a beautiful manifesto!!

I think you've missed the point entirely

isn't it that laziness is productive of beauty and the pressure-cooker atmosphere of schools of architecture only leads to futulity and mental breakdowns? I'm all for laziness, which was the title of the thread...

also details drive me nuts, except as an abstract exercise

the last I checked, design had A LOT to do with details, and making things work in a certain fashion.

Think of faces... You can't "design" a face by saying it has two eyes, a nose, a mouth and it's skin colored and be done. Every face has these components, yet there are wildly different arrangments of relatively similar parts.

A building by nonarchitect will have doors, walls, windows, and a roof? So what? And I bet it's "green", just "green" cause it doesn't really matter what shade of green anyways.

i am guessing you already have the architecture degree since your other post asks what you can do with it. I didn't post there because you didn't give much to go on. Don't berate those who gave honest responses to your nondiscript initial question. There was a lot more I read in that post than calling you lazy or having a lack of committment. Read it again, I think you glazed over it.

I have a hard time picturing a non-detail oriented architect being very good. Sounds like you need to inherent an already sucessful business. That would be a "big idea" job.

i'm a lazy sod

i was giving nonarchitect the benefit of the doubt, but i guess i will side with the others (in that post) and agree that (s)he's just a lazy, obnoxious sod.
and i bet he will not return to this thread..lets not respond to any of his threads from now on a-hole

"Have you architects out there ever thought of better ways to spend your time than drawing that imaginary door knob for the 18th time on autocad"

Better than whinning...

Can't stand the heat, get out of the fire.

I think laziness is just another word for leisure: time for the brain to expand and find its own architectural voice. If this means amateur architecture, that's fine. I think our university education has got it all wrong: force-feeding the mind in a few short years. Where is the time (leisure) for reading, travel and other 'useless' activities? We have lost sight of the value of the useless. The bottom line is money ('Form Follows Finance'). I think you're all being too hard on nonarchitect. I don't think she's actually lazy at all: just trying to find her own way. And if you do this, this will take time and people will call you lazy. I also like vado retro's attitude. Our society is too speeded-up, with no time for people like nonarchitect who are seeking an alternative vision. Also, nonarchitect is quite witty, which is not the same as whining at all.

i only work to pay bills and to get insurance and have a bit of pocket money. otherwise i wouldnt go near a job.

maybe someone should start a thread entitled 'Desperate Architects'...

cant be lazy all the time, and cant be workaholic all the time, find the balance between the two maybe?

work hard play hard.
that's how i roll.

I've recently come to conclusion from watching this landscape design show on television that details matter a lot when it concerns clients. More importantly details need to be clearly illustrated for the client to visualize. This landscape design show on TV which I see everyday is about a family who offers a contract to one among the three designers who comes up with the best design to transform their backyard. I've noticed from every single show that the winner of the contract always ends up being the designer who has come up with the well designed/detailed illustration. And it doesn't matter whether another designer has better ideas and communicates better. When it comes to clients being able to see the design influences their decisions to a great extent.

so if you have the time don't skip out on details

thanks johndevlin.
There is a huge difference between being concerned about "details" that matter: i.e :the legal clauses on your contract, walls that trap heat etc...and those that architects LOVE to call details: i.e: fetishized joints way beyond anyone's eye level, meant to be published in DETAILS magazine...

I am not whining...I am living the life I want, I am simply concerned about recently made acquaintances....

what schools do you people go to? i've never been asked to draw door knobs.... i'm confused. profs encourage "leisure" activities vaguely connected to architecture. endless hours of discussion and fooling around. isn't that what studio is all about? wasting time until its impossible to complete all the work without pulling an all nighter?

as for travel, all teachers ive spoken to have strongly encouraged traveling. the school pushes students to visit the world by organizing trips every year.

as for details, strawbeary was spot on: the difference between ok architecture, and great architecture is in the details. plus someone needs to deal with every insignificant detail in a building. what do you suggest? send vague plans to the construction workers and let them figure out how to make it happen? or let engineers deal with the details and let them take over?

i'm still alive

nonarchitect, I understand where you're coming from. I agree. The most frustrating thing in my small are of the architecture world is the starving artist syndrome. That, along with this strange need to sell the world on cutting edge design that only appeals to other architects. I got into this because I want to make people happy by creating beautiful spaces, and I want to make a good living. But that's a different rant for another day.

The only problem I have with your assessment is your use of the word lazy (I prefer efficient), and the way you talk about details (they help seperate us from contractors with CAD).

At my school, its like there are two very different schools occupying one building. We've sorted ourselves out, and we have our own lables for one another. I call the other side "doorknob architects" because they're the kind of lunatics who are worried about drafting in furniture plans and doorknobs. They call our side the neighborhood of make-believe because we focus on concepts and beauty, and we keep Koolhaas, and Tschumi, and DS+R books open on our desks as precedents.

Personally I'm trying to find some middle ground. Its frustrating as hell. It saddens me to read this website everyday, because frankly I can still see the two sides alive and well in the professional world.

I was gonna go on, but conversations like this make me want to get into real estate...

the problem between the 'doorknob architects' and the make-believe architects, rf, is that they each need to learn to be BOTH.

i stand by what i wrote on here two years ago. and i like the way stephanie rolls. hi stephanie :)

i agree with the part about schools de-skilling their students. I have noticed that the current architecture educational model really has nothing to do with architecture or the production of buildings. Fancy renderings and bullshit theory dont mean jack shit when you are getting your ass sued because your building leaks

gee, I can be a bitch sometimes.

god, Strawbeary, why's you gots to be such a bitch?

golly, mdler, i don't think i am in real life, just on the discussion forums.

yeah, you sort of lit her up.

at least i'm not LAZY

I posted this two years ago fresh out of school, and if I hadn't stood by my belief in laziness, i would not be where i am today. after deciding to take a cushy architecture job that paid well for a while, i discovered my niche in development...that said, laziness allows for lateral thinking...and to make my architectural practice scalable...poor strawbeary must be struggling

well said, nonarch! you are right!

How true ... but, ugly buildings, designed without adequate consideration of their surroundings suck too !

We gotta do it all, folks -- we gotta do it all. Not easy to accomplish if your tendencies are toward laziness.

also not easy to accomplish when your clients/employers piss on your shoes in lieu of pay.

why do it yourself when you can pay someone else to do it?

Strawbeary, you are beginning to see the light !