Archinect - The Socratic Method

The Architecture Student's Guide to Getting a Job

2019-01-14T20:58:00-05:00

You’ve finally made it. The end of architecture school. The all-nighters, studio drama, endless iterations, and annoying Xacto blade cuts are finally over. And now its time for the next step. Getting a job…

Stepping into the professional world can be intimidating, especially for those of you who have never had an internship. But it doesn’t have to be intimidating, think of this as a new creative challenge you have to solve. Remember, that compared to the rest of the world, you are an expert in design and problem solving. You’ve devoted 5 years of your life to studying an extraordinarily rigorous field. Look at it like this:

5 years = 260 weeks | You probably spent at the very least, 40 hours a week thinking about and studying architecture and design (if we disregard all-nighters and dont worry about holidays I’d say it averages out)| so thats 260 weeks x 40 hours = 10,400 hours (let’s make it 9,000 hours for arguments sake)

I’m sure most of you have heard of the 10,000 hour rule, ma...

The Rookie Architect: Navigating Your First Job

2019-01-10T14:49:00-05:00

When you step into a firm for the first time it can be quite nerve racking. Things are foreign to you yet also oddly familiar. It’ll take a couple of months to really take it all in. In the beginning , you’ll feel anxious, insecure, inadequate, but you’ll also feel excited, blissful, and optimistic. You’ve worked hard to get here, and it wasn’t an easy path. But now, after all you’ve gone through in school you’ve come to realize that this is actually the beginning, being a professional that is. School was merely the preface to a bigger picture.

And so as you enter this new season, you’ll want to embrace a few things to help you along the way. These are things that I’ve adopted and that have been helpful and fruitful for me, it’s not an exhaustive list but if you embrace these points I promise it will help you in some form in your journey.

Most of the items listed I’ve learned at my own expense, failing in some way and learning from those failures. Being a newbie can be a tough path ...

Love Knows No Boundaries... But Don't Humans Love Boundaries?

2017-11-30T20:19:52-05:00

Picture this: you’re walking along a paved path on the perfectly manicured grounds of a hotel when you happen upon a tree encircled by a thin rope. What is your reaction? It is likely that you do not automatically desire to climb over this rope; rather, your natural reaction is quite the opposite. Stay out! Why do we know that this rope indicates such a command? There is no visible sign. Will an alarm sound lest you happen to climb over the rope in pure defiance? Obviously you need to test it out, so you do climb over it, brazenly. And guess what? No alarm sounds. Shock! So what is the big deal about being on one side of this rope from the other?

Many times we see signs warning us to keep off the grass or some other prohibited surface material directly adjacent to our walking path. Of course, these warnings are most likely there for maintenance purposes. But when we stop to think about it at a closer scale, this becomes irrelevant. Step off of the path and onto the gr...

What is it About Music and Architecture?

2017-08-26T19:21:00-04:00

What is it about music and architecture that leaves us all so fascinated? Is there really a legitimate relationship? How might we begin to think about the two ideas in a cohesive way? It’s one of those dichotomies that always comes up and sometimes the relationship seems a bit contrived. No doubt, many respected architects have talked about the relationship: Vitruvius, Libeskind, Xenakis. But I want to think about these two things in a different way than these three, I’m certainly not the first one to tackle the question in this way but I don’t see it proposed a lot.

Most discussions about music and architecture end with some sort of physical manifestation that was inspired by the music. I find that quite interesting. When I think of music I think of something extremely experiential as I do with architecture but not in a formal or environmental way. Music does literally alter our environments through vibrations, and those vibrations can give us a diverse range of feelings. But th...

Is Architecture Humane Enough?

2016-08-21T18:45:00-04:00

It’s mid June of a hot summer in 2014 and as I sit at the intersection of Wilmington Ave and Grape St in Watts, Los Angeles I observe closely. I do my best to consume everything around me and while our assignment is to record the conditions of the site I find myself unbearingly preoccupied with the people walking up and down this street, going in and out of stores, riding their bikes, looking over their shoulders, I see a woman crying and screaming as she tells me and my colleague that she has just been robbed, but she doesn’t stop for help, instead she continues walking to wherever she was going.

I spot a mother and her son, when she sees me sitting on the sidewalk with a sketchbook I can tell that she becomes suspicious and I see her subtly bring her son closer to her, I notice that her head shrinks down and her shoulders raise up toward her ears and her eyes squint just so slightly. My presence and the presence of the rest of my studio makes her uncomfortable and in this neighborh...

Are We Asking The Right Questions?

2016-07-17T00:51:30-04:00

With this being the first of many articles I plan to write on this column I thought I would kind of give an overview of what I plan to explore here. The title of this column (technically its a blog but I like column better) is The Socratic Method, which is inspired by exactly what its named after, the Socratic method.

For those of you who aren't familiar, the Socratic Method is a kind of argumentative dialogue based on asking and answering questions in order to stimulate critical thinking and to dive deeper into what one's preconceived notions about something might be. By asking questions we allow ourselves to think a bit deeper about something which could result in interesting outcomes.

I hope to use this platform to stimulate thought on various topics pertaining to the practice and study of design. Everything I write will be intended for further discussion and, like Socrates himself, I'll rarely assert a specific position. Every article will pose a question followed by my thinking ...