What is the hardest / most specialized / most challenging architectural typology for a Project Architect to practice?
Bonus question for y'all: Do you think that specializing in these typologies increases one's job security?
newbie.Phronesis
Aug 6, 23 9:07 pm
Healthcare seems to be fairly exacting in both code, hospital and client/user requirements. Only worked on one healthcare project so far though (and not as a PA), so others might have a more thorough perspective?
Non Sequitur
Aug 6, 23 9:08 pm
maximum security prisons.
ill_will
Aug 26, 23 2:52 am
-
with adjoining insane asylums
monosierra
Aug 6, 23 9:54 pm
High end private housing and ... airports are two ends of the spectrum. Architects of luxurious mansions are hired for their distinctive style and body of work, both rarities that elevate them above commodity services. Then there are airports, which are complex as building types go. There's the design architect - who lends stylistic flourishes - and the airport specialists, who sometimes operate as part of a larger AEC conglomerate.
archanonymous
Aug 7, 23 8:22 am
Worked on a $25mil house once. Can confirm, very difficult.
JLC-1
Aug 7, 23 12:35 pm
A 15 mill house can take 3 years to build around here. Agreed.
monosierra
Aug 7, 23 5:33 pm
Homeowners who can afford to spend that amount do take their homes very very seriously - it gets way too personal a project at times. But it is their dream home after all.
So much care and time to be spent on client management .
midlifecrisis
Aug 18, 23 10:12 am
I’ve had the opposite experience. The more wealthy the client, the less they cared to be involved in the process, and they were less stressed about cost/completion date because they had other houses they could live and vacation in. My low end clients were much harder to work with!
b3tadine[sutures]
Aug 6, 23 10:09 pm
Guantanamo Bay and CIA black sites.
citizen
Aug 6, 23 10:24 pm
Just the ADA compliance takes forever.
luvu
Aug 7, 23 12:16 am
Health with labs, …. any project with millions of outlets in the wall is always hard
archanonymous
Aug 7, 23 8:26 am
Any project that mixes a variety of users and functions.
A straight-up lab building - not that hard. A university building with lab classrooms, lecture halls, offices, and a small cafe - really difficult.
An outpatient surgery center - not too bad. An outpatient surgery center with conference/ teaching facility, a small restaurant, and the client decided it should have a bunch of parking for the building next door, plus the landscape design should provide parkland and outdoor meeting spaces for the rest of the campus - just kill me now.
Hardest projects I've done were these types - working in university context but when I've done complex mixed-use office buildings, they can veer into this territory also.
JLC-1
Aug 7, 23 12:34 pm
this is the hardest you can get
citizen
Aug 7, 23 2:46 pm
And ribbed for your pleasure!
Kinsbergen
Aug 7, 23 12:51 pm
Airports.
natematt
Aug 7, 23 1:03 pm
Something like a California healthcare project that has radiation oncology equipment and interface with existing structures would be really high up there.
JLC-1
Aug 7, 23 2:55 pm
worked briefly on medical facilities in my 20's, some 3 ft thick concrete with magnetite added for radiation control was quite impressive.
natematt
Aug 7, 23 3:07 pm
That's the radiation oncology stuff, Linear Accelerators, Cyclotrons, Cyberknives. They also have Linear Accelerator MRIs that require both the intense radiation shielding AND Radiofrequency shielding. I've never actually worked on a cyclotron, but the reality is al of these are pretty nuts and very technical.
One of the funniest parts is that it's always a pickle to figure out how to get the equipment in the buildings.... so I worked on this one project years ago where they had Linear Accelerators on a lower level, and couldn't fit them in the elevators. So the plan from the client/contractor was that they would lower these $3m pieces of equipment down the elevator shaft.... Was like.... ok that's not our business ....
JLC-1
Aug 7, 23 4:28 pm
there was also something about creating a maze like access to the rooms, which made the equipment access more difficult - I don't remember how it was solved, maybe the machines could be taken apart?
natematt
Aug 7, 23 7:44 pm
Mazes are typical for the high radiation equipment layouts. Specifically, Linac commonly have a “maze” which is really more of just an “S” shaped tunnel leading into the main room. This is to prevent the radiation from bouncing out.
From what I understand, it used to mean that you could use a more typical radiation door, like for a CT, which in experience feels similar to a normal door. However, I think the standards have changed, as the last few mazed designs I saw still required the specialty doors that look like you’re going into a bunker.
You can also do these units without mazes and use extremely heavy/thick doors. These can be upwards of a foot thick and weigh tens of thousands of pounds. Which freaks people out a little bit from a maintenance and safety standpoint.
The equipment gets brought in in pieces, but for the linacs the main arm(?) is quite long even as a part, so the mazes need to be designed with the turn radius per the equipment manufacturer.
natematt
Aug 7, 23 7:47 pm
MRI magnets are the really fun equipment for bringing into buildings though, and you always have to design a route for replacing them....
Josh Mings
Aug 7, 23 4:31 pm
Even though most of my career is in housing, I feel like I could work on most everything except health care and airports because of how intense they are. Then of course prisons, but that’s personal ethics/morals.
____
Aug 7, 23 8:12 pm
I suppose it depends on how one defines hard. For me, it would be the one that has the potential for the greatest/most heartbreaking loss of life.
Hospital, highrise, school, airport. All would qualify.
Could even be a warehouse depending on what is stored there.
zonker
Aug 7, 23 10:49 pm
In my experience? Kaiser hospitals - I worked on envelope and it was a real hassle to prevail in OSHPD reviews. Lots of revisions. Another typology that is difficult are airports. The work isn't difficult, it's the damn bureaucracies - too many so called stake holders - FAA reviews, City reviews. Airline reviews - it's no wonder SFO(San Francisco international airport) has been a continuous construction project since 1955 - the good news, is that it's a lot of work that goes on for years..... a lot of hours though. hard on your health when you are workingon site and breathing Jet fumes all day, have a headache at 4pm and you have to work until 10pm
Donna Sink
Aug 8, 23 6:17 pm
some great answers and explanations here. Well done, Archinectors.
JLC-1
Aug 9, 23 2:05 pm
sorry, spoke too soon
natematt
Aug 11, 23 4:47 pm
oh... it's "hard"....
Josh Niland
Aug 9, 23 6:49 pm
panopticons
Le Courvoisier
Aug 9, 23 8:49 pm
I see we’ve got a bad dragon building in here.
Le Courvoisier
Aug 10, 23 12:25 pm
I see I’m the only depraved person in here.
archanonymous
Aug 10, 23 6:19 pm
A true connoisseur.
Orhan Ayyüce
Aug 10, 23 8:57 pm
the one you have the least experience with is the hardest typology.
bennyc
Aug 10, 23 9:55 pm
Any project with low budget, high expectations
zonker
Aug 10, 23 11:26 pm
that's the project I'm on - Imagine going shopping in a grocery store with a shopping list based on the twenty dollar bill in your pocket - then not just picking what's on the list but throwing in potatoe chips, cheap beer, candy and wine, then going up to the checkout counter and the clerk says: $149.00 please and you only got a twenty - now you have to back out and take all the BS out - E.G., project goes on hold for months
natematt
Aug 11, 23 4:21 am
So then the client is like… hey get crackers, sodas, gum, and white claw instead…
And you get back to the checkout and it’s $132.00.
So you realize all you can afford is gum, because you’re shopping at a whole foods, wen you thought you were at a smart and final… and the only real option as always… cut scope.
natematt
Aug 11, 23 4:47 pm
But for real though, low budget high expectations is super hard, particularly when it’s your team that has high expectations. I worked on a project that exemplified this, it wasn’t the hardest technically by any means, but it was probably the most exhausting project I ever worked on, and the most detrimental to my mental and physical health.
sameolddoctor
Aug 12, 23 4:25 pm
Yes. Working on a project for a large developer group that claims to have no money at all, but the person-in-charge for this project has made us blow up the project budget with their insane comments and demands. So yes, months of pain designing it and now months of pain "un-designing" it.
zonker
Aug 11, 23 2:18 pm
And while going up and down the isles, the store raises the prices on you and the bank that you have your credit card with raises interest rates.
nabrU
Aug 18, 23 7:57 pm
Grade I or II if designing for figurehead/the offices vision? Parametrises (that's the auto correct) Convincing people to like AI generated architecture?
Wilma Buttfit
Aug 18, 23 11:58 pm
I agree low budget high expectations projects are the hardest which tend to be residential remodels.
Good news though I got a project in a jurisdiction with no zoning code, no building department and no plan review process. Homeowner is the contractor. I found the easiest project type. :D. More of these please.
citizen
Aug 21, 23 10:07 pm
That all sounds to good to be true. Will he be using bluebirds and squirrels from the forest as labor? =O]
Wilma Buttfit
Aug 22, 23 5:31 pm
Why yes. How did you know?
JLC-1
Aug 22, 23 5:39 pm
be careful what you wish for.
Wilma Buttfit
Aug 27, 23 9:49 am
What do you mean JLC? I’m also just the design architect, am not local and there is a local, technical architect.
What is the hardest / most specialized / most challenging architectural typology for a Project Architect to practice?
Bonus question for y'all: Do you think that specializing in these typologies increases one's job security?
Healthcare seems to be fairly exacting in both code, hospital and client/user requirements. Only worked on one healthcare project so far though (and not as a PA), so others might have a more thorough perspective?
maximum security prisons.
-
with adjoining insane asylums
High end private housing and ... airports are two ends of the spectrum. Architects of luxurious mansions are hired for their distinctive style and body of work, both rarities that elevate them above commodity services. Then there are airports, which are complex as building types go. There's the design architect - who lends stylistic flourishes - and the airport specialists, who sometimes operate as part of a larger AEC conglomerate.
Worked on a $25mil house once. Can confirm, very difficult.
A 15 mill house can take 3 years to build around here. Agreed.
Homeowners who can afford to spend that amount do take their homes very very seriously - it gets way too personal a project at times. But it is their dream home after all. So much care and time to be spent on client management .
I’ve had the opposite experience. The more wealthy the client, the less they cared to be involved in the process, and they were less stressed about cost/completion date because they had other houses they could live and vacation in. My low end clients were much harder to work with!
Guantanamo Bay and CIA black sites.
Just the ADA compliance takes forever.
Health with labs, …. any project with millions of outlets in the wall is always hard
Any project that mixes a variety of users and functions.
A straight-up lab building - not that hard. A university building with lab classrooms, lecture halls, offices, and a small cafe - really difficult.
An outpatient surgery center - not too bad. An outpatient surgery center with conference/ teaching facility, a small restaurant, and the client decided it should have a bunch of parking for the building next door, plus the landscape design should provide parkland and outdoor meeting spaces for the rest of the campus - just kill me now.
Hardest projects I've done were these types - working in university context but when I've done complex mixed-use office buildings, they can veer into this territory also.
this is the hardest you can get
And ribbed for your pleasure!
Airports.
Something like a California healthcare project that has radiation oncology equipment and interface with existing structures would be really high up there.
worked briefly on medical facilities in my 20's, some 3 ft thick concrete with magnetite added for radiation control was quite impressive.
That's the radiation oncology stuff, Linear Accelerators, Cyclotrons, Cyberknives. They also have Linear Accelerator MRIs that require both the intense radiation shielding AND Radiofrequency shielding. I've never actually worked on a cyclotron, but the reality is al of these are pretty nuts and very technical.
One of the funniest parts is that it's always a pickle to figure out how to get the equipment in the buildings.... so I worked on this one project years ago where they had Linear Accelerators on a lower level, and couldn't fit them in the elevators. So the plan from the client/contractor was that they would lower these $3m pieces of equipment down the elevator shaft.... Was like.... ok that's not our business ....
there was also something about creating a maze like access to the rooms, which made the equipment access more difficult - I don't remember how it was solved, maybe the machines could be taken apart?
Mazes are typical for the high radiation equipment layouts. Specifically, Linac commonly have a “maze” which is really more of just an “S” shaped tunnel leading into the main room. This is to prevent the radiation from bouncing out.
From what I understand, it used to mean that you could use a more typical radiation door, like for a CT, which in experience feels similar to a normal door. However, I think the standards have changed, as the last few mazed designs I saw still required the specialty doors that look like you’re going into a bunker.
You can also do these units without mazes and use extremely heavy/thick doors. These can be upwards of a foot thick and weigh tens of thousands of pounds. Which freaks people out a little bit from a maintenance and safety standpoint.
The equipment gets brought in in pieces, but for the linacs the main arm(?) is quite long even as a part, so the mazes need to be designed with the turn radius per the equipment manufacturer.
MRI magnets are the really fun equipment for bringing into buildings though, and you always have to design a route for replacing them....
Even though most of my career is in housing, I feel like I could work on most everything except health care and airports because of how intense they are. Then of course prisons, but that’s personal ethics/morals.
I suppose it depends on how one defines hard. For me, it would be the one that has the potential for the greatest/most heartbreaking loss of life.
Hospital, highrise, school, airport. All would qualify.
Could even be a warehouse depending on what is stored there.
In my experience? Kaiser hospitals - I worked on envelope and it was a real hassle to prevail in OSHPD reviews. Lots of revisions. Another typology that is difficult are airports. The work isn't difficult, it's the damn bureaucracies - too many so called stake holders - FAA reviews, City reviews. Airline reviews - it's no wonder SFO(San Francisco international airport) has been a continuous construction project since 1955 - the good news, is that it's a lot of work that goes on for years..... a lot of hours though. hard on your health when you are workingon site and breathing Jet fumes all day, have a headache at 4pm and you have to work until 10pm
some great answers and explanations here. Well done, Archinectors.
sorry, spoke too soon
oh... it's "hard"....
panopticons
I see we’ve got a bad dragon building in here.
I see I’m the only depraved person in here.
A true connoisseur.
the one you have the least experience with is the hardest typology.
Any project with low budget, high expectations
that's the project I'm on - Imagine going shopping in a grocery store with a shopping list based on the twenty dollar bill in your pocket - then not just picking what's on the list but throwing in potatoe chips, cheap beer, candy and wine, then going up to the checkout counter and the clerk says: $149.00 please and you only got a twenty - now you have to back out and take all the BS out - E.G., project goes on hold for months
So then the client is like… hey get crackers, sodas, gum, and white claw instead… And you get back to the checkout and it’s $132.00.
So you realize all you can afford is gum, because you’re shopping at a whole foods, wen you thought you were at a smart and final… and the only real option as always… cut scope.
But for real though, low budget high expectations is super hard, particularly when it’s your team that has high expectations. I worked on a project that exemplified this, it wasn’t the hardest technically by any means, but it was probably the most exhausting project I ever worked on, and the most detrimental to my mental and physical health.
Yes. Working on a project for a large developer group that claims to have no money at all, but the person-in-charge for this project has made us blow up the project budget with their insane comments and demands. So yes, months of pain designing it and now months of pain "un-designing" it.
And while going up and down the isles, the store raises the prices on you and the bank that you have your credit card with raises interest rates.
Grade I or II if designing for figurehead/the offices vision? Parametrises (that's the auto correct) Convincing people to like AI generated architecture?
I agree low budget high expectations projects are the hardest which tend to be residential remodels.
Good news though I got a project in a jurisdiction with no zoning code, no building department and no plan review process. Homeowner is the contractor. I found the easiest project type. :D. More of these please.
That all sounds to good to be true. Will he be using bluebirds and squirrels from the forest as labor? =O]
Why yes. How did you know?
be careful what you wish for.
What do you mean JLC? I’m also just the design architect, am not local and there is a local, technical architect.