’t even remotely interested in art in the least.
So I left and got my art degree. I then worked in the arts for a few years and decided to go back to architecture.I went back to architecture school. I am now 3 classes shy of my degree, but i again dropped out. I could not bear the pretentiousness of it.
I have been working at in architecture firms for over 4 years now. (i went while going to school the second time around).
In architecture school, depending on where you go, architecture becomes a lifestyle. you eat drink and sleep (just barely though) architecture. It kind of reminds me of the poets society in that you have groups of people living passionatly.
then
reality
hits.
The real world is nothing like what they lead us to believe in school. Schools for the most part (at least mine) are more interested in teaching design rather than how a building actually works and is put together, believe it or not. I can not believe that my school still DOES not over autocad. That students are graduating not knowing a damn thing about gyp bd, hat channels, and in short, all the MEP stuff. You have a nation of clueless architecture students flooding the field.
and yes, we do learn the ropes at our firms. But often times, you are put to work in an office where you do the same thing all day long so you never really learn the ropes. You know one thing and one thing well.
The disallusionment is very high in our field. Here in Texas you need to have three years in internship before you can apply for the tests (5 years if you only have a bachelor’s degree). THEN you take 9 tests. ANd this wouldn’t be so bad but honestly, the pay really is not that great. Especially when you consider the very long hours and the liabilty and work load. The number of people registering as architects dwindles every year. Why work as an architect when you can make twice as much as a web designer, for example?
and I don’t know why, but architects on a whole seem to be bitter jaded highly critical people. It gets tiresome especially when you find that you are drifting there yourself.
It was a shock to go from architecture (where teachers would critisize everything to death and in short would be rude pricks) to art (where everything is beautiful and nothing is ugly :rolleyes: )
so now I find myself in a similar boat. The older I get the more art lures my heart. But then, I always did consider architecture to be a giant sculpture. (which reminds me of Frank G. Hated his early work. love his new stuff).
I could go on, but it depresses me to think that everything I lived passionately for I now question.
epeepunk,
additudes like yours are exactly what I am talking about.
your statement about architect’s houses…
um…You haven’t entered the ‘real’ world yet, have you?
You still are wet behind the ears it seems, with a statement like that.
Do you not realize the cost of things?
even taking the cost of the home into consideration, there is the cost of land.
I have a friend who studied architecture with me. He has kids. He can’t afford to design his own home. this makes him less passionate than me simply because I bought a home that was designed by a ‘real’ architect? Maybe he should move far into the country so he can afford a lot. maybe that will make him less hypocritical?
that’s awfully niave of you.
I am very glad to hear that you won’t be moving into apartmentland when you get your first job. That would be hypocritical, no? I hope you can afford to live in a Koolhaus designed flat in NYC.
and
“Now if the co-worker is a drafter who doesn’t intend to become an architect, then I shouldn’t expect him to have the same sensibility to design. And since he is being paid diddly-squat, cost is an important factor in the decision.”
wow are you in for a rude awakening.
all the firms I have worked at, CAD jockeys get paid a lot more than interns. This is mainly because (A) they are hired through outside sources (B) CAD jockeys are actually know CAD and are fast at it. Interns tend to not know the program well and make many mistakes in learning it. and (C) as interns, we need the time under our belt for internship requirements. The firms know this and pay accordingly.
capybara:
“I do like the de Stijl kids, Mies and Gerrit Rietveld and that crowd.”
Mies is not a destijl architect. Just wanted to clarify.
anyway,
I wish you guys the best in your careers in architecture.
I live near the new museum Ando is building and driving by it everyday is simply inspiring. It makes it worth it at times.
ugh. upon rereading the thread I see where epeepunk was making his clarification.
sorry. Didn’t mean to sound like one of those critical types myself.
Long day and the plotter is sloooooooooooooow and I cant leave til its done.
Just the same, Epee, watch out for saying stuff like that.
You will find that your empassioned words about hypocriticalness in architecture will find a way to come back and bite you in the ass.
for example:
That gruesome toady in your class? The one you couldn’t STAND? The snotnosed one?
ugh. you may work with him one day. Trust me I know! (or worse, he may end up being your boss!)
cheers!
I’m a big fan of Bauhaus and Deco. I admit my knowledge of architecture has significant gaps (like 1600-1880 or so), but what I like, I like passionately.
My favorite architect is I.M. Pei. I can wander the Javitts Center for days, and I always pray any East Coast trade shows I have to attend (when I’m working, that is) are held there.
One thing, though. I detest, I mean really loathe, is Frank Lloyd Wright. His aesthetics just bore me senseless. I hate his “look” from every one of his periods. I hate his “feel”. I hate his work so much that I find it difficult not to hate him personally, even though I know nothing about him.
There are only two things I don’t like about living in Arizona: The tourists and the over-abundance of FLW-inspired architecture.
Mr. Cranky was an architect for awhile. He too did a lot of drafting, instead of designing. He eventually left the field (although he did spend several of those years in a satisfying position working with a guy who designed residential homes in a style My. Cranky liked). But he found that unless he was willing to go out on his own (which he should have done) he was generally going to have to draft a lot. For very little pay. One of his classmates, however, went into his own practice and now does very well doing catholic churches.
downbylaw, I second the recommendation that you head down to Columbus, IN. It’s what happens when a small town gets passionate about architecture and really invests in it.
Cranky, I’d be curious as to what churches your hubby’s buddy has worked on.
Modern church architecture drives me insane, because it’s so blasted utilitarian. While I understand the preference of allocating funds to church programs rather than the building, I can’t stand the notion that a church can be beautified in addition to the other needs.
I’m a big fan of older churches, particularly the ones we have here in Philadelphia and those I’ve seen in Italy and Spain. The sheer detail in some of those buildings is incredible, be it engravings in the marble columns (which double as support), frescoes painted throughout the building, tile mosaics on the floor, etc. It’s beautiful and uplifting at all the same time.
…whereas today’s churches look like, as Eve described it, a Kleenex box. There’s a church on the Philadelphia border that I swear is a renovated supermarket. From a distance, that’s what you’d think it was. ARGH!
"But he found that unless he was willing to go out on his own "
the liability insurance is astronomical.
Not saying this can’t be done (it’s obviously done all the time) but working for a small firm now I realize this.
older style churches are nice, but they are very much more expensive than “kleneex boxes”. This is especially true of Italian Renaissance churches (if these are the ones you are referring to). It’s kind of like comparing the price of Bentley to a pair of shoes.
A lot of the work done in Italian churches was done for free by the congregation (or in some cases, extortion).
They were built in a time where devotion to the church was everything. This is not the case now. Everyone likes to look at pretty churches, but no one really wants to fund them.