Archinect - Features

Career Evolution Through Autodidacticism and Accelerated Learning

2019-07-17T15:19:00-04:00

The Information Age has produced a generation capable of extraordinary feats not before possible. In such a dynamic professional setting, learning new skills is an attribute many must develop. Like an operative in the Matrix, downloading the skills to fly a helicopter or defend oneself with an ancient martial art, humans have an extraordinary capacity for learning. But the idea that a school or a college degree is the only path to take to embrace a new field or skill is becoming outdated. How does one acquire new skills and abilities? There are many ways. In architecture, with the onset of a new project, sometimes the need for new knowledge could not come faster. So much so, some may desperately wish they could indeed download a new subject into their brain. We don’t live in the Matrix, but the human mind is still capable of the miraculous. Let’s dive into some ways how.

Better Critics Than Crickets: Thoughts on Criticism and the Willingness to Be Teachable

2019-06-06T14:19:00-04:00

“The world today doesn’t make sense, so why should I paint pictures that do?

- Pablo Picasso

Frank Gehry, Steven Holl, Liz Diller, Rem Koolhaas and Others Share Crucial Moments in Their Education

2016-09-30T12:19:00-04:00

What is the role of education in shaping a visionary architect? Several contemporary architects reflect on how the environment, curriculum, and tangential opportunities of their formal learning influenced and shaped their design sensibility.

Come rain or shine: reviving collective urban form with the GSD's Office for Urbanization

2016-09-16T12:17:00-04:00

In architecture, city-wide design concepts have a checkered history: public housing projects and century-old zoning ordinances seem to have created almost as many problems as they were intended to solve. And yet, the dream of the collective urban form may be restored with the work of the Harvard Graduate Design School’s new Office for Urbanization. Headed by landscape architecture professor Charles Waldheim, the Office for Urbanization is currently tackling the problems of sea level rise in Miami Beach, but the scope of its research is unearthing a promising new realm of possibilities.

7 famous architectural dropouts and autodidacts

2016-09-09T11:11:00-04:00

Don’t tell the architectural students with six figures of debt, but that education of theirs might not be entirely necessary—especially when one looks at the ranks of famous architectural dropouts and autodidacts. These accomplished designers either didn’t complete their formal education or simply forged their own path by virtue of teaching themselves how to design. No matter how they dodged formal education, all of these figures pursued a passionate love of their field.

Screen/Print #44: 'Education: Trial and Error' from The Metropolitan Laboratory Magazine

2016-09-08T11:26:00-04:00

A hyper-competitive culture pervades today’s workplaces and academic settings. It often seems like the only path to success is, well, success. But what about the value of failure? After all, it’s hard to know what’s right when you don’t know what’s wrong.