i guess i better start asking the interior design department where all the walls should go now. i though i could do that but according to the article, interior designers do that.
guppy
Mar 27, 08 11:48 am
Can something be at once overrated and under valued?
vado retro
Mar 27, 08 11:49 am
most common overrated career: dumbass magazine article writer.
Architecture_Charlatan
Mar 27, 08 12:03 pm
Of course Vado. The dumbass didnt bother to do her research anyway. Matt Dillon an architect in Theres Something About Mary. I think not. That would be Lee Evans.
won and done williams
Mar 27, 08 12:31 pm
damn it, i'm sick and tired of drawing hvac ducts! i want to decide where the walls go and what color they should be!!!
lletdownl
Mar 27, 08 12:38 pm
that is seriously the stupidest thing ive ever read....
that description for what interior designers do is beyond belief...
Alternative: Interior Designer. Halfway between an architect and an interior decorator, interior designers recommend where a wall should go as well as the color scheme.
mdler
Mar 27, 08 12:42 pm
this is the guy who wrote that article, btw...
mdler
Mar 27, 08 12:42 pm
I am going to start calling myself an 'exterior designer'
poncedeleonel
Mar 27, 08 12:51 pm
exterior designer with ulterior motives... ...to conquer interiors...
won and done williams
Mar 27, 08 12:52 pm
hey, at least dude has a sweet graphic designer working for him.
liberty bell
Mar 27, 08 12:52 pm
I agree, lletdownl, I feel like I lost quite a few brain cells reading that article. Ugh. vado called it.
mdler
Mar 27, 08 12:54 pm
sometimes it is the structral engineer who decides where walls should go
nb072
Mar 27, 08 1:07 pm
i don't know if overrated is the right word. i think i would call the profession rather "inherently flawed." there's not enough money to craft a good life, too much time devoted to boring things, not enough time left over to free time, which causes huge health, social, and family sacrifices.
yet we still cling to it. why? for some, it might be too late to try something new. for the rest of us, we deal with all the bullshit because buildings and cities are our passions and we want to do something related to something we're interested in. i personally hold out the naive hope that i can become an awesome architect and urbanist and still have enough time and money to have a good life outside of it. but i guess that would require me somehow changing the industry, huh?
marmkid
Mar 27, 08 1:17 pm
i clicked on the link expecting to have to read through like a 5 page article or something. that was very short
was adam sandler a hero in 'click'? or matt dillon?
i dont know if hero is the word for those charactors
Nicolas, when you say time devoted to boring things, that all goes with the job though. the only thing that article got right is that people think of an architect and think of him as designing crazy stuff all the time. i dont think you can find any job out there that has you doing exciting stuff 40 hours a week every week. there are good and bad things about every job, and the problem architects fall into when they start out is that they expect their life to be like their studio classes in school, where they get to design something cool however they want to. i think that is the public's perception of the job as well, which is where articles like this come from
upea
Mar 27, 08 1:31 pm
I have been considering changing my career into architecture/interior design and marmkid's comment above is what I wanted to ask here in Archinect. After entering a firm, how long does it take to design your own ideas or space planning, meaning having some controls over projects in a firm of average size?
I enjoyed studio classes' projects in a continuing education program and most likely will do when I get more formal education despite sleepless nights, but am not sure how many opportunities to design buildings or spaces in real world I will be given ..
i guess wherever you go, you end up being a part of an assembly line in a company..
mdler
Mar 27, 08 1:39 pm
upea
define average size. Depending on how much experience you have (and how good of a designer you are) you may be designing buildings the 1st day in the office....or you may be making coffee
marmkid
Mar 27, 08 1:42 pm
yeah it really depends on the firm
what was your career before? because if it wasnt design related, i wouldnt expect to be designing much with no formal education
i would never expect that to be the majority of your time at work though. that would set yourself up to be disappointed. you need to learn to like the other aspects of the job as well. otherwise you should just become an artist
Apurimac
Mar 27, 08 1:47 pm
That article was pretty far off the mark. Our profession's in a weird state right now, but if you went up to one of my laborers and told them you had a hard time living off of 80k a year after spending about 10 years in the field they would laugh their asses off at you. Being an intern sucks, but I seriously get the impression you can live a comfy, middle-class life after spending a relatively small amount of time in this field and really rake in cash if you're your own boss.
marmkid
Mar 27, 08 1:51 pm
yes, those people who say they do not make a good living as an architect expect to come out of school and instantly be making 100k. you can make a very good living
stonerock
Mar 27, 08 1:52 pm
landscape architect was listed as one of the best careers.
citizen
Mar 27, 08 1:53 pm
"Architecture has many pluses. Indeed, it made it (barely) into last year's list of Best Careers. Alas, for 2008, architecture must be moved to the overrated category. Not only is the housing decline souring the job market, but more potential clients are offshoring the work to India, downloading premade blueprints developed by top architects, or having lower-cost interior/exterior designers or building contractors design their structure. Two recent job satisfaction surveys painted a mixed picture: One gave architecture high marks, but the other rated it very low. A major cause of low job satisfaction is that many architects don't get to design buildings but rather must produce detailed drawings of the components of other people's designs, such as the heating, ventilation, and air-conditioning system."
All true. All a fairly old story, too.
Missing from the story: the chance to mature, gain experience, get promoted and/or go out on one's own ---each of those providing more opportunities to design with more freedom. Very few people start out designing whole buildings right out of school. Almost everyone starts by doing the details, then works their way up and into better opportunities ---either on their own, as as part of a bigger firm.
That blurb focuses on the case of those relatively new to the field and ignores the possibilities of change over time.
lletdownl
Mar 27, 08 1:56 pm
landscape architecture is probably listed as one of the best careers cause sometimes kittens will play in knolls you placed
where as the only thing architects really do is make floors out of hard surfaces so that kittens playing on them sometimes cant stop in time, and bang their heads on walls and chairs.
Apurimac
Mar 27, 08 1:56 pm
Not to mention the fact that being an architect gives you access to a myriad of niche professions, like consulting, planning, development, interiors and engineering. If being an "architect" is right for you, you can parlay your experience into a relate field or specialize in specific design aspects that appeal to you.
vado retro
Mar 27, 08 1:58 pm
as long as they aren't load bearing walls...
marmkid
Mar 27, 08 1:58 pm
if i ever get to design a building that makes a kitten happy and "head bang" free, i can retire a happy man
Apurimac
Mar 27, 08 2:01 pm
landscape architects get paid less then we do to my knowledge
less flexibility i imagine also. the number of projects that dont require a landscape architect probably far out-numbers the number of projects that do
that alone makes it a tougher field to be successful i imagine
apurimac
you are right in the other professions aspect. we are working with a developer now who used to be an architect. from what i can tell he does very well for himself, which having that architectural background i imagine didnt hurt
cowerd
Mar 27, 08 2:38 pm
but there aren't enough landscape architects. and not enough being graduated by universities. that alone makes easier to succeed.
marmkid
Mar 27, 08 2:40 pm
are there really not enough landscape architects?
thats interesting. i wonder what the reason is for that
zigfromsa
Mar 27, 08 3:50 pm
It could be worse, you could be an engineer, we just push paper around all day and make sure to cover our bums when we can.
Philarch
Mar 27, 08 6:08 pm
Didn't we have a thread about this before? Well, no matter, its still interesting.
I recently did well on a design competition and a non-architectural co-worker's question to me-
"So you drafted the exterior facade?"
And during my little stint when I thought I wanted to minor in construction administration - the (architect-hating) professor asked the mostly engineering and management students "what does the architect do?" I didn't answer because I wanted to hear what everyone else thought. Only one answer came:
"Draw partition walls?" (note the question mark, and again note the importance of "drawing." Thats like saying a writer "types words." Drawings are only tools of communication, damn it!)
Clearly there is some ignorance even with people in the construction industry let alone people not in the industry. Its frustrating to say the least even when the perception is much greater than the reality.
le bossman
Mar 27, 08 7:16 pm
i think it's overrated. besides, hopefully this will draw some people away, less architects = more money for us.
le bossman
Mar 27, 08 7:18 pm
philarch, what did the professor say in response? i had a CM professor once make a snide remark about how architects are into "something...aesthetic" and who would want to do that anyway. i had a big, shit eating grin on my face and he caught my eye and looked away. but we had a lot of architects in that class anyway.
Philarch
Mar 27, 08 7:57 pm
I think he then asked what the engineers did. He had no response, really. He really did hate architects in general though - in an insecure and immature way.
I think we're overrated in the sense that people perceive all architects' lifestyles in a certain way. And at the same time we're underrated (and undervalued) in a sense that most people don't know we consider and deal with a lot of things some people are not even aware of.
aaargink
Mar 27, 08 9:50 pm
Yes that's true....I think the article points to one big problem facing the industry. I'd say a massive portion of the current business model currently revolves around the production of drawings.....and that's gonna change.
If that changes more quickly than it has (between outsourcing and BIM) and if architects continue to be slow at finding new profitable business models (which the profession has proved itself emminately capable at)......we could find outselves quite overrated......
but at least noone can top us in terms of verbal ejaculation in our education.
nb072
Mar 27, 08 9:58 pm
marmkid - depends on what you mean by a good living. at most interesting firms you probably won't make $100k until you're at least 40 years old, and even on that salary, fat chance finding anywhere nice to live in manhattan.
marmkid
Mar 27, 08 10:56 pm
if you expect to be making $100k before you are 40, why the heck would you become an architect. that is completely unreasonable. and you need to get your priorities straight if you cant be happy with that. if money is your priority like it sounds, why on earth did you become an architect?
who said you need to live in manhattan?
seriously, when you were in school or applying to school, where did you get the idea that making 6 figures before you were 40 was the norm and how is that the basis for a good living?
so everyone who has a halfway decent place to live in Manhattan makes 100k?
i had no idea
i agree with Apurimac then
med.
Mar 28, 08 2:36 pm
A very misleading article if anything...
snook_dude
Mar 28, 08 7:34 pm
marmkid.....I think it is the Latin Plant names that scare people away from Landscape Architecture.
cowerd
Mar 28, 08 8:35 pm
snook
i think it's the marker renderings
wurdan freo
Mar 29, 08 8:52 pm
aaargink makes a point. Way back when i learned it in school the typical model went something like PD SD DD CD CA with billings along the lines of PD 10% SD 15% DD 15% CD 50% CA 10%. This is all based on the design bid build model. As this delivery method shifts to Integrated Project Delivery where the contractor takes the BIM model after DD's or earlier, what do architects bill for? Are they simply relegated to schematic designers and code interpreters?
Architecture is a bad profession lacking education in technologies, & they producing mediocre buildings, and is not geared for our changing environment. Architects are geared to design a house in record amount of time not taking into consideration the quality.
Architecture is 60 years behind in quality of materials, and does'nt take atvantage of space age technologies from NASA, and others. Why are we still using concrete blocks & or masonry block, and wood, and not replacing this messy stuff with some other kind of intelligent building materials?
Technologies such as radiant barriers, solar panels, and plastics and, or composite materials, or steel should be used etc. Why can't the building departments require us to use these things instead?
The home owner has no idea about what a new technology can do for them (the Architect should know), all the home owner knows is they will get a new house, and how much it will cost. The Architect should make sure that they design a house for the home owner that has all up to date technologies (building materials).
The cost may be higher but al least the Architect, and home owner will now have the satisfaction that they did a great job.
OneLostArchitect
Dec 10, 18 12:24 pm
I want to renter the earths atmosphere...
SneakyPete
Dec 10, 18 12:32 pm
Please list the "intelligent building materials" and "up to date technologies" you think architects are not yet should be using. Please do not re-list "radiant barriers, solar panels, and plastics and, or composite materials, or steel" as architects specify and use these quite frequently.
Non Sequitur
Dec 10, 18 12:35 pm
AH HEM.... greg knows nothing.
Miles Jaffe
Dec 10, 18 12:48 pm
Clueless. Architecture abandoned millennia of intelligent development of regional design suited to local climates in favor of unproven new tech and design theories and practices that ignore the environment, sustainability, durability, performance, human factors, etc., etc.
Miles Jaffe
Dec 10, 18 12:50 pm
Economics in action. It’s all about money, nothing else matters.
randomised
Dec 10, 18 12:59 pm
Greg@bellend, you know NASA uses ceramic fibres, felt and quilts for the walls of their space shuttles, right? That shit's been around since like forever you know.
Of course if US News says it it must be true...
http://www.usnews.com/articles/business/best-careers/2007/12/19/overrated-career-architect.html
i guess i better start asking the interior design department where all the walls should go now. i though i could do that but according to the article, interior designers do that.
Can something be at once overrated and under valued?
most common overrated career: dumbass magazine article writer.
Of course Vado. The dumbass didnt bother to do her research anyway. Matt Dillon an architect in Theres Something About Mary. I think not. That would be Lee Evans.
damn it, i'm sick and tired of drawing hvac ducts! i want to decide where the walls go and what color they should be!!!
that is seriously the stupidest thing ive ever read....
that description for what interior designers do is beyond belief...
Alternative: Interior Designer. Halfway between an architect and an interior decorator, interior designers recommend where a wall should go as well as the color scheme.
this is the guy who wrote that article, btw...
I am going to start calling myself an 'exterior designer'
exterior designer with ulterior motives... ...to conquer interiors...
hey, at least dude has a sweet graphic designer working for him.
I agree, lletdownl, I feel like I lost quite a few brain cells reading that article. Ugh. vado called it.
sometimes it is the structral engineer who decides where walls should go
i don't know if overrated is the right word. i think i would call the profession rather "inherently flawed." there's not enough money to craft a good life, too much time devoted to boring things, not enough time left over to free time, which causes huge health, social, and family sacrifices.
yet we still cling to it. why? for some, it might be too late to try something new. for the rest of us, we deal with all the bullshit because buildings and cities are our passions and we want to do something related to something we're interested in. i personally hold out the naive hope that i can become an awesome architect and urbanist and still have enough time and money to have a good life outside of it. but i guess that would require me somehow changing the industry, huh?
i clicked on the link expecting to have to read through like a 5 page article or something. that was very short
was adam sandler a hero in 'click'? or matt dillon?
i dont know if hero is the word for those charactors
Nicolas, when you say time devoted to boring things, that all goes with the job though. the only thing that article got right is that people think of an architect and think of him as designing crazy stuff all the time. i dont think you can find any job out there that has you doing exciting stuff 40 hours a week every week. there are good and bad things about every job, and the problem architects fall into when they start out is that they expect their life to be like their studio classes in school, where they get to design something cool however they want to. i think that is the public's perception of the job as well, which is where articles like this come from
I have been considering changing my career into architecture/interior design and marmkid's comment above is what I wanted to ask here in Archinect. After entering a firm, how long does it take to design your own ideas or space planning, meaning having some controls over projects in a firm of average size?
I enjoyed studio classes' projects in a continuing education program and most likely will do when I get more formal education despite sleepless nights, but am not sure how many opportunities to design buildings or spaces in real world I will be given ..
i guess wherever you go, you end up being a part of an assembly line in a company..
upea
define average size. Depending on how much experience you have (and how good of a designer you are) you may be designing buildings the 1st day in the office....or you may be making coffee
yeah it really depends on the firm
what was your career before? because if it wasnt design related, i wouldnt expect to be designing much with no formal education
i would never expect that to be the majority of your time at work though. that would set yourself up to be disappointed. you need to learn to like the other aspects of the job as well. otherwise you should just become an artist
That article was pretty far off the mark. Our profession's in a weird state right now, but if you went up to one of my laborers and told them you had a hard time living off of 80k a year after spending about 10 years in the field they would laugh their asses off at you. Being an intern sucks, but I seriously get the impression you can live a comfy, middle-class life after spending a relatively small amount of time in this field and really rake in cash if you're your own boss.
yes, those people who say they do not make a good living as an architect expect to come out of school and instantly be making 100k. you can make a very good living
landscape architect was listed as one of the best careers.
"Architecture has many pluses. Indeed, it made it (barely) into last year's list of Best Careers. Alas, for 2008, architecture must be moved to the overrated category. Not only is the housing decline souring the job market, but more potential clients are offshoring the work to India, downloading premade blueprints developed by top architects, or having lower-cost interior/exterior designers or building contractors design their structure. Two recent job satisfaction surveys painted a mixed picture: One gave architecture high marks, but the other rated it very low. A major cause of low job satisfaction is that many architects don't get to design buildings but rather must produce detailed drawings of the components of other people's designs, such as the heating, ventilation, and air-conditioning system."
All true. All a fairly old story, too.
Missing from the story: the chance to mature, gain experience, get promoted and/or go out on one's own ---each of those providing more opportunities to design with more freedom. Very few people start out designing whole buildings right out of school. Almost everyone starts by doing the details, then works their way up and into better opportunities ---either on their own, as as part of a bigger firm.
That blurb focuses on the case of those relatively new to the field and ignores the possibilities of change over time.
landscape architecture is probably listed as one of the best careers cause sometimes kittens will play in knolls you placed
where as the only thing architects really do is make floors out of hard surfaces so that kittens playing on them sometimes cant stop in time, and bang their heads on walls and chairs.
Not to mention the fact that being an architect gives you access to a myriad of niche professions, like consulting, planning, development, interiors and engineering. If being an "architect" is right for you, you can parlay your experience into a relate field or specialize in specific design aspects that appeal to you.
as long as they aren't load bearing walls...
if i ever get to design a building that makes a kitten happy and "head bang" free, i can retire a happy man
landscape architects get paid less then we do to my knowledge
Landscape architect - best carreers
less flexibility i imagine also. the number of projects that dont require a landscape architect probably far out-numbers the number of projects that do
that alone makes it a tougher field to be successful i imagine
apurimac
you are right in the other professions aspect. we are working with a developer now who used to be an architect. from what i can tell he does very well for himself, which having that architectural background i imagine didnt hurt
but there aren't enough landscape architects. and not enough being graduated by universities. that alone makes easier to succeed.
are there really not enough landscape architects?
thats interesting. i wonder what the reason is for that
It could be worse, you could be an engineer, we just push paper around all day and make sure to cover our bums when we can.
Didn't we have a thread about this before? Well, no matter, its still interesting.
I recently did well on a design competition and a non-architectural co-worker's question to me-
"So you drafted the exterior facade?"
And during my little stint when I thought I wanted to minor in construction administration - the (architect-hating) professor asked the mostly engineering and management students "what does the architect do?" I didn't answer because I wanted to hear what everyone else thought. Only one answer came:
"Draw partition walls?" (note the question mark, and again note the importance of "drawing." Thats like saying a writer "types words." Drawings are only tools of communication, damn it!)
Clearly there is some ignorance even with people in the construction industry let alone people not in the industry. Its frustrating to say the least even when the perception is much greater than the reality.
i think it's overrated. besides, hopefully this will draw some people away, less architects = more money for us.
philarch, what did the professor say in response? i had a CM professor once make a snide remark about how architects are into "something...aesthetic" and who would want to do that anyway. i had a big, shit eating grin on my face and he caught my eye and looked away. but we had a lot of architects in that class anyway.
I think he then asked what the engineers did. He had no response, really. He really did hate architects in general though - in an insecure and immature way.
I think we're overrated in the sense that people perceive all architects' lifestyles in a certain way. And at the same time we're underrated (and undervalued) in a sense that most people don't know we consider and deal with a lot of things some people are not even aware of.
Yes that's true....I think the article points to one big problem facing the industry. I'd say a massive portion of the current business model currently revolves around the production of drawings.....and that's gonna change.
If that changes more quickly than it has (between outsourcing and BIM) and if architects continue to be slow at finding new profitable business models (which the profession has proved itself emminately capable at)......we could find outselves quite overrated......
but at least noone can top us in terms of verbal ejaculation in our education.
marmkid - depends on what you mean by a good living. at most interesting firms you probably won't make $100k until you're at least 40 years old, and even on that salary, fat chance finding anywhere nice to live in manhattan.
if you expect to be making $100k before you are 40, why the heck would you become an architect. that is completely unreasonable. and you need to get your priorities straight if you cant be happy with that. if money is your priority like it sounds, why on earth did you become an architect?
who said you need to live in manhattan?
seriously, when you were in school or applying to school, where did you get the idea that making 6 figures before you were 40 was the norm and how is that the basis for a good living?
Fuck manhattan, FUCK MANHATTAN, FUCK MANHATTAN
AAAAAAAAAARRRRRRRRRRRRRRGGGGGGGGGGGHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHH
dRunK posTiNG sorry FOlks
I make 100k. And I'm not even 40 yet.
(You count every two years, right?)
i count every 2.5 years
so everyone who has a halfway decent place to live in Manhattan makes 100k?
i had no idea
i agree with Apurimac then
A very misleading article if anything...
marmkid.....I think it is the Latin Plant names that scare people away from Landscape Architecture.
snook
i think it's the marker renderings
aaargink makes a point. Way back when i learned it in school the typical model went something like PD SD DD CD CA with billings along the lines of PD 10% SD 15% DD 15% CD 50% CA 10%. This is all based on the design bid build model. As this delivery method shifts to Integrated Project Delivery where the contractor takes the BIM model after DD's or earlier, what do architects bill for? Are they simply relegated to schematic designers and code interpreters?
Architecture is a bad profession lacking education in technologies, & they producing mediocre buildings, and is not geared for our changing environment. Architects are geared to design a house in record amount of time not taking into consideration the quality.
Architecture is 60 years behind in quality of materials, and does'nt take atvantage of space age technologies from NASA, and others. Why are we still using concrete blocks & or masonry block, and wood, and not replacing this messy stuff with some other kind of intelligent building materials?
Technologies such as radiant barriers, solar panels, and plastics and, or composite materials, or steel should be used etc. Why can't the building departments require us to use these things instead?
The home owner has no idea about what a new technology can do for them (the Architect should know), all the home owner knows is they will get a new house, and how much it will cost. The Architect should make sure that they design a house for the home owner that has all up to date technologies (building materials).
The cost may be higher but al least the Architect, and home owner will now have the satisfaction that they did a great job.
I want to renter the earths atmosphere...
Please list the "intelligent building materials" and "up to date technologies" you think architects are not yet should be using. Please do not re-list "radiant barriers, solar panels, and plastics and, or composite materials, or steel" as architects specify and use these quite frequently.
AH HEM.... greg knows nothing.
Clueless. Architecture abandoned millennia of intelligent development of regional design suited to local climates in favor of unproven new tech and design theories and practices that ignore the environment, sustainability, durability, performance, human factors, etc., etc.
Economics in action. It’s all about money, nothing else matters.
Greg@bellend, you know NASA uses ceramic fibres, felt and quilts for the walls of their space shuttles, right? That shit's been around since like forever you know.