Just after listening to two separate rants about architects being 'arty farty', useless and generally a waste of time.
This so called 'building surveyor' reckons studying architecture is a waste of time, stating that with a building surveying course that lasts half the time you can do the same work after graduating.
Combine this with the influx of 'project managers', 'fire officers', 'quantity surveyors', 'health and safety offiers', 'architectural designers', 'urban designers', 'interior designers', etc.
Im relatively young, but can anyone tell me exactly when architects became irrelevant?
What is left of the pie for architects?
This lot of chancers advertising as 'architectural services' and even architects in some cases are getting on my nerves.
About 8 years ago I noticed the uptick in IT people referring to themselves as "architects". Given the trajectories of the internet and such I didn't see the trend abating and I only see it increasing now.
Sucks to be us.
It is the profession's fault for capitulating to the software production industry (ahem...is Autodesk really a "partner" with the AIA...yes!) over the past 20 years.
My father is a radiologist. He is just starting to fight the same battles against all the businessmen who are trying to morph the his profession into a computer driven, low quality mass production machine. The quality of healthcare is suffering. He often spends more time trying to trouble shoot technology glitches with recalcitrant IT punks than he does using his 40 years of expertise to diagnose and treat illness.
Again, its the profession's fault for not having the backbone of sufficient strength to not accommodate all the latest iterations of technology that have hollowed out the profession's vitality.
In my home state most investigations of fradulent use of the title architect are apparently on hold because of lack of funds.
I'm pretty sure the IT people get away with it because #1 IT isn't illegal to represent someone else as an architect in print or by word of mouth #2 most of their use of the title architect and of architecture is on the internet so its probably not illegal in any jurisdiction.
i don't know anyone but architects who do what we do from the same point-of-view. each role you list, zoo, is a role that leaves out major components of what an architect needs to address. or, in other words, those folks are all piecemeal players in a process that requires at least one somebody with a holistic understanding of things.
despite the morbidity that comes with these current circumstances, i don't think we're going anywhere.
The amount of chancers around here who have picked up limited CAD on night courses and are promoting themselves as architectural services is shocking. Combine that with the fact that most people either arn't willing to pay for a proper service or do not know the benefits of what a good layout, materials, etc. will do for them.
I suppose architects have always needed the wealthier client, but finding those are becoming more difficult.
Anyway, im currently learning law and legislation, project management, surveying and pricing in order to reclaim what should be the architects.
Maybe architects are not willing to take the responsibility and are trying to spread the liability by employing these parasites?
a lot of my work is not for wealthier clients but for schools and public institutions. these clients DO know the value of what we bring to the table and, in a lot of cases, have come to depend on it for the successful completion of their projects (and to make them look good).
i find my role as an architect expanding rather than contracting. we're now brought in as the ideas people before a project even materializes, helping them identify what projects would fit into long-term planning goals and helping establish how to budget for these projects.
we're certainly not 'spreading the liability' and, in fact, i think that's a speculation that doesn't really work in practice. if someone wants to sue, they're not going to skip the architect because the architect has hired what you're calling a 'parasite' (what i'll usually call a team member...). they're going to sue any and all attached to the project.
it's good you're expanding your knowledge into other disciplines and understanding how they affect ours. i find that what we do definitely includes the political, the legal, the financial, the logistical....
clients respect those of us who don't shy from responsibility and new challenges but embrace them with curiosity and energy.
not meaning to sound like a pollyanna here, because i'm definitely not. but we do need to quit the whining, the woe-is-me, and predicting the demise of the profession and just face the contemporary world head-on.
the parasites are excited when you're dead
eyes bulging, entering your head.
and all your thoughts, they rot.
god and satan they gamble when you're dead
beams of light, one sprite, the other's bourbon instead
and all your thoughts, they rot.
it was hot and time was stickin to my skin.
we're all a punchline to a joke that they won't let us in on.
and all your thoughts, they rot.
It's architects fault that we are where we are. We have, over time, pushed more responsibility on others such as plumbing, electrical, mechanical, civil and structural elements. All we do now is coordinate there drawings into our set and then insert our own standard cad details in. The last is a pure shot at architects. No longer does an architect really know how those details really work. They were drawn once, put into the cad library, and now everyone in the office utilizes it without real understanding of it.
So go hand sketch the pretty building folks, insert the standard cad details, and coordinate everybody elses drawings. How this makes one an architect, I dunno, but lets sit around and complain some more.
you're not doing us any favors either, otf. keep repeating things like that as if they're true for all of us and people might start to believe it.
for my part:
- we do a LOT more than coordinate drawings.
- any 'standard' cad detail that gets used in one of my projects is likely to be one i developed myself. and then they tend not to be standard, really, because i work to allow them to evolve as the projects require.
- it's our job to know how any detail works that we include in the drawings.
Yeah, I think architects can only exist in a time of peace, prosperity, and freedom, other than that, there are a bunch of builders who can do the same boring buildings again and again...
I think just with every other profession out there now, there is more to architecture in a way than there used to be. Not that it is more complicated or anything, just that everything is becoming specialized these days due to new technologies
An architect is still responsible for all of that, so in some ways our job is actually expanding, not contracting
i'd disagree that architects dont know how their details work anymore. obviously some dont, but there will always be some that dont. If you work in a place that just recycles the same CAD details, then that is not really the professions fault, that is your own for using those details without understanding them.
Laying a blanket statement saying that is what all architects do is not only ridiculous, but completely inaccurate
You could say many of the things built in the US by non-architects and architects alike was built out of necessity-- many properties designed (whether intentionally or unintentionally) to have a 30-year lifespan.
But even if one were to make a 30-year stick structure easy to dissemble, easy to service, easy to demolish or even easy to recycle, there's a level of complexity in there that makes it architecture. That's probably one way of describing architecture even when architecture isn't "architecture" is the presence of a working system the supersedes the intention of providing shelter.
In that sense, architecture can exist as architecture whether or not the object in question was designed by an architect or not.
However, it is probably more than likely that architects are more prone to add the subtle complexities to objects that make those objects architecture rather than construction.
and even small budget, non-flashy project is still architecture
It doesnt have to be a huge budget, expensive, high profile client to be considered architecture. And every job will not be your signature piece for your career
I think a problem with some architects today is that if it isnt some dream project with unlimited budget, they consider it beneath their time and not "architecture". And that leads to unending complaining online about doing grunt work or rest room details which they dont think they should have to do
architecture is luxury. shelter is necessity. "cuisine" is luxury, nourishment is necessity. movement is necessary, dance and sports are luxuries.
necessity is incontingent and singular, luxury is contingent and variable. some things are necessary to allow me to live, but the things that allow me to die are the absence of those that allow me to live. necessity is all about the starkness , smallness and difficulty of life and the infinitude and ease of death.
and if we wish to bullshit architecture's necessity by arguing that all those nice things make us relax and happy thus increasing the span of our lives...then i would say that this is not by virtue of architecture but by virtue of our imagination which is, in a creature who has very limited geneology of instinctive like other creatures, is very possibly necessary. but ..if this imagination imagines the absence of architecture as its own absence, then imagination commits quite an unimaginative suicide. Zen, inspired from zen maker here, situates imagination in, and equated it, to emptiness. emptiness, unlike architecture, is everywhere and does not disappear. imagination cannot turn sickly and kill itself. unlike in materialist sensibility, where the things...be it money or architecture...hold life-giving value.
"I think a problem with some architects today is that if it isn't some dream project with unlimited budget, they consider it beneath their time and not "architecture".
Hate to break it to you marmkid, but - from where I've been sitting these past 35 years - it's pretty much always been that way. Nothing new about that attitude at all.
Some architects have a sense of entitlement, and at times can be very vocal about it, which leads people to possibly think they are the majority
It's similar to those who complain about their salary as an architect not being high enough. Those who complain tend to be much louder than those who think their salary is acceptable. So it can appear that the majority of architects think they are grossly underpaid, or that it is even true.
i hear more and more architects celebrating constraints, noting that having problems to solve - the more specific the requirements the better - makes the work stronger. and budget is often cited as one of these constraints.
and i'm not talking about slouches either. so far just this year, i've heard monica ponce de leon talk about budgetary constraints, neil denari, chris sharples, sam jacob, etc. sharples is even getting in on the development side, so he knows not only the cost but the value of what architecture brings to the equation.
i still think you guys are spouting all of the cliched pejoratives about architects as if they're universal truths when, in fact, they're anecdotal and exaggerated and don't represent the profession as a whole.
today i got invited to a presentation in which a school board wants to brag about the projects they've got underway now and the projects they've completed over the last 5-10 yrs. i am asked to present our/their track record of consistently bringing their projects in 10% below budget, a record which has allowed them to pursue more projects than they thought they'd ever accomplish in the time period. i don't shy from calling these architecture - despite their economies. doing more with less is an architectural problem.
ex: maybe not stellar, but this was brought in at $2m below budget:
[img]http://farm4.static.flickr.com/3115/4071541965_2455e6a18d_b.jpg width=418[/url]
"you're not doing us any favors either, otf. keep repeating things like that as if they're true for all of us and people might start to believe it."
You may be the exception to the rule, but IMHO, the rule still stands. From what I have seen, and heard from friends, and experiance from day to day, it is more the norm that architects tend to be coordinators.
Again, this is my opinion based on what I have seen thus far and I admit I have not seen it all, yet.
Why is it that I am still correcting architects general specifications sheets which specify brick veneer ties to support not more than 3.25 pounds? When it hasn't been done that way in over 10 years? Same architects placing the same notes on the drawings. Same details with those notes are later found inside the project set. Why? Because the architect that drew up the cad detail under 96 BOCA or 95 CABO is long gone and the firm hasn't gotten around to updating their files.
This is just one example obviously. How hard would it have to be to change this one item so I don't have to write up a review comment over and over?
Luckily for me, architects don't want to fix their cad drawings, thus I get to do my job, I suppose.
Why is it that I am still correcting architects general specifications sheets which specify brick veneer ties to support not more than 3.25 pounds? When it hasn't been done that way in over 10 years? Same architects placing the same notes on the drawings. Same details with those notes are later found inside the project set. Why? Because the architect that drew up the cad detail under 96 BOCA or 95 CABO is long gone and the firm hasn't gotten around to updating their files.
This is just one example obviously. How hard would it have to be to change this one item so I don't have to write up a review comment over and over?
Luckily for me, architects don't want to fix their cad drawings, thus I get to do my job, I suppose.
Parasites
Greetings,
Just after listening to two separate rants about architects being 'arty farty', useless and generally a waste of time.
This so called 'building surveyor' reckons studying architecture is a waste of time, stating that with a building surveying course that lasts half the time you can do the same work after graduating.
Combine this with the influx of 'project managers', 'fire officers', 'quantity surveyors', 'health and safety offiers', 'architectural designers', 'urban designers', 'interior designers', etc.
Im relatively young, but can anyone tell me exactly when architects became irrelevant?
What is left of the pie for architects?
This lot of chancers advertising as 'architectural services' and even architects in some cases are getting on my nerves.
Derek
About 8 years ago I noticed the uptick in IT people referring to themselves as "architects". Given the trajectories of the internet and such I didn't see the trend abating and I only see it increasing now.
Sucks to be us.
It is the profession's fault for capitulating to the software production industry (ahem...is Autodesk really a "partner" with the AIA...yes!) over the past 20 years.
My father is a radiologist. He is just starting to fight the same battles against all the businessmen who are trying to morph the his profession into a computer driven, low quality mass production machine. The quality of healthcare is suffering. He often spends more time trying to trouble shoot technology glitches with recalcitrant IT punks than he does using his 40 years of expertise to diagnose and treat illness.
Again, its the profession's fault for not having the backbone of sufficient strength to not accommodate all the latest iterations of technology that have hollowed out the profession's vitality.
In my home state most investigations of fradulent use of the title architect are apparently on hold because of lack of funds.
I'm pretty sure the IT people get away with it because #1 IT isn't illegal to represent someone else as an architect in print or by word of mouth #2 most of their use of the title architect and of architecture is on the internet so its probably not illegal in any jurisdiction.
i don't know anyone but architects who do what we do from the same point-of-view. each role you list, zoo, is a role that leaves out major components of what an architect needs to address. or, in other words, those folks are all piecemeal players in a process that requires at least one somebody with a holistic understanding of things.
despite the morbidity that comes with these current circumstances, i don't think we're going anywhere.
Steve,
The amount of chancers around here who have picked up limited CAD on night courses and are promoting themselves as architectural services is shocking. Combine that with the fact that most people either arn't willing to pay for a proper service or do not know the benefits of what a good layout, materials, etc. will do for them.
I suppose architects have always needed the wealthier client, but finding those are becoming more difficult.
Anyway, im currently learning law and legislation, project management, surveying and pricing in order to reclaim what should be the architects.
Maybe architects are not willing to take the responsibility and are trying to spread the liability by employing these parasites?
Derek
a lot of my work is not for wealthier clients but for schools and public institutions. these clients DO know the value of what we bring to the table and, in a lot of cases, have come to depend on it for the successful completion of their projects (and to make them look good).
i find my role as an architect expanding rather than contracting. we're now brought in as the ideas people before a project even materializes, helping them identify what projects would fit into long-term planning goals and helping establish how to budget for these projects.
we're certainly not 'spreading the liability' and, in fact, i think that's a speculation that doesn't really work in practice. if someone wants to sue, they're not going to skip the architect because the architect has hired what you're calling a 'parasite' (what i'll usually call a team member...). they're going to sue any and all attached to the project.
it's good you're expanding your knowledge into other disciplines and understanding how they affect ours. i find that what we do definitely includes the political, the legal, the financial, the logistical....
clients respect those of us who don't shy from responsibility and new challenges but embrace them with curiosity and energy.
not meaning to sound like a pollyanna here, because i'm definitely not. but we do need to quit the whining, the woe-is-me, and predicting the demise of the profession and just face the contemporary world head-on.
the parasites are excited when you're dead
eyes bulging, entering your head.
and all your thoughts, they rot.
god and satan they gamble when you're dead
beams of light, one sprite, the other's bourbon instead
and all your thoughts, they rot.
it was hot and time was stickin to my skin.
we're all a punchline to a joke that they won't let us in on.
and all your thoughts, they rot.
Parasites by Ugly Cassanova
Steve,
Well said, that finished my week on a positive note. Got a couple of work orders to rush out here then im off for a pint. Have a good one yourself.
D
halloween party costume idea:
parasite...
It's architects fault that we are where we are. We have, over time, pushed more responsibility on others such as plumbing, electrical, mechanical, civil and structural elements. All we do now is coordinate there drawings into our set and then insert our own standard cad details in. The last is a pure shot at architects. No longer does an architect really know how those details really work. They were drawn once, put into the cad library, and now everyone in the office utilizes it without real understanding of it.
So go hand sketch the pretty building folks, insert the standard cad details, and coordinate everybody elses drawings. How this makes one an architect, I dunno, but lets sit around and complain some more.
you're not doing us any favors either, otf. keep repeating things like that as if they're true for all of us and people might start to believe it.
for my part:
- we do a LOT more than coordinate drawings.
- any 'standard' cad detail that gets used in one of my projects is likely to be one i developed myself. and then they tend not to be standard, really, because i work to allow them to evolve as the projects require.
- it's our job to know how any detail works that we include in the drawings.
sounds like you need a new job.
Devil's Advocate here.
What about all the professions and trades we architects routinely eviscerate?
Plan-check engineers
Building contractors
City planners
Real estate developers
Interior designers
... to name just a few.
Just because people complain about a professional group doesn't make that group irrelevant or endangered. It's time to grow some thicker skin.
Yeah, I think architects can only exist in a time of peace, prosperity, and freedom, other than that, there are a bunch of builders who can do the same boring buildings again and again...
architecture = luxury
building stuff = necessity
re:architects can only exist in a time of peace, prosperity, and freedom...
what are you talking about?! overreact much?
try this:
building stuff = short-term necessity, possible long-term liability
building stuff smarter = architecture = necessity
I think just with every other profession out there now, there is more to architecture in a way than there used to be. Not that it is more complicated or anything, just that everything is becoming specialized these days due to new technologies
An architect is still responsible for all of that, so in some ways our job is actually expanding, not contracting
i'd disagree that architects dont know how their details work anymore. obviously some dont, but there will always be some that dont. If you work in a place that just recycles the same CAD details, then that is not really the professions fault, that is your own for using those details without understanding them.
Laying a blanket statement saying that is what all architects do is not only ridiculous, but completely inaccurate
I totally get Steven's vantage point.
You could say many of the things built in the US by non-architects and architects alike was built out of necessity-- many properties designed (whether intentionally or unintentionally) to have a 30-year lifespan.
But even if one were to make a 30-year stick structure easy to dissemble, easy to service, easy to demolish or even easy to recycle, there's a level of complexity in there that makes it architecture. That's probably one way of describing architecture even when architecture isn't "architecture" is the presence of a working system the supersedes the intention of providing shelter.
In that sense, architecture can exist as architecture whether or not the object in question was designed by an architect or not.
However, it is probably more than likely that architects are more prone to add the subtle complexities to objects that make those objects architecture rather than construction.
and even small budget, non-flashy project is still architecture
It doesnt have to be a huge budget, expensive, high profile client to be considered architecture. And every job will not be your signature piece for your career
I think a problem with some architects today is that if it isnt some dream project with unlimited budget, they consider it beneath their time and not "architecture". And that leads to unending complaining online about doing grunt work or rest room details which they dont think they should have to do
This sounds gross... but I'd love to be a restroom architect.
That room by itself could write a thousand word treatise on architecture specific to it.
its like zen maker stole words from my skull
architecture is luxury. shelter is necessity. "cuisine" is luxury, nourishment is necessity. movement is necessary, dance and sports are luxuries.
necessity is incontingent and singular, luxury is contingent and variable. some things are necessary to allow me to live, but the things that allow me to die are the absence of those that allow me to live. necessity is all about the starkness , smallness and difficulty of life and the infinitude and ease of death.
and if we wish to bullshit architecture's necessity by arguing that all those nice things make us relax and happy thus increasing the span of our lives...then i would say that this is not by virtue of architecture but by virtue of our imagination which is, in a creature who has very limited geneology of instinctive like other creatures, is very possibly necessary. but ..if this imagination imagines the absence of architecture as its own absence, then imagination commits quite an unimaginative suicide. Zen, inspired from zen maker here, situates imagination in, and equated it, to emptiness. emptiness, unlike architecture, is everywhere and does not disappear. imagination cannot turn sickly and kill itself. unlike in materialist sensibility, where the things...be it money or architecture...hold life-giving value.
Hate to break it to you marmkid, but - from where I've been sitting these past 35 years - it's pretty much always been that way. Nothing new about that attitude at all.
correction: genealogy of instinctive habits
not surprising at all quizzical
I have only been practicing since 02, so i didnt want to make any assumptions about architects before then, though i figured that might be the case
Architects have always had a sense of entitlement it seems
quizzical and marmkid: as long as you keep the qualifier in - i.e. some architects - you're on solid ground.
architects in general having a sense of entitlement? not so much.
you are correct Steven, my mistake
Some architects have a sense of entitlement, and at times can be very vocal about it, which leads people to possibly think they are the majority
It's similar to those who complain about their salary as an architect not being high enough. Those who complain tend to be much louder than those who think their salary is acceptable. So it can appear that the majority of architects think they are grossly underpaid, or that it is even true.
i hear more and more architects celebrating constraints, noting that having problems to solve - the more specific the requirements the better - makes the work stronger. and budget is often cited as one of these constraints.
and i'm not talking about slouches either. so far just this year, i've heard monica ponce de leon talk about budgetary constraints, neil denari, chris sharples, sam jacob, etc. sharples is even getting in on the development side, so he knows not only the cost but the value of what architecture brings to the equation.
i still think you guys are spouting all of the cliched pejoratives about architects as if they're universal truths when, in fact, they're anecdotal and exaggerated and don't represent the profession as a whole.
today i got invited to a presentation in which a school board wants to brag about the projects they've got underway now and the projects they've completed over the last 5-10 yrs. i am asked to present our/their track record of consistently bringing their projects in 10% below budget, a record which has allowed them to pursue more projects than they thought they'd ever accomplish in the time period. i don't shy from calling these architecture - despite their economies. doing more with less is an architectural problem.
ex: maybe not stellar, but this was brought in at $2m below budget:
[img]http://farm4.static.flickr.com/3115/4071541965_2455e6a18d_b.jpg width=418[/url]
too small.
http://www.flickr.com/photos/archintentlouisville/4071541965/sizes/l/in/set-72157608873951937
mr. ward,
"you're not doing us any favors either, otf. keep repeating things like that as if they're true for all of us and people might start to believe it."
You may be the exception to the rule, but IMHO, the rule still stands. From what I have seen, and heard from friends, and experiance from day to day, it is more the norm that architects tend to be coordinators.
Again, this is my opinion based on what I have seen thus far and I admit I have not seen it all, yet.
mr. ward,
Example comes to mind.
Why is it that I am still correcting architects general specifications sheets which specify brick veneer ties to support not more than 3.25 pounds? When it hasn't been done that way in over 10 years? Same architects placing the same notes on the drawings. Same details with those notes are later found inside the project set. Why? Because the architect that drew up the cad detail under 96 BOCA or 95 CABO is long gone and the firm hasn't gotten around to updating their files.
This is just one example obviously. How hard would it have to be to change this one item so I don't have to write up a review comment over and over?
Luckily for me, architects don't want to fix their cad drawings, thus I get to do my job, I suppose.
mr. ward,
Example comes to mind.
Why is it that I am still correcting architects general specifications sheets which specify brick veneer ties to support not more than 3.25 pounds? When it hasn't been done that way in over 10 years? Same architects placing the same notes on the drawings. Same details with those notes are later found inside the project set. Why? Because the architect that drew up the cad detail under 96 BOCA or 95 CABO is long gone and the firm hasn't gotten around to updating their files.
This is just one example obviously. How hard would it have to be to change this one item so I don't have to write up a review comment over and over?
Luckily for me, architects don't want to fix their cad drawings, thus I get to do my job, I suppose.
sorry about the double post.
Oops, sorry. Now I've made a mistake. 3.25 sq. ft of wall area, not 3.25 pounds. I'm writng far too fast today and not thinking it through.
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