I went out drinking one night and someone spiked my pina coalada. 

I woke up the next morning in a bathtub filled with icy water, stitches on my forehead, and a note on the mirror written in lipstick: "We've harvested out your brain, go see a professional asap".

Not sure what happens for the next 17 years, but here I am now! Insulation is pink!

Ok then. Seriously, I would like to know how everyone became interested in Architecture.

Ricky BORk. Is this another thread where we yell at the youngins for not knowing what they couldn't possibly know? I'm in!

On an even more serious note:

I liked making the houses for my Barbies, but once the house project was done I had no interest in the dolls.  The dolls were just an excuse to do a project* - the design of the house being the game I wanted to play, not the game the doll commercials told me to play.

*I have a much better attitude towards my clients now.

kylec,

Sorry, you're not going to get too much seriousness here due to the miserable state of the economy these days, but here's my story:  I found myself getting involved in carpentry and residential construction after college, and was interested in how a project goes together and how that project was eventually enjoyed by it's occupants.  I then decided to pursue a Masters in Architecture in order to move up the ladder, so to speak. 

I like to see a project come out of the ground and become meaningful to those who use it. 

sketching + origami + wood carving + lovin' that geometry class = unemployed architect

Ricky, there's a certain sadness about this question given the state of things. It's like asking the crippled Christopher Reeve how he got into horse riding.

This is a fun (and lengthy) story to tell. NEVER had an interest in buildings specifically, but then I never knew buildings held all of my interests in a neat bundle.

I jumped all over the academic spectrum during undergrad to reach architecture. This was when I naively assumed you HAD to work in your major field. First I was all set in international studies, which I found too focused for me (they just want to talk about racism and how it's not really racism but economics). Then I moved to environmental science, which was great since it encompasses three very different subject areas (the three pillars of sustainability and all that). From there I got into studio art because environmental science seemed to already have an expected answer to its own questions (I wanted to make up my own). Then studio art got a little too weird for me so I went to my academic advisor who suggested architecture as a discipline that would cover all of the above, which I was still interested in, but not enough to study any one of them alone. So I transferred from my school, which didn't have architecture, to one that did (for a BA in arch studies) and now I'm applying for an M.Arch because I've come to love the field and I get a thrill from physically manifesting a project (even just a model of one).

Thank you nagooyen for your comment. That is what I was looking for in this question. I just wanted to find out how other people with this passion first got involved with it. Also, thank you RickB-OR for defending this question. This question was not meant to be rude or sad. Thank you to those who posted legitimate stories and answers.

Well I grew up in a construction family and would go to work for my fathers company. Except we got to build actual Adirondack style camps and with all custom woodwork, log coping etc.. , and got to work on a few original great camps doing restoration of the field stone work. I loved to be around this style of craftsmanship and the way the building would sit one with the environment... just the natural landscape around the buildings was perfect for me. Plus I really enjoyed drawing and building things and really like technical information. And engineering seemed to boring.

Hey, the kid can  think and write in complete and coherent sentences.  Before long, that alone will be worth a Pulitzer or a Pritzger.  The world is your oyster -- go for what you love.

Work should be at least part Play, to have any meaning (for you AND for the world).

this is the story of how it happened to me:

Random Memory: The Master of Rugtown

Tangrams introduced me to solving problems with geometry and form,  that was at about 7 (and I was damn good at them, if I do say so myself!  And for those that were wondering, that's where my angles came from!).

From about 14 I knew I wanted to be an architect.  

Then at about 28, I knew that I did not want to be an architect, after 7+ years of architecture education.  

Anymore questions?  ;-)     Always here to help!

i became an architect because i was bored with the fine arts program at university and didn't qualify for the engineering program because i didn't take grade 12 chem.  a friend suggested architecture and i applied.  not sure why.  i do remember it took some effort to go through the process (portfolio, letter of intent etc) so i must have had some idea that i would like it,  but as a kid university was not part of my ambition never mind architecture.

turns out i like architecture and am reasonably good at it, but there was never an epiphany or even a moment when it seemed like a career i would pursue. 

sometimes we do things that we love by accident.  kinda like it that the world works that way myself....

i loved to draw. constantly.

growing up in a rural area, i spent a lot of times drawings the buildings around my town. just sitting in front of them with pastels or pencil, drawing. i don't know why i started doing it. eventually i started selling or giving away these drawings.  

when i was about ten, a box of books that we bought at an estate auction had a bunch of 11x14 floor plan books from the sixties, all bound up in a red cloth cover. i pored over these and attempted to learn the logic of the plans and how they matched up with the little ink vignettes that accompanied each plan. then i started drawings plans of 'dream houses'.  

i loved historic buildings and always wanted to learn why they were the way they were. 

all of this convinced me that an architect was what i wanted to be - even though i didn't really know yet what that would mean. first year was an eye-opener, when i realized that everything i thought had prepared me for architecture was completely backwards. 

Two years out of undergrad, BA in English. Working at a library, making $10/hour, 20 hours per week. Reading about the Bauhaus, Mies, Palladio, Vitruvius. Googling direction to my life, I discovered architecture grad school did not require an undergraduate major in architecture. Thought it sounded like a viable career and something I could do for the next 30 years of my life. Spent the following two years at a community college taking prereqs, teaching myself to draw and putting together a portfolio, I applied to grad school and was accepted.

Graphic Design/Illustration are really my strengths coming out of high school.  Got a great scholarship at Pratt Institute but the graphic design/illustration are not majors that the school is known for.  Pratt's strengths were architecture, interior design, industrial design, construction mgmt.  I wanted the best education the college could give me in order to get my money & time's worth, so I chose Architecture.  Architecture encompasses all the other design fields.  You can have an Architecture degree and still be a graphic designer but you can't have a graphic design degree and be an Architect.  I don't like paths that lead to dead ends and architecture is a versatile career.  I also have connections in the field since my Father's a leading high rise structural engineer and your professional network is very important in landing and keeping jobs.  

P.S. I LOL'd with Rusty's Christopher Reeves analogy.  

By default, it seems.

I literally grew up in my father’s architectural office, often sleeping in a closet. I entertained myself on the boards and cleaning up jobsites for $1 an hour. At twelve I designed part of our own house and at thirteen worked on building it.

I worked summers in construction and full time after high school, with no plans for college. But after 6-8 months of low-man on the totem pole I applied to RISD on the advice of alumni friends. I signed up for architecture, of course, but after seeing clueless fifth-year students doing ink on vellum isometric murals for thesis projects I switched into industrial design.

After RISD I went to work with my father, eventually becoming a project architect. I also took projects on my own and well, here I am (standing on the corner of Fifth and Vermouth, open for suggestions).

As an aside, one of our ID projects at RISD was to design a portable computer for DEC. This was right around the time of the Apple ][ and a couple years before the first IBM PC. My design was based on the Marlboro box, with a tiny cathode tube in the box and a keyboard and modem (two rubber cups for a telephone handset) on the flip-open lid. At the time, a state of the art 100 bit memory card was an 8” by 12” circuit board with 100 transistors soldered to it.

Going to the top of my dresser drawer and organizing the fragrance bottles and deodorants and lotions to create a new city skyline...i was 10.

My high school mandated a semester of hand drafting (unless you were in orchestra). I really enjoyed it and excelled in drafting, so I continued taking more architecture courses in high school. Joined the ACE Mentor Program and got a good look into the professional side of architecture.

However, the first year of my B.Arch program was a very different story. Across the board, architecture schools want fresh students with no preconceptions of architecture, in order to mold them as they see fit. It was frustrating at first, and a lot of people dropped out within the first semester because crafting abstract models out of plastic bottles did not seem like architecture to them.

What helped me stay on track was the fact that I interned at a professional firm before going to college. The knowledge of how a firm works was very informative and kept me on my goals.

Some kid in a lifejacket and his crazy old friend with frizzy hair and bug-like eyes driving a DeLorean told me that it was my density. Or was it destiny? Maybe he meant I should have been a scientist. Doh!!  

Both my grandfather and father where engineers that also designed buildings - My grandfather and grandmother designed 3 buildings for the 1 acre site behind their house - 2 machine shops filled with lathes and stuff. My grandmother built a Japanese tea house - basicaly a sushi bar i the backy. They also taught us how to build models, draft and build simple structures.  My father took us to see Frank Lloyd Wrights Ablin House in Bakersfield while it was under construction and also Marin Civic Center also under construction - the metal frame of it looked like a space ship flying out of the hills of Santa Venetia in Marin County – That’s when I decided at age 7, that I wanted to be an engineer that designed buildings? Say What? I studied graphic design, Industrial design, computer programming then ultimately architecture and earned my M.arch at age 53? . Now I am still a BIM specialist doing a lot of parametric work and project modeling at a small office in San Francisco - occasionally, I go up to Marin Civic - and try and remember what I was thinking back then. -

I have the most cliche story ever. Wanted to be an artist all my life. Sketching, painting, sculpting, ceramics, etc etc. Stereotypical parents thought that you only go to college to be a doctor or lawyer, and thought all artists starved to death. Not good with blood (still) and at the time thought lawyers were all liars and conmen; not even counting the fact I simply didn't want to do that stuff. Then took an AP Art History course in HS, taught by one of my favorite art teachers (I can't remember if she became a favorite teacher before or after the course now that I think back). Art history covered architecture as well. I thought it could be a decent compromise. So far, its been better than a decent compromise but I'm one of the rare ones to be continuously employed on good projects.

architecture and I lived in the same freshman dorm in college.  we were both spending a lot of time in the common room late at night so I guess it was inevitable that we'd hook up.  I know engineering would have been a more stable relationship, but architecture is a much better kisser.

"architecture is a much better kisser"

True, but only if you don't mind the herpes.

""architecture is a much better kisser"

True, but only if you don't mind the herpes."

Or a dick in your mouth.

"Or a dick in your mouth."

From an aspiring architect, no less. :)

"From an aspiring architect, no less. :)"

My uncle is an architect and he told me all about it. The long hours. The late nights. And the dick in the mouth.

Did he tell you that in the basement and or shed and or workvan sans window?

Were wine coolers involved?

Show us on the Justin Bieber doll where your uncle taught you about architecture.

clearly, the "microphone"

"Did he tell you that in the basement and or shed and or workvan sans window?"

We don't do it for the microphone, we do it for the stamp.

bravo, donna!

two turntables and a buttplug?

Meh, the thought of a career as a computer programmer was just too depressing, and one afternoon to took a drive to Frank Lloyd Wright's Taliesin and thought, "Hey, buildings don't have to be mediocre piles of festering shit!".  Until I went to architecture school when I learned that, yes, buildings do generally have to be mediocre piles of festering shit, because that's what the client wants, most architects have no balls, and Frank Lloyd Wright is dead.

Also, I ate a lot of paint chips as a kid.

*lick*

i think i've figured it out, milwaukee08, you are actually Dennis Leary ~

Clearly, this thread has drifted far off from the initial question, but I would like to thank everyone who shared their very interesting stories about how you became interested in architecture. While the economy is a mess, and jobs are few. Now is the time to think about why you became an Architect or why you want to become an Architect, how you were drawn to this field and how you must trudge on and work through these tough economic times.

my decision is recent and ... 'hard earned' and Im 25. I think Ive always wanted to do something in ART. My mother's idea of an artist is someone who sells pieces of paper or scrap at the side of the road... She didn't want that for me. So! Drawing was the only thing that made me happy but my mother fought with me over the years to make sure i wasn't an artist - throwing away sketches, being all scary asking me if i wanted to live on the streets - whatever. I remember one time I was around six or seven - its a vague memory - but I really wanted my mom to like my drawings so whilst she cooked I lay at her feet drawing her and my aunt in 'fancy' clothes. Needless to say that led to talk of fashion designers being faggots between her and my aunt. I kept drawing. I drew whenever I was locked away in my room.

As kids my brothers and I moved alot. We stayed with people. we got our own rooms. And all of tht . I don't know exactly when it began but my elder brother and I began drawing house plans in our little sketchbook (Tarek kept on of his school notebooks as a drawing book). We would talk about how we'd build these house and shit and we all would live together and yadda yadda yadda...

Tarek and I developed an activity that was an extension of this. My mother used to take us walking and show us houses. And we'd use this to inform our drawings - guess what was inside and shit. I love a new house. meh.

When my dad left us I was thirteen. I think something broke in me and I began drawing and singing 'out of turn' lol! I stopped paying attention in school. I didn't know what I wanted anymore. And I didn't have any sense of self. I had no courage to tell my teachers what subjects i wanted. I had told my mom I wanted to be a lawyer and my teachers had said I should be an architect. It was a stupid fight.

I technically dropped out of secondary school. My life has been a great mess for the last ten years. I still don't know how to clean it up - there's a lot of hurt and damage that my parents don't acknowledge and that I don't know how to let go of. So! the decision. I can't let go of art... and I've always loved math and english. I need a challenge. I've been asking some architects to take me on just so i can see what the field is here...but trinidadians are always too busy for each other. I'm figuring it out.