Life of an Architect Podcast Ep. 148: Meetings are a Waste of Time

It’s time to get your architectural sea legs under you and get a job in the office of an architect? How does this happen? Why would you do this? What can you expect? Welcome to Life of an Architect episode 118: Architectural interns.

Architects still communicate their designs through the use of graphics – and there are a lot of different formats, mediums, and techniques that are up for consideration. Architectural graphics is always a hot topic, and if I have learned anything over the last 12 years of writing articles for Life of an Architect, it’s that sketching and architectural visualization are the hottest of topics.

Architects work a lot, right? I mean, that’s what most people think, and it’s what you would expect to hear if you straight up asked an architect, “Do you work a lot?” Maybe it simply means that architects just like working all the time.

Architecture is not a trade, it’s a craft. And it normally takes years of practice before you start to routinely exist in the delicate balance between programming requirements and artistic expression. Since this suggests that time and evolution are a consideration to development, it also suggests that architects don’t always get it right.

Let’s be honest, there is an expectation that the offices that architects work out of should be interesting and expertly designed environments–full of moments that demonstrate just how clever they are while enticing potential clients to hire them or get potential employees to want to be hired. Or at least that’s what I think.

It’s the end of the semester, you’ve exhausted all of your ideas, and you are totally worn out running off minimal sleep and too much caffeine. Your work is pinned up on the wall and it’s time to give your last presentation in front of the final jury. In the grand scheme of things, does this moment even matter? Welcome to episode 112 of Life of an Architect: Final Presentations in Architecture School.

What is it like to work for an architecture firm that routinely wins design awards and arguably falls into the category of "design superstar." Answers to these questions and more from our guest, Kevin Rice, Principal, Diller Scofidio + Renfro.

It was August 10, 2010, when Bob Borson, FAIA, first conceived of the “Low-Cost Modern Home Challenge” with the intent to go through a design process that would help the industry understand how to design a modern house that people could afford and would actually want to live in. What I learned was that this is almost impossible to achieve. Fast forward 12 years and I am going to give it another go, with some slightly modified parameters.