Unemployed? Underpaid? Still paying student loans to get there?
I've been thinking about this and was wondering how others felt. Is it time to reform architecture schools or are we going to accept the traditional model as the ticket to becoming an architect.
Looking back at my education from two very respected schools, I find that very little of it, perhaps other than the Structures and few tech courses, and the connections I made while in school, there was very little that was worth paying 5 years for. I see more and more now that very little has any actually relevance to what we do day to day.
Let's start with the professors. Most of them couldn't draw a wall section or tell you about the building codes of the cities they live in. Some of them have never even worked inside an architecture office. Yes, I know, they want us to think critically, allow useless theory to guide our design. During reviews, they venture of into their theorticcal world and make up architecture words that you would get slapped for using in the real world. When questioned why we should respect anything they say, the response would probably be: oh, what would architecture be if you didn't have us around to push the envelope?
Anyways, I won't go on about the professors but it seems to me that you cannot be taught by someone who doesn't really know about the how the work-world operates. We leave school and fight over barely surviving salaries. (There was some moron on here earlier asking if 27k in NYC is too low?) Who the hell pays up to 250k to come out competing for janitor salaries? What the system needs is to integrate business and planning courses into into its five year programs, more pro-prac courses, swap theory for technicalities, replace the book writers with liscenced-practicing architects, etc. I would go as far as to have requirements for passing the some of the AREs to have a degree. Otherwise, an overpriced education will leave you in the middle of an economy where you will be taken as starving artists because you were taught by people who have no idea how to put a building together and got give two shits about where you are in five years. Lets face it, schools are an institution -whether it's the crap at UPENN or the crap at an artsy SoCal film school, and at the end of the day, their primary goal is to stay paid like everyone else. But in this case, they are paid to push an oversupply of useless product.
well, this has been discussed on about 300 threads in the past few months, but i'll take the bait anyway.
i actually think an education in architecture, at least at the grad level, is pretty good. i mean this to refer to a general education in its pure sense, which teaches people to think, observe, and draw from all sorts of sources to form original ideas. i think you can use an architectural education to do lots and lots of things.
i think it's a mistake to continue to think of it as a professional education, because no one seems to be able to decide what the profession actually is. you can go in about 500 different directions and still say you're practicing 'architecture' in some way. i don't really think the traditional 'profession' of architecture will survive for very much longer. at the moment, it's on life support, propped up by the cheap labor you describe.
so because of this i don't think focusing on the 'business' side in school will really help anybody. it will devalue the education to a kind of 'career school' that will miss the mark most of the time anyway. it will also continue to supply cheap labor for crap production firms.
i think schools should better inform students about their real prospects in the world. i'm in my 30s and i'm just finding out how many of the firms i thought were successful as a student have been failing financially for years and are propped up by the wealth of the principals or by high-paying academic positions. i wish i'd known this sooner. students should know where most of the real money is--i.e. boring, soulless, bland macrodevelopments with little room for creativity--before they make their decisions.
technology is important, but not only in the technical sense. i think if you told most arch. students that their most promising future lies in being technical experts, a lot of them would go somewhere else...i for one would rather have gone into engineering than become a high-level detailer. but technology in an experimental sense still has a lot to offer and should be taught in schools. and at the very least, UNDERGRAD PROGRAMS SHOULD STOP INSISTING ON 2-3 YEARS OF HAND DRAFTING, which is completely unnecessary and pretty much ensures unemployability.
i think the most important thing for schools to do is to correct the perception entering students seem to have that architecture is some sort of financially rewarding profession. then those who are still interested and adventurous can still continue to pursue the education, much in the way people still pursue degrees in fine arts, ballet, or other creative fields, while knowing that success will involve some entrepreneurial thinking on their part once they graduate.
ps--in the battle between academia and practice, my current position is that they're both wrong. i see kids who come out of school with great computer skills and good ideas and are then knocked back down into the same old box by their 50yr old superiors who have no clue about that stuff when they get jobs in offices. but i also see academics who think any sort of reality is a bad word and are more concerned about the edginess and marketability of THEIR OWN product...
Elinor, I your point is well taken but I would completely disagree with learning the 'business' side as being a detriment to prospective grads. While there is this problem in schools in China for example where the students are basically drafters for their professors, the point isn't to just teach students how to rapidly spit out drawings and details from certain programs. Yes it helps to know those programs and give one job seeker an advantage over the other but the problem lies in two major factors.
One, it is way too easy to buy an architecture degree. While some students drop out along the way, most of them just stick too it because the core of the learning still revolves around useless artsy thinking, otherwise packaged as "critical thinking that can be applied to many fields." Schools should be forced to fully disclose their employment rates and grad salaries. If this was available, I think most people would think hard before going to arch school. If you were told you could invest 250k and five years later, you would be paying student loans, make just over minimum wage IF you can find a job, would you invest so readily? Let's face it. Schools care more about filling seating room than whether their students end up with a job or not. Most architecture schools like Michigan, I pick on Mich because it is the largest in the land, do not have a legitimate career center. They, like many, do not keep track of their alums or care to, as long ast the enrollments are constantly filled to capacity.
Two, the professors. I could retire right now if I could get a dollar for everytime a comment is made by a professor that would raise an eyebrow inside an office environment. If we continue to be taught architecture, then let it be taught by real architects. The only way to make students worth more when they graduate is to make them relevant to the work environment. We need to graduate more than just CAD monkies who can readily be replaced by cheaper wave of incoming CAD monkies. The institution needs to be more integrated with the profession, real estate, planning, and make requirements for attaining a BArch more in line with reality. There is a huge difference between working hard pulling all nighters and knowing the business. How many other professions can you name that treat hard working youths like slaves? I don't really blame the profession for doing this, they came up the same way.
A law student from a good school can come out making $160k a year. An arch student can expect 1/3 this at best. The reality is until more stringent requirements are made, like passing the AREs as a requirement, knowing related professional fields, knowing how to put together proposals, similating real work environments, we are going to have grads who can't figure out whether they will leave school and hae a job or head back into their parents' basements.
i don't completely disagree, i just think that this line of thinking gives too much credit to firms/employers/ the 'profession'. i want a dollar for every time someone in an office proposes something that would have little value in the real world as a built environment!!
and besides, it's the employers that WANT cad monkeys...someone who will keep their head down and do what they're told. they work their youth like slaves because their mode of practice has become untenable and the only way they can maintain their standard of living is by bleeding the labor force. i don't think we want anyone TEACHING this....
the thinking skills you learn in schools are only 'useless' because your employers don't want you to think! ...or design, or invent.
i started a practice recently. the 'business' side, though not exactly easy, is not rocket science. the most important and most difficult skill is to make and work connections, something that can't exactly be taught. if i was paying 250000 for business skills, i'd want the mba.
the core of the learning still revolves around useless artsy thinking, otherwise packaged as "critical thinking that can be applied to many fields."
If you can learn, from theoretical thinking, to address a very complex problem with many many constituent influences and possible solutions to come up with a solution that meets a sufficient amount of the criteria to be termed a success, then you actually have learned a valuable skill: the ability to confront and attack, as well as possible, Rittel and Webber's Wicked Problem. That's critical thinking.
Trust me, history, art, and English grads aren't getting those complex thinking skills.
That said, I think architecture schools should add a few more business/pro practice classes, and make the structures/HVAC classes less specific (no solving beam sizes - your engineer will do that) and more focused on understanding the overall theories of application in those fields.
"i want a dollar for every time someone in an office proposes something that would have little value in the real world as a built environment!!...it's the employers that WANT cad monkeys"-Elinor
To further the CAD monkey issue, the schools aren't doing anything to change this either because by the time they graduate, they really aren't much that is practical. This isn't the practice's fault. Arch students aren't much better off than migrant workers -a cheap oversupply of potential talent that can be exploited. My point is if they can leave school and understand the profession almost well enough to go out on their own by graduation (which is possible in five years), by becoming licensed and having an education that simulates real work environments, instead of the repeated theory courses, they can put themselves in a position to negotiate the terms of their work. Until the accreditation changes its terms, and the terms for graduation becomes more stringent, we will continue to get a cheap oversupply of morons who come on here asking about 27K...as for the "little value of real world environments," I did mention that there should be some planning/ RE courses as part of the five year program. This is an issue that is more driven by developers but some understanding of planning/ RE business can make an architect more informed in the decision making.
It's sad that after 250k (these days), a student isn't able to learn anymore more than subjective bs. You mention that with that much money, you would get an MBA but an MBA doesn't even cost this much! A 4+2 arch degree will cost you more than this in some schools.
"...Trust me, history, art, and English grads aren't getting those complex thinking skills"- Donna Sink
That's my point. Architecture has become as worthless as a literature or art degree thanks to the lack of reality academia operates it. Complex and critical thinking can also be taken from practical experiences, and is of more value, instead of debating over the likes of Tafuri or Sorkin.
boogieman:"Schools should be forced to fully disclose their employment rates and grad salaries. "
Go to one of many threads where young kids talk about applying to schools. Tell them about the salaries. They won't give a fuck. It's hard to when you're 18 or even 24. The academia relies on uninformed decisions for profit. The academic institutions also don't have any accountability to either you or me. You will not change them with appeals to reason.
You need an iceberg to sink that shitboat. Which is coming very soon by the name of 'student loan bubble'. It'll be here in 6-9 years. You won't even need to have an outstanding loan to feel the consequences of that bust. Hopefully when we recover again (15-25 years from now) the system of loaning money will be proportional to the value of the degree you are pursuing.
So be patient. 20 years will fly by in no time.
"A law student from a good school can come out making $160k a year."
Not anymore. They've oversaturated themselves as well with grad schools. A recent law grad is only marginally better off than an arch grad.
a few business, mgmt & marketing classes, also product & process design & ergonomics would be excellent additions to our curriculum;
the critical thinking skills taught in architectural education are (in my experience) very valuable, and I think that to appreciate this, it helps to get a sense of how other fields approach design
there is no right or wrong way; rather, our approach is a nice complement to a more quantitative approach, whether business-related or engineering related
an engineer or business person may start with a market need and produce a product or process decomposition into core requirements based upon quantitative and qualitative analysis, often backed by a statistical analysis --- then they define a spec, all before any concept design occurs; but what if they get the requirements wrong? they may have falsely constrained the product/process to be designed to something that no one will actually need or want and they may not know this until they are more than halfway through the design process --- think of times when companies (microsoft, or apple in the 90's) come out with products that clearly are based upon a perception of a market need but egregiously misjudged the market; how does that happen? it is often a result of this problematic abstraction process developing incomplete or misinterpreted requirements and then making designers doggedly adhere to them --- this is problematic in part because atomizing the elements of the design during decomposition usually fails to represent interaction effects between competing product/process requirements, as well as emergent system properties, whether good or bad --- and often those interaction effects are key
statistical analysis and probability tend to play heavily in the formers' approaches, as well as various matrices and differential weighting strategies --- these tools, while powerful, are often as much an art as a science when used in actual practice, depending upon a person's proficiency with statistical analysis and analysis instrument design --- if proper analysis is not possible, for whatever reason, which is often the case in the real world, or if the design team forces data into linear models b/c they are easy to work with when in reality the data represent more complex effects, then results are often dubious and their findings may be little better than guesses backed by the false assurance of a quantitative table
conversely, architects tend to start with asking what should the design be, how should it feel and for whom, what is its role in a larger sense, and what does it have to accomplish practically; then we create a vision and then fit specifications to the vision as best possible --- our approach has the benefit of starting with a systems view and working inward, usually avoiding confounding interaction effects because the design was never atomized and abstracted (programming does this but not to the same degree as requirements engineering) --- still, our approach, which engages the larger context from the start, can realize valid visions that are not implementable or optimizable b/c there is not a rigorous enough quantitative underpinning to the designs --- so we can definitely benefit from incorporating some of their tools and perspectives, though not in lieu of our own but as complementary --- as symbiotic
my point is that it is useful to learn other ways and methods so that we can figure out how to relate what we do and what they do, to distinguish between the solid value they can bring versus what is techno-babble guesstimating sophistry, and to better understand the true value of what we bring. Hopefully, we can translate such understanding of our peers's and collaborators' work into better placement of our services with respect to theirs and a more financially secure future for us
it is also important to remember this may be a divide that cannot be bridged --- an analogous situation occurs in the design of robotics and complex intelligences --- often it is possible to design a system that works or one that we can understand completely (in a quantitative sense) but not both at the same time --- this is b/c our capacity to imagine, to tinker, to find solutions always exceeds our ability to build mathematical and statistical models of the systems --- so roboticists usually have a choice to make --- and will in fact actually build something that works and then as a separate experience try to build the quantitative model that can describe it --- arhictecture, in my opinion, is firmly rooted in the former concern, not the latter
Rustystuds, (how do you quote someone in italics?)
I do think that if salaries and employment rates were fully disclosed, and the kids are stupid enough to put themselves in that hell whole, let them burn. However, I think that parents would take a bigger role in the decision making if they had all the information on hand. Who in their right mind would allow their kids to invest a fortune into such crappy prospects. I know a guy who talked his kid out of going into architecture, said that he wasn't going to pay for it.
School loans are the ticket to the American education, and like the housing market, I hope it comes to a crash quickly and have a lasting painful effect on academia. You need to go to school these days to do almost anything as more and more degrees are made up. School is becoming out of reach for the average American thanks to rich foreign students who can front the bill without a second thought and more so, due to the availability of domestic school loans.
As for the 160k law salary, I base if off a few friends who passed the BAR before starting work, but yes, this was a few years ago. They are now making closer to 200K a year. In architecture schools, it's the blind leading the blind. If arch schools fed its students a more practical education and didn't push the notion of everyone becoming a star architect, the profession as a whole would be less diluted with these hopeless morons who allow themselves to be thrown to the wolves to pursue this fantasy. I could care less for a moron who works for 27K but this unfortunately brings expectations and standards down for everyone else.
and wait, by eliminating school loans wouldn't you be making american education available ONLY to those rich foreigners you are talking about? or do you think it would magically bring down the cost of education.
you don't seem to value education much as an end in itself, or for self-betterment....
The teenagers in this country are pretty immature. Yes, I'm very serious, parents can have a say in what their kids do for a living, especially if the parents are expected to help pay for their education. And especially where school loans are easier to come by that a business loan.
If I had a kid stupid enough to tell me that he was going to 6 years of school, invest about oh, 6x50K, to go into some art school or field where he might not get a job and then settles for say 27K - like some idiot here did when he does find a job, I would have a serious word with that child...and tell him that if he insists, he can pay for it all himself.
elinor, current student loan situation is a bit of a mess. Some of the loans are guaranteed by the federal gubbermint, some are private. Colleges bind them together in packages not unlike what banks did with mortgage swaps. The guaranteed portion makes it easy for landing institutions not to worry at all whom they land to. This in return leads to higher tuitions, because colleges have no incentive to keep costs down.
All of this is compounded by the rise of diploma schools (like University of Phoenix and the likes). It's a complete mess. Banks lobbied congress to change bankruptcy laws back in '08. You can never dissolve a student loan.
Initial intent of federal gov. to guarantee loans to students was well meaning one, but it got exploited to hell by free market economists (especially by the borderline scam online schools). PBS Fronline did a great report on it last year. It's up on Netflix.
Elinor, you are again completely missing the point.
I do believe in an education very much so but I disagree with how arch is being taught, and the skyrocketing cost do not justify the investment. As for the rich foreign students, they come here from China, India, etc. and return to their countries to practice because where they are from, an education is actually very highly respected and actually justifies coming over here. They don't come here on student loans...As far as an ends, I have a great amount of respect for architects go never went to school. I don't think it makes them any less of an architect because they were self-taught or couldn't afford the astronomical price tag.
If students in the US are going to continue to borrow more than they can comfortable pay off, don't you think that it is a problem? What I'm saying is that a US education isn't as valuable as it use to be. Not too long ago, the average American bachelor degree was highly valued, that degree is now the bare minimum, it's not worth much more than what was once a high school diploma.
The only thing that will bring down the cost of school is a crash in school loans, lets face it, the skyrocketing cost of an architecture education is proportionally well out of the reality of what an architect makes. As I was saying, schools need to be more transparent and held more accountable for what they produce. If kids are duped into paying a fortune for a pretty crappy standard of living, they might as well be shown the data going in...Again, the schools are more interested in making $$$ than where the next wave of Starchitect-wannabees get their next lunch. I'm just from the line of thinking that a serious investment should have a serious return, and right now, 5-6 years in arch school is a pretty sad sad investment.
as a general contractor for the last 22 years and a very prolific lurker on this forum and a more infrequent poster i would like to chime in.
just recently i have decided that i would like to know more about architecture or more precise the ART in architecture. in fact i am convinced that i should have gone to school years ago to be one, so i have been slowly reading some of the basics. for instance i was reading "kindergarten chats and other writings" by louis sullivan this weekend.
i tell my architect friends all the time that i wish that i could just "talk" like an architect. to be able to "educate the client in what they want" as one of my friends say. and maybe recent graduates can do this or more than likely it take years of work and practice i don't know; but i think that part of the architectural education is invaluable. i have seen the eyes of clients sparkle when my friends tell them that tearing down this wall and having the staircase become the focal point for the entry and how the "space" will invoke a sense of communal gathering. or some such nonsense. THAT part of the education is what is valuable. and then they ask me how to do it.
here is what is need from my boots on the ground point of view.
1. make architectural degrees a 4 year program. teach basic construction, beams, roofs, joist, process etc. the first 2 years or so. lets face it basic building is not rocket science and engineers decide the actual components and sizing anyway. after 1 year of the basics if the student can't grasp the big picture they need to go to law school.
2. the next 2-3 years teach theory and design and interior design, color choices,art appreciation whatever. study the masters of architecture. the DESIGN is what clients pay an architect for not HOW it is constructed. trust me the trades people are very good at what they do and can make almost any drawing work. schools may have, i don't know because i haven't gone to school, strayed to far from Vitruvius in that architecture is an ART.
3. stop trying to elevate architects to the level of doctors or physicists or may be even engineers. normal people view architects as designers not a life and death profession. and a building is the architects vision on a design not a gall bladder operation.
rusty, i understand completely. there should be student loan reform, by all means, but not to the point where this option is obliterated. i've made good use of student loans (and credit cards, at various points in my life) without falling into the long-term debt trap.
besides which, people borrow to buy cars all the time, with payments that approximate those of student loans, and no one bats an eye. leaving the actual cost of education, which is a problem, out of this particular conversation, a $300 monthly payment can be worth incurring for an education and is not necessarily a disaster. as a foreigner, i can say with certainty that americans are pretty bad at handling their personal finances...i've seen my husband at it.
burningman, i think adult children should make their own decisions, and parents should stop 'parenting' well into their children's 40s. they can give their opinions, but to lay down the law like that is too much.
i was that kid, btw, who wanted the art degree. and my foreigner parents made me pay for it myself. so i did. and then i got an arch degree and paid for that myself. and then i got an march too. and i'll give you one guess as to which one of those degrees is saving my ass at this particular moment. so in other words, my parents were wrong.
burningman, in my experience, what you are describing does not work.
having been both a GTA for a graduate studio and seminar and the instructor for an undergraduate studio, i did tell the students explicitly how tough things are.
it did not phase them. and why would it? they are the exceptions. they had almost or better than a 1300 on the SAT. They had almost a 4.0 or better coming out of high school. they were near the top of their classes, coming from good high schools, the best in their respective states, they each have a laundry list of extracurriculars, they did well in their AP classes -------- or if they are entering the MArch from undergrad, they had a high gpa in a challenging field from a good university, they had solid, if not excellent GRE scores and great portfolios, they already managed to get solid internships, they have already traveled abroad, they sketch, they model, all self-taught, they held leadership positions in college, they participated in many extracurricular activities, they have limitless energy and know that they can overcome any challenge, they know they got into a solid, competitive school, with solid, competitive faculty ---- they are the exceptions.
how do you convince them that all of those people struggling or barely hanging on were once the exceptions, too?
for this same reason, parental counseling is also unlikely to work
i say this, btw, because the world is changing and we are most likely not going to face the same challenges/conditions as our parents, not because i don't personally appreciate or respect their advice.
ok one more post and then i promise to shut up...i just think i'm not being clear here.
i think a university education is not a trade education, and in theory should teach people to think for themselves. now, as with those 'useless' degrees in art or the humanities, there shouldn't necessarily be a guaranteed job at the end. this, in my mind, devalues its purpose. courses in business or technology are totally fine, but when they become transactional (skills learned=job after graduation) then some sort of freedom or openness of inquiry is lost.
i think the problem is with the profession and with the way architecture is practiced, rather than with the education. most people agree that their education was the highlight of their arch. career. it is highly sought after. the types of projects we study in school are considered influential in culture beyond architecture, published all over the world, and the architects who produce them are definitely not starving. so why ruin a good thing to make it more like the mediocre, run-of-the-mill boring office practice out there?
debt is not inherently evil. anyone who ever takes a risk or starts a business borrows money. if used wisely, this could be a great resource. teaching kids to use it well would be way smarter than teaching them never to use it at all.
I size my own beams. I size my own ductwork. I size my plumbing too. The size of my paycheck reflects that. As the contractor stated people see architects as designers, not profesionals. There was a time when we were both and some of us still are. When people find the true architects they don't let them go, they return to them over and over again.
Jmangenelli, you are describing the students, who btw, sounds like myself and everyone I went to school with not too long ago. The only thing that will destroy an ego you are feeding is reality. They will be come across this shortly after graduation when most of what they learn in school is measured up against people who have been working for years and are out of work.
What I describe, as far as integrating practicality into the education, to my knowledge hasn't been tried but I am convinced that the SCI-ARCs, AAs, and UPENNs of the world is only feeding the Starchitect ego, and at the end of the day, leaving graduates in no better positions than the average art or humanity student.
I know an architect who talked his kid out of going to architecture school by simply saying he wasn't going to pay for it... Money is money, no matter what generation it is. Investing in a dream that you or your child will be the next Michael Jordan of architecture, sure the Starchitects aren't starving, but therein lies the inherent problem with the current architecture education: telling kids that the 250k they are investing can make them the next Michael Jordan when they don't even have a clue coming out of school how to negotiate a contract or put a building together. There is a huge difference between "teaching people to think for themselves" as I'm sure most people don't need to be taught to think for themselves and preparing a student with the most applicable education...otherwise it's "Is 27K too low?" If you are coming out of school asking yourself this, you I don't know what the hell they were teaching you to think in school.
2steps"I size my own beams. I size my own ductwork. I size my plumbing too."
Do you do cottages and barns? Because, such approach is unrealistic in commercial architecture.
go do it: I like your version of architecture. Especially where basics of construction industry are covered before diving into design. First year projects are such uneducated crap. They should not exist as such. Not sure your ideas would ever get implemented at this stage. Maybe in post apocalyptic rebuilding of jesusland....
Everyone else, love the thread, great yappings all around, but can you all keep it less wordy? All this reading is getting in the way of drinking.
burningman, all i'm saying is kids are kids. i don't feed their egos. if anything, i am blunt about the reality. it doesn't matter because they are kids....special, exceptional kids...at least that is what they've always been told...so that is what they know.
moreover, until two years ago i was working in a firm....i just happened to, by luck, return to school right before the economy crashed...so when i spoke to the students, i was not just echoing what i had heard to be the situation in practice, i was in it, i was let go, as everyone in our arch dept was except the dept head and the pm for the largest corporate account...but since i was already enrolled and back in school, i just let it happen and did not try to find somewhere else...i am blunt with the students about the reality i saw in the profession...prior to the crash, i survived five other layoffs in the rust belt in the previous 5 years, 3 of which at a firm...during the 'good times'...
my father and grandfather both talked to me while i was in school .... suggested other career paths. did it matter? no. because i was passionate, young and had no real concept of the perpetual struggle this profession entails. i did pay for about a 1/3 of my education myself at the time, with almost no student loans, by working during all breaks and by co-opting and working some during school. And if my father had said he wouldn't pay for an architecture education, i would have said, 'ok, that's fine' and i would have set about slowly doing it on my own.
and you know what, i enjoy this profession, so it was/is worth it
I can do the same as 2steps. It's basic literacy and not very difficult. (You're right about drinking.) If you instead can lecture on Heidegger, great, why not get a PHD in a linguistics dept instead so you're knowledge has some depth rather then impressing those that know nothing about it in Arch?
Look at the UIC professor seeking adverts and they are looking for an extensive history of exhibited and award-winning work that demonstrates a commitment to realizing experimental design propositions, and will be fluent in negotiating the borders of advanced disciplinary and professional contexts. . What did Renzo Piano say as a young man?
"I didn't want to turn into one of those academicians."
I like Peter Eisenman's early work but is making clones working in Maya be what a state school should do?
He is somewhat regularly bailed out by his patron, Phyllis Lambert, and is at the center of huge controversy about overruns at his latest project. Again, I like his stuff and in some ways Diller Scofidio and Renfro is taking his place. How many of these firms does the world need? One or two. "Let's have program where all we make are crustacean buildings and we don't know what that is." How big a demand for Maya is their in the field? Slim to none. Why not make Architecture with simple tools rather than letting an expensive Autodesk product sit in the way of thinking about what you're doing? After all, Eisenman was engaged by Sol Lewitt's ideas that you could draw on the back of a napkin. How many students are taught this? This is CRITICAL thinking for Architects. It is in short supply. YOu can apply it to any size budget. Look at Rem's models. They look like pulled out of a garbage can. The idea is the important thing.
Of course if Carlos Slim is your father-in-law, you have incredible opportunities. Anyone see the museum he's completing in DF? AMAZING!
School shouldn't be a dead end and that's what happening...
"I can do the same as 2steps. It's basic literacy and not very difficult."
I was commenting on one's ability to provide all these services in anything but smallest of projects with loose deadlines. Sizing beams is alone a full time job on bigger projects.
Anyways, not sure what the rest of your post was on about, but I fully agree.
Schools need to pay more attention to Anything Muppets and stop fetishizing Miss Piggy (Zaha) and Gonzo (Thom Maine).
jmanganelli,
In a sense, I agree with you.
If you are really passionate and talented and confident of fighting against reality, it is worthwhile for you to try harder pushing.
However, for that struggle, saying "they (architecture students) are the exceptions." is a terrible idea
NO! There is no exception for architecture students!
Not only architecture student is SMART and has EXCELLENT GRADES, but also every other students in top schools or from top schools are.
And architecture students derserve as much as what they invest for their career just like other students do.
By the way,
Can't practice be creative and so artistic?
Why does everyone so easily distinguish Practice from Art?
Why should we decide one way or the other between Practice and Art?
Does an architect have the only two choices between a souless engineer and an arrogant but useless egoist?
Let's start with the professors. Most of them couldn't draw a wall section or tell you about the building codes of the cities they live in. Some of them have never even worked inside an architecture office. Yes, I know, they want us to think critically, allow useless theory to guide our design. During reviews, they venture of into their theoretical world and make up architecture words that you would get slapped for using in the real world. When questioned why we should respect anything they say, the response would probably be: oh, what would architecture be if you didn't have us around to push the envelope?
Do you just calculate a beam size, or also calculate rebars.
In these days, most of structure engineers don't calculate by hand, but use a computer software like "Midas". Do you also use that software?
Do you calculate just the duct size, or also decide the type of mechanical unit and system?
I am just asking because your way of practicing is really unfamiliar to me.
No we wanted a depth in the elevation and did some rule of thumb stuff to get the slab thickness. I do residential steel and HVAC because I have to. yes, everything
I have even wandered into commercial because the mech engineer was awol and it had to be finished. The biggest thing I have done is a nursing home.
How do you practice these days? People want everything in one package
I learned NONE of this at school. I remember when my esteemed teacher Peter Land talked about a bioclimactic chart. He never explained or demonstrated how it was done. Did he know? I am not sure. I teach that to all of my students now. Not that difficult.
bioclimactic chart - charting of personal orgasms or a Freudian slip?
I wish I could make working for myself financially viable. I do mostly specs these days. For some reason bigger offices want their spec writers to look like they might have one foot in the grave. I lost a number of business opportunities for being in my 30's.
Do you need specs? I'm running a 2-for-1 fire sale on all Division 7 stuff (EIFS spec excluded). I do both Arial AND Times New.
I didn't go to expensive schools because of many advices from friends of mine and my teachers in my under. from those schools.
My graduate school, VT, had so good financial supporting systems that covered most of living expenses and tuitions.
Thus, I was able to finish the school without any debts.
I think knowing what I know now about what architects are expected to know right out of college, I have to say that since I my college taught me to calculate beam sizes, mechanical, life safety systems, draw complete real world wall sections, and on top of that how make good enough architecture spaces to make an architecture critic shed a tear, It made me feel like a renaissance architect. Only thing is that I quickly got labeled "the technical guy". I also think that once people in the office figured out your capacity to do things, they immediately saw me as an opponent. Only solution I can think of is to go open my own shop some day.
Ps. I feel bad for the opening poster for having gone to such a bad college program. hope it works out for him later, because I think we learn much more after college.
make: Look at Rem's models. They look like pulled out of a garbage can. The idea is the important thing.
The best comment I've read in a while
For the guy who started this thread, named bummedoutman, perhaps this can be addressed with staged degrees:
The first, and more aligned with your bleating, is a vocational school. Cheap, expedient, and primed for designing as best practice in current construction techniques. All instructors are local project managers. Courses would be based on case studies. The MArch conferred would be specific in gaining positions at highest level of pay within the broadest base of services. This would most likely never have access to international esteem.
Another would be a degree in ecologies and energies in architecture. Lab simulations and analysis tools would be coupled with BIM software. Tuition would be elevated due to necessary resources and facilities. Graduates would be serving what is perceived as an ever-growing niche market and possibly consultancies.
The final option would be the most expensive. For this, I need to quote Peter Greenaway.
As frrom The Cook, The Thief, His Wife, Her Lover:
The Wife: When you make out a menu, how do you price each dish?
The Chef: I charge a lot for anything black. Grapes, olives, blackcurrants. People like to remind themselves of death, eating black food is like consuming death, like saying, "Death, I'm eating you."
Black truffles are the most expensive. And caviar. Death and birth. The end and the beginning. Don't you think it's appropriate that the most expensive items are black?
We also charge for vanity.
This ultimate MArch flies highest and carries the most risk. Architectural design is understood as something provocative, speculative, and never as a problem requiring a solution. Instructors would be post-humanist aviators. Graduates would pay the most, and suffer the most but with the slight possibility of huge reward. In fact, this program may not last much longer.
I make these moronic divisions (which already exists) so that it becomes clear that the applicants of these programs have clearest expectancy of input and output.
"This ultimate MArch flies highest and carries the most risk. Architectural design is understood as something provocative, speculative, and never as a problem requiring a solution. Instructors would be post-humanist aviators. Graduates would pay the most, and suffer the most but with the slight possibility of huge reward."
Thanks Ayn Rand!
"In fact, this program may not last much longer."
Why? You just described why state lotteries are such neverending cash cows. There's always money in the banana stand (and selling bad-odds hope).
"We also charge for vanity."
But WE don't. Our services are more akin to all you can eat buffet in rural Mississipi. Hope that at least some of your clients are not glutinous piggies.
"Trust me, history, art, and English grads aren't getting those complex thinking skills."
That's a bit of an unfair stab! However, I would say those particular people do develop critical thinking skills in school but perhaps not practical thinking skills.
To posit, I'll use this example: very few aircraft hangers have been replaced in the past two decades at many major airports. We could cite that airplanes require far less maintenance or have larger operating lives. But there's a simpler answer here, it's because they are just built far too well. Many of them were built in the 1950s, 1960s and 1970s and have long outlived their intended lifespans.
In fact, architecture has come so far in the last two centuries, planned obsolesce had to be invented!
Architecture is an artistic and technical pursuit of practicality. Even the design of buildings has a practical purpose-- to make statements, to draw the eye, to represent the owner and so on.
But architecture has always had other practical purposes-- to not burn down, to not leak, to provide shelter, to regulate the environment et cetera. I would say that architecture has become almost too practical. We rarely have to worry about buildings falling down, catching fire, flooding or enduring cannon fire.
In that, architecture itself has a slower pace. If it wasn't for population growth, many cities could probably go decades without having to build a new building.
It's really, really difficult to build a completely unsafe building these days. Aside from checks and balances natural to the building process (architect, engineer, landscape architect, contractor), building materials themselves have been relatively fool proof.
So, I'd say some of the frustration of not getting new work is perhaps because many provide a near perfect product... and Paris hasn't burnt down to the ground recently either.
Reforming Architecture School
Unemployed? Underpaid? Still paying student loans to get there?
I've been thinking about this and was wondering how others felt. Is it time to reform architecture schools or are we going to accept the traditional model as the ticket to becoming an architect.
Looking back at my education from two very respected schools, I find that very little of it, perhaps other than the Structures and few tech courses, and the connections I made while in school, there was very little that was worth paying 5 years for. I see more and more now that very little has any actually relevance to what we do day to day.
Let's start with the professors. Most of them couldn't draw a wall section or tell you about the building codes of the cities they live in. Some of them have never even worked inside an architecture office. Yes, I know, they want us to think critically, allow useless theory to guide our design. During reviews, they venture of into their theorticcal world and make up architecture words that you would get slapped for using in the real world. When questioned why we should respect anything they say, the response would probably be: oh, what would architecture be if you didn't have us around to push the envelope?
Anyways, I won't go on about the professors but it seems to me that you cannot be taught by someone who doesn't really know about the how the work-world operates. We leave school and fight over barely surviving salaries. (There was some moron on here earlier asking if 27k in NYC is too low?) Who the hell pays up to 250k to come out competing for janitor salaries? What the system needs is to integrate business and planning courses into into its five year programs, more pro-prac courses, swap theory for technicalities, replace the book writers with liscenced-practicing architects, etc. I would go as far as to have requirements for passing the some of the AREs to have a degree. Otherwise, an overpriced education will leave you in the middle of an economy where you will be taken as starving artists because you were taught by people who have no idea how to put a building together and got give two shits about where you are in five years. Lets face it, schools are an institution -whether it's the crap at UPENN or the crap at an artsy SoCal film school, and at the end of the day, their primary goal is to stay paid like everyone else. But in this case, they are paid to push an oversupply of useless product.
Thoughts?
well, this has been discussed on about 300 threads in the past few months, but i'll take the bait anyway.
i actually think an education in architecture, at least at the grad level, is pretty good. i mean this to refer to a general education in its pure sense, which teaches people to think, observe, and draw from all sorts of sources to form original ideas. i think you can use an architectural education to do lots and lots of things.
i think it's a mistake to continue to think of it as a professional education, because no one seems to be able to decide what the profession actually is. you can go in about 500 different directions and still say you're practicing 'architecture' in some way. i don't really think the traditional 'profession' of architecture will survive for very much longer. at the moment, it's on life support, propped up by the cheap labor you describe.
so because of this i don't think focusing on the 'business' side in school will really help anybody. it will devalue the education to a kind of 'career school' that will miss the mark most of the time anyway. it will also continue to supply cheap labor for crap production firms.
i think schools should better inform students about their real prospects in the world. i'm in my 30s and i'm just finding out how many of the firms i thought were successful as a student have been failing financially for years and are propped up by the wealth of the principals or by high-paying academic positions. i wish i'd known this sooner. students should know where most of the real money is--i.e. boring, soulless, bland macrodevelopments with little room for creativity--before they make their decisions.
technology is important, but not only in the technical sense. i think if you told most arch. students that their most promising future lies in being technical experts, a lot of them would go somewhere else...i for one would rather have gone into engineering than become a high-level detailer. but technology in an experimental sense still has a lot to offer and should be taught in schools. and at the very least, UNDERGRAD PROGRAMS SHOULD STOP INSISTING ON 2-3 YEARS OF HAND DRAFTING, which is completely unnecessary and pretty much ensures unemployability.
i think the most important thing for schools to do is to correct the perception entering students seem to have that architecture is some sort of financially rewarding profession. then those who are still interested and adventurous can still continue to pursue the education, much in the way people still pursue degrees in fine arts, ballet, or other creative fields, while knowing that success will involve some entrepreneurial thinking on their part once they graduate.
ps--in the battle between academia and practice, my current position is that they're both wrong. i see kids who come out of school with great computer skills and good ideas and are then knocked back down into the same old box by their 50yr old superiors who have no clue about that stuff when they get jobs in offices. but i also see academics who think any sort of reality is a bad word and are more concerned about the edginess and marketability of THEIR OWN product...
Elinor, I your point is well taken but I would completely disagree with learning the 'business' side as being a detriment to prospective grads. While there is this problem in schools in China for example where the students are basically drafters for their professors, the point isn't to just teach students how to rapidly spit out drawings and details from certain programs. Yes it helps to know those programs and give one job seeker an advantage over the other but the problem lies in two major factors.
One, it is way too easy to buy an architecture degree. While some students drop out along the way, most of them just stick too it because the core of the learning still revolves around useless artsy thinking, otherwise packaged as "critical thinking that can be applied to many fields." Schools should be forced to fully disclose their employment rates and grad salaries. If this was available, I think most people would think hard before going to arch school. If you were told you could invest 250k and five years later, you would be paying student loans, make just over minimum wage IF you can find a job, would you invest so readily? Let's face it. Schools care more about filling seating room than whether their students end up with a job or not. Most architecture schools like Michigan, I pick on Mich because it is the largest in the land, do not have a legitimate career center. They, like many, do not keep track of their alums or care to, as long ast the enrollments are constantly filled to capacity.
Two, the professors. I could retire right now if I could get a dollar for everytime a comment is made by a professor that would raise an eyebrow inside an office environment. If we continue to be taught architecture, then let it be taught by real architects. The only way to make students worth more when they graduate is to make them relevant to the work environment. We need to graduate more than just CAD monkies who can readily be replaced by cheaper wave of incoming CAD monkies. The institution needs to be more integrated with the profession, real estate, planning, and make requirements for attaining a BArch more in line with reality. There is a huge difference between working hard pulling all nighters and knowing the business. How many other professions can you name that treat hard working youths like slaves? I don't really blame the profession for doing this, they came up the same way.
A law student from a good school can come out making $160k a year. An arch student can expect 1/3 this at best. The reality is until more stringent requirements are made, like passing the AREs as a requirement, knowing related professional fields, knowing how to put together proposals, similating real work environments, we are going to have grads who can't figure out whether they will leave school and hae a job or head back into their parents' basements.
i don't completely disagree, i just think that this line of thinking gives too much credit to firms/employers/ the 'profession'. i want a dollar for every time someone in an office proposes something that would have little value in the real world as a built environment!!
and besides, it's the employers that WANT cad monkeys...someone who will keep their head down and do what they're told. they work their youth like slaves because their mode of practice has become untenable and the only way they can maintain their standard of living is by bleeding the labor force. i don't think we want anyone TEACHING this....
the thinking skills you learn in schools are only 'useless' because your employers don't want you to think! ...or design, or invent.
i started a practice recently. the 'business' side, though not exactly easy, is not rocket science. the most important and most difficult skill is to make and work connections, something that can't exactly be taught. if i was paying 250000 for business skills, i'd want the mba.
If you can learn, from theoretical thinking, to address a very complex problem with many many constituent influences and possible solutions to come up with a solution that meets a sufficient amount of the criteria to be termed a success, then you actually have learned a valuable skill: the ability to confront and attack, as well as possible, Rittel and Webber's Wicked Problem. That's critical thinking.
Trust me, history, art, and English grads aren't getting those complex thinking skills.
That said, I think architecture schools should add a few more business/pro practice classes, and make the structures/HVAC classes less specific (no solving beam sizes - your engineer will do that) and more focused on understanding the overall theories of application in those fields.
"i want a dollar for every time someone in an office proposes something that would have little value in the real world as a built environment!!...it's the employers that WANT cad monkeys"-Elinor
To further the CAD monkey issue, the schools aren't doing anything to change this either because by the time they graduate, they really aren't much that is practical. This isn't the practice's fault. Arch students aren't much better off than migrant workers -a cheap oversupply of potential talent that can be exploited. My point is if they can leave school and understand the profession almost well enough to go out on their own by graduation (which is possible in five years), by becoming licensed and having an education that simulates real work environments, instead of the repeated theory courses, they can put themselves in a position to negotiate the terms of their work. Until the accreditation changes its terms, and the terms for graduation becomes more stringent, we will continue to get a cheap oversupply of morons who come on here asking about 27K...as for the "little value of real world environments," I did mention that there should be some planning/ RE courses as part of the five year program. This is an issue that is more driven by developers but some understanding of planning/ RE business can make an architect more informed in the decision making.
It's sad that after 250k (these days), a student isn't able to learn anymore more than subjective bs. You mention that with that much money, you would get an MBA but an MBA doesn't even cost this much! A 4+2 arch degree will cost you more than this in some schools.
"...Trust me, history, art, and English grads aren't getting those complex thinking skills"- Donna Sink
That's my point. Architecture has become as worthless as a literature or art degree thanks to the lack of reality academia operates it. Complex and critical thinking can also be taken from practical experiences, and is of more value, instead of debating over the likes of Tafuri or Sorkin.
boogieman:"Schools should be forced to fully disclose their employment rates and grad salaries. "
Go to one of many threads where young kids talk about applying to schools. Tell them about the salaries. They won't give a fuck. It's hard to when you're 18 or even 24. The academia relies on uninformed decisions for profit. The academic institutions also don't have any accountability to either you or me. You will not change them with appeals to reason.
You need an iceberg to sink that shitboat. Which is coming very soon by the name of 'student loan bubble'. It'll be here in 6-9 years. You won't even need to have an outstanding loan to feel the consequences of that bust. Hopefully when we recover again (15-25 years from now) the system of loaning money will be proportional to the value of the degree you are pursuing.
So be patient. 20 years will fly by in no time.
"A law student from a good school can come out making $160k a year."
Not anymore. They've oversaturated themselves as well with grad schools. A recent law grad is only marginally better off than an arch grad.
a few business, mgmt & marketing classes, also product & process design & ergonomics would be excellent additions to our curriculum;
the critical thinking skills taught in architectural education are (in my experience) very valuable, and I think that to appreciate this, it helps to get a sense of how other fields approach design
there is no right or wrong way; rather, our approach is a nice complement to a more quantitative approach, whether business-related or engineering related
an engineer or business person may start with a market need and produce a product or process decomposition into core requirements based upon quantitative and qualitative analysis, often backed by a statistical analysis --- then they define a spec, all before any concept design occurs; but what if they get the requirements wrong? they may have falsely constrained the product/process to be designed to something that no one will actually need or want and they may not know this until they are more than halfway through the design process --- think of times when companies (microsoft, or apple in the 90's) come out with products that clearly are based upon a perception of a market need but egregiously misjudged the market; how does that happen? it is often a result of this problematic abstraction process developing incomplete or misinterpreted requirements and then making designers doggedly adhere to them --- this is problematic in part because atomizing the elements of the design during decomposition usually fails to represent interaction effects between competing product/process requirements, as well as emergent system properties, whether good or bad --- and often those interaction effects are key
statistical analysis and probability tend to play heavily in the formers' approaches, as well as various matrices and differential weighting strategies --- these tools, while powerful, are often as much an art as a science when used in actual practice, depending upon a person's proficiency with statistical analysis and analysis instrument design --- if proper analysis is not possible, for whatever reason, which is often the case in the real world, or if the design team forces data into linear models b/c they are easy to work with when in reality the data represent more complex effects, then results are often dubious and their findings may be little better than guesses backed by the false assurance of a quantitative table
conversely, architects tend to start with asking what should the design be, how should it feel and for whom, what is its role in a larger sense, and what does it have to accomplish practically; then we create a vision and then fit specifications to the vision as best possible --- our approach has the benefit of starting with a systems view and working inward, usually avoiding confounding interaction effects because the design was never atomized and abstracted (programming does this but not to the same degree as requirements engineering) --- still, our approach, which engages the larger context from the start, can realize valid visions that are not implementable or optimizable b/c there is not a rigorous enough quantitative underpinning to the designs --- so we can definitely benefit from incorporating some of their tools and perspectives, though not in lieu of our own but as complementary --- as symbiotic
my point is that it is useful to learn other ways and methods so that we can figure out how to relate what we do and what they do, to distinguish between the solid value they can bring versus what is techno-babble guesstimating sophistry, and to better understand the true value of what we bring. Hopefully, we can translate such understanding of our peers's and collaborators' work into better placement of our services with respect to theirs and a more financially secure future for us
it is also important to remember this may be a divide that cannot be bridged --- an analogous situation occurs in the design of robotics and complex intelligences --- often it is possible to design a system that works or one that we can understand completely (in a quantitative sense) but not both at the same time --- this is b/c our capacity to imagine, to tinker, to find solutions always exceeds our ability to build mathematical and statistical models of the systems --- so roboticists usually have a choice to make --- and will in fact actually build something that works and then as a separate experience try to build the quantitative model that can describe it --- arhictecture, in my opinion, is firmly rooted in the former concern, not the latter
Rustystuds, (how do you quote someone in italics?)
I do think that if salaries and employment rates were fully disclosed, and the kids are stupid enough to put themselves in that hell whole, let them burn. However, I think that parents would take a bigger role in the decision making if they had all the information on hand. Who in their right mind would allow their kids to invest a fortune into such crappy prospects. I know a guy who talked his kid out of going into architecture, said that he wasn't going to pay for it.
School loans are the ticket to the American education, and like the housing market, I hope it comes to a crash quickly and have a lasting painful effect on academia. You need to go to school these days to do almost anything as more and more degrees are made up. School is becoming out of reach for the average American thanks to rich foreign students who can front the bill without a second thought and more so, due to the availability of domestic school loans.
As for the 160k law salary, I base if off a few friends who passed the BAR before starting work, but yes, this was a few years ago. They are now making closer to 200K a year. In architecture schools, it's the blind leading the blind. If arch schools fed its students a more practical education and didn't push the notion of everyone becoming a star architect, the profession as a whole would be less diluted with these hopeless morons who allow themselves to be thrown to the wolves to pursue this fantasy. I could care less for a moron who works for 27K but this unfortunately brings expectations and standards down for everyone else.
parents? are you serious? at what age do you think people should actually grow up and make their own decisions in this country?
and wait, by eliminating school loans wouldn't you be making american education available ONLY to those rich foreigners you are talking about? or do you think it would magically bring down the cost of education.
you don't seem to value education much as an end in itself, or for self-betterment....
The teenagers in this country are pretty immature. Yes, I'm very serious, parents can have a say in what their kids do for a living, especially if the parents are expected to help pay for their education. And especially where school loans are easier to come by that a business loan.
If I had a kid stupid enough to tell me that he was going to 6 years of school, invest about oh, 6x50K, to go into some art school or field where he might not get a job and then settles for say 27K - like some idiot here did when he does find a job, I would have a serious word with that child...and tell him that if he insists, he can pay for it all himself.
But what would you do?
elinor, current student loan situation is a bit of a mess. Some of the loans are guaranteed by the federal gubbermint, some are private. Colleges bind them together in packages not unlike what banks did with mortgage swaps. The guaranteed portion makes it easy for landing institutions not to worry at all whom they land to. This in return leads to higher tuitions, because colleges have no incentive to keep costs down.
All of this is compounded by the rise of diploma schools (like University of Phoenix and the likes). It's a complete mess. Banks lobbied congress to change bankruptcy laws back in '08. You can never dissolve a student loan.
Initial intent of federal gov. to guarantee loans to students was well meaning one, but it got exploited to hell by free market economists (especially by the borderline scam online schools). PBS Fronline did a great report on it last year. It's up on Netflix.
This is why we can't have nice things.
Elinor, you are again completely missing the point.
I do believe in an education very much so but I disagree with how arch is being taught, and the skyrocketing cost do not justify the investment. As for the rich foreign students, they come here from China, India, etc. and return to their countries to practice because where they are from, an education is actually very highly respected and actually justifies coming over here. They don't come here on student loans...As far as an ends, I have a great amount of respect for architects go never went to school. I don't think it makes them any less of an architect because they were self-taught or couldn't afford the astronomical price tag.
If students in the US are going to continue to borrow more than they can comfortable pay off, don't you think that it is a problem? What I'm saying is that a US education isn't as valuable as it use to be. Not too long ago, the average American bachelor degree was highly valued, that degree is now the bare minimum, it's not worth much more than what was once a high school diploma.
The only thing that will bring down the cost of school is a crash in school loans, lets face it, the skyrocketing cost of an architecture education is proportionally well out of the reality of what an architect makes. As I was saying, schools need to be more transparent and held more accountable for what they produce. If kids are duped into paying a fortune for a pretty crappy standard of living, they might as well be shown the data going in...Again, the schools are more interested in making $$$ than where the next wave of Starchitect-wannabees get their next lunch. I'm just from the line of thinking that a serious investment should have a serious return, and right now, 5-6 years in arch school is a pretty sad sad investment.
as a general contractor for the last 22 years and a very prolific lurker on this forum and a more infrequent poster i would like to chime in.
just recently i have decided that i would like to know more about architecture or more precise the ART in architecture. in fact i am convinced that i should have gone to school years ago to be one, so i have been slowly reading some of the basics. for instance i was reading "kindergarten chats and other writings" by louis sullivan this weekend.
i tell my architect friends all the time that i wish that i could just "talk" like an architect. to be able to "educate the client in what they want" as one of my friends say. and maybe recent graduates can do this or more than likely it take years of work and practice i don't know; but i think that part of the architectural education is invaluable. i have seen the eyes of clients sparkle when my friends tell them that tearing down this wall and having the staircase become the focal point for the entry and how the "space" will invoke a sense of communal gathering. or some such nonsense. THAT part of the education is what is valuable. and then they ask me how to do it.
here is what is need from my boots on the ground point of view.
1. make architectural degrees a 4 year program. teach basic construction, beams, roofs, joist, process etc. the first 2 years or so. lets face it basic building is not rocket science and engineers decide the actual components and sizing anyway. after 1 year of the basics if the student can't grasp the big picture they need to go to law school.
2. the next 2-3 years teach theory and design and interior design, color choices,art appreciation whatever. study the masters of architecture. the DESIGN is what clients pay an architect for not HOW it is constructed. trust me the trades people are very good at what they do and can make almost any drawing work. schools may have, i don't know because i haven't gone to school, strayed to far from Vitruvius in that architecture is an ART.
3. stop trying to elevate architects to the level of doctors or physicists or may be even engineers. normal people view architects as designers not a life and death profession. and a building is the architects vision on a design not a gall bladder operation.
4. i may have had to many Sam Adams!
rusty, i understand completely. there should be student loan reform, by all means, but not to the point where this option is obliterated. i've made good use of student loans (and credit cards, at various points in my life) without falling into the long-term debt trap.
besides which, people borrow to buy cars all the time, with payments that approximate those of student loans, and no one bats an eye. leaving the actual cost of education, which is a problem, out of this particular conversation, a $300 monthly payment can be worth incurring for an education and is not necessarily a disaster. as a foreigner, i can say with certainty that americans are pretty bad at handling their personal finances...i've seen my husband at it.
burningman, i think adult children should make their own decisions, and parents should stop 'parenting' well into their children's 40s. they can give their opinions, but to lay down the law like that is too much.
i was that kid, btw, who wanted the art degree. and my foreigner parents made me pay for it myself. so i did. and then i got an arch degree and paid for that myself. and then i got an march too. and i'll give you one guess as to which one of those degrees is saving my ass at this particular moment. so in other words, my parents were wrong.
burningman, in my experience, what you are describing does not work.
having been both a GTA for a graduate studio and seminar and the instructor for an undergraduate studio, i did tell the students explicitly how tough things are.
it did not phase them. and why would it? they are the exceptions. they had almost or better than a 1300 on the SAT. They had almost a 4.0 or better coming out of high school. they were near the top of their classes, coming from good high schools, the best in their respective states, they each have a laundry list of extracurriculars, they did well in their AP classes -------- or if they are entering the MArch from undergrad, they had a high gpa in a challenging field from a good university, they had solid, if not excellent GRE scores and great portfolios, they already managed to get solid internships, they have already traveled abroad, they sketch, they model, all self-taught, they held leadership positions in college, they participated in many extracurricular activities, they have limitless energy and know that they can overcome any challenge, they know they got into a solid, competitive school, with solid, competitive faculty ---- they are the exceptions.
how do you convince them that all of those people struggling or barely hanging on were once the exceptions, too?
for this same reason, parental counseling is also unlikely to work
i say this, btw, because the world is changing and we are most likely not going to face the same challenges/conditions as our parents, not because i don't personally appreciate or respect their advice.
ok one more post and then i promise to shut up...i just think i'm not being clear here.
i think a university education is not a trade education, and in theory should teach people to think for themselves. now, as with those 'useless' degrees in art or the humanities, there shouldn't necessarily be a guaranteed job at the end. this, in my mind, devalues its purpose. courses in business or technology are totally fine, but when they become transactional (skills learned=job after graduation) then some sort of freedom or openness of inquiry is lost.
i think the problem is with the profession and with the way architecture is practiced, rather than with the education. most people agree that their education was the highlight of their arch. career. it is highly sought after. the types of projects we study in school are considered influential in culture beyond architecture, published all over the world, and the architects who produce them are definitely not starving. so why ruin a good thing to make it more like the mediocre, run-of-the-mill boring office practice out there?
debt is not inherently evil. anyone who ever takes a risk or starts a business borrows money. if used wisely, this could be a great resource. teaching kids to use it well would be way smarter than teaching them never to use it at all.
<shutting up now>
I size my own beams. I size my own ductwork. I size my plumbing too. The size of my paycheck reflects that. As the contractor stated people see architects as designers, not profesionals. There was a time when we were both and some of us still are. When people find the true architects they don't let them go, they return to them over and over again.
Jmangenelli, you are describing the students, who btw, sounds like myself and everyone I went to school with not too long ago. The only thing that will destroy an ego you are feeding is reality. They will be come across this shortly after graduation when most of what they learn in school is measured up against people who have been working for years and are out of work.
What I describe, as far as integrating practicality into the education, to my knowledge hasn't been tried but I am convinced that the SCI-ARCs, AAs, and UPENNs of the world is only feeding the Starchitect ego, and at the end of the day, leaving graduates in no better positions than the average art or humanity student.
I know an architect who talked his kid out of going to architecture school by simply saying he wasn't going to pay for it... Money is money, no matter what generation it is. Investing in a dream that you or your child will be the next Michael Jordan of architecture, sure the Starchitects aren't starving, but therein lies the inherent problem with the current architecture education: telling kids that the 250k they are investing can make them the next Michael Jordan when they don't even have a clue coming out of school how to negotiate a contract or put a building together. There is a huge difference between "teaching people to think for themselves" as I'm sure most people don't need to be taught to think for themselves and preparing a student with the most applicable education...otherwise it's "Is 27K too low?" If you are coming out of school asking yourself this, you I don't know what the hell they were teaching you to think in school.
2steps"I size my own beams. I size my own ductwork. I size my plumbing too."
Do you do cottages and barns? Because, such approach is unrealistic in commercial architecture.
go do it: I like your version of architecture. Especially where basics of construction industry are covered before diving into design. First year projects are such uneducated crap. They should not exist as such. Not sure your ideas would ever get implemented at this stage. Maybe in post apocalyptic rebuilding of jesusland....
Everyone else, love the thread, great yappings all around, but can you all keep it less wordy? All this reading is getting in the way of drinking.
burningman, all i'm saying is kids are kids. i don't feed their egos. if anything, i am blunt about the reality. it doesn't matter because they are kids....special, exceptional kids...at least that is what they've always been told...so that is what they know.
moreover, until two years ago i was working in a firm....i just happened to, by luck, return to school right before the economy crashed...so when i spoke to the students, i was not just echoing what i had heard to be the situation in practice, i was in it, i was let go, as everyone in our arch dept was except the dept head and the pm for the largest corporate account...but since i was already enrolled and back in school, i just let it happen and did not try to find somewhere else...i am blunt with the students about the reality i saw in the profession...prior to the crash, i survived five other layoffs in the rust belt in the previous 5 years, 3 of which at a firm...during the 'good times'...
my father and grandfather both talked to me while i was in school .... suggested other career paths. did it matter? no. because i was passionate, young and had no real concept of the perpetual struggle this profession entails. i did pay for about a 1/3 of my education myself at the time, with almost no student loans, by working during all breaks and by co-opting and working some during school. And if my father had said he wouldn't pay for an architecture education, i would have said, 'ok, that's fine' and i would have set about slowly doing it on my own.
and you know what, i enjoy this profession, so it was/is worth it
Rusty,
I can do the same as 2steps. It's basic literacy and not very difficult. (You're right about drinking.) If you instead can lecture on Heidegger, great, why not get a PHD in a linguistics dept instead so you're knowledge has some depth rather then impressing those that know nothing about it in Arch?
Look at the UIC professor seeking adverts and they are looking for an extensive history of exhibited and award-winning work that demonstrates a commitment to realizing experimental design propositions, and will be fluent in negotiating the borders of advanced disciplinary and professional contexts. . What did Renzo Piano say as a young man?
"I didn't want to turn into one of those academicians."
I like Peter Eisenman's early work but is making clones working in Maya be what a state school should do?
He is somewhat regularly bailed out by his patron, Phyllis Lambert, and is at the center of huge controversy about overruns at his latest project. Again, I like his stuff and in some ways Diller Scofidio and Renfro is taking his place. How many of these firms does the world need? One or two. "Let's have program where all we make are crustacean buildings and we don't know what that is." How big a demand for Maya is their in the field? Slim to none. Why not make Architecture with simple tools rather than letting an expensive Autodesk product sit in the way of thinking about what you're doing? After all, Eisenman was engaged by Sol Lewitt's ideas that you could draw on the back of a napkin. How many students are taught this? This is CRITICAL thinking for Architects. It is in short supply. YOu can apply it to any size budget. Look at Rem's models. They look like pulled out of a garbage can. The idea is the important thing.
Of course if Carlos Slim is your father-in-law, you have incredible opportunities. Anyone see the museum he's completing in DF? AMAZING!
School shouldn't be a dead end and that's what happening...
make,
"I can do the same as 2steps. It's basic literacy and not very difficult."
I was commenting on one's ability to provide all these services in anything but smallest of projects with loose deadlines. Sizing beams is alone a full time job on bigger projects.
Anyways, not sure what the rest of your post was on about, but I fully agree.
Schools need to pay more attention to Anything Muppets and stop fetishizing Miss Piggy (Zaha) and Gonzo (Thom Maine).
Rusty,
Thanks.
It's about what is learned is school.
We did preliminary beam and slab sizing on a 200k sf project and sent it to the engineer. It helped us get what we wanted.
Miss Piggy is sultry swine!!!!
jmanganelli,
In a sense, I agree with you.
If you are really passionate and talented and confident of fighting against reality, it is worthwhile for you to try harder pushing.
However, for that struggle, saying "they (architecture students) are the exceptions." is a terrible idea
NO! There is no exception for architecture students!
Not only architecture student is SMART and has EXCELLENT GRADES, but also every other students in top schools or from top schools are.
And architecture students derserve as much as what they invest for their career just like other students do.
By the way,
Can't practice be creative and so artistic?
Why does everyone so easily distinguish Practice from Art?
Why should we decide one way or the other between Practice and Art?
Does an architect have the only two choices between a souless engineer and an arrogant but useless egoist?
"Schools need to pay more attention to Anything Muppets and stop fetishizing Miss Piggy (Zaha) and Gonzo (Thom Maine)."
well-played, sir, well-played...
the poster is right:
Let's start with the professors. Most of them couldn't draw a wall section or tell you about the building codes of the cities they live in. Some of them have never even worked inside an architecture office. Yes, I know, they want us to think critically, allow useless theory to guide our design. During reviews, they venture of into their theoretical world and make up architecture words that you would get slapped for using in the real world. When questioned why we should respect anything they say, the response would probably be: oh, what would architecture be if you didn't have us around to push the envelope?
When he describes is in charge of the school is when it gets scary
Make,
WOW!
Do you just calculate a beam size, or also calculate rebars.
In these days, most of structure engineers don't calculate by hand, but use a computer software like "Midas". Do you also use that software?
Do you calculate just the duct size, or also decide the type of mechanical unit and system?
I am just asking because your way of practicing is really unfamiliar to me.
When the person he describes is in charge of the school is when it gets scary
Syp,
No we wanted a depth in the elevation and did some rule of thumb stuff to get the slab thickness. I do residential steel and HVAC because I have to. yes, everything
I have even wandered into commercial because the mech engineer was awol and it had to be finished. The biggest thing I have done is a nursing home.
How do you practice these days? People want everything in one package
All by hand
Uphill both ways.
Now get off his lawn. Dang it.
Do you work for yourself, Rusty?
I learned NONE of this at school. I remember when my esteemed teacher Peter Land talked about a bioclimactic chart. He never explained or demonstrated how it was done. Did he know? I am not sure. I teach that to all of my students now. Not that difficult.
I am not a maneger, a supervisor, or an independent architect, yet, so working in a typical way as the most of people in a firm are doing...
Syp,
How do you pay your bills? Is Carlos Slim your father-in-law? ;-)
make,
bioclimactic chart - charting of personal orgasms or a Freudian slip?
I wish I could make working for myself financially viable. I do mostly specs these days. For some reason bigger offices want their spec writers to look like they might have one foot in the grave. I lost a number of business opportunities for being in my 30's.
Do you need specs? I'm running a 2-for-1 fire sale on all Division 7 stuff (EIFS spec excluded). I do both Arial AND Times New.
maybe, rusty, email me. Where you located?
Did I spell bioclimactic wrong?
I didn't go to expensive schools because of many advices from friends of mine and my teachers in my under. from those schools.
My graduate school, VT, had so good financial supporting systems that covered most of living expenses and tuitions.
Thus, I was able to finish the school without any debts.
Syp,
Virginia Tech?
That's a great school. What was your favorite studio or class?
Definitely "Heiner Schnoedt's".
He is not a "star-architect", but a really good teacher who knows how to encourage talented students.
I think knowing what I know now about what architects are expected to know right out of college, I have to say that since I my college taught me to calculate beam sizes, mechanical, life safety systems, draw complete real world wall sections, and on top of that how make good enough architecture spaces to make an architecture critic shed a tear, It made me feel like a renaissance architect. Only thing is that I quickly got labeled "the technical guy". I also think that once people in the office figured out your capacity to do things, they immediately saw me as an opponent. Only solution I can think of is to go open my own shop some day.
Ps. I feel bad for the opening poster for having gone to such a bad college program. hope it works out for him later, because I think we learn much more after college.
bioclimaCtic. C is for hilarious.
I'll send you a note tomorrow. My hands are full right now with brandy and beers.
sorry for not editing my post before posting people, I just had a red label shot.
make: Look at Rem's models. They look like pulled out of a garbage can. The idea is the important thing.
The best comment I've read in a while
For the guy who started this thread, named bummedoutman, perhaps this can be addressed with staged degrees:
The first, and more aligned with your bleating, is a vocational school. Cheap, expedient, and primed for designing as best practice in current construction techniques. All instructors are local project managers. Courses would be based on case studies. The MArch conferred would be specific in gaining positions at highest level of pay within the broadest base of services. This would most likely never have access to international esteem.
Another would be a degree in ecologies and energies in architecture. Lab simulations and analysis tools would be coupled with BIM software. Tuition would be elevated due to necessary resources and facilities. Graduates would be serving what is perceived as an ever-growing niche market and possibly consultancies.
The final option would be the most expensive. For this, I need to quote Peter Greenaway.
As frrom The Cook, The Thief, His Wife, Her Lover:
The Wife: When you make out a menu, how do you price each dish?
The Chef: I charge a lot for anything black. Grapes, olives, blackcurrants. People like to remind themselves of death, eating black food is like consuming death, like saying, "Death, I'm eating you."
Black truffles are the most expensive. And caviar. Death and birth. The end and the beginning. Don't you think it's appropriate that the most expensive items are black?
We also charge for vanity.
This ultimate MArch flies highest and carries the most risk. Architectural design is understood as something provocative, speculative, and never as a problem requiring a solution. Instructors would be post-humanist aviators. Graduates would pay the most, and suffer the most but with the slight possibility of huge reward. In fact, this program may not last much longer.
I make these moronic divisions (which already exists) so that it becomes clear that the applicants of these programs have clearest expectancy of input and output.
job job, don't be so hard on mumblyman.
"This ultimate MArch flies highest and carries the most risk. Architectural design is understood as something provocative, speculative, and never as a problem requiring a solution. Instructors would be post-humanist aviators. Graduates would pay the most, and suffer the most but with the slight possibility of huge reward."
Thanks Ayn Rand!
"In fact, this program may not last much longer."
Why? You just described why state lotteries are such neverending cash cows. There's always money in the banana stand (and selling bad-odds hope).
"We also charge for vanity."
But WE don't. Our services are more akin to all you can eat buffet in rural Mississipi. Hope that at least some of your clients are not glutinous piggies.
If I sound like Ayn Rand, I should've made a left at Albuquerque...
@Donna...
"Trust me, history, art, and English grads aren't getting those complex thinking skills."
That's a bit of an unfair stab! However, I would say those particular people do develop critical thinking skills in school but perhaps not practical thinking skills.
To posit, I'll use this example: very few aircraft hangers have been replaced in the past two decades at many major airports. We could cite that airplanes require far less maintenance or have larger operating lives. But there's a simpler answer here, it's because they are just built far too well. Many of them were built in the 1950s, 1960s and 1970s and have long outlived their intended lifespans.
In fact, architecture has come so far in the last two centuries, planned obsolesce had to be invented!
Architecture is an artistic and technical pursuit of practicality. Even the design of buildings has a practical purpose-- to make statements, to draw the eye, to represent the owner and so on.
But architecture has always had other practical purposes-- to not burn down, to not leak, to provide shelter, to regulate the environment et cetera. I would say that architecture has become almost too practical. We rarely have to worry about buildings falling down, catching fire, flooding or enduring cannon fire.
In that, architecture itself has a slower pace. If it wasn't for population growth, many cities could probably go decades without having to build a new building.
It's really, really difficult to build a completely unsafe building these days. Aside from checks and balances natural to the building process (architect, engineer, landscape architect, contractor), building materials themselves have been relatively fool proof.
So, I'd say some of the frustration of not getting new work is perhaps because many provide a near perfect product... and Paris hasn't burnt down to the ground recently either.
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