school is for experimentation. i hate teachers that would rather you shit out a piece of work in a week and "refine" the work for the rest of the semester, rather than proceeding with a legitimate "process" before you actually have a building.
f#$k making it work. its school for pete's sake!
An architect who can't put together a building is no architect, wangsta.
mdler, give the girl a set a house plans done previously in the office and tell her to refer to them constantly. Then review, redline, review, redline. After doing a couple house CD sets this way she'll get better and your job will be easier.
And if she doesn't already have one, make her get a copy of Building Construction Illustrated.
I think this question is so ubiquitous that it's difficult to tell who's really, truly deficient in education and who's at a normal level. Not knowing exactly which wall and floor assemblies need insulation? ok. Not knowing that a 2x4 isn't 2" by 4"? deficient.
After teaching new architecture students- first year- and practicing for over 20 yrs. I can tell you schools (accredited schools) do a pretty fine job educating students on the fundamentals of architecture. It is simply too grand of a field to teach it all. In fact most institutions could do well teaching more art history and gestural drawing. Architecture education shouldn’t be a training process. That is what internships are for and the IDP.
Liberty Bell and Mr. Ward offer a great solution to your situation. That is also how I learned...and still am learning, 20 yrs later. Practicing architecture (the business and the service) is a very hard thing to learn, and takes time and lots of hrs of 'in the field' experience. Everyday there are new situations and new challenges. It is your responsibility to train folks who know less. Go for it…mentor a little.
Schools simply can’t own the responsibility of training students for the field specifically. It’s too big of training problem.
I understand that it is partially my responsibility to educate her on how a building is put together. I beleive, however, that archtecture school should place a little more emphasis on the issue...
- "she's an intern. you're an architect. it's your job to turn her into an architect."
let's use this comment to link this conversation with the frequent, vicious debates here regardig a) when interns should be eligible to take the exam, and b) compensation for interns, and c) use of the title 'intern'.
1. if it's up to the firm to make a graduate "into an architect" where's the rationale for a recent graduate being eligible to take the exam right away?
2. if it's up to the firm to make a graduate "into an architect" what's with all the complaining about intern compensation - why should firm's pay top dollar for employees they must spend years training?
3. if it's up to the firm to make a graduate "into an architect" what's with all the complaining about what we call recent graduates - if you're an Intern, still learning, you're not an Architect.
while I can embrace aspects of all the arguments on these issues, the existing system is the way it is for a reason - we can't have it both ways.
If architecture is the design of buildings, why don't the schools teach that? The whole "experience" as primary source for learning architecture days are ending. As more firms outsource "the tedious stuff" as our principal calls it, learning while doing CD's isn't going to happen anymore. Mdler is right, it is time for the Uni's to buck up and take responsibility for teaching how to DESIGN A BUILDING, even just a small one, even just one construction type for heaven's sake. It won't take away from any of the experimentation, it will simply add a useful dimension to one's academic learning. Yes they will continue to learn on the job, but it would be great to get an student straight out of school who could draw an accurate building section.
j
maybe we should switch to the british system...or the spanish one.
or even dutch works for me (same education as NA, but you get licence when you graduate)...
or even the japanese one for that matter (basically if you can pass the exam, regardless of your education or experience, you are an architect)
there are lots of systems out there. they all have good points and bad points.
i was once reminded at my office in london that it was my job to teach the younger staff as well as run the project. this came as a shock to me, much like mdler above...but the fellow who reminded me was right on. it is our job to teach. i don't think as mentors, exactly cuz this person had a licence in more than one country, was a top grad from bartlett and was bright as heck---and this person was a VERY good designer. simply couldn't draw a set worth a shit, and had some issues with cad and kept trying to make cd's into presentation boards that were impossibe to understand...
way i dealt with it was that we were absolute equals with most work, but when it came time to do cd's i showed how to make them more legible, more buildable and cetera. worked fine. said person learned very fast, and we are now as equal as can be...which is how it should be far as i can figure.
thing is there was no need to look down on the young architect, and that person performed better cuz i didn't. remuneration is maybe another question, and one i am only beginning to consider with my partner, but our belief is that you can treat interns with respect and educate them at the same time...and use the talents they DO have rather than let them go to waste cuz they aren't experienced enough.
thing is sometimes interns have bloody good ideas, and only a fool compartmentalises people that way. this sort of approach certainly helps keep rem fresh. the opposite is i think a huge reason why SOM makes incredibly uninspiring work like freedom tower...
anyway...as far as topic goes, it would be great if we had more tech courses in school, if they involved real construction...but learning to build ain't THAT hard (seriously, i was helping frame houses by the time i was in my teens; and hell if my step dad can't build, weld, or assemble anything i ever think of; and he is just a high-school educated farm-boy). learning to THINK, however, is very hard. architecture school is pretty good with that.
Thanks for getting my point, OldFogey. Putting a building together is the ultimate goal of an architect...
It is upsetting that this is one of the things that is given the least amount of time in architecture school. When I was a student I took a woodworking / furniture making class. I went to a large public university (in Cincinnati) which had many colleges within it. One of these was a College of Applied Sciences (a trade/vocational school, if you will). Anyways, when I tried to use this class as one of the electives needed to satisfy my requirements to graduate, I was told that it didnt count because it was a trade, not an academic class...
Had we sat around and discussed the theoretical implications of using Titebond vs Elmers wood glue and what glue Heidegger would have used, this would have been accepted for my gratuation...
part of the value of architecture school's ways are that they keep you floating for a while - don't allow you to get too grounded in the construction or other technical aspects of things.
after 10+ yrs of practice, i went back to school and got my grad degree and made a point of not getting near any issues of construction and what was buildable. i wanted to think bigger, broader, and more about possibility.
lessons from that experience helped when i started doing some teaching. my studios were on issues of affordable housing and i found that the students would generate their strategies early and then i'd start seeing a lot of attempts (not good ones, but...) at construction detailing. i had a choice: to go along and teach them some things about basic construction or to pull them back and revisit their strategic thinking. the problem was that, once they got into the detail-y aspects of thiking about their projects, the students zeroed in and stopped thinking big picture. i decided that keeping the design conversations going was more impt and that framing and flashing could wait. school is about exploration.
in the end we did get to some construction discussions, but with a difference. instead of 14 projects with basic framing and flashing questions - BORING - we had 14 different project with 14 different constructability issues to solve. the issues of thinking about affordable housing had been much more holistic and deep.
so i ride the fence a little bit. i value my 5 undergrad theory courses (i maxed them out, took as much as i could) but have no use for anyone who can only spout deleuze relative to the culture at large without telling me how it affects the project. i also think that i got a good technical education - enough to know how to find out what i needed to know, not know it all.
if i see any problem with those coming out of school right now (broad generalization alert!) it's not that they're not educated enough, it's that they don't know how to educate themselves. yes, i learned how to do cds by keeping a model set of cds close. yes, i learned code by doing painfully tedious chapter by chapter code reviews. a lot of young interns do not and will not do these things - or at least not for very long. i'm hounded by questions for which the answers are not far away. following-by-example demands a longer attention span maybe? (if nothing else, drawing brick coursing by hand made me patient. laying down a brick hatch maybe doesn't allow for that patience to be developed?)
construction methods change. architects need to know how to think and how to find information that we need so that we can adapt to new construction and documentation methods.
in my undergrad we had no tech courses worth their name, but we had a woodhsop so i built my furniture, adn was pretty happy...
but a few years ago i taught first year studio at my old uni, and was blown away by the number of kids who were welding models and pouring concrete...IN FIRST YEAR UNDERGRAD. our faculty had changed since i was there and while they were as into theory as the last generation, they also wanted the kids to experiment with materials and see what they could build by trial and error.
learning to build the same old shit takes some time and a bit of effort, but not much more...learning to make new stuff (like how to pour a concrete window detail using concrete and spandex as formwork; and then DOING it) takes creativity and an open mind...
given a choice, i gotta support the school that does the latter rather than the former. in fact if it meant the kids could do the latter, i would say fuck cds all together. that can be learned any ol time.
heres the thang. architecture school should be creative. studios should be about the search. but the non studio portion of the school should go entirely to what an architecture job is. ie learning about how to work in an office so you arent a total numbnut when you start working. this is coming from a former total and still partial numbnut.
One numbnut to another I totaly agree. I had the good fortune of having an older brother in the concrete business, and several uncles in the Construction Business. So I wasn't so wet behind the ears, even at the ripe young age of 18. My Dad was always building something or tearing something apart. That is why I'm not afraid to look under the hood. That is also why I hate to see poorly designed products, or buildings. Roofs will not leak if they are designed right....
"Teach your students how to put together a god-damn building!!!!"
Well that is no problem with today's boring software , everything is already so boring that you will not know the difference between building constructure, engineer and architect. And the buildings will become exactly the boring qualities that been supported , not the innovation or newthinking not the new Gaudi or the new Le.Corb but everything that satisfy the industrie making the window wal, the rigid steel beam and the Lego-Mind paneling. All in all you will today get exactly the colored clotches you want, any new trend just to make the design "different" than the other, and basicly it will be the same framework nomatter what the design act, --- architecture is now fasion remember that, not innovation or newthinking that was over a hundred years ago no, you do not decide any piece of the structure you maybe think the panels will be lookalike brick walls but they will be lookalike lookalike brick walls ,when you think you can put a bit structure to act Decor remember, that this first have to be "translated" into some low quality lookalike that will cover the trivial gasic structure --- Nothing will be genuine and quality everything will be the old steel lattrice just covered with next generation lookalike paneling. And it proberly will carry a small "Revit" note.
I can get on board with this. I agree that school should not be making CD sets by any means. But, I would think that people should know you can't use cables as columns. Even if you are taking what we have termed a 'generative studio' I think your instructor has an obligation to have you draw a section at SOME level of detail. A bulk of the plans and sections that you will see pinned up at Penn reviews look like CAD-ed up napkin sketches. I'm talking 3rd year plans and sections. Single line wall thicknesses. No line weights. BUt then there will be 900 screen captures from RealFlow to try to post rationalize your twist. I would much rather see the twist and some building documentation showing me space then 9234984 pink dots on a black background with some white lines all over the place. Just because plans and sections are made out of lines (and antiquated?)doesn't mean the information isn't just as valuable as the rendering.
Hi Snooker, I spend 3 years at the architect acadamy and had 3 major projects making software for boatsbuilding, to do so I must be a boatsbuilder as you proberly suspect, as writing software to build and profit from the digital options, you simply must know your crafts . But beside that you shuld know that boatsbuilding cover more than just the difficult part of carpentry --- it is about knowing the mashins and be able to operate these, it is about knowing all trivial things known to carpenters and timberwork, knowing wood specie by sight and their ability by memmory , and yes I build a number of my own boat designs and repaired both huge ans small ships, houses ,produced furniture and done it all with a profesional attitude.
But I guess you would know to, that this is not about "what I build" , architecture are much more than bragging about your creations --- see anyone can build a house or build a cotteage just being a carpenter or builder , what you shuld look for is not that, as acturly many newbuild houses are acturly not something to brag about --- just the low quality materials and lazy put together is not what you shuld point to and it is not what architecture need. See I have enough to brag about if this was the issue but it is not, the issue is to work further than that, further than just pointing to trivial things --- how things was done is not how things will be done, hopefully as othervise boatsbuilding would be about caulking and lofting as in the old day's no Snooker , I tried to bring it further than that, try search for Cyber-Boat.
I like your independent, craft based spirit, even if your craft is computer driven. Certainly has a relevance to 21st century practice, and belongs in a discussion on education, no matter what the others may say. Will you be involved in the Gross Point Library Charette to extend the Marcel Breuer library?
Smooker what I am is proberly not your image of me anyway, but let me asure you youthat my entrance into inventing new tools is only to reflect to the needs the casual wish, for something better than timbers and panels, Sorry Snooker I am in this, exactly becaurse I made it my task providing, deliver the tool you social gifted would newer want think would be the right thing --- 3D-H that acturly do it a third the cost, any shape, form use whatever, could effect the items' look, then if that didn't "feel well" you can with 3D-H even surfact the raw frames and get ecactly what you say you want. What I am is nothing but a danish designer with a brilliant new idea , maybe you don't need that as acturly desinging spaces is newer your call , But you Romans don't want progress and a Mountain of money ; Also , that is another reson architecture must change.
evilplatypus you are quite right, my crime beaing that I am a skilled boatsbuilder was maybe as I admit also very Lazy -- Still if this mean another credit for old hippie style architecture please count me in, everything but the logistics or only the spreedsheets , none of these was ever my suggestion.
Guess 3D-H shows it's effords best, in actural plane fuselage production , here 3D-H suggest obvious reson , just by providing anything at a third the cost.
They say Revit ans like programs are better but please remember, that these are the old way's made better ,and who can emagine anything better than that `?
Problem is that 3D-H can, and work realy to well ,that it is not easy to use is not true , nothing is easier , a tool to make something nice. but is making something nice then your wish well, I allway's made my prototype hands-on and I do not find that aproach wrong if indeed what we discuss is design not architecture.
when I was in school we probably had half a dozen buildings under construction on our campus; many of which were being designed by starchitects. Never once did we have a class that went to visit these construction sites...
I think my point is that creativity and pragmatics are two sides of the same coin, when done properly. Even Picasso did classical painting BEFORE he went abstract. The greatest innovators know the rules (how to put a building together) such that they can intelligently bend, break, or change them. Teaching the fundamentals of building construction should be a primary goal of the schools, it will lead to better projects later. The classes I resent taking in college aren't the theory courses, but required "Introduction to the profession of Architecture" where we were lectured on how poor we were going to be, and never really approached the subject of professional architectural practice.
j
I am all for being creative, but let the students know that their building will have to somehow stand. Make them responsible for the pragmatics of having to but a builing together. Give them the parameters and then let them creativly operate within those parameters. Architecture is more than adjusting the opacity of your Maya model...
"what is old hippie style architecture? i missed that in my arch history classes (but i was sleeping anyway...)
is that frank gehry?"
No not the frankest , but architecture is not anymore restricted to the Hippie Dome when talking about free form designing I guess ; my attitude deliver a better structural framework , I don't see cold postmodern useless towers and bored style houses as the promises with digital projecting --- I can provide a much better framework , the actural Core structure, with 3D-H than with avaible stringers and resistant steel beams, Guess some will say it is a hippie attitude to respond as 3D-H , that just lock around and still just provide the best and strongest structure. Now emty volumes just these, if these building volumes then was an intergrated part of the internal spaces , but no, they are not, ------------ Still that just describe a different attitude , I deliver a new innovative method to solve a number of problems, I trust architects better than I will come , as soon someone else begin realising what Direct-Link production is for a kind of a Hippie.
It stand for a method where you draw the building as 3D solids, that mean not just emty Solids only displaying the outher limits for a rendering, but the intire building where if there are waidows you subtract an exact box with the measures of the window frame, that you also "hollow out" the Solids to show walls in the right thickness, floors and everything --- an actual 3D model with everything you want to build with the 3D-H method.
Now when that is done and everything, such as leadway's for pipes and wires are subtracted the Solid model, then 3D-H will slice the intire model into a buildable framework ; that mean that a hundred different materials, that you usealy use building a house are replaced with just one material and the projecting now work so that the computer generate each and every building part.
Also -- if architecture is about shaping out inviroments and distribuating spaces then realy what do you need an accounting tool for ?
True it is perfect for old day's way's of building a house as four poles and a roof but realy I would suggest better way's to project, manufactor and sustain a building structure than this old concept.
I don't see anything wrong, going further than the Hippie Dome in terms of computer generated building structure, also I find a zero-thickness polymesh shell, a very poor suggestion compared the increadible new methods that is here just with 3D-H as a simple example ; methods that replace the old timbers and the trivial spans with something four times their strength and in one material only. That is 3D-H -- just a new way to put things together and then, it will make an aeroplane fuselage in strong metal or a house in neat green building sheets ,compared the old way's where a bored Rivit Lego set, is just added aditional information and then when the bills are there the house shal be build -- gee everyione shuld reconise how mych faster and safer it will be, to allow the computer to generate the assembly framework , and then cover that with paneling . The best thing about this is, that with 3D-H nothing talk against using standard size panels you simply design the house so that standard panels will cover the Volumes you projected.
So let me see if I get this right: Your talking about subtractive sculpture. Where you start out with a large building block and chew away at it with a CNC machine forming a structure frame which is contiguious and of one material. Then you slap some siding on it, run some electrical conduit in the voids of the structure and you have a building.
"Where you start out with a large building block and chew away at it with a CNC machine forming a structure frame which is contiguious and of one material."
WRONG read it , please do it as it is obvious you got the wrong picture and simply do not know what 3D-H is ;
Gee did you even read the link ? It cirtainly sound as if you did not,
No where did I write about cutting away from a huge block , please tell me is that the picture so difficult to change in your mind ?
Maybe you already decided that this what you describe above is 3D-H but it is not --- to router 3D is the most silli way one could emagine ; what wonders are produced by huge 3D routers none, only fragile models a car in foam a boat in Polyurethane foam ,just to provide a plug that better and cheaper could have been build by tradisional means no, 3D-H is making 2D cut sheets act as building frames from two other planes than the useal, and the result is not just unique, the frames cut from plain but strong sheet materials also replace 200 other materials , such as the beams you don't need anymore, the stringers grders just every of the hundred of various single parts that make up a building structure, ----
When I read what you suggest I wonder if you even read one single word about 3D-H try follow the links, make a search to see the many exiting structures this produce by a press of a button, when and only when you modeled the intire design as a 3D object. --- So you don't router out a huge block , you cut simple sheet with a laser or water cutter , a pounching mashine or any other "2D" cutting mashine .
Snooker --- would you realy emagine this 3D-H structure, ready to be paneled, to be cut with a 3D router from one huge block ?
Ofcaurse it is not, acturly routering an object from a block is a dead-end, it is expensive and troublesom , requier extreemely expensive equipment and bring something with no other use, than supporting outdated production technikes.
Instead look at the Solid model that will generate the above framework ;
So Snooker, I am realy here to promote a brilliant new way to put things together, I am not here to promote architecture as a silli argument where one part don't even bother to listen to the others arguments or even check the links, and sorry Snooker I am not either promoting architecture as a mudthrowing game or claim that the best architect are the guy who can make a fool of the other no, --- I deliver a new tool, it is as simple as that, and if you would stop making architecture into anything but that, progress could evolve.
I'm just asking questions so I can get a feel for what you are doing.... They sort of look like Nervi's Concrete and wood dome structures which were built in Italy.
They look like, but is nothing of the sort ; they are not cast from concrete but cut 2D from sheets , they are made in denmark not in italy, EVERYTHING about them is different 3D-H even is projected with Computers and is suieted for future production , it will deliver a mountain of new jobs and money, --- So they are very very different wouldn't you say ?
You System also looks akin to What is known as a space frame. The biggest problem with that system is because there are so many connections you depend upon alot of connectors to hold everything in place. So quality control becomes a big issue. The failure of one strut will result in the failure of the whole system. This is also true in working with thin shell concrete structures. You better know what your doing and the builder better know what he is doing because everything is critical. One just doesn't go chopping a hole in the roof once the job is done or your inviting a structural failure.
an open letter to the directors of architecture programs
Teach your students how to put together a god-damn building!!!!
isn't that what an internship is for?
i always thought school was for the basics, but really teaching people how to learn.
school is for experimentation. i hate teachers that would rather you shit out a piece of work in a week and "refine" the work for the rest of the semester, rather than proceeding with a legitimate "process" before you actually have a building.
f#$k making it work. its school for pete's sake!
but you might as well experiment while trying to solve legitimate problems rather than sit around BSing. I have no problem with being creative...
I have an intern from SciArc. Very smart. Having her do drawings of a house... 'they dont teach us about construction in school'
and we wonder while engineers, developers, and contractors are taking our jobs
'and we wonder while engineers, developers, and contractors are taking our jobs'??
what does that have to do with the bad idea of trying to get an intern do cds?
IF YOU WANT A TECHY, HIRE A KID FROM A TECH SCHOOL.
IF YOU WANT AN ARCHITECT, HIRE A KID FROM AN ARCHITECTURE SCHOOL.
An architect who can't put together a building is no architect, wangsta.
mdler, give the girl a set a house plans done previously in the office and tell her to refer to them constantly. Then review, redline, review, redline. After doing a couple house CD sets this way she'll get better and your job will be easier.
yep. that's how i learned.
And if she doesn't already have one, make her get a copy of Building Construction Illustrated.
I think this question is so ubiquitous that it's difficult to tell who's really, truly deficient in education and who's at a normal level. Not knowing exactly which wall and floor assemblies need insulation? ok. Not knowing that a 2x4 isn't 2" by 4"? deficient.
Is she cute? i'll show her how to do a groin vault.
groin vault! nice! how about a flying BUTTress
After teaching new architecture students- first year- and practicing for over 20 yrs. I can tell you schools (accredited schools) do a pretty fine job educating students on the fundamentals of architecture. It is simply too grand of a field to teach it all. In fact most institutions could do well teaching more art history and gestural drawing. Architecture education shouldn’t be a training process. That is what internships are for and the IDP.
Liberty Bell and Mr. Ward offer a great solution to your situation. That is also how I learned...and still am learning, 20 yrs later. Practicing architecture (the business and the service) is a very hard thing to learn, and takes time and lots of hrs of 'in the field' experience. Everyday there are new situations and new challenges. It is your responsibility to train folks who know less. Go for it…mentor a little.
Schools simply can’t own the responsibility of training students for the field specifically. It’s too big of training problem.
I understand that it is partially my responsibility to educate her on how a building is put together. I beleive, however, that archtecture school should place a little more emphasis on the issue...
Architecture schools do teach students to be good model builders....thinking....hummm maybe they should rename the Profession.
power tools and motivation
- "she's an intern. you're an architect. it's your job to turn her into an architect."
let's use this comment to link this conversation with the frequent, vicious debates here regardig a) when interns should be eligible to take the exam, and b) compensation for interns, and c) use of the title 'intern'.
1. if it's up to the firm to make a graduate "into an architect" where's the rationale for a recent graduate being eligible to take the exam right away?
2. if it's up to the firm to make a graduate "into an architect" what's with all the complaining about intern compensation - why should firm's pay top dollar for employees they must spend years training?
3. if it's up to the firm to make a graduate "into an architect" what's with all the complaining about what we call recent graduates - if you're an Intern, still learning, you're not an Architect.
while I can embrace aspects of all the arguments on these issues, the existing system is the way it is for a reason - we can't have it both ways.
or maybe schools could just push building construction a little more and maybe interns would be compensated and treated better.
If architecture is the design of buildings, why don't the schools teach that? The whole "experience" as primary source for learning architecture days are ending. As more firms outsource "the tedious stuff" as our principal calls it, learning while doing CD's isn't going to happen anymore. Mdler is right, it is time for the Uni's to buck up and take responsibility for teaching how to DESIGN A BUILDING, even just a small one, even just one construction type for heaven's sake. It won't take away from any of the experimentation, it will simply add a useful dimension to one's academic learning. Yes they will continue to learn on the job, but it would be great to get an student straight out of school who could draw an accurate building section.
j
maybe we should switch to the british system...or the spanish one.
or even dutch works for me (same education as NA, but you get licence when you graduate)...
or even the japanese one for that matter (basically if you can pass the exam, regardless of your education or experience, you are an architect)
there are lots of systems out there. they all have good points and bad points.
i was once reminded at my office in london that it was my job to teach the younger staff as well as run the project. this came as a shock to me, much like mdler above...but the fellow who reminded me was right on. it is our job to teach. i don't think as mentors, exactly cuz this person had a licence in more than one country, was a top grad from bartlett and was bright as heck---and this person was a VERY good designer. simply couldn't draw a set worth a shit, and had some issues with cad and kept trying to make cd's into presentation boards that were impossibe to understand...
way i dealt with it was that we were absolute equals with most work, but when it came time to do cd's i showed how to make them more legible, more buildable and cetera. worked fine. said person learned very fast, and we are now as equal as can be...which is how it should be far as i can figure.
thing is there was no need to look down on the young architect, and that person performed better cuz i didn't. remuneration is maybe another question, and one i am only beginning to consider with my partner, but our belief is that you can treat interns with respect and educate them at the same time...and use the talents they DO have rather than let them go to waste cuz they aren't experienced enough.
thing is sometimes interns have bloody good ideas, and only a fool compartmentalises people that way. this sort of approach certainly helps keep rem fresh. the opposite is i think a huge reason why SOM makes incredibly uninspiring work like freedom tower...
anyway...as far as topic goes, it would be great if we had more tech courses in school, if they involved real construction...but learning to build ain't THAT hard (seriously, i was helping frame houses by the time i was in my teens; and hell if my step dad can't build, weld, or assemble anything i ever think of; and he is just a high-school educated farm-boy). learning to THINK, however, is very hard. architecture school is pretty good with that.
ah...here is an idea...people skills.
Thanks for getting my point, OldFogey. Putting a building together is the ultimate goal of an architect...
It is upsetting that this is one of the things that is given the least amount of time in architecture school. When I was a student I took a woodworking / furniture making class. I went to a large public university (in Cincinnati) which had many colleges within it. One of these was a College of Applied Sciences (a trade/vocational school, if you will). Anyways, when I tried to use this class as one of the electives needed to satisfy my requirements to graduate, I was told that it didnt count because it was a trade, not an academic class...
Had we sat around and discussed the theoretical implications of using Titebond vs Elmers wood glue and what glue Heidegger would have used, this would have been accepted for my gratuation...
reality ie truth is subjective. oh sorry didnt mean to bring kant into this.
part of the value of architecture school's ways are that they keep you floating for a while - don't allow you to get too grounded in the construction or other technical aspects of things.
after 10+ yrs of practice, i went back to school and got my grad degree and made a point of not getting near any issues of construction and what was buildable. i wanted to think bigger, broader, and more about possibility.
lessons from that experience helped when i started doing some teaching. my studios were on issues of affordable housing and i found that the students would generate their strategies early and then i'd start seeing a lot of attempts (not good ones, but...) at construction detailing. i had a choice: to go along and teach them some things about basic construction or to pull them back and revisit their strategic thinking. the problem was that, once they got into the detail-y aspects of thiking about their projects, the students zeroed in and stopped thinking big picture. i decided that keeping the design conversations going was more impt and that framing and flashing could wait. school is about exploration.
in the end we did get to some construction discussions, but with a difference. instead of 14 projects with basic framing and flashing questions - BORING - we had 14 different project with 14 different constructability issues to solve. the issues of thinking about affordable housing had been much more holistic and deep.
so i ride the fence a little bit. i value my 5 undergrad theory courses (i maxed them out, took as much as i could) but have no use for anyone who can only spout deleuze relative to the culture at large without telling me how it affects the project. i also think that i got a good technical education - enough to know how to find out what i needed to know, not know it all.
if i see any problem with those coming out of school right now (broad generalization alert!) it's not that they're not educated enough, it's that they don't know how to educate themselves. yes, i learned how to do cds by keeping a model set of cds close. yes, i learned code by doing painfully tedious chapter by chapter code reviews. a lot of young interns do not and will not do these things - or at least not for very long. i'm hounded by questions for which the answers are not far away. following-by-example demands a longer attention span maybe? (if nothing else, drawing brick coursing by hand made me patient. laying down a brick hatch maybe doesn't allow for that patience to be developed?)
construction methods change. architects need to know how to think and how to find information that we need so that we can adapt to new construction and documentation methods.
sounds about right to me steven.
in my undergrad we had no tech courses worth their name, but we had a woodhsop so i built my furniture, adn was pretty happy...
but a few years ago i taught first year studio at my old uni, and was blown away by the number of kids who were welding models and pouring concrete...IN FIRST YEAR UNDERGRAD. our faculty had changed since i was there and while they were as into theory as the last generation, they also wanted the kids to experiment with materials and see what they could build by trial and error.
learning to build the same old shit takes some time and a bit of effort, but not much more...learning to make new stuff (like how to pour a concrete window detail using concrete and spandex as formwork; and then DOING it) takes creativity and an open mind...
given a choice, i gotta support the school that does the latter rather than the former. in fact if it meant the kids could do the latter, i would say fuck cds all together. that can be learned any ol time.
worked for prouve, anyway.
heres the thang. architecture school should be creative. studios should be about the search. but the non studio portion of the school should go entirely to what an architecture job is. ie learning about how to work in an office so you arent a total numbnut when you start working. this is coming from a former total and still partial numbnut.
One numbnut to another I totaly agree. I had the good fortune of having an older brother in the concrete business, and several uncles in the Construction Business. So I wasn't so wet behind the ears, even at the ripe young age of 18. My Dad was always building something or tearing something apart. That is why I'm not afraid to look under the hood. That is also why I hate to see poorly designed products, or buildings. Roofs will not leak if they are designed right....
"Teach your students how to put together a god-damn building!!!!"
Well that is no problem with today's boring software , everything is already so boring that you will not know the difference between building constructure, engineer and architect. And the buildings will become exactly the boring qualities that been supported , not the innovation or newthinking not the new Gaudi or the new Le.Corb but everything that satisfy the industrie making the window wal, the rigid steel beam and the Lego-Mind paneling. All in all you will today get exactly the colored clotches you want, any new trend just to make the design "different" than the other, and basicly it will be the same framework nomatter what the design act, --- architecture is now fasion remember that, not innovation or newthinking that was over a hundred years ago no, you do not decide any piece of the structure you maybe think the panels will be lookalike brick walls but they will be lookalike lookalike brick walls ,when you think you can put a bit structure to act Decor remember, that this first have to be "translated" into some low quality lookalike that will cover the trivial gasic structure --- Nothing will be genuine and quality everything will be the old steel lattrice just covered with next generation lookalike paneling. And it proberly will carry a small "Revit" note.
I can get on board with this. I agree that school should not be making CD sets by any means. But, I would think that people should know you can't use cables as columns. Even if you are taking what we have termed a 'generative studio' I think your instructor has an obligation to have you draw a section at SOME level of detail. A bulk of the plans and sections that you will see pinned up at Penn reviews look like CAD-ed up napkin sketches. I'm talking 3rd year plans and sections. Single line wall thicknesses. No line weights. BUt then there will be 900 screen captures from RealFlow to try to post rationalize your twist. I would much rather see the twist and some building documentation showing me space then 9234984 pink dots on a black background with some white lines all over the place. Just because plans and sections are made out of lines (and antiquated?)doesn't mean the information isn't just as valuable as the rendering.
vindqust you are certainly on your own wave length....
Have you ever built anything you have designed?
Hi Snooker, I spend 3 years at the architect acadamy and had 3 major projects making software for boatsbuilding, to do so I must be a boatsbuilder as you proberly suspect, as writing software to build and profit from the digital options, you simply must know your crafts . But beside that you shuld know that boatsbuilding cover more than just the difficult part of carpentry --- it is about knowing the mashins and be able to operate these, it is about knowing all trivial things known to carpenters and timberwork, knowing wood specie by sight and their ability by memmory , and yes I build a number of my own boat designs and repaired both huge ans small ships, houses ,produced furniture and done it all with a profesional attitude.
But I guess you would know to, that this is not about "what I build" , architecture are much more than bragging about your creations --- see anyone can build a house or build a cotteage just being a carpenter or builder , what you shuld look for is not that, as acturly many newbuild houses are acturly not something to brag about --- just the low quality materials and lazy put together is not what you shuld point to and it is not what architecture need. See I have enough to brag about if this was the issue but it is not, the issue is to work further than that, further than just pointing to trivial things --- how things was done is not how things will be done, hopefully as othervise boatsbuilding would be about caulking and lofting as in the old day's no Snooker , I tried to bring it further than that, try search for Cyber-Boat.
vin.....Oh much respect for you....Your building wood boats and not steel tankers....so your a carpenter and not a welder....
Vin-
I like your independent, craft based spirit, even if your craft is computer driven. Certainly has a relevance to 21st century practice, and belongs in a discussion on education, no matter what the others may say. Will you be involved in the Gross Point Library Charette to extend the Marcel Breuer library?
Smooker what I am is proberly not your image of me anyway, but let me asure you youthat my entrance into inventing new tools is only to reflect to the needs the casual wish, for something better than timbers and panels, Sorry Snooker I am in this, exactly becaurse I made it my task providing, deliver the tool you social gifted would newer want think would be the right thing --- 3D-H that acturly do it a third the cost, any shape, form use whatever, could effect the items' look, then if that didn't "feel well" you can with 3D-H even surfact the raw frames and get ecactly what you say you want. What I am is nothing but a danish designer with a brilliant new idea , maybe you don't need that as acturly desinging spaces is newer your call , But you Romans don't want progress and a Mountain of money ; Also , that is another reson architecture must change.
evilplatypus you are quite right, my crime beaing that I am a skilled boatsbuilder was maybe as I admit also very Lazy -- Still if this mean another credit for old hippie style architecture please count me in, everything but the logistics or only the spreedsheets , none of these was ever my suggestion.
Guess 3D-H shows it's effords best, in actural plane fuselage production , here 3D-H suggest obvious reson , just by providing anything at a third the cost.
They say Revit ans like programs are better but please remember, that these are the old way's made better ,and who can emagine anything better than that `?
Problem is that 3D-H can, and work realy to well ,that it is not easy to use is not true , nothing is easier , a tool to make something nice. but is making something nice then your wish well, I allway's made my prototype hands-on and I do not find that aproach wrong if indeed what we discuss is design not architecture.
jesus was a carpenter, not an architect, for christ's sake
when I was in school we probably had half a dozen buildings under construction on our campus; many of which were being designed by starchitects. Never once did we have a class that went to visit these construction sites...
Vind,
what is old hippie style architecture? i missed that in my arch history classes (but i was sleeping anyway...)
is that frank gehry?
I think my point is that creativity and pragmatics are two sides of the same coin, when done properly. Even Picasso did classical painting BEFORE he went abstract. The greatest innovators know the rules (how to put a building together) such that they can intelligently bend, break, or change them. Teaching the fundamentals of building construction should be a primary goal of the schools, it will lead to better projects later. The classes I resent taking in college aren't the theory courses, but required "Introduction to the profession of Architecture" where we were lectured on how poor we were going to be, and never really approached the subject of professional architectural practice.
j
I agree with joshcookie
I am all for being creative, but let the students know that their building will have to somehow stand. Make them responsible for the pragmatics of having to but a builing together. Give them the parameters and then let them creativly operate within those parameters. Architecture is more than adjusting the opacity of your Maya model...
fuckin hippie architects and their mushroom buildings...
even the smurfs new how to build a damn building
"what is old hippie style architecture? i missed that in my arch history classes (but i was sleeping anyway...)
is that frank gehry?"
No not the frankest , but architecture is not anymore restricted to the Hippie Dome when talking about free form designing I guess ; my attitude deliver a better structural framework , I don't see cold postmodern useless towers and bored style houses as the promises with digital projecting --- I can provide a much better framework , the actural Core structure, with 3D-H than with avaible stringers and resistant steel beams, Guess some will say it is a hippie attitude to respond as 3D-H , that just lock around and still just provide the best and strongest structure. Now emty volumes just these, if these building volumes then was an intergrated part of the internal spaces , but no, they are not, ------------ Still that just describe a different attitude , I deliver a new innovative method to solve a number of problems, I trust architects better than I will come , as soon someone else begin realising what Direct-Link production is for a kind of a Hippie.
pust....what the heck doe 3d-H stand for?
It stand for a method where you draw the building as 3D solids, that mean not just emty Solids only displaying the outher limits for a rendering, but the intire building where if there are waidows you subtract an exact box with the measures of the window frame, that you also "hollow out" the Solids to show walls in the right thickness, floors and everything --- an actual 3D model with everything you want to build with the 3D-H method.
Now when that is done and everything, such as leadway's for pipes and wires are subtracted the Solid model, then 3D-H will slice the intire model into a buildable framework ; that mean that a hundred different materials, that you usealy use building a house are replaced with just one material and the projecting now work so that the computer generate each and every building part.
Look here to read about it ;
http://home20.inet.tele.dk/h-3d/
Also -- if architecture is about shaping out inviroments and distribuating spaces then realy what do you need an accounting tool for ?
True it is perfect for old day's way's of building a house as four poles and a roof but realy I would suggest better way's to project, manufactor and sustain a building structure than this old concept.
I don't see anything wrong, going further than the Hippie Dome in terms of computer generated building structure, also I find a zero-thickness polymesh shell, a very poor suggestion compared the increadible new methods that is here just with 3D-H as a simple example ; methods that replace the old timbers and the trivial spans with something four times their strength and in one material only. That is 3D-H -- just a new way to put things together and then, it will make an aeroplane fuselage in strong metal or a house in neat green building sheets ,compared the old way's where a bored Rivit Lego set, is just added aditional information and then when the bills are there the house shal be build -- gee everyione shuld reconise how mych faster and safer it will be, to allow the computer to generate the assembly framework , and then cover that with paneling . The best thing about this is, that with 3D-H nothing talk against using standard size panels you simply design the house so that standard panels will cover the Volumes you projected.
So let me see if I get this right: Your talking about subtractive sculpture. Where you start out with a large building block and chew away at it with a CNC machine forming a structure frame which is contiguious and of one material. Then you slap some siding on it, run some electrical conduit in the voids of the structure and you have a building.
You write;
"Where you start out with a large building block and chew away at it with a CNC machine forming a structure frame which is contiguious and of one material."
WRONG read it , please do it as it is obvious you got the wrong picture and simply do not know what 3D-H is ;
http://home20.inet.tele.dk/h-3d/
Gee did you even read the link ? It cirtainly sound as if you did not,
No where did I write about cutting away from a huge block , please tell me is that the picture so difficult to change in your mind ?
Maybe you already decided that this what you describe above is 3D-H but it is not --- to router 3D is the most silli way one could emagine ; what wonders are produced by huge 3D routers none, only fragile models a car in foam a boat in Polyurethane foam ,just to provide a plug that better and cheaper could have been build by tradisional means no, 3D-H is making 2D cut sheets act as building frames from two other planes than the useal, and the result is not just unique, the frames cut from plain but strong sheet materials also replace 200 other materials , such as the beams you don't need anymore, the stringers grders just every of the hundred of various single parts that make up a building structure, ----
When I read what you suggest I wonder if you even read one single word about 3D-H try follow the links, make a search to see the many exiting structures this produce by a press of a button, when and only when you modeled the intire design as a 3D object. --- So you don't router out a huge block , you cut simple sheet with a laser or water cutter , a pounching mashine or any other "2D" cutting mashine .
Snooker --- would you realy emagine this 3D-H structure, ready to be paneled, to be cut with a 3D router from one huge block ?
Ofcaurse it is not, acturly routering an object from a block is a dead-end, it is expensive and troublesom , requier extreemely expensive equipment and bring something with no other use, than supporting outdated production technikes.
Instead look at the Solid model that will generate the above framework ;
So Snooker, I am realy here to promote a brilliant new way to put things together, I am not here to promote architecture as a silli argument where one part don't even bother to listen to the others arguments or even check the links, and sorry Snooker I am not either promoting architecture as a mudthrowing game or claim that the best architect are the guy who can make a fool of the other no, --- I deliver a new tool, it is as simple as that, and if you would stop making architecture into anything but that, progress could evolve.
vin-man I was wondering if this was one of your prototypes?
vin....like will not work . bummer.
I'm just asking questions so I can get a feel for what you are doing.... They sort of look like Nervi's Concrete and wood dome structures which were built in Italy.
And then what ???
They look like, but is nothing of the sort ; they are not cast from concrete but cut 2D from sheets , they are made in denmark not in italy, EVERYTHING about them is different 3D-H even is projected with Computers and is suieted for future production , it will deliver a mountain of new jobs and money, --- So they are very very different wouldn't you say ?
You System also looks akin to What is known as a space frame. The biggest problem with that system is because there are so many connections you depend upon alot of connectors to hold everything in place. So quality control becomes a big issue. The failure of one strut will result in the failure of the whole system. This is also true in working with thin shell concrete structures. You better know what your doing and the builder better know what he is doing because everything is critical. One just doesn't go chopping a hole in the roof once the job is done or your inviting a structural failure.
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