Good point, rationalist. Although that's a difficult one to put in practice realistically. At a minimum level though, an intern should be taken onto a construction site as soon as possible. It makes everything else make so much more sense - honestly, even explaining CDs to an intern who has never been on the construction site is kind of difficult.
hm, kinda on the fence on that. no experience before license is how it works in much of europe and it seems to be fine, but then again the things fresh graduates don't know is mind-boggling. Not only do many not know how to design, they don't know a thing about practice. which may be why even holland is going to require experience soon...
i prefer to assume a person ain't an idiot and work from there when it comes to policy choices.
i don't think it will make much of a difference if fresh graduates want to set up shop. where competition will hurt our profession is where it already does, with the large construction companies and offices taking all work because they have the resources and the deep pockets to do so...that is real capitalism at work and i see no cure for it except to aim for bigness too. not so easy to do.
for licence process, sure why not include some trade experience along with competitions. they both have almost zero to do with actual practice so i don't see that sort of thing leading to competency really, but if we are setting up arbitrary categories to make the process easier to get through, they are as good as any ;-)
Here is a good combination: fresh peaches, sparkling wine, and bourbon.
Here is another good combination: some young grads with no experience making it up as they go along and some young grads with no experience learning in a professional setting with good mentors.
while i like the idea of diversity of experience and i love the thought of what awesome things might come of inexperienced designers making up their own rules, the thought of those designers launching into the current liability landscape with real clients expecting them to take responsibility for knowing everything scares the crap out of me.
miniscule document errors can blow up into a big deal and if there isn't someone in an office who can absorb/deflect/resolve these things, the design team could be toast. (sorry. recent personal experiences.)
to do a kitchen addition? probably not. For sufficiently complex projects, clients will lean towards sufficiently experienced architecture firms. You're not designing the next Gugenheim after a series of bungalows.
If receiving an accredited degree means very little, what does getting registered really mean? The registered architect I spoke to yesterday doesn't know the difference between a low modulus silicone and a medium modulus urethane. pfft. as if! Someone pls revoke his license. thnx.
It's such a complex profession, and it's truly impossible to be on top of everything, so we tend to specialize (in project types, project phases, etc..) I'm not quite sure what the registration really means in terms of actual knowledge.
let the forces of free competition work and there will be a sort of natural selection
I disagree with this, basically on principle. I don't believe we have an environment that rewards hard work or competence or whatever. Sure, there almost always has to be a competent person close by, but that's more of a detail. I think it's often the case that people succeed because of some sort of position of privilege (wealth, power, political influence, uncle owns a multinational firm, whatever). Being incompetent does not cause failure, it just sort of helps it along. I'm not saying this is absolute, just that it's fairly common.
To put it another way, businesses tend to fail because they run out of money and/or other resources. If I start out with nothing but a shoestring, design the perfect thing, dot all my 't's and cross all my 'i's, and do everything perfect, but then the client doesn't pay or goes bankrupt or something, I'm still out of luck. My business goes under (especially if I was operating on a line of credit), I declare bankruptcy, and my business fails through no fault of my own. On the other hand some trust fund kiddie fails miserably. They don't listen to the client, go way over budget, the project gets shut down half way through and everyone gets sued. Trust fund kiddie loses some money, but ultimately gets bailed out and his company continues to be successful. I wouldn't expect that individual's honey pot to be unlimited, so there are only a certain number of times they can do that, but they still get a couple get out of jail free cards.
Now to expand on that. Architects really do have a role in promoting public health and safety. Not knowing how to prevent mold in a wall and such can actually hurt people. Remember this? The architect really could have reviewed those drawings and prevented that disaster. I still see architects that don't know what the stuff on an electrical panel means, or what the MEP drawings are actually saying.
That's why, in my opinion, regulation and IDP and stuff are necessary. The current implementation of these rules are still allowing people not qualified to practice architecture. It should be improved, preferably in a way to make it more efficient and effective rather than just adding red tape and additional fees. We need some sort of system in place to make sure more people calling themselves 'Architect' know what they're doing and know how buildings work.
There is no 'invisible hand.' There never was. That hand has been manipulated since long before adam smith or whoever started writing about it. My sis is a lawyer too but I don't think that's relevant to the point I was trying make :)
The registered architect I spoke to yesterday doesn't know the difference between a low modulus silicone and a medium modulus urethane. pfft
He doesn't have smart phone? He just doesn't care? Too lazy to google it? While I suppose the first is forgivable, the other two certainly aren't redeeming qualities.
" I still see architects that don't know what the stuff on an electrical panel means"
I can assemble a custom list of 1001 things any individual architect doesn't know. And there is a million things I don't know myself (some that you would consider elemental knowledge). It's not a pissing context. Mistakes happen because we tend to be overworked, and we are overworked because we are running on a broken business model.
Anyways, any of these lawyer sisters single? I need a rich benefactor that can finance my fight against working 60 hour weeks.
The yahoo answer that you link to is incorrect right off the bat. Low modulus means more movement, not the other way around. Internet is suprisingly poor technical resource. Lies and sales pitches. and porn.
My sister is married and not really that wealthy. Sorry.
So I guess my view of what an architect should be is a renaissance man or woman that can coordinate all trades and think through how the building is going to be built before it gets built. The contractor or site superintendent is often going to be too concerned with those trades on site and what is happening at the present moment to think forward about how the immediate decisions effect a trade later down the line. At least that has been my impression.
Here's my analogy. It is not my job to tell a client they want a clay tile roof or asphalt shingles. I can have an opinion, and say if every house in a square mile has asphalt shingles maybe this one should too, but in the end it's the client's building and that is their decisions. What I do know is that at some point a plumber is likely going to want to poke a vent through that roof, and water is going to have to be somehow shed off that roof, and there will be uplift forces caused by the wind. I've never detailed a clay tile roof, so I really don't know how any of that works. If I want to be the architect on that project, I think I have a responsibility to figure it out (or tell the client I don't know what I'm doing and get someone else).
Experience helps this in a lot of ways. First, a bit of humility in the ability to say that I don't know anything about clay roofs. Second, I have at least a general idea of what questions need asked and what answers I need to find. Third, I know it's important. I know that the plumber doesn't do the roofers job and vice versa, the framer is someone totally different that isn't going to talk to either of them, and I know that the responsibility of that flashing detail is probably going to fall on me. There was a time when architecture drawings could say "put roof here" and leave it at that, but I really don't think that's true anymore.
Think about a plumbing wall. You can't fit a 4" vent pipe in a 3-5/8" or 3-1/2" stud wall. Most architect here probably know from the outset that they're going to have to make that wall thicker. A lot of the students may not know that yet. What I'm saying is that it's important for the architect to know how to read plumbing drawings so if, for whatever reason, they didn't know that wall needs to be thicker they can catch it before the framer lays down the studs. You just don't want that stuff to be fixed on-site after concrete has been poured. It's not that unlikely that they will just 'fix' it and a few months later you find out your restroom is no longer ADA accessible.
learning the ropes should be ones own responsibility, and if they really love this stuff they will learn on their own what ever it takes.
disagree - it's everyone's responsibility. No one learns things on their own - you're always standing on someone else's shoulders. I didn't like IDP because my time working under a GC who was also a licensed architect didn't count, but my time fetching coffee and picking up dry-cleaning for a starchitect did count (and it only looks impressive on my resume). for that reason IDP, at least to me, was a joke. but I do feel very strongly that you need experience before you get licensed - and that schools need to be better about teaching professional and technical skills.
I can assemble a custom list of 1001 things any individual architect doesn't know. And there is a million things I don't know myself (some that you would consider elemental knowledge). It's not a pissing context.
what??!!? it IS a pissing contest. Don't you go to meetings with other males? having lots of credentials also makes your pee go further apparently...
Do codes really need any more beefing up? And License has an "s" in it.
Ever since the Woodford extra oak was mentioned.....all I have been able to focus on is my office getting smaller in my rear view mirror, a rounded glass, 2 ice cubes, and three fingers of bourbon sipped on my terrace...This afternoon will be a very unproductive one.
IDP backfired on me too. My time working for a contractor and engineer didn't count (because they didn't understand the system and I didn't really understand it either, so it never got recorded.) This was when I was naive and I thought being an architect meant you knew stuff about buildings, not that you logged a certain # of hours doing this and that, so I thought I was going to be ahead of the game. Wrong. Instead of making me make coffee, the contractor and engineer showed me how to build stuff, and also bad architect tricks to avoid, and stuff like how to do cost estimates (NOT just square foot estimates). These skills backfired on me when I got a job in a real architect's office and everyone thought I was a smarty pants and didn't want me on their "pretty picture" projects. I should have done what the smart kids do, just have someone sign the damn IDP shit and be done with it whether I did it or not or whether I learned anything or not, but instead I took 7 years to get all the experience logged in the proper channels and then totally lost interest by then. By then I was on to my second career, which I love and won't look back except to laugh! Taking the exams concurrently with IDP would have been a huge help to help pull everything altogether too. It is a joke that you had to separate the two. Now my blood pressure is up! Anything about IDP makes my blood pressure soar!
I worked for an architect who didn't know what a vapor barrier was.
a national license? oh really? please, do tell. it would be the first profession in the country to have one. we can't get congress to agree the sky is blue, yet you n00bs think we can just run a bill on out there and mandate a national standard? what are you, ignant?
i been to SITE SF (assuming that they're talking about SITE Santa Fe and I been to a spa (10,000 Waves) in Santa Fe. Looks like I'm the target demographic.
well, guess what jla-x, if i stop paying my NCARB dues, then you might want to get that second job at chuck cheese, because I'm tired of subsidizing interns - INTERNS - taking exams.
you really don't know what you are talking about, another sign of immaturity.
not really barry. i saw that on your blog and was surprised by how non levitating that levitating mass is...interesting decision.
we have your dream licensing system here in japan jlax (national license, national zoning, and no university education required). it doesn't change all that much. perhaps the ratio of bad archtiecture is higher as a result, but then again technical skills are really high and very much regulated (earthquake zone), so it is not leading to any kind of endangerment.
competition is also much higher because it is easy for anyone to start a firm and yeah the offices that are successful are able to survive because of their savvy not their education. But the thing is the people who are really making it here as architects (and not as builders) are not the ones who did it the easier un-regulated way. As far as I can tell folks like Kengo Kuma, who are thriving in this seriously difficult economy, are doing so because they did it the hard way and put in the effort. Quality matters and the way to get to that quality is in part from the education system you dislike.
I don't think there are any shortcuts, and as much as you have wrapped it all in a nice libertarian package it seems like you are wishing for a backdoor entrance to a difficult profession...while i sympathize i don't think it will improve the profession all that much in north america
I don't really think "education + internship & exams" is really all that hard of a system. Sometimes I find that the people who complain most about how supposedly impossible the exams are haven't actually taken any of them. They are not that hard, and IDP is not that much of a pain, certainly not in the grand scheme of things. I have no problem with criticizing things that need fixing, and the system could definitely benefit from some tweaks as it sounds like they are addressing, but it's not like the worst thing in the world or anything. There are many other more critical issues that are doing more to hold US architecture industry back than the IDP system. (Such as the general tyranny of the lowest common denominator in the real estate financing market and the general lack of arts education in the public, among other things.)
People complain that it is too much strain to have to take multiple exams and to satisfy years of IDP across different categories. That is what I am referring to in terms of complaints that I find misplaced. The exams are not *that* difficult if you are a reasonably competent professional, which is exactly the point, and IDP is a tiresome but ultimately fairly straightforward bureaucratic process*, not some kind of impossible hurdle that enslaves masses of people for years.
The low wages and generally extremely poor working conditions in the industry for people across much of the age/experience spectrum (but, yes, particularly in their 20s) is caused by much more/other than simply IDP and failure to license. They are just an easier target...
*granted, an imperfect process, but it does attempt to fill a legitimate void.
@jla-x, it has been crappy since 2008 though not as bad as USA i would say. we are getting by but it isn't easy. work visa is not so easy but not impossible. some international firms need english speakers, but the working hours are harsh and the pay is low so i am not sure if it is worth it or not for most people. my first few years here were amazingly educational but a real lesson in sleep deprivation as well, and it was not even starchitect office, just the normal working attitude in this country. i was lucky to come here young and with an open mind and learned to deal with it. many westerners come here and hate everything about the culture and the working system, and it drives them slightly batty...apart from that danger, is great place to live ;-)
Completely off the topic of IDP, I finally got a teaching job. I'm excited, really excited, but I feel bad about leaving my current boss. He's been amazing, and he's been pushing to get me back into IDP, trying to connect me with architects he knows. Seems he's one of those facilitators - you know, a guy that puts people together. He really needs the help; he sells that many high-end windows. It's been fun, and I've learned a ton about people, builders, architects, and the taste of the 1%. I wish I had someone to replace myself with, but you guys are the only architect-types I know.
I guess if anyone is in the Dallas area, they could contact me. I'm going to miss my boss.
I'm excited about it. The classes I'll be teaching are more of a foot-in-the-door gig, but after the first year, Animation should be available, and in six years or less, the architecture classes will be open.
None of my former coworkers would want the job. It's not exactly high-paying, but if a recent grad, or intern that can't find work was looking, it'd be great. My boss makes great money, do there's potential for growth, but he's really pro-licensure. He has a degree in Arch, but ended up in windows. I agree with him that his gig is more exciting than drafting in an office all day. There are certainly more field trips.
The thing is, my boss still regrets not getting his liscence, even though he loves his job, so he's very pro-liscence, and was trying to put me together with teaching-type architects, and with architects that actually adjunct.
But I like teaching more. And it's in the town I live in. I can drive my own car, an 83 BMW that I love, and give Husband his car back. Mine won't make it to my current job. Plus, I'll be doubling my pay. It should be an exciting adventure.
Thread Central
Good point, rationalist. Although that's a difficult one to put in practice realistically. At a minimum level though, an intern should be taken onto a construction site as soon as possible. It makes everything else make so much more sense - honestly, even explaining CDs to an intern who has never been on the construction site is kind of difficult.
hm, kinda on the fence on that. no experience before license is how it works in much of europe and it seems to be fine, but then again the things fresh graduates don't know is mind-boggling. Not only do many not know how to design, they don't know a thing about practice. which may be why even holland is going to require experience soon...
i prefer to assume a person ain't an idiot and work from there when it comes to policy choices.
i don't think it will make much of a difference if fresh graduates want to set up shop. where competition will hurt our profession is where it already does, with the large construction companies and offices taking all work because they have the resources and the deep pockets to do so...that is real capitalism at work and i see no cure for it except to aim for bigness too. not so easy to do.
for licence process, sure why not include some trade experience along with competitions. they both have almost zero to do with actual practice so i don't see that sort of thing leading to competency really, but if we are setting up arbitrary categories to make the process easier to get through, they are as good as any ;-)
Today's design challenge, a second floor balcony dog relief wall, is accomplished! Problem solved!
I will tidy up the loose ends later... It worked!
Here is a good combination: fresh peaches, sparkling wine, and bourbon.
Here is another good combination: some young grads with no experience making it up as they go along and some young grads with no experience learning in a professional setting with good mentors.
I like it all.
while i like the idea of diversity of experience and i love the thought of what awesome things might come of inexperienced designers making up their own rules, the thought of those designers launching into the current liability landscape with real clients expecting them to take responsibility for knowing everything scares the crap out of me.
miniscule document errors can blow up into a big deal and if there isn't someone in an office who can absorb/deflect/resolve these things, the design team could be toast. (sorry. recent personal experiences.)
"launching into the current liability landscape "
to do a kitchen addition? probably not. For sufficiently complex projects, clients will lean towards sufficiently experienced architecture firms. You're not designing the next Gugenheim after a series of bungalows.
If receiving an accredited degree means very little, what does getting registered really mean? The registered architect I spoke to yesterday doesn't know the difference between a low modulus silicone and a medium modulus urethane. pfft. as if! Someone pls revoke his license. thnx.
It's such a complex profession, and it's truly impossible to be on top of everything, so we tend to specialize (in project types, project phases, etc..) I'm not quite sure what the registration really means in terms of actual knowledge.
MERIT! What happened to that silly concept?
let the forces of free competition work and there will be a sort of natural selection
I disagree with this, basically on principle. I don't believe we have an environment that rewards hard work or competence or whatever. Sure, there almost always has to be a competent person close by, but that's more of a detail. I think it's often the case that people succeed because of some sort of position of privilege (wealth, power, political influence, uncle owns a multinational firm, whatever). Being incompetent does not cause failure, it just sort of helps it along. I'm not saying this is absolute, just that it's fairly common.
To put it another way, businesses tend to fail because they run out of money and/or other resources. If I start out with nothing but a shoestring, design the perfect thing, dot all my 't's and cross all my 'i's, and do everything perfect, but then the client doesn't pay or goes bankrupt or something, I'm still out of luck. My business goes under (especially if I was operating on a line of credit), I declare bankruptcy, and my business fails through no fault of my own. On the other hand some trust fund kiddie fails miserably. They don't listen to the client, go way over budget, the project gets shut down half way through and everyone gets sued. Trust fund kiddie loses some money, but ultimately gets bailed out and his company continues to be successful. I wouldn't expect that individual's honey pot to be unlimited, so there are only a certain number of times they can do that, but they still get a couple get out of jail free cards.
Now to expand on that. Architects really do have a role in promoting public health and safety. Not knowing how to prevent mold in a wall and such can actually hurt people. Remember this? The architect really could have reviewed those drawings and prevented that disaster. I still see architects that don't know what the stuff on an electrical panel means, or what the MEP drawings are actually saying.
That's why, in my opinion, regulation and IDP and stuff are necessary. The current implementation of these rules are still allowing people not qualified to practice architecture. It should be improved, preferably in a way to make it more efficient and effective rather than just adding red tape and additional fees. We need some sort of system in place to make sure more people calling themselves 'Architect' know what they're doing and know how buildings work.
There is no 'invisible hand.' There never was. That hand has been manipulated since long before adam smith or whoever started writing about it. My sis is a lawyer too but I don't think that's relevant to the point I was trying make :)
The registered architect I spoke to yesterday doesn't know the difference between a low modulus silicone and a medium modulus urethane. pfft
He doesn't have smart phone? He just doesn't care? Too lazy to google it? While I suppose the first is forgivable, the other two certainly aren't redeeming qualities.
http://answers.yahoo.com/question/index?qid=20071207085106AAfmhif
edit: that doesn't really explain the silicone/urethane difference, but I bet you could figure it out if you wanted to
" I still see architects that don't know what the stuff on an electrical panel means"
I can assemble a custom list of 1001 things any individual architect doesn't know. And there is a million things I don't know myself (some that you would consider elemental knowledge). It's not a pissing context. Mistakes happen because we tend to be overworked, and we are overworked because we are running on a broken business model.
Anyways, any of these lawyer sisters single? I need a rich benefactor that can finance my fight against working 60 hour weeks.
"He doesn't have smart phone?"
The yahoo answer that you link to is incorrect right off the bat. Low modulus means more movement, not the other way around. Internet is suprisingly poor technical resource. Lies and sales pitches. and porn.
My sister is married and not really that wealthy. Sorry.
So I guess my view of what an architect should be is a renaissance man or woman that can coordinate all trades and think through how the building is going to be built before it gets built. The contractor or site superintendent is often going to be too concerned with those trades on site and what is happening at the present moment to think forward about how the immediate decisions effect a trade later down the line. At least that has been my impression.
Here's my analogy. It is not my job to tell a client they want a clay tile roof or asphalt shingles. I can have an opinion, and say if every house in a square mile has asphalt shingles maybe this one should too, but in the end it's the client's building and that is their decisions. What I do know is that at some point a plumber is likely going to want to poke a vent through that roof, and water is going to have to be somehow shed off that roof, and there will be uplift forces caused by the wind. I've never detailed a clay tile roof, so I really don't know how any of that works. If I want to be the architect on that project, I think I have a responsibility to figure it out (or tell the client I don't know what I'm doing and get someone else).
Experience helps this in a lot of ways. First, a bit of humility in the ability to say that I don't know anything about clay roofs. Second, I have at least a general idea of what questions need asked and what answers I need to find. Third, I know it's important. I know that the plumber doesn't do the roofers job and vice versa, the framer is someone totally different that isn't going to talk to either of them, and I know that the responsibility of that flashing detail is probably going to fall on me. There was a time when architecture drawings could say "put roof here" and leave it at that, but I really don't think that's true anymore.
Think about a plumbing wall. You can't fit a 4" vent pipe in a 3-5/8" or 3-1/2" stud wall. Most architect here probably know from the outset that they're going to have to make that wall thicker. A lot of the students may not know that yet. What I'm saying is that it's important for the architect to know how to read plumbing drawings so if, for whatever reason, they didn't know that wall needs to be thicker they can catch it before the framer lays down the studs. You just don't want that stuff to be fixed on-site after concrete has been poured. It's not that unlikely that they will just 'fix' it and a few months later you find out your restroom is no longer ADA accessible.
learning the ropes should be ones own responsibility, and if they really love this stuff they will learn on their own what ever it takes.
disagree - it's everyone's responsibility. No one learns things on their own - you're always standing on someone else's shoulders. I didn't like IDP because my time working under a GC who was also a licensed architect didn't count, but my time fetching coffee and picking up dry-cleaning for a starchitect did count (and it only looks impressive on my resume). for that reason IDP, at least to me, was a joke. but I do feel very strongly that you need experience before you get licensed - and that schools need to be better about teaching professional and technical skills.
I can assemble a custom list of 1001 things any individual architect doesn't know. And there is a million things I don't know myself (some that you would consider elemental knowledge). It's not a pissing context.
what??!!? it IS a pissing contest. Don't you go to meetings with other males? having lots of credentials also makes your pee go further apparently...
I hate being on the road first half the day on Fridays - when I get back to the office I'm ready to go home.
Do codes really need any more beefing up? And License has an "s" in it.
Ever since the Woodford extra oak was mentioned.....all I have been able to focus on is my office getting smaller in my rear view mirror, a rounded glass, 2 ice cubes, and three fingers of bourbon sipped on my terrace...This afternoon will be a very unproductive one.
IDP backfired on me too. My time working for a contractor and engineer didn't count (because they didn't understand the system and I didn't really understand it either, so it never got recorded.) This was when I was naive and I thought being an architect meant you knew stuff about buildings, not that you logged a certain # of hours doing this and that, so I thought I was going to be ahead of the game. Wrong. Instead of making me make coffee, the contractor and engineer showed me how to build stuff, and also bad architect tricks to avoid, and stuff like how to do cost estimates (NOT just square foot estimates). These skills backfired on me when I got a job in a real architect's office and everyone thought I was a smarty pants and didn't want me on their "pretty picture" projects. I should have done what the smart kids do, just have someone sign the damn IDP shit and be done with it whether I did it or not or whether I learned anything or not, but instead I took 7 years to get all the experience logged in the proper channels and then totally lost interest by then. By then I was on to my second career, which I love and won't look back except to laugh! Taking the exams concurrently with IDP would have been a huge help to help pull everything altogether too. It is a joke that you had to separate the two. Now my blood pressure is up! Anything about IDP makes my blood pressure soar!
I worked for an architect who didn't know what a vapor barrier was.
a national license? oh really? please, do tell. it would be the first profession in the country to have one. we can't get congress to agree the sky is blue, yet you n00bs think we can just run a bill on out there and mandate a national standard? what are you, ignant?
the conversation on TC is scattered enough that i actually thought that ^^^ might be a real response to something else.
but no.
i been to SITE SF (assuming that they're talking about SITE Santa Fe and I been to a spa (10,000 Waves) in Santa Fe. Looks like I'm the target demographic.
jla-x, fantastical utopian bullshit, is so fucking bloody irritating that i don't think i want you to have a license, you're not mature enough.
well, guess what jla-x, if i stop paying my NCARB dues, then you might want to get that second job at chuck cheese, because I'm tired of subsidizing interns - INTERNS - taking exams.
you really don't know what you are talking about, another sign of immaturity.
Hey TC, I'm looking for similar details/designs in architecture like the Cor-Ten brackets in the picture. Anything pop into mind?
Perhaps Brian Murphy or Michael Rotundi?
(this is for a follow up blog post to /infrascapedesign.wordpress.com/2012/06/23/unvailing-levitated-mass/)
Maybe Tom Kundig's work?
not really barry. i saw that on your blog and was surprised by how non levitating that levitating mass is...interesting decision.
we have your dream licensing system here in japan jlax (national license, national zoning, and no university education required). it doesn't change all that much. perhaps the ratio of bad archtiecture is higher as a result, but then again technical skills are really high and very much regulated (earthquake zone), so it is not leading to any kind of endangerment.
competition is also much higher because it is easy for anyone to start a firm and yeah the offices that are successful are able to survive because of their savvy not their education. But the thing is the people who are really making it here as architects (and not as builders) are not the ones who did it the easier un-regulated way. As far as I can tell folks like Kengo Kuma, who are thriving in this seriously difficult economy, are doing so because they did it the hard way and put in the effort. Quality matters and the way to get to that quality is in part from the education system you dislike.
I don't think there are any shortcuts, and as much as you have wrapped it all in a nice libertarian package it seems like you are wishing for a backdoor entrance to a difficult profession...while i sympathize i don't think it will improve the profession all that much in north america
I don't really think "education + internship & exams" is really all that hard of a system. Sometimes I find that the people who complain most about how supposedly impossible the exams are haven't actually taken any of them. They are not that hard, and IDP is not that much of a pain, certainly not in the grand scheme of things. I have no problem with criticizing things that need fixing, and the system could definitely benefit from some tweaks as it sounds like they are addressing, but it's not like the worst thing in the world or anything. There are many other more critical issues that are doing more to hold US architecture industry back than the IDP system. (Such as the general tyranny of the lowest common denominator in the real estate financing market and the general lack of arts education in the public, among other things.)
When you say people complain that the system is "hard", I have to wonder what you are thinking then.
Such as the general tyranny of the lowest common denominator in the real estate financing market and the general lack of arts education in the public.
Yep, this. This is a huge problem with the viability of our profession that we rarely engage with here or in our education.
this is for J-LA:
http://gifsoup.com/MTE3MjE0Mg
People complain that it is too much strain to have to take multiple exams and to satisfy years of IDP across different categories. That is what I am referring to in terms of complaints that I find misplaced. The exams are not *that* difficult if you are a reasonably competent professional, which is exactly the point, and IDP is a tiresome but ultimately fairly straightforward bureaucratic process*, not some kind of impossible hurdle that enslaves masses of people for years.
The low wages and generally extremely poor working conditions in the industry for people across much of the age/experience spectrum (but, yes, particularly in their 20s) is caused by much more/other than simply IDP and failure to license. They are just an easier target...
*granted, an imperfect process, but it does attempt to fill a legitimate void.
License? Get one... I did in my near so called retirement age .;.).
And if I could, you would too. No complaints.
Oh, the CA one is way cooler than the IL one! I'm jealous.
Ok speaking of which... I actually need to get around to ordering my stamp (finally). Question for the TC crowd: black ink or red?
good points manta.
nice orhan.
totally crappy week here, and its just monday. hoping rest of week gets better.
@jla-x, it has been crappy since 2008 though not as bad as USA i would say. we are getting by but it isn't easy. work visa is not so easy but not impossible. some international firms need english speakers, but the working hours are harsh and the pay is low so i am not sure if it is worth it or not for most people. my first few years here were amazingly educational but a real lesson in sleep deprivation as well, and it was not even starchitect office, just the normal working attitude in this country. i was lucky to come here young and with an open mind and learned to deal with it. many westerners come here and hate everything about the culture and the working system, and it drives them slightly batty...apart from that danger, is great place to live ;-)
http://www.ncarb.org/en/Experience-Through-Internships/IDP2-Experience-Categories-Areas.aspx
http://www.ncarb.org/en/Experience-Through-Internships/~/media/Files/PDF/Brochure/5600hours-breakdown.pdf
http://www.ncarb.org/en/Experience-Through-Internships/~/media/Files/PDF/Guidelines/IDP_Guidelines.pdf
I'll be starting a thread about the worst welds ever after visiting Heizer's Levitated Mass yesterday... I can make a prettier bead than that!
jla-x - that seems to be the public consensus. here's a pic of the shims/grout at one of the few places that the rock starts to hover.
Completely off the topic of IDP, I finally got a teaching job. I'm excited, really excited, but I feel bad about leaving my current boss. He's been amazing, and he's been pushing to get me back into IDP, trying to connect me with architects he knows. Seems he's one of those facilitators - you know, a guy that puts people together. He really needs the help; he sells that many high-end windows. It's been fun, and I've learned a ton about people, builders, architects, and the taste of the 1%. I wish I had someone to replace myself with, but you guys are the only architect-types I know. I guess if anyone is in the Dallas area, they could contact me. I'm going to miss my boss.
Wow, Sarah, big changes! Do you feel confident about giving up architecture to teach? Teaching certainly fits the schedule of a parent really well.
Sarah - good luck!
that's quite something Sarah. Good luck with the teaching gig.
Hurray Sarah!!! Congratulations. So when does the position begin? Would any of your former co-workers be a good fit for the position?
Hey guys. Meesa back!
oe! wtf?
I'm excited about it. The classes I'll be teaching are more of a foot-in-the-door gig, but after the first year, Animation should be available, and in six years or less, the architecture classes will be open. None of my former coworkers would want the job. It's not exactly high-paying, but if a recent grad, or intern that can't find work was looking, it'd be great. My boss makes great money, do there's potential for growth, but he's really pro-licensure. He has a degree in Arch, but ended up in windows. I agree with him that his gig is more exciting than drafting in an office all day. There are certainly more field trips. The thing is, my boss still regrets not getting his liscence, even though he loves his job, so he's very pro-liscence, and was trying to put me together with teaching-type architects, and with architects that actually adjunct. But I like teaching more. And it's in the town I live in. I can drive my own car, an 83 BMW that I love, and give Husband his car back. Mine won't make it to my current job. Plus, I'll be doubling my pay. It should be an exciting adventure.
Congrats Sarah. Goddamn I want to teach.
Whatup Beta :)
hey oe! good to see ya
You too man. Yo I see Archinect is on pinterest now. Is there like a nerdy clique I can join?
Sarah I asked before - but perhaps I've forgotten is your 83 BMW a 2002? Or a 3 series?
Oh I got a new dog, to keep our 11 year dog company and hopefully offer some resistance to the guys who keep coming into the yard to pick mangos
Mmmmm Mangos. What kind of dog? That's exciting.
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