There are many things I do during a typical day—designing “stuff” is just one very small portion—but I still consider myself a designer more so than a project architect. Since I work at a smallish firm, everyone wears many hats and nobody has just one task or label. To be considered a designer just means you need to think about the design of everything—and I mean everything. Not everything I do is BIG picture design.
Modern Design used to be about the mechanization of the process, thereby making a thing affordable to the masses. But that’s not the case anymore. With their clarity often confused with simplicity, modern houses require a far greater attention to execution and as a result, seem to surprise everyone with how expensive modern houses actually cost. The phrase “big bag of nothing” comes out of my mouth more times than I care to admit.
If there is one moment I can look back and single out the moment when everything changed, it was February 22, 2010. That was the day I decided to write the post “Top Ten Reasons to be an Architect,” and nothing has been the same for me ever since. This was the post the put me on the radar screen of hundreds of thousands of people. As of this writing, this post by itself has been read a mind-boggling 845,924 times.
Fall is just around the corner and that means it’s time for students around the country to return to their desk’s at architecture school. For most, this time is a mixture of excitement and enthusiasm, while for others, it’s a mixture of anxiety and sleepless nights … during my time in school is experienced a mixture of the two. Landon and I sat down in this episode to talk about architecture studio and how to come out with not only the best possible experience, but to make your time in school a little less stressful.