An in-depth analysis of architecture as a career choice including employment educational and internship requirements and licensing and salary statistics.

Run Forrest, run!

your screen name is LaxBro and you're already thinking about a paper you have to write over the summer? 

Learn a little bit about the ideas and people associated with modernism, and potential topics should come to you pretty easily.

I'm not sure if you know what my name means or not? But yeah, it's a big paper and apparently, everyone procrastinates on it. I like to get ahead on really big assignments and projects in school

LaxBro, what is it about architecture that attracts you? That would be a good starting point. Do you like old buildings? Skyscrapers? Is there a certain style of architecture in your home city or a city you have visited that intrigues you? Or is it not really buildings that interest you, but rather the idea of the architect as Master Builder and all-around cool dude that intrigues you?

The paper will be more interesting, both for you to write and for a reader to read, if you focus on something that you feel passionate about. Architecture is a huge topic! So you could just write a boring academic general paper like "History of Architecture in the United States", or you could write on a much more narrowly-defined topic that is really what interests you about the subject.

Well, Frank Lloyd Wright really intrigued me when I first started getting into architecture, but I'm mainly looking at modern homes and buildings. If it's a sky scraper, then the overall design of the building itself is what I'm interested in. But for things like a home, it's kind of just all of it. The homes artistic design, the room placement, the landscaping, pretty much all of it lol.

I kind of like how some architects are finding ways to combine both the modern aspects of homes or buildings, and nature itself. I like the balance that some architects can implement, not too overwhelming with the nature, but it's not a building that has just potted plants or anything that every other building can have. Something unique all in its own way...

Architect William McDonough, look into him for more and different approach to nature and architecture. FLW is always a good start in general for history.

I didn't know what your name meant, but do now. Huh.

I think that Donna is on the right track - try finding something in your area to write about. It's easier to do research locally, and you're more likely to get primary sources of interest. William McDonough is cool, but I wouldn't call him a modernist. 

So you could look at various ways that nature has been included as an influence in architecture. There are ® soles all through history, all the way back to the pyramids and their eastern orientation related to the sunrise, and even Stonehenge.... But to keep yourself sane maybe start with Frank Lloyd Wright briefly then move into how architects in the 20th Century and now consider nature in contemporary house designs. You could touch on Arcosanti and other utopian communities that try to live "back to the earth", Bruce Goff's organic/spaceship aesthetic, the Eames house as a machine in a jungle, Rick Joy's rammed earth and Critical Regionalism. There is plenty of material just within the topic of "nature in home design since 1900" to fill 4,000 words!

Woof, ® soles?! That's supposed to say "examples through history". Dang autocorrect.

Anonitect is right and Donna is giving the historic outline starting with FLW, so my second suggestion again is a slight alternative based on the rammed earth proposal - Buckminster Fuller (he did blocks as well, but more more well known for tensegrity structures)

For nature in architecture: traditional Japanese, which includes many 'modern' ideas such as modular construction, transformable spaces, etc. Wright and many others were heavily influenced by various aspects of this.

Alrighty. Thank you guys a bunch! I really appreciate the input and will definitely research this stuff for my essay! It seems like that is a topic that I can use to go fairly deep into, so I don't think I will have any issues not finding information. I want to get fairly deep into this topic, but I also want to figure out the overall goal, maybe I should look into several architects and talk about how they used their designs to achieve different goals? Or should I choose maybe one architect and just go with that?

@Miles Jaffe, if I researched traditional Japanese architecture, would it be better to just talk about specific architects? Such as the people who created the more popular structures? Or should I just talk about that style as a whole?

You research would determine that. Architecture is evolution, you want to start early - in prehistory. Do some broad reading to get an overview then focus on something you find intriguing.

You could emphasize the change from earlier architecture to modernism. I think some others may have been hinting at that, but I think that would be a good topic.

thanks guys!

Modern Architecture: A Guidebook for His Students to This Field of Art

Otto Wagner