Archinect - Architectural Ellipsis

Well Hello Graduate! Welcome to the Rest of Your Life

2013-05-28T15:48:00-04:00

It's that time of year when a new crop of recent graduates is out looking for work, realizing that this summer marks the beginning of their new lives. Landing that first job can feel great, but getting there is only part of the story. My post today, in addition to the warm welcome, is an attempt to look at what you can do to make sure your first (or second, or third) job goes well.

As an intern architect I find that there is a lot to just managing the monotony of an average workday in order to feel fulfilled and accomplished. I'll get into that a little later (next post) but before that, you need to get a job first. This is the part where I would love to say that you should be very careful in accepting that first job, that you should continue to apply until your dream firm offers you a job, and that you should have the dignity to turn down sub-standard offers on the spot. However, I fancy myself a pragmatist and instead my advice is to do what you think will pay the bills (do...

Architecture ... In Your Ears

2013-04-11T00:06:12-04:00

As an intern I tend to spend quite a bit of time in my cubicle plugging away in CAD. In school, I listened to music to help pass the time and monotony of working on a project, but in the office I find my pandora station either starts to repeat the same stuff constantly, or I spend too much time skipping around trying to get some fresh sounds. Consequently, I'm listening to a lot more spoken word in the form of podcasts. They give my brain some variety to focus on while the task at hand is rather boring, and it's easier to hear what is going on in the office over words rather than music.

I have a lot of the iTunes top ten in my playlist but here are few architecture and design specific ones that you might not have heard about:

AIA - Architecture Knowledge Review (Podnet): From the American Institute of Architects, I feel like I have to mention this one even though I'm not a very big fan of it. Truth be told, I haven't listened to it in a while and it looks like the AIA hasn't u...

On Internships and Mowing the Lawn

2013-03-21T12:40:00-04:00

Spring is finally here in the US and that means that students everywhere are working on their portfolios and getting ready to apply for summer internships. Even everyone's favorite blogger-tect and twitter-tect is sensing the longer days of sunshine and dusting off old posts to help the potential interns out. However, before you read any further a quick disclaimer: this is not a post about how to find a job. There are plenty of other resources out there including some good advice on the tweeted article linked above. In fact, there are many right here on archinect (this is one of my favorites).

No, this post is not about finding a job. Instead, this post is a bit of rant on Mr. Borson's first paragraph. In full disclosure I intended to write this back when Bob first wrote and posted the article but I think the winter had me in a more melancholy and depressed state of mind less easily provoked to online ranting ... or maybe it was that fact that I was in the middle of dead-lining ...

Want to be an Architect?; Don't Learn Revit

2013-02-05T01:14:00-05:00

Before you skip the rest of my post and start flinging words around in the comments, hear me out. I think Revit is a valuable tool and that soon (if not already) it and other BIM programs will become just part of the game and you'll have to learn it. It's either that or you can become an employer and just be out of touch with reality.

Right now the majority of the employers who are looking for and hiring interns with experience in Revit are only looking to hire people to work in Revit. You may get lucky and be tasked with teaching the old curmudgeons in the office about the fancy new software, but you don't want to do that anyway. You know better, and you don't want to be pigeonholed as a Revit monkey anymore than your forefathers and foremothers wanted to be pigeonholed as draftsmen and draftswomen. You understand that it takes more than a computer and a copy of Revit to create a building and you want to find a job that will guide and encourage you to learn about what happens ...

A.R.E. Strategies

2012-12-17T00:58:01-05:00

You'll never hear me claim I know everything. A lot of my intentions for starting this blog include getting the advice and opinions of others out there (see the last paragraph here). With that in mind I wanted to reach out to the archinect community for some wisdom.

I'm looking at getting started with the A.R.E. but I'm a little overwhelmed by it all. Where do you even start? Is it a good idea to start with the harder sections or the easier ones? Are pass rates a good metric for which sections are harder? When studying for the sections what are the best resources to utilize?

There are many more questions that can be asked but rather than continue I'll just ask you for some discussion. Post links, recount personal stories, give advice, ask questions etc. I'll most likely be posting more specifics as I develop a strategy myself but for now I just want to get the discussion started.

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Parasitic Interns

2012-12-06T10:45:00-05:00

I came across this over on Houzz (hatezz that name by the way). While I hope the series is tongue in cheek, the distribution of the intern struck me as odd:

"The Intern is a parasitic species, typically found clustered around Architects or Interior Designers, dutifully cleaning up the designs."

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The Intern is parasitic? While I can admit that our relationship to architects is beneficial to us interns, it is in no way one-sided and definitely not parasitic. The real relationship between an architect and their interns reminds me more of, A Day Without a Mexican, rather than Alien.

Unless you cast the architect as the alien.

The only aspect of the Architect - Intern relationship that even remotely resembles a parasitic one is IDP. We interns are dependent on architects for supervising (signing off) our hours. By design there is only so far an intern can go by his or her self. Eventually the law requires that they must find a job working under the direct supervision...

Let's talk about ...

2012-11-18T13:38:00-05:00

As you might have gathered from the description in the sidebar, this blog is about the parts of the profession that we tend to gloss over, omit, or just don’t talk about; what I call an architectural ellipsis. Perhaps a few quick examples may be helpful in understanding what I mean.

An architectural ellipsis may be the way we introduce ourselves at a cocktail party, “What do I do? Oh, I’m an inter- … I’m an architect,” and hope our new acquaintance doesn’t know anyone from the state licensing board. It's not that we are trying to advertise our services as an architect, just that it's too demeaning to say we're just an intern and explain what that means. Another ellipsis could be the way we say IDP only takes three years to get your hours, but know deep down inside it will probably take five to seven years. Sure, working for three years might give you the total quantity of hours you need to complete IDP, but what if you are hired as a CAD monkey and never get away from the carpal...