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What are the skills required in architecture

CreativeGeek

Hi,

Besides the scholar background required, what are the skills required to be a good architect? Do you necessarily have to excel in Mathematics, Arts or ingeniousness, Creativity or another particular field?

Please explain why would it be necessary.

Thank you!

Saad B.

 
Aug 26, 09 10:40 am
randomized

economy, or is that too obvious?

Aug 26, 09 12:54 pm  · 
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binary
Aug 26, 09 1:34 pm  · 
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iheartbooks

You know, like nunchuku skills, bow hunting skills, computer hacking skills... Firms only want interns who have great skills.

Aug 26, 09 2:50 pm  · 
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60403020

real good skillz...

cans read reals good
talk better dan dem udder kids
has zune filled up wit techno bangers
hand and eyes wurk togedder
tall

Aug 26, 09 8:05 pm  · 
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it's all about the glasses.

Aug 26, 09 8:27 pm  · 
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l3wis

Yea, this one architecture firm kept wanting me to join 'cause I'm pretty good with a bo-staff.

Aug 26, 09 8:59 pm  · 
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Carl Douglas (agfa8x)

mostly arts and ingeniousness

Aug 26, 09 9:00 pm  · 
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humility, but i guess that's less skill than attitude...

listening. no, REALLY listening.

not being satisfied with solving the problem, but pushing through to solving the opportunities.

patience. yeah, i know, another attitudinal thing.

drawing in front of people on the fly. anybody. so that they understand it.

writing a good letter with good grammar and diplomacy.

diplomacy.

did i say humility?

Aug 26, 09 9:08 pm  · 
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CreativeGeek

Well thanks allot for you answers, it's greatly appreciated! One thing that I might not have been clear on for some of you is that my question was not regarding employment but on a personal level.

I agree with Steven Ward regarding Humility and that is a must in all creative fields.

The only problem I see there is patience. I initially studied in product design for the fact that you get to work on a variety of projects in a short amount of time. I know that in architecture you could spend many years on the same project.
I guess this calls for some self-development!

Aug 26, 09 10:21 pm  · 
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Dress in dark colors-black, dark blue and shades of grey are preferred...and nice glasses too.

Aug 26, 09 10:47 pm  · 
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Cherith Cutestory

- being able to look like you agree with everything your being told while thinking to yourself that everyone else in the office is way to excited about EIFS.

- realize that like film directors, the first few projects/movies you work on will likely be an embarrassment that one day you can look back on and be embarrassed about.

- do not take anything too personally, especially during critiques during school because most of the time the reviewer is just being an ass to be an ass.

- knowing when to stop because nothing will ever be 100% finished.

- getting to used to the idea that doing something once will never be enough. or twice. or three times. or...

- making sure you set aside time for yourself because it's really easy to get too wrapped up in architecture. join a club or find a hobby, especially something physical because taking a step back from everything usually helps to realize the solution to whatever you were stuck on.

Aug 27, 09 1:23 am  · 
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Cherith Cutestory

- never wait until the final presentation to figure out what your going to say. winging it rarely works and more often than not leads to disappointing reviews.

- avoid the trap of the night-before final all-nighter. it will be inevitable but you will find that the one review you manage to leave before midnight will probably be the most productive review ever. Bonus points for leaving early, going to the gym and then getting a good night's sleep.

- realize that studio projects are not going to get built meaning you don't have to figure everything out (not that offices manage to do this either... RFI 457). Identify the one most important thing about your project and make sure that before you start obsessing about door swings and ADA bathrooms, that one concept has been clearly worked out and represented.

- never wait until the last minute to plan your layout and boards, unless your graphic design genius, and even then. A good presentation can help sell a mediocre project. When it doubt, just use Helvetica.

Aug 27, 09 1:32 am  · 
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Distant Unicorn

- knowing when to stop because nothing will ever be 100% finished.

I can't stress this one enough.

I'll be doing some diagramming for some planning work or whatever personal BS I'm working on.

And this diagramming will be something stupid like road design. I mean, i should be drawing at maximum a dozen lines... maybe some color and maybe a little 3d work.

And before I know it, I'll be wondering why I spent twelve hours on something... and what the hell does detailing screws on a bench have anything to do with road design.

I've sometimes have went so far as to modeling every individual brick in a cobblestone road.

Aug 27, 09 2:00 am  · 
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chatter of clouds
suchlike?

how about the bricks in a cobblestone road? :)

Aug 27, 09 7:20 am  · 
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chatter of clouds

if you have psychological, emotional issues or chronic/disabling diseases...rethink. almost all the successful students were emotionally and psychologically stable people. no tormented geniuses or idiots. there was a very sweet talented guy, a year above mine, who was diagnosed with schizophrenia, i think, and he had to drop out.

architects are usually mild mannered very 'bourgeois' creatures. that whole ego thing is merely relative to how mild mannered they can be on average, despite the self-petting claims that they might make about the lot being matrix-outfit-clad megalomaniacs. it took me many years to go through arch school..as many years as it took me to reasonably control my innards and focus on what others , i.e professors, wanted.

"Humility", in my humble opinion, as a prescription, is nonsense. It is a worldly fact that everyone, outside the narrow residence of one's morality and values, is as uspecial as everyone else. But for some, such as myself, it takes testing out your perceived "specialness" to realize how unspecial you are and how the best aspiration is towards an alleviation towards a 'lighthearted' nothingness. To get to humility, you might have to first define yourself (this might manifest in very loose subconscious acts on your part)…and that takes a measure of ego-ness… and through defining yourself, you might realize that there is no you to define.



Aug 27, 09 7:52 am  · 
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LML

fancy talking

Aug 27, 09 8:11 pm  · 
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Ms Beary

charm and intelligence

Aug 27, 09 8:49 pm  · 
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Ms Beary

and savvy

Aug 27, 09 8:50 pm  · 
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Cherith Cutestory

and heart

Aug 27, 09 9:06 pm  · 
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Per--Corell

Orochi ; "I've sometimes have went so far as to modeling every individual brick in a cobblestone road."

In 3D ?
That sound awsom boring and far from living the experience of creating something you burn for or simply must do or experience . Personaly I had enough as soon I master a program, after that it is only a tool to project a vision of something nice sort of a reflection of my mind or what in my mind carry a genuine quality, guess one need a reson and sharing beauty or other qualities of anything, but sharing for me is ment to bring not the ugly --- there are plenty of those in both the world and peoples heads, I ratere deal with issues that act more value in my life, than whatever false images I can fool myself or others with. But I guess that is becaurse I mean that there are no real respect to gain from filth.

Aug 28, 09 8:23 am  · 
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On the fence

I didn't realize that being a scholar was a requirement.

What section of the ARE tested that?

Aug 28, 09 2:38 pm  · 
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snook_dude

You must be a good Bowler....then you can make your team shine in the AIA National Bowling Championships...and you have to look good in a Bowling Shirt to boot.

Aug 28, 09 3:05 pm  · 
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binary
Aug 28, 09 3:31 pm  · 
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Distant Unicorn

Yes, per, in 3d. I think it looks better from different angles in rendering to have those little 1/16th of inch spacers between stones, bricks and in concrete stress cuts.

I even bevel door and window edges too! And wood planks.

The key difference here is I've never learned how to map textures... it always is a pain in the ass and I can never make bump map to look right. Also, I don't have a good image editor.

I spend so much more time every time trying to get it right and learning how to do it than I do actually drawing it.

Aug 28, 09 3:38 pm  · 
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not_here

"I've sometimes have went so far as to modeling every individual brick in a cobblestone road."

l2script noub.


that is all.

Aug 28, 09 3:47 pm  · 
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Distant Unicorn

I don't have rhino or 3ds max. Sketchup for life.

Aug 28, 09 5:23 pm  · 
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not_here

Life sux.

Aug 28, 09 6:14 pm  · 
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eigenvectors

love

Aug 29, 09 1:28 am  · 
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CreativeGeek

I keep receiving mail notifications on my blackberry. I guess this post sparked more interest than I expected.

>>>- knowing when to stop because nothing will ever be 100% finished.
I have this problem of willing to do everything to perfection, I'll have to work on that...

The qualities that you guys stated seem very Hollywood inspired. I'm used to the environment of product designers where unique personalities and sometimes craziness are more than welcome. I consider myself to be a hybrid due to being raised by parents in diverging fields : Pharmacy and Education.

In a few words from what I grasped, architecture is all about having a sane personality and good habits, the rest is all up to knowledge and less to creativity.

Please correct me if I got something wrong!

Aug 29, 09 2:35 am  · 
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Carl Douglas (agfa8x)

a sweet hat

Aug 29, 09 6:50 am  · 
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n400

I have a HUGE problem with what Fondue said about not succeeding in architecture if you have some kind of psychological or emotional disability. That's bigoted and myopic.

Previously schizophrenic people have become doctors, lawyers, etc. There's no reason they can't be architects. Seriously.

It is probably bad for someone with psychological disorders to stay awake all night as much as a lot of people in architecture school (or medical school for the matter, although several crazies have managed to do it) do but, with proper time management skills and the right attitude, someone who has previously been diagnosed as schizophrenic, schizoaffective, bipolar, depressed, etc. can succeed at whatever they want.

I'm sorry, but I feel it necessary to mention this in case someone with one of these conditions comes across this thread and becomes even more discouraged than they already are. The stigma against the mentally ill is really awful in the USA and it disheartens me to see it perpetuated so carelessly.

Aug 29, 09 11:14 pm  · 
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Distant Unicorn

I think the best architects are sociopaths.

Like Remmy... he "forces" people to live in his bizarre contraptions he calls "design" but he himself lives in what... a victorian or georgian revival home?

Aug 29, 09 11:53 pm  · 
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chatter of clouds

n400;

1- what Fondue said about not succeeding in architecture
i didn't mention success as being a factor; the issue was, rather, the quite intense stress we're familiar with taking its toll on the students' psyches and to what extent these students can handle it.

2- That's bigoted and myopic.; since i'm not looking at who can or cannot undertake architectural studies (as explained above), then i have not formulated an abstract principle or even a moral judgment on who should or should not pursue architectural studies. i am looking at this from the student's side and to what extent an intense 5 year course and many sleepless nights will exaggerate their illnesses/ disabilities/ pain...etc.

3- although several crazies have managed to do it. you're accusing me of being bigoted and yet you manage to be indiscrimately oblivious to your own bigoted language? It seems you are consciously more sympathetic to the abstract principles and rhetoric of P.C whereas unconsciously you can care less about the feelings of those "crazies" who might come across this thread as you so worry.

4-The stigma against the mentally ill is really awful in the USA and it disheartens me to see it perpetuated so carelessly. Firstly I have never been to the USA therefore my comments do not rise from a US centric reading. In fact, I will again reiterate that I am merely basing my advice on personal experience and observation for the involved individual; yes trivial advice and not juristic and moral conjectures for an authoritorial scripture dictating who should or should not study architecture.

i will say that, for my part, i had unwittingly and lazily used a word that contravenes my my belief and claim above and therefore i wish to replaces it:
if you have psychological, emotional issues or chronic/disabling diseases...rethink
to
if you have psychological, emotional issues or chronic/disabling diseases...think carefully


as for architects being sociopaths, well firstly the architects certainly aren't the only party laible for a contemporary urbane cultural 'sociopathy' if sociopathy, beyond individualistic psychology, is understood as the social disability to feel empathy. as pedestrians amongst strangers, most of us are well versed in this sociopathy on a daily basis. secondly, after satisfying to a reasonable extent the ergonomic requirements of the project, the architect does not have to also construe an architecture of ergonomics, i.e architecture as an autopsy of its own ergonomics (i'm only adapting ,for ergonomics, set arguments in regards to functional architecture)

to further spread the bullshit, on a more abstract level, it takes some sociopathy for professionalism and intra-disciplinarily (as opposed to cross-disciplinarily) to self-engender. architectural history is very rarely written from an ergonomic, ie morpho-bio-chemical human-life-centric, or empathetic point of view. as scholars and professionals, we seem to treasure more our own cultural preconceptions and signifying standards, whether we realize it or not, than the absolute good of humanity. one might claim, however, that the very provlivity to signify is a form of empathy. i guess then an all encompassing empathy is an undecided ambiguous relation to both the human as a hurtable animal and the human as an non animal site of abstraction, a decipherable and engageable horizon of smoke signals.

Aug 30, 09 7:29 am  · 
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Per--Corell

"Yes, per, in 3d. I think it looks better from different angles in rendering to have those little 1/16th of inch spacers between stones, bricks and in concrete stress cuts.

I even bevel door and window edges too! And wood planks."

Been there tried that, ---- remember my first AutoCAD was a ver. 2.6. But one day you start wonder what the idea shuld be, sure you can make it efficient with matrixes and blocks but all in all it is nothing but a mountain of useless data, -- wasn't the idea that this shuld make it easier and not more difficult to acturaly build the thing. My conclution was that the computer used so, is nothing but how we allready percive it. what is the innovative thing about doing exact the same, just by a computer, none realy. The computer has been used exactly like that, -- mimic the way we allready do things, no wonder the innovations seem to come slow that way. We place a block and only to write the logistic that day all blocks by database can be gathered, and what we get are the bills, not the structure or anything like that, becaurse that is not the way we work, we only replaced the pen with a database, and the symbols carrying the information, can just aswell be a skinny drawing of the item as a symbol..
There ate things that the computer handle much bettet, -- among those, generating an assembly of the real house, then logistics come just as automated, but the smart thing about it, is that done the right way, you can link fabrication of the parts, with computing the 3D model.

Aug 30, 09 9:02 am  · 
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trace™

as you can see, you need to be able to bs about something that is seemingly nonsense but also far reaching, something with permanent substance but as shallow as a cnc'd hunk of plastic, something with true purpose but is only for one's ego.


Anyone can be an architect. There are architect's that only draw the same plans over and over, architect's that only babble bs, architect's that don't do architecture and finally, architect's that can't call themselves architect's.



What is 'good' is subjective. Who is good is an opinion. Talent, however, is extremely rare in any profession.



Oh, lastly, you have to have an incredible tolerance for frustration (this is the trait I lacked).

Aug 30, 09 9:18 am  · 
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Per--Corell

The reson to draw something, is to be able to build it.

Aug 30, 09 10:51 am  · 
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CreativeGeek

Per--Corell:
I find that remark really obsolete. Today with our rapid advancement in technology, mostly any problem has or will have a solution.

Therefor stating that If you are willing to draw something, you should be able to build it is for me a self imprisonment in terms of creativity.

Studying in a technical school in product design, most profs said the exact same thing in class, but they would say otherwise on a face to face conversation. Reason being is that the field is looking for innovation, creativity and inventions. Most architects are stagnant in their creation and they bring nothing to disassemble and resolve - on a bigger scale.

I understand that most firms can't afford the time to work in that philosophy, I'm just saying that it's each individual architect and designer's duty to make things go forward rather than just sit their bum on present proven systems and theories.

Aug 30, 09 11:20 am  · 
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trace™

The biggest hurdle in construction/building is construction/building. It is not the architect or the software, or lack of 3D models.

It is that we have Joe-no-education-and-I-don't-give-a-f* building something. There are exceptions, but in the end buildings are put up by a people.

Architect's a part of the puzzle, but only a tiny, tiny, tiny fraction.



Aug 30, 09 11:56 am  · 
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Per--Corell

Joe-no-education-and-I-don't-give-a-f* building something, know the rules know what span and what universal fitting. It's like Lego puzzle, the architect can make a drawing that is not a Lego puzzle. Then there are those architects who is so dependant of Joe-no-education-and-I-don't-give-a-f* building something, being able to "throw a sketch". Guess what, they are the famous ones !

Aug 30, 09 12:14 pm  · 
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n400

1. Fondue, I am sorry for being so confrontational and potentially insulting you. It was my intention, but it shouldn't have been.

2. I used the word "crazies" sarcastically but you're right that I shouldn't have.

3. I stick to my point and would like to reiterate it. Architecture, as most professions if you do them right, will be stressful. Environmental stress has been known to exacerbate various symptoms, but so has boredom and self-doubt. Health care providers usually relegate the mentally ill (seriously "diseased" schizophrenic people and whatnot, not the mildly depressed) to living off disability and ssi checks for the rest of their lives by telling them to avoid stress (part of their reluctance to tell patients to push themselves is a fear of getting sued by the patients' families if the patient commits suicide; it's much easier to control someone's stimulus if he's in his home all day). It's an enormous taxpayer burden and therefore public health problem, but this is not the place to discuss it. I mostly just wanted to apologize.

Aug 30, 09 1:39 pm  · 
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chatter of clouds

its alright n400

Aug 30, 09 3:21 pm  · 
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snook_dude

x-ray vision always helps!

Aug 30, 09 6:05 pm  · 
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aspect

no one mention "sex skill" yet?

Aug 31, 09 1:29 am  · 
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jaja

The biggest skill required for architecture is the ability to truly hate MONEY. Don't think about it, don't talk about it, don't ask for it.

Aug 31, 09 4:34 am  · 
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toasteroven

in addition to a solid design background in school, the two big skills you need to be successful in the field of architecture are:

1. be relatively organized and on top of things

2. be really good at visual and verbal communication

Aug 31, 09 3:06 pm  · 
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xaia

you've got to be somewhat of an idiot to be in architecture.

walk down the street and tell any architect at the moment (employed or not) that you want to be an architect and watch their reaction - many will look at you funny and think you're nut's.

Aug 31, 09 4:06 pm  · 
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eigenvectors

Schizophenia is a ridiculous advantage to design.
You can make lots of moneyu in architecture if want to.
In the end it all boils down to your personality, your career will be based on your personality...
Academia manages to breed a lot of social introverts who are ignorant of human desire, those who understand human desire are made out to be sociopathic starchitects, when in reality they are the only ones like most business owners and have the distinct advantage of understanding that half their employees are willing to slave away for some ridiculous resume glory.

I worked for one half star german architect when I began, since then I have only worked for no names, doing great work and making great money...now I work for myself because I am a skizophrenic sociopath, clearly because I am creative and make good money.

Love baby love

Aug 31, 09 8:49 pm  · 
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n400

cheers eigenvectors

Aug 31, 09 9:03 pm  · 
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eigenvectors

So I just reread more clearly the debate between n400 and fondue, as n400 last post prompted me, while I ride home on the bus after drinking...wait I am alcohlic sociopathic skizo....medicate me with more beer, haha...

The importance of stress my friends is its potential to push a person ontologically to a point of no return. There are two points of no return you must allow yourself to enter, preferably virtually at breaking point, while educating yourself in anything that may determine your desired ontological state for the remainder of your years on this planet. The two points: suicide and homicide. Albert Camus covers both with two different books. You pick the book up after you realize you are holding a gun or a knife and visions of ontological fatal determination cross your mind...read till the noise stops. For suicide read The Myth of Sysyphus and for homicide read The Rebel.

Only after reaching these points, which most people who maintain a stable mindset will not ever, only at these point will you reach a zen level of social understanding above the cloud...halucinogenics will do this as well, but you must be sober when you reach this astoundingly noisy ontological state before surfacing above the clouds.

In the USA mental conditions only exist so that they can be medicated by giant pharmacutical companies.

If you goto study architecture, just don't make the grade, push yourself into absurbdon over some design concept. Do a four nighter no sleep and work nonstop on some concept...

As an architect you are in no greater position than an urban designer to alter the ontological state of someone.

Aug 31, 09 9:33 pm  · 
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n400

absurbdon would be a good name for a bourbon. say it three times fast. absurbdon bourbon...

Aug 31, 09 9:37 pm  · 
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