Rick perhaps you can, but you won't.  You absolutely never do one single thing you say you "can" or "could" or "will" do.  Which reminds me:  January is up - where is that game you said you were going to write by the 31st?  

I sure won't be going deliberately out of my way to violate the licensing laws.

I was going to do that if the person I was challenging was going to compete in the same challenge. Sorry but I'm not racing to get it done by that date if I am the only one doing the challenge. Since no one else is going to take on the challenge, there's no motivation... no competition or race.

However, I am nonetheless working on such a project with a more expanded scope for a particular platform. I already have the working code for cartridge based autostart cartridge. I am working through supporting multiple devices and platforms. 

Racing for January 31 without any competitors to release something without a price tag or even a monetary reward is no incentive. However, take the time to actually produce a commercial grade program that people are willing to pay money for is more desirable and racing for January 31 won't produce anything that I can really get any money for.

Since the content needed to produce the work takes more time. There is more to the work involved. I have already have work going on multiple fronts. Online store platform. VAT MOSS registration. VAT regulations research. That's just some of the business side of things being prepped. 

Then there is the software project which requires significant graphics work, music & sound effects works, the coding work, etc. 

curtkram,

What client would pay me to design one. Sure, use a lot of diamonds, gold, silver, platinum, etc. Make it large and be very wasteful in using lots and lots of concrete (yes, with diamond in the aggregates and LOTS of it) and other building materials. 

Sure, could be designed but why on earth would I design such an irrational waste of money and overly complicate it like a labyrinth. You have to end up asking, why? No direct experience actually doing it because none of us are deliberately going to design such for a client because none of them have that kind of money. I'm sure we both have the skills to design such but it would be flat out ridonculous. (when ridiculous isn't enough that we have to use a made up word).

http://www.urbandictionary.com/define.php?term=ridonculous

I'm sure you haven't done so but the law doesn't prohibit such but it would not be something either of us in our right minds would ever do such a project.

JBeaumont,

Do you do this on other professions' websites?  Are you on some neurosurgery site right now dispensing technical advice and defending its credibility with "I could do a brain transplant if I wanted to"?

No. No.

This game you're supposedly currently working on will be no exception. 

We'll see. Don't hold your breath until then because you can only do that for maybe 3-5 minutes if your good but even a day and you be dead.

consultants - just because you have them doesn't mean that you don't need to know anything.

The point that you have consultants is to fill the gaps where you are weak on otherwise, you'd be doing it yourself. I do agree you should know the basics of it enough.

differences:

construction methods - big steel/concrete vs. wood sticks

professional contractors are generally bright guys vs idiots running a business out of their truck.

materials - expensive and complicated wall sections both on the exterior and interior.  Generally when the budgets get big owners don't want a giant EIFS box, the facades are pretty interesting and materials correlate to that investment.

consultants - just because you have them doesn't mean that you don't need to know anything.

building codes - residential is comparatively simple, there is a reason code consultant exist.

zoning - same thing

life safety - same thing again, requirements for all of these get more stringent as buildings get taller, have more occupants, and if they have "helpless" occupants.  Again, for most small buildings none of these are issues to even worry about.

That's a generalization. Then again, I don't recall who this was directed at in the first place.  

Construction  methods: Where I live, there isn't a legal restriction on materials I can use to design a house. I can use any building material INCLUDING BIG HUGE STEEL BOX GIRDERS and Trusses and massive reinforced concrete that can survive a direct hit by an atomic bomb or nuclear bomb. When designing for other people, the cost of the material is excessive for a small footprint building. Glulams becomes cost effective with you have long spans. Then in that situation its kind of boils down to pound per sq. ft. and tributary load capacity.  At some point in span, that glulam is would have about the same load per sq.ft. as a smaller beam at shorter spans, drywall, etc.. The saving  would come in removal of load bearing stud walls and posts/columns. Yeah, an open interior is pretty inexpensive interior space.

Contractors (range of professionalism): There are good ones. There are shady ones. They are all over the place.

materials - Light metal stud walls... okay. Detail complexity of wall sections can be all over the place for any building. So can the building materials used can be all over the place when it comes to cost. You made me laugh on that EIFS crap. I don't use EIFS and even then, EIFS in my area requires proper detailing like rainscreen detailing. There's reasons for that.

consultants... I already commented on this.

building codes - yeah. I can go prescriptive IRC (ORSC), prescriptive IBC (OSSC) and non-prescriptive. What's your point?  Yeah, you can have building code consultants but that's hard cash going out to someone else at a profit to them. They are in business.. too!

zoning..... okay. What's your point?

life safety: No real criticism there. While that is true and those risks are there. But you have a prescriptive code requirement that most architects follows, anyway. Design by the prescriptive code... and you solve a lot of that. When you go beyond that, you aren't doing the heavy work. That's the engineering consultants solving a lot of that. Anyone can say, make sure the egress are wide enough to mitigate congestion of movement, use thick reinforced concrete walls and non-combustible stair systems and make specifications for elevators with redundant power supply. The elevator system is designed by elevator consultants/engineers/manufacturer. It doesn't take much intelligence to specify. Then it is all these other people figuring out how to actually make it work. When was the last time you designed the electric motors and braking systems of an elevator or the hoist cable or the user input panel and the electronics within it? I bet you probably haven't done that in your entire life. It doesn't matter and unnecessary. If the code says, an elevator is required and so many of them, I have to design with that in mind. It isn't something that hard to figure out. The architectural plan and design is the easy shit. The hard shit is the engineering which most architects are woefully unqualified to do. It isn't like you design the floor truss or i-joists. You just specify from a manufacturers tables much like a load/span table. The manufacturers produces that information. I've worked with assembly use and had experience associated with academic buildings and familiarity with building code requirements, ADA, etc.  associated with academic buildings. There is healthcare which have there own multiple layers of regulations, policies, etc. 

So do child care facilities. You have all these basic stuff that serves in defining the architectural program.

^______ Bottom line: Don't act like you're a special snow flake. Yes, I understand there is additional minimum requirements for a highrise hospital (for example). Behind all the fancy medical equipment, the building (which is what you are designing not the medical equipment) is still basically a building not all that much different.

Yes, the structural systems has to be adjusted to support the load. Basically, a 10-30 story building will use bigger steel columns and/or beams, the walls are probably a moment frame reinforced concrete or steel frame, etc. You may or will have shear wall detailing to resist wind and seismic. This is something you would work with a structural engineer and they do the heavy lifting there. Since, all that is meaningless if you specify substandard bolts or other fastening because the structural system is only as good as the weakest part.

We have the building codes that flat out guides you on the requirements for the such a project. You have additional requirements from outside the building codes and zoning regulations that you may need to comply with that further comes into play... some of it that may further raise the minimum standard.

It doesn't take a rocket scientist to understand the requirements. If I had to do such a project, that is exactly what I would be looking at in part of the design planning. There would be consulting with the consultants as needed.

If you know the engineering science, you can design any building. BTW: Who gives a shit about how many if any. Clients are clients and they are necessarily different than clients are for a low-rise project.  Before getting too deep in designing.... I would expect a geotech report to have been prepared to indicate the soil condition, soil bearing, etc. It will effect foundation system design.

At 30 stories, you'll likely be using a steel frame building and then it would come down to sizing the steel members, use of cross bracing and so forth. The same way you engineer structural load on a house.... you start at the top of the building and calculate the load down to the footing/piles. Then you have the wind and seismic lateral loads to calculate as well.

I don't design these structures for clients because I am not going out of my way to violate architectural licensing laws because I would be caught up with the court system for too much time for it. Even if I were to allowed to design such a structure in some countries, I am not based there so it is hard to grab such a project as there are so few of them. Those projects are likely not going to commission a sole-proprietor. They will seek firms with huge staff to produce floor plans and elevations, etc. QUICKLY.

I'm willing to do this in a hypothetical scenario where it is clear that it won't actually be used and built from the plans if there was a good financial incentive or do it in connection with a licensed architect on a real project. I'm not in business to outright violate the licensing laws in the U.S.

The types of structural systems, the materials used are probably pretty straight forward. I'm not talking EIFS while I won't rule out it from any possible material use options as it is just a material/facade system. 

Shuellmi,

I agree with you then from a general difference from a typical large projects and small projects. When it comes to pre-manufactured building components, they are pre-engineered and have load tables made by the manufacturers according to various industry standards. 

For example, I would need to design glulams themselves. I just select the size glulam that meets the requirements. For example: I can determine what size solid hewn beam (at #2 grade) dimensions is required and often can just select the size Glulam that is equal to or greater than the solid hewn (at #2 grade) cross section dimensions. Almost every case, the Glulam would be better than that. It just means the beam is more than sufficient since glulams are usually made from wood components that are #1 or better grade. Then if I need to tweak the sizing down (value engineering approach), I can look at available load-span tables to find the suitable size. I may use the minimum size or use the next size up on both cross-section or whatever. 

Steel beams can be calculated by determining required size using a few calcs to determine cross-section requirements and the span. It can be basic load/span. There is usually plenty of room to decide precise spans, dimension of components, etc.

Whether we are dealing with an elaborate small building or a large building. There is many variables in projects which we both agree can make a difference in the project difficulty.

 If you were to spend half a career designing houses and then decide to look for a job at a major firm (Smith Group or rossetti types) you just won't get anywhere because you don't know anything about larger projects.

That's a generality statement that may or may not be true. While, I may work with projects that are typically small, it doesn't necessarily mean I don't know anything about large projects. The engineering science is the same. The same code books that covers residential also large projects, too! You don't think I have read the IBC?

In my state, the required, SFRs of any size is exempt under both architecture and engineer's law. As for the building official requiring a stamp. I'll tell you this much, the B.O.s we had in recent years would even require an Architect to have certain drawings prepared or stamped by an engineer. In other words, expect to see an engineer's stamp if it is that complicated. There's a point where you would have engineers whether or not you are licensed as an architect.

Yeah, you mention a $90,000 salary. Do the math, that's your hard cash. You can't make that much money out of residential clients. Proves another point, large projects are better paid for the time you spend. You make more money per hour of labor designing a large project than a small project. On a large project, having a building code professional hired or as a consultant is probably justifiable in the cost scheme in a already large division of labor you find in those 20+ member project teams. (Yeah, they can be a lot more than 20 member project teams). On a typical house even those highly complex ones that are very non-prescriptive, I would have a very difficult time making even close to that amount on a billed hourly rate. I would estimate that you are talking $45/hour direct labor not to mention the benefits package. I'd be lucky to get $50/hr Billed hourly rate due to supply & demand in the residential projects so there is a very low price ceiling that the competition environment makes very difficult to do design projects that are elaborate. It is more profitable to stick with prescriptive code because clients are not likely to pay more for non-prescriptive code. I understand the forces behind the general assumptions. It isn't necessarily because we want to design bland, EIFS / etc. houses. 

Building codes are amended in each locality so its just part of each project that it would be part of the duties of the job to research the building codes as they are amended and adopted and enforced in the locality. I won't go into that. We both agree of the variability of the code but it doesn't matter. If you do a project in a locale, you look at the codes that is adopted as it is adopted in a locale. The only building code person I really care to talk to on projects on the smaller level IS the building official of the locale. While I do look at the codes as adopted and only challenge the B.O. or their inspectors if they are off on their own building codes. Even then, it is an art of picking the right battles. Sometimes, it isn't worth it. Just keep in mind that most of what is out there can be figured out over time. Sure not over a single lunch period but this isn't the pre-internet days. Look, you talk about your experiences in projects all the time. Internet has been publicly available for over 20 years. This means the way architectural practices are like are well documented on the internet by none other than.............. (drumroll please)........ yourselves.

As for books over lunch... well, there are books but there are also other mediums for this information.

PS: Regarding smart phones use - Why do you think they invented keyboards and real desktop or laptop computers?

Shuellmi,

Yeah, if I recall, it was all just a good debate. Of course, specifying a glu-laminated built-up vs. a pre-engineered glulam would probably make no sense in practice. All the work might in fact make that built-up beam more expensive than the regular glu-lam. Most of the manufacturers have their own engineers and stamped drawings like the trusses. It becomes my problem from the point that the pre-engineered component is connected to my building's walls (in the drawings & specifications of course).

Actually, it is more than that. It is my problem and responsibility as the building designer at the point of integrated pre-engineered components into my design. It becomes my problem to integrate the truss, glulam, etc. into the whole building design solution. 

threadkilla,

At least I design the projects not some insurance company.

Non Sequitur,

I was being sarcastic. Some architects do seem to design as if their insurance companies are the ones making the decisions.