This image really speaks to me. I think it illustrates the greatest problem in architecture practice. The hierarchy of offices are set up mostly as managers and “managees”. There really is no place for collaboration or any challenging of the status quo. Sure offices say they value the opinions of the interns and non-managers, but the whole hierarchy leads itself so that their ideas have to be greatly filtered before they reach anyone who can make any decisions. Now this is partly good, many interns don’t know their proverbial ass from their elbow when they first join an office, but I fear that a lot of stale architecture is made because the firms designing the buildings are top-down. The principals work with a lead designer who has a vision and then everyone else works to craft that vision. Studio Managers take direction from the designer, and in turn direct project architects, who craft red lines and cartoon sets so that the interns can generate drawings. All those layers are like the children’s game of telephone, in every step the designer’s ideas get diluted by management, and in the end even if the design was steller the final product is usually mediocre at best.
In the modern architect’s office there are no more drafting boards; if they exist, they serve as extensions of the desktop and become semi-permanent homes for check sets, red lines, specs and trace paper sketches. Instead, we work in CADD – Computer Aided Design and Drafting – usually short for Autodesk’s AutoCAD or Architectural Desktop/AutoCAD Architecture software. This software (in practice) is little more than hand-drafting+; it is rare to find a firm using the full three dimensional capabilities of the software. In addition, Autodesk’s CAD is PC only. There exist a handful of other pieces of drafting software for the PC – specifically Bently’s Microstation comes to mind, but truly Autodesk is the most popular girl at the dance. Mac users on the other hand have a rough and varied landscape of numerous semi and fully professional software solutions. Since purchasing my first Mac when Leopard was released (a Mac Mini – my last apple before this was a IIc), I have been trying as many of these programs as i can find. All in all i can not seem to find one that balances the speed of use of AutoCAD and its keyboard commands and a good integration [...]
The Washington Post ran an article by Philip Kennicott in this Sunday’s Style & Arts section about the massive building boom and its affect on the culture of architecture in china. The article goes into depth about how the western concept of permanency and a national architectural identity is in direct contrast to the Chinese (and very eastern) concept of impermanence and intellectual assimilation. This article paints a very interesting picture of how the “Star-chitect” designed buildings fit into the context of the awakening Beijing and compares them to the temporary workers housing. What intrigued me about this article is how it describes architectural education and the path of current and recent architecture students. The author describes that many students and recent graduates have portfolio’s filled with built projects, whereas here it may be years before a young architect (such as myself) can see any of their work built. This is all too true of an observation, and just like our falling math and language test scores this is an indication of our inability to keep up with world markets. It is common here to reserve “design” work for those who are already licensed and who have a thorough understanding [...]
This past weekend the Washington Post ran an article in their magazine describing one man’s trauma renovating his kitchen. It has some very negative things to say about the architect, the contractor, and the building process as a whole. It is obvious that there is blame to go around. Yes, the architect made poor design decisions and the contractor had his errors as well; but speaking as a member of the profession, I feel that the greatest problem here is with the public conception of what is the job of an architect. It is very clear what a contractor does. They interpret the architect/designer’s plans (or owner’s description) into a real built environment. Thats it. They may hire out subcontractors, manage time, and coordinate, but their number one job is to build. An architect’s number one job is to plan and oversee, not, as commonly believed, to design or create. Yes, part of the planning process is the creation of the original design with the input of the owner, but the real job of an architect (or at least a construction/production architect) in the US today is to make sure that end result conforms to code, performs within reasonable expectations [...]
So it looks like another one of the major Lower Manhattan re-building efforts is facing budget problems. Santiago Calatrava’s path station entrance may be looking at a major value engineering effort in so much that it may be another architect’s rein-visioning of the station, according to an post on Curbed.com. This is bad news for the neighborhood, first the Freedom Tower has yet to start construction (lets not even talk about the deisgn process) then the Fulton Street Transit Hub is looking at ways to work their budget, now this. All of this makes me wonder, has the New York City development community been a victim of the most American of financial flaws – spending beyond their means? Or is this a case of bureaucratic inaction catching up with rising construction costs and inflation? Either way, I think that this is a specter of what is to happening across the board with American projects, I see it in my own office as well. Clients either commission Coach tastes on a Canal Street Budget, or they get massive sticker shock when they see their cost estimate and throw a ton of money into value engineering exercises which end up sucking part of the cost-value of the project away.
Frank Lloyd Wright thought that he was the messiah of architecture and that his work would change the face of the earth. Ayn Rand immortalized this part of his personality in The Fountainhead. Buckminster Fuller believed that if we changed out bodies to his Dymaxion Rhythym and lived in Dymaxion Houses we could produce more and prosper. His geodesic domes never really caught on, but one did land a prominent place in the most prosperous and happiest place on earth. Le Corbusier imagined himself to be a new Vitruvius reinventing the discourse of architecture and the human habitation environment. By the end of his century (the 20th) society had rejected his massive housing blocks as dehumanizing and there was a massive resurgence in classical pastiche. Now Frank Gehry has envisioned himself as the new Pope, when working ex-catia he is a man that can do no wrong. In essence, no one can hate him even when they appear to be mad at him. According to an article in the New York Magazine, Mr Gehry refuses to accept that the recent protests about his new Atlantic Yards development have anything to do with him. Instead they are directed towards the developer. [...]
The blog anArchitecture has a post about Icon’s latest who’s who under 40 article. I find it interesting that in architecture, your considered stellar if you make a name for yourself before your 40, whereas in most other professions, thats when you need to be established. At least this means I have more than a decade to reach one of my goals – to get my name in that list. When I put it that way, it seems almost easy.
So I’ve been reading a bunch of management and business books lately at the urging of my boss. Specifically they’ve been Good to Great by Jim Collins, Mindset by Carol Dweck and Results by Gary Nielson. All of these have a similar idea in them: Don’t be afraid to look in the mirror and see what is wrong with your company/person. Once you identify what your non-successes are, then you can decide to either focus on them, or let it go. It is only through continued analysis and correction will you be able to excel and succeed. Taking this to heart I’ve been analyzing the failures of all the firms I’ve worked for and I feel that they are all the same. The symptoms are different; but in the end, it comes down to employment policies. The common symptoms are a problem with diligence in regards to projects. Important things like making sure opening measurements are to standard masonry sizes and skew angles are whole numbers seem to get lost between design and construction drawings. This problem is like an onion, the ultimate cause is only revealed by peeling away symptom by symptom until we find the core issue at [...]
One of the biggest challenges I face as a young Architect is learning my worth, both to clients and to employers. In my professional career I have yet to really get much experience knowing what my hourly rate is and how much to charge clients if I was to work freelance. This is a real weak part of my development and I feel that since it is not a part of our IDP training I might not learn it while working for someone else. On the other hand, I have no idea how to teach myself this information. Employers are a different boat. As an intern architect it is hard to balance commitment to an employer and the job at hand and the pressures of your own personal finances. This is compounded by the drastic spike in pay rates that can be observed through a salary analysis website like salary.com, this pay jump is due in part to the lack of education in office standards most architects receive in school. As an intern fresh from college your practical knowledge base is close to nil. A first year intern on the other hand has a much broader working knowledge, and likewise [...]