We don't "own" the word architect.

Get over it.

it cycles between engineer, architect, and in a few years it'll be back to grass artist...

"Implement the entire architecture based on the design" hahaha, thats a good idea, i should try that sometime.

www. ihateotherfieldsthatusearchitectssinceitsscrewsupmyjobsearches .com

I met someone like this who went around saying he was an architect and then it turned out he was just a computer programmer. He meant to say "software architect."

While I agree that we don't own the name, architect, I find it funny how people at the intern level are not allowed to call themselves architects but people of all other professions can.

Maybe subway will star using "Sandwich Architect" in a job description.

That job discription actually confused me. It was vague enough that I didnt know if they really needed an Architect, or something else. Actually, I still don't know what they want. Guess I'm not qualified.

You show up at the interview and bust out your portfolio and they are like, "what's this?" "Oh, you must be a draftsmen!"

^No, then you're perfectly qualified

Doesn't the AIA enforce the use of the title "architect" to some extent?

Only when people in the Architecture field use it.

the aia has no enforcement capacity. only state boards do.

i'm m.a.i.a.


missing architect in action..........

dont take my idea.... putting that on a tshirt.....

• Develop high level and detailed architecture and design documents

really?

• Architect the Cognos 8 BI environment to support the volume of report generation with accepted levels of response times

how do you architect something?

• Collaborate with design team members from other streams like Data Architect, Technical Architect and ETL Lead etc

data architect is saying you create data. i thought data was collected, not created. if data is created, isn't it false? creating data is like stating there are twelve moons.

none of this makes sense. this was apparently created by uneducated amateurs. i can't possibly see anyone being qualified for this position.

is there anyway to put an end to this?

if this is real, whoever is hired will be telling someone their job description followed by laughter after they explain what they do.

Wall St. "makes data" all the time.

i once 'data'd a girl before

I'm much less bothered by an unlicensed person using "architect" in another, unrelated field than I am by an unlicensed person using it in mine.

Citizen, I'm trying to figure out the rationale of that statement.

It bothers me when some computer science nerd gives me their card and it simply says "Architect" on it.

Archmed, by that I meant that the computer science nerd will not be competing with me for architectural work. Nor will he be mistaken for someone who works on the built environment, as soon as he opens his mouth.

In other words, he and I operate in very different professional worlds where confusion between our expertises is not likely. At worst, he'll get the same kind of oohs and aahs we get in our profession if somebody mistakes him for a real architect at a cocktail party. I can live with that.

On the other hand, an unlicensed designer calling himself an architect in order to get work -- thereby claiming for himself, for competitive advantage, the same credential that he hasn't earned but that I have-- that ticks me off.

This is why I want to make cards that say 'Unlicensed Architect'.

Fair enough for the most part. I'm really referring to social circle chit chats -- where colloquially it shouldn't be an issue to say you're an "architect" especially with people who have nothing to do with the profession. You know thereby sparing people of the technical jargon.

But within the architectural community we shouldn't dare say we are "architects" without being licensed.

I'm not yet licensed (will be very soon), and I've been called "staff architect", "Junior Architect", and "intern Architect"

Yeah, the water gets muddy sometimes. In many contexts it's not a problem. It's chiefly when advertising for work and in discussions with potential clients that the long architectural arm of the law may present itself.

I remember being very careful to avoid using the A-word for myself until the wonderful day that letter came in the mail... NOT via Pony Express, as some of you might think ;-)

i always feel weird when that word comes up with my friends and family because i know how much work it is to gain that, respect, i suppose you would call it. it is bad how little people know about this profession unless you are actually in it. that seems like it should be a huge indicator of a need for change in the public education system. most people i have talked to outside of architecture do not even understand that you must be licensed like law or medicine. their ignorance is unsatisfying. for all the experience that is necessary for whatever this cryptic job is, it seems all of the people hiring are completely retarded. dumb people should only be able to go certain places and do certain things. sort of like a hardship permit. they are only allowed alcohol at their place of residence, they are only allowed to shop at wal mart, they can only eat at fake restaurants such as p.f. changs, and absolutely no use of words they don't understand.

citizen, i did some renderings for a builder in austin where the "designer" called himself an architect. when i called to discuss the drawings, he said, "yeah, i'm the architect on that condo." i asked him why he or no one else in the office knew how to do renderings and why he was paying me so much to do them and he told me he was "about to do training for it." i assume he tells everyone he is an architect and judging by the disgusting piles of trash he is trying to build, it is obvious he is not, in fact, an architect with no relevant experience.

I can live with it too, but I hate it.

Maybe we should flood this firm with the resumes of actual architects?

Seriously: part of the problem is that when we complain about other professions "taking" our term, we look like whiners. And from a PR standpoint we don't need any additional flakiness or prima donna activity linked to our profession.

Is there any other profession, historically, that has had to contend with this problem and did so successfully? Certainly doctors don't go after "The Rug Doctor", but I know that MDs make clear when someone is a PhD, not an MD. Or rather, they make it clear that they are both.

So ,maybe we need an additional nomenclature that explains that we are architects of the physical environment. Except one of the things I love about our profession is that I can answer the cocktail party question "So what do you do?" with one word.

Which is why the software guy with the card that says "architect" chaps me. Hard.

i like architect of the physical environment.

Steven Ward AIA APE.

Face it, we are the Smurf of the professional world.

Information Smurf
Web Smurf
Cognos Smurf
Lawnmower Smurf

- Although, maybe the AIA shouldn't have lost that lawsuit against the unlicensed colorado representative after all...

"We have called ourselves 'architects of the user experience,' and so it is now a fitting challenge to work with the premier organization for architects to improve their user experience," said NavigationArts’ CEO Leo Mullen. "Many of the issues are the same, since great architecture must combine aesthetic beauty with utility or usability."


'Smurfs of the User Experience' has a nice echo to it. Also, didn't they use 'smurf' as a verb, too? 'I'm going to be smurfing this database for the rest of the afternoon.'

<small rant>

Leo Mullen, then why don't you call yourselves "User Architects" because you are architects of the user experience? We real architects are designers of the experience of not only users of the building but also have responsibility to the neighbors, the builders, the passersby, the context, the culture, the weather, and time.

If you don't like User Architects, then how about Interface Architect. I don't want MY profession to be the one that has to add a quantifier, yours should be.

For fuck's sake.

i know one thing - they're liability insurance must be peanuts because according to those task descriptions, they can't be proven to be negligent.

reminds me of an old sctv skit, about those jobs on the back of a book of matches...

"perhaps you want to be an 'administrative assistant production apprentice trainee'"?

'their' - EDIT FUNCTION PLEASE!!!!

well, i've been getting spammed by recruiters now because i have architecture/etc on my resumes and they all think i'm an IT guy...wtf...it's really starting to piss me off actually....

/the job hunt continues\

cryzko,
go west young man.

btw, when i was working in LA, we didn't pay much attention to resumes that came from out of state. you had to be physically nearby for us to consider you since a lot of people moving there don't have a clue about life in LA and have expectations that almost assuredly won't be met, resulting in pretty unstable situations.

trying....still haven't found a couch to crash on for a bit......

i'm sure something will happen........ i just hate to freeball this jump and end up living on the beach and dancing on venice beach doing the robot then getting beat up by the gold and silver robot guys that have that fancy platform that helps them lean really far out......

did you say couch?

Shit like this really pisses me off. Knowing several people who work in IT they routinely tell me about consultants, etc. introducing themselves as "architects." No mention of being a software/computer/fake architect. They just call themselves "architects" because it's cool sounding.

Meanwhile we go through the absolute degrading experience of being called "intern" AFTER graduating with a professional degree, and for many a graduate degree. Then, when we do get through IDP and the ARE we are only allowed to call ourselves "Architects" in the states where we are registered. Pardon my french but it's fucking bullshit. Shit, half my motivation to finish up the ARE is to rid myself of that goddamned intern badge. Fucking CAD Tech sounds more prestigious.

Yes, we don't "own" the word, but if other fields can scab our title for their own use, why not let everyone in our own field use the title? Honestly, anyone who passes med school is called a doctor. Granted they need a license to practice, just like we do, but we don't quit calling someone a doctor just because they aren't practicing. Same should apply to architects....you graduate with the prof degree, you are an architect. Just need that license to stamp drawings. Nothing really changes except for all the "title protection" in our own field, which obviously hasn't done shit outside our field.

i think this thread pretty much proves we ARE whiners.


cryz, i applied to several offices in london (UK) when living in japan. had a few bites but no one was interested in interviewing over phone. so i MOVED TO LONDON, and had a job within 2 weeks. i do think it is easier to do job hunt if you are available immediately to go for interview. unless you are at upper end of things in fact i think it is the only realistic way to do it...


but back to topic. im an architect. i have a piece of paper to prove it. i don't give a flying fcuk if someone wants to compete with me, be it contractor, designer, or whatever. they can even call themselves an architect if they think it will help. but it won't. because they aren't. and when it comes down to it, that distinction does matter. i can think of several instances where anyone without the stamp or whatever just ain't going to get the job.

in japan a contractor could do my job, legally. but they tend not to try because they are not very good at it. however, if they want to compete with me i don't mind. i welcome it in fact. it just means i have to be better than them. so what?


you know, i am also (recently) a doctor. but i am quite aware of the fact that i am not a medical doctor and am careful not to let anyone have that impression. i imagine the IT people do the same thing. no one wants to be taken for something they are not, especially when they are proud of what they ARE.

there is a kind of ego-centric idea here that IT architects want to to be mistaken for architects of buildings rather than what they DO design. give me a break please. our profession is not that frickin special.

it's more special than an it architect's job

Ha, right on, jump, nice one. It's easy to get wound up in the credentials and forget what the credentials indicate - competence and responsibility. Thanks for that.

OK, yes, I agree on one point: my partner and I get our jobs not because I'm an architect but because we're (he is) talented.

But I still can't buy into the idea that it is harmless for other fields to co-opt our term. I know we've been over all this a million times, but every time I repeat myself on this (or any other) topic, I wonder if there are new Archinect users who haven't heard us hash it all out yet. So here I go again.

I call it "our term" because the word "architect" is, in the States, legal terminology. It's legally protected language. You can't legally offer the services of an architect unless you are one. If I've done the work required by my governing body (the state licensing board) to gain the legal right to use that term, why is it wrong for me to get upset when someone else decides to use the term illegally?

Even if it's in another field: the reason software designers want to use the term "architect" is because it has cache, it implies a level of mastery*, and the skill and dedication required to completing a set of rules to achieve that mastery. By calling yourself an architect, in any field, you align yourself, by implication, with our level of mastery. I don't think it's fair, and it's deep in the grey area of legality - so while I confess that architects whine about a hell of a lot of things, I don't consider this case to be simply whining.

I have less of a problem - in fact, I have no problem - with the use of the term "architect" to imply an action: architect of the war, architect of the proposal, etc. That use means that the person who "designed" the product (war, proposal, deal, whatever) is highly skilled in that area.

But I do have a problem with the use of "architect" as a new entirely stand-alone profession that has nothing to do with the already-existing legally defined use of the word.

*And, again (and again and again)...the fact that it's a legal term has nothing to do with actual talent. I'm not using "mastery" to mean every legal architect is a true master or even any good at all. I'm using "mastery" to imply more fully skilled than an apprentice.

I wonder if doctors lose business to the rug doctor?

semantics people.

chupa, I already raised the Rug Doctor guy upthread.

i honestly at first did not know what this job was. i was looking for jobs in dallas, and over 4 pages of these kinds of cryptic postings showed up and i wasted a lot of my personal time looking through these. if they want to be it architects or whatever, please do not file the job postings under architecture/ engineering.

lb, i agree w u

The term has nothing to do with mastery and a lot to do with the structure of information. The term was actually coined in the 70's by an architect who was working in the new information field.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Information_architecture

there is no bogey man here....and there are much bigger fish to fry.

reporting on a tantalizing set of presentations saturday at the kentucky/indiana joint aia convention for 2008. the program for the morning, called broadly 'the changing nature of practice', featured both local and not-so-local exemplars of an essential rethinking of the relationships, the thinking and making, and the tools that serve contemporary practice.

the speakers were:
- chris sharples, one of the principals of shop,
- bill zahner of the a zahner company (metal fabricator for such luminaries as morphosis, h&dm, gehry, stout, and libeskind)
- kevin klinger, director of the institute for digital fabrication at ball state university
- michael speaks, dean of the university of kentucky college of design
- wil marquez of indianapolis firm a2so4, heading its digital fabrication division a2sx
- david banks, sole practitioner in ky, in practice for over 40 yrs, learned and started using revit as primary production tool at age 62.

the event took place in the old elks lodge secret meeting room at the top and buried in the center of the historic elks hotel in downtown louisville (subsequently the henry clay hotel and the ywca and recently restored as a mixed use building called the henry clay).

picture by archimusic via flickr

precursor to this presentation was an all-morning introduction on friday to the potential expansion of uses of bim in contemporary practice and a simultaneous (and holistically linked) introduction to integrated project delivery and the new aia contracts for single project entities. that conversation had been co-presented by the aia’s markku allison and phil bernstein, of autodesk and on faculty at yale.

saturday morning started with a presentation by
sharples
of some of the projects that have been landmarks in shop's evolution into a design/fabrication/construction office and their attitudes about how this positions them relative to the construction industry and the traditional profession. sharples first suggested that the current questionable time in our economy, coupled with the new potentials available via bim, and new thinking about integrated project delivery, mean that this just might be a good time for architects as a profession to rethink how we do what we do.

he tied the current condition - what we often talk about as a time of hard-to-manage complexity - back to earlier eras that, in his argument, were no less complex. likewise, these previous eras were no less based on the plastic manipulation of 3d form. giving examples of brunelleschi's management of a variety of brick shapes that had to be selected and installed as part of the puzzle that added up to the duomo, or gaudi's work, or labrouste's suspended vaults, sharples argued that it was actually the change in practice - the introduction of standardization during/after the industrial revolution - that made this earlier complex work harder to realize. it wasn't that the work was too difficult at all, but more that we had relinquished the previous ties to the makers and the ability to think more dynamically about the 'how' of the realization, instead reducing the architect's 'product' to a flat set of 2d representations that abstracted the process of making in such a way as to make it more speculative, more guess-work, and less fully comprehended by anyone involved - designer, client, or contractor.

presenting shop's early ps1 project, he described their fundamental redrafting of the rules of construction documentation and how it served them. in this case, a set of color-coded diagrams, basically slices through the structure that he compared to an mri, described the locations and quantities of all materials. he noted that the documents were a contingent set of directions, not dissimilar from how direction would have been given in the construction of work in gothic times, that the project remained open to critical examination and shifting/adjustment in the field, taking into account the knowledge, experience, and insight of those doing the making.

other projects shown:
- camera obscura - no cutting or measuring on jobsite, everything prepared in advance.
- porter house - a project for which the design of the enclosure was based on the use of a single standard size metal panels, the base from which a series of manipulations/permutations made for a variable pattern in the skin.
- 290 mulberry - development of a way of using precast concrete as a base for brick veneer, creating a (relatively?) economical way to realize highly specific brick patterns in a panelized construction. the process takes into account that the masterform is the more expensive element in the making of the precast, and the realization that the formliners could be made in a variety of formations to in a way 'customize' the masterform for a variety of pattern.

bill zahner
was up next, covering briefly how his company works to translate work provided by architects into built form. he hinted at something that would later become a theme (after speaks’ talk): the difference between those of the design elite who are changing practice, with signature work as a result, and those who are pushing formal development for its own sake, without any change in traditional practice. in many cases, zahner’s company is designing a solution in order to realize the forms they’re fed.

more on this as we got to hear
michael speaks
give a bit of a summary of some of the themes presented and a provocative introduction to the panel discussion to follow. speaks started with the first lines of a review of this year’s venice biennale, setting the stage for his comments with: this year's venice architecture biennale has been hijacked by awkward ambassadors of the parametric mafia and the elite of the avant-garde. (full review by kieran long here.)

‘parametric mafia’ became a touchstone for the rest of the discussion, of course.

not that this is what speaks was after, merely a byproduct. he posited that there is a distinction to be made between those architects who have been single-minded in pursuing their own shape/form obsessions and those who are actually developing new forms of design knowledge – and he put shop in the latter category. he challenged the audience to recognize that this was a new opportunity for architecture/design, one that we not only needed to pursue but that other disciplines are already pursuing: ‘business schools have been more interested in ‘design knowledge’ than architecture schools’. design thinking has been a growing area in education – one that non-design schools are recognizing as very important.

example 1: ideo, both as a business model in itself, and through their projects such as the method cards available for purchase and their foray into urban design issues, the pre-planning division they call ‘smart space’. [incidentally, i had the opportunity to sit at dinner friday night with sharples and klinger and some other fine folks, and sharples, too, brought up ideo, specifically the book the art of innovation. we both admired the chapter on brainstorming and then the conversation devolved into a sharing of experiences with shopping carts and ikea.]

speaks shared one of ideo’s mantras, learn look ask try, and discussed their process of prototyping ideas concurrent with their thinking, describing this prototyping as an engine of innovation. other key approaches speaks described included ideo’s approach to scenario-building, a way of pursuing ‘what might happen if…’ they share with people like paul hawken (ecology of commerce), stewart brand (clock of the long now and how buildings learn), and peter schwartz (art of the long view).

next speaks launched into what he called a ‘completely ridiculous’ categorization of the flows and movements of the history of ideas since the beginning of modernism (for which he apologized, ‘but still…’). he argued that modernization remained the same as a concept but that, over time, the drivers had changed. early modernism, in his diagram, was a time of absolute truths, as described by a myriad of manifestos. from the 60s through the 90s, though, a series of competing ideologies began to erode the idea of absolute truths. the questioning of truths drove practice rather than an increasingly elusive idea of truth itself. this was expressed in a variety of ways and via a variety of narratives.

but now, in the continuing flow of modernization, a different kind of attitude has begun to reign, and truths – or answers, even – are not necessarily the most important goals but, instead, the goal has become the generation of design intelligence that can be used and continues to evolve: thinking/doing, where thinking becomes a form of action, where knowledge is created but isn’t fixed. knowledge created can be used, but also repurposed.

next on the reading/reference list, example 2: jeff hawkins’ on intelligence, a consideration of pattern recognition as intelligence. according to speaks, hawkins argues that patterns are observed, analyzed, and matched up with what can be recognized in the world. at the points where that match-up cannot happen, however, is an opportunity for the creation of knowledge. we can create new knowledge at inconsistent conditions – places where patterns are observed but fail to meet up with a recognized phenomena in the world, leading first to desire and, ultimately, to an opportunity for design thinking.

design thinking creates knowledge that is not just received knowledge but knowledge that is something both produced and continues to be used.

speaks proposes that, following this track, what architects/designers might want to be looking for is not a new ideology but instead a new kind of practice. he alluded to his own article in architectural record, ‘after theory’ of june 2005 as an initial shot-across-the-bow, what george baird described as a proposal for an efficaciously integrated architecture that would take its cues from contemporary business management practices. (harvard business review, ‘criticality and its discontents, late 2005)

speaks noted that he had stirred up a lot of disagreement with his commentary, and certainly baird was among the critics: it is clear that a new projective architecture will not be able to be developed in the absence of a supporting body of projective theory. without it, i predict that this new architecture will devolve to the “merely” pragmatic, and to the “merely” decorative, with astonishing speed.

but speaks finds further evidence that practitioners are following this new ‘merely’ pragmatic path – and with intriguing results. he referenced ben van berkels’ introductory essay in the 2006 monograph design models - a scathing description of spaghetti and blobs as a devolution from meaningful/substantial form-making.

example of design thinking 3: two references this time, a book by michael schrage, serious play and a concept for which he cited steven levy, described as ’a spreadsheet way of knowledge. as a design culture example of how this ‘spreadsheet’ way works and how design through trying might look, speaks lead us to koolhaas’ book content, specifically the article ‘astorology’, by fenna haakma wagenaar, from pp204-207, a narrative describing the relationship between oma and herzog and demeuron in their joint venture, the astor place hotel. speaks pulled out a passage illustrating the difference in the oma process and the h+dm way.

in rotterdam ideas are never judged before they are materialized. the intellectual level of our labor is extremely low. we generate models without censure. rem accepts no assumptions. he only wants evidence and lots of it. most models look clumsy and rough. we cannot spend a day building an exquisite model in the wood shop if we have to make 10 more for the next meeting.

jacques needs instant perfection. he has a vision and he doesn’t take shit. even in the very first stage of the design, concepts come with built-in details and reality checks. models must have a tangible surface. jacques touches and examines the models as if shopping for shirts: ‘what do you think: does this one look good on me?'

the oma way, in speaks’ view, is obviously the one that would lead to a greater number of choices, of process explorations, and – finally – greater potential for development of design knowledge, whether tied to the current project or not. oma has made this part of their method for exploring solutions and has already shown evidence that the learning from one project feeds into the solutions of later ones. this way of developing design knowledge, to take it further, has become metastatic: oma ex-es carry and distribute the oma way throughout other practices, continuing and expanding upon it. it can inform architecture, it can inform urban design and bigger picture thinkings (see mvrdv’s [url= the regionmaker), or it can inform smaller scale design thinking like that of furniture or product development. (check out marquez’s work later in the presentation.)

at this point the individual presentations gave way to the panel discussion. the more local architects – marquez, klinger, and banks – joined the others on the dais with speaks moderating.

kevin klinger(kk) started off with an overview of digital design and production as part of the curriculum at ball state university. he argued, consistent with speaks’ overview, that it was an important aspect of education and practice in the midwest to not only keep innovation as a theme but also to recognize that the midwest, as the heart of both nineteenth- and twentieth-century manufacturing and also of regional craft, has a tradition of making. he recommended a book that his own students had been assigned, relevant to an understanding of working in the context of the midwest: richard longworth’s caught in the middle.

kk went on to describe how his program, the institute for digital fabrication, has fostered relationships with manufacturers and materials suppliers, allowing his students to learn how to work within the limitations of the materials and its preparation for use and, in some cases, providing added value to manufacturer’s product lines through innovations they can offer. interactions to date have included work with hardwoods, with indiana limestone, and with plastics sources. (per kk, similar designer/manufacturer relationships can be explored at andrew kudless' material systems.)

wil marquez (wm) proposed that the boundaries between practice and academics should be broken down as a way to nurture such exploration, students and practitioners partnering to conduct research useful to both. he proposed that this could be modeled as something ‘like a teaching hospital’, recognizing that while there are significant benefits to research and knowledge development, there are also costs – and the fruits of the research often have a delayed payback.

michael speaks(ms) notes that interaction with manufacturers and contractors, and the sharing of information across disciplines is not a new approach – that, in fact, shop set out to reclaim this territory from the beginning of their organization – and that is was a reclamation because, as sharples had described in the morning presentation, the link between design and making had historically been closer.

chris sharples (cs) follows up, describing that architecture has prided itself on being the last true generalist profession, but that we haven’t been acting that way for 30-40 years. we have given up responsibility and we have limited the amount of information we’re willing to share because of fear of liability. shop has tried to redress that separation and the shutdown of open lines of not only communication but team thinking that could/should occur between owners, architects, and contractors, working hard to make their process more transparent.

key in this, cs offers, is the recognition that there will be greater potential for risk, risk that will have to be managed. but he also holds that we’re bearing a significant amount of risk in the process anyway – and in a way that also introduces the likelihood of animosity. shop embraces that risk, shares all of their information and assures that they are transparent about their thinking and process and end up actually sharing the risk.

wm: the architect as protagonist is going away. his team, for example, went to hardiplank to see whether they could pursue a certain use of the hardiplank material. they learned that there were limitations to the product that wouldn’t allow their solution to work but that hardiplank was open to giving them some material to test. through rigorous testing and seeing what was possible with the material, wm’s team got their answers but also shared their findings with hardiplank, changing the manufacturer’s understanding of the product’s potential and, ultimately, adding value.

the director of the ball state design school stood to ask whether this dynamic suggested to any of the panel that there was a relationship between design innovation and invention – that there might be patentable results out of these interactions. ‘how does this become a part of ‘design knowledge’ from which we can benefit?’ bill zahner (bz) offers that his company already takes opportunities to patent solutions they come up with in the realization of architects’ work, as they see things that might be useful in future efforts.

cs: the reuse of knowledge is an important aspect to the process. if solutions developed for one project remain one-offs the investment will not be worth it. that doesn’t mean the exact thing gets reused but that the process adds techniques to your set of abilities. it becomes part of the accumulated knowledge, the institutional knowledge, of the firm and part of its value.

wm: in a bad economy, there is the opportunity to develop some of this reusable knowledge in places that might not be apparent at first. if work is slim, you might try to do other things. his group took on a commission for the design of handbags. during the development they explored use of fiberglass elements (failed) and aligned/shared knowledge with manufacturers of car components. through the process they not only answered the immediate design question (the handbag), but he feels that the organization is now smarter about how to adapt to a given problem, they’ve learned how to drift, change, and they’ve gained new resources for future projects through their new relationships.

this is a necessarily abbreviated synopsis of the discussion, which lasted a couple of hours. like the presentation the day before, the interests swirled around two linked potentialities: the full leveraging of bim, not just as a replacement for autocad but as a trigger for a different way of working, and the implementation of different practice and contractual models in order to blur the lines between design as a documentation process and making as a separate entity.

both prospects make the representative population of the local aia chapter nervous because both suggest a relinquishing of the control of areas they know and understand, the embrace of things about which there would be a lot of learning necessary, and the need to trust in both their clients and their contractors in ways that have not been encouraged in the past.

i won’t offer further commentary at this time, merely wanting to record a spirited day of talking about these potential changes and open a conversation through which i might arrive at an idea about what i'd like to encourage within my own office. for certain there is a generational aspect to all of this: where i might be more amenable to revolutionary change, others in my firm are going to be tied to what they know – especially in turbulent times with an unstable/unreliable flow of work.

if you got this far, thoughts?

what exactly are they looking for? im confused!

hm, don't know where my retraction went. my last post was a 'test run' for the beginning of another thread. wasn't meant to be posted here.

sorry.

Words have meaning, but common uses of words changes their meaning. If the use of the term "architect" no longer implies mastery it's because a bunch of untrained people have appropriated it for some other use.

The wiki article you linked refers to the term "information architecture" which is vastly different from information architect. Architecture is generic, it can refer to any kind of system. Architect is not generic, it's very specific when it refers to a legally-registered professional.

chupacabra I will agree that there are bigger fish to fry. Steven's accidental posting here of his seminar wrapup asking what the future of practice holds is a much bigger issue that the profession needs to face.

But in the meantime, I'm proud of being an architect. People in other fields should be proud of their accomplishments, too.