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Are architects hypocrites?

Pete

I saw a very an interesting program the other day on the learning channel, about designing interior and exterior offices buildings to match high ergonomic standards. This enables employees to work efficient, feel comfortable and prevent injuries. You would expect that architects would be the lead figure in this program or process, but as always architects did not get any airtime. In fact, the role of the architect was not even mentioned. That architects are viewed by the general public and other professionals as useless human beings is understandable, but that even in a program about the designing office buildings, that architects are not asks to participate is horrifying. Even lawyers had a few minutes of airtime. Luckily I know this dude that interns at the studio, who gave me some insight. He told me that architects are a bunch of hypocrites. They design beautiful buildings, yet they work in a dump. They give advice about ergonomic lighting and furniture, yet they sit on old kitchen chairs and use doors as tabletops. They persuade clients to incorporate design in the workplace, yet the only design item in an architectural firm is the Logitech mouse. It's like being a member of Greenpeace, but you keep on littering. Everything made sense after that phone call.

 
Sep 6, 04 7:53 am
bigness

yeah, let an intern explain you what an architect does...real smart.

Sep 6, 04 8:18 am  · 
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chewich

pete quit it man it is better for u not to become a hypocrite like us others .

Sep 6, 04 9:51 am  · 
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mdler

it is because architects are not paid enough to afford the well designed objects, well designed spaces, etc...

Sep 6, 04 5:25 pm  · 
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edmund.l.liang

i see architects more of advocates than hypocrites.

Sep 6, 04 5:57 pm  · 
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MADianito

i have my STARCK pencils on my unknown-design desk, and also the flies-killer thing (STARCK too)....mmhhh yeah ur right...these doesnt look like an architect desk...i should start charging as a doctor to live as an architect....

P.S. i have lot of books here of things i would buy (designer of course) and also of houses/buildings i would love to live/work...that count???

Sep 6, 04 6:47 pm  · 
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RqTecT

did someone say stark
I love Hypocirtes. Glad to be one.
Like a little starkastic piece of crap
We tell dry jokes that go over most people's
heads. They sit there with that stare like what did he just say.
Us Starkastic Hypocrites make the world a better place becuase
like my Architecture I make people Think.

Sep 8, 04 9:27 pm  · 
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sameolddoctor

i think it addresses the issue of us being paid like shit...and then its not hypocrity anymore

should one not spend first on ones own self, ones family and the basic needs before spending on ergonomic chairs???

Sep 9, 04 4:41 pm  · 
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alphanumericcha

are not all chairs one can sit in ergonomic?

since when did we need to capture the perfect sit in order to work? the perfect pencil to write. the perfect floor in order to walk. the perfect door in order to open. who could accomplish such a thing...

a lawyer?

hmmmm, seems to me anyone really trying to build something - anything - is better than tearing down. with words, works, or hypocricy.

sounds like maybe your friend is troubled with his/her own work.

Sep 9, 04 8:32 pm  · 
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vorak

I think you lot are probably all hypocrites, you expect a decent salary because you've probably all been in college for 4,5 6+ years.....

But then none of you can spell.....

Sep 12, 04 4:38 am  · 
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0jk0

i find this discussion quite intriguing... i just graduated frm my b.arch degree and have always found it puzzling that people view us the way they do.
its pretty funny tht most of the art and design applauded by the purists and the experts isnt understood or appreciated by the general public.
right now, it seems like the more glass and garish lights u have, the cooler your building is.
i can take a lot of corbusiers' work as examples... villa savoy and the city markets in chandigarh... people just dont understand what all the fuss is about...
it makes it quite exasperating getting my ideas across to people when they want something 'nice and modern' built about what could also work for them...

Sep 13, 04 1:59 am  · 
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archconnect

The general public makes up 99.9% of the world. Get used to it.
You, being a minority, creating a building for 99.9% of the people...better be one that they and NOT NECESSARLY YOU like. Welcome to reality.

You market is also 99.9% of the "OTHER" people.

On the question of architects being hypocrites...yes they can be. And honestly, many architects are quite unintelligent.

Sep 14, 04 4:38 am  · 
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le bossman

i actually think the primary reason (in this case at least) why architects are hypocrits is not an issue of cost but the fact that we don't know anything about ergonomics. i went to a conference last summer about 'office ergonomics' and it turns out that pretty much everything about the typical office space (the angle of the desk, the lumbar support of a chair, etc.) are almost completely counter to the way the human body would prefer them to be. generally, most 'ergonomic' objects are labeled as such because the general public tends to assume that because possess an organic form they by default conform to the human body. architects, i believe, tend to fetishize the object itself, even more so in some ways than the experience of interacting with that object, impossible as that may seem. it would be interesting if architects learned to design objects based directly on movements of the human body rather than on that of whatever the current trend in design is. if architecture is generally a cross-disciplinary field, perhaps this is where some cross-pollination with the medical field could come in? it would make for an interesting thesis, but i am in architect who isn't really interested in any of this stuff, and i've forgotten about it already because that dude's powerpoint really sucked, as one would imagine.

Sep 14, 04 10:40 pm  · 
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