Life of an Architect

If you are interested in becoming an architect, what are the best reasons to pursue your dream? The field of architecture can be extremely rewarding and today we discuss a few of the reasons why.

Fall is just around the corner and that means it's time for students around the country to return to their desk 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 ...

Architectural offices do a lot more than simply provide a space in which the occupants do their job ... they represent the culture of the office and provide a context in which people imagine what they are capable of doing.

In this fifth episode of the Life of an Architect podcast, Landon and I take on the topic of Architects and cooking and how those two things come together in a way that could be unique.

Architects like to travel, at least that's what all my friends who are architects would like you to believe. While I will agree that this is a true statement, I think it's a fairly generic statement because don't all people like to travel? In this fourth episode of the Life of an Architect podcast, Landon and I take on the topic of traveling - or at least we start a conversation about traveling. When we sat down to prepare our show notes, it quickly became apparent that this was a topic worthy of several episodes. So to that end, we start with some of the up-front bits of traveling - traveling as a young person compared to a more "mature" person, traveling with children, packing, architectural bucket lists, and traveling for work. So much good stuff - so check out the podcast and be sure to stick around to the very end ... the last two minutes are quite memorable. [Note: If you are reading this via email, you will have to click here to access the on-site audio player] Hard to believe that this is what I used to look like ... young. Traveling in Europe as a Student (6:10 mark) 27 years ago, as a fourth-year architecture student, I spent the Fall semester traveling around Western Europe soaking in all the architectural wonders I could find. I was 22 years old and had done very little traveling of any kind … through the good graces of my parents, The University of Texas School of Architecture, and Virginia Tech, I was able to travel extensively at an age when I was barely prepared to do much of anything in the real world. Most of what I learned from that time didn’t have as much to do with architecture as I anticipated … I grew up. Since my college trip to Europe predates the widespread use of the internet, the only way to really communicate with people back home was through letters and postcards. I will admit that my parents kept every postcard and letter I sent home and gave them to me once I got back ... and I have kept all of them to this day. Kate Borson riding a go-cart in a park in Paris Traveling with Children (8:20 mark) During a trip to the Museé d'Orsay, I was reminded of how to look at something by my 5-year-old daughter. Sometimes you have to slow down in order to see what you are looking at - a lesson that I didn't learn until I was forced to learn it when my wife and I took our daughter to Paris. Little kids are great at doing lots of things but walking around fancy museums for hours on end is not one of them. As expected, after about 30 minutes my daughter said she was bored and I wasn't ready to leave. In an effort to extend our stay, I picked her up and started carrying her around with me as we looked at the paintings. Distraction tactics commenced. Au Café dit L'Absinthe by Degas, Museé d'Orsay, Paris, France Sad Woman in a Bar (10:30 mark) This painting in particular, by Edgar Degas, captured the imagination of my daughter and she spent the better part of 15 minutes coming up with a narrative on why this woman looked so sad. Kids are funny that way, their impatience or intolerance with a thing typically comes from not understanding it or from being disinterested in the current activity. The slightest of changes will impact the way they see something, and as a result, their behavior will change your behavior. Bring your kids to museums. Packing (24:40 mark) I am a packing master - and this is the weekend bag that I use as often as I can. I will readily acknowledge that roller-bags are easier to move around but the old-school version of me thinks this is more manly. I have already taken about a dozen trips through the first seven months of the year, and have another Five taking place within the next two months - somewhere in the neighborhood of 40,000 miles - and my average trip lasts no more than 3 days. Unless I am packing 3" D-ring binders and stone samples, I prefer to carry a bag with some style. Favorite Building in Paris and "The Herd" (21:14 mark) The Galeries de Paléontologie et d’Anatomie Comparée (Gallery of Paleontology and Comparative Anatomy) is a jewel. Part of the French Muséum national d’histoire naturelle (Natural Museum of Natural History), it is located within the Jardin des Plantes in Paris near the metro stop for Gare d’Austerlitz, and it is full of amazing treasures. This building and the exhibits within should be on every single person's "to-do" list if they are going to Paris ... especially if you have children. Human Hair Exhibit (23:32 mark) All I can say is gross ... like, really, really gross. There is even a section titled "Wet Specimens" [Shudder] Rather than subject you to things that I'd just as soon not look at, I am going to give you a choice that I didn't have. If you want to hands with gout (part of the wet specimens collections) - click here. Maybe a dermoid cyst of the ovary is more your speed? You'll want to click here. Will I secretly be judging you

Sketching is a hot topic regardless of the people having the discussion, but I have learned over the last nine years of writing this site that sketching is one of the more hotly contested topics. While few architects would dispute the value in sketching, HOW that sketch is generated seems to fall into camps of individuals: Team Analog versus Team Digital and I don't think anyone would be surprised to learn that the age of the individual seems to decide (more times than not, but not a guarantee) which camp an individual belongs. These are the show notes to accompany the 3rd Life of an Architect podcast, and I hope that these notes will help bridge the gap between a pure blog post and a pure podcast. Unlike some other podcast show notes, my goal - at least for the foreseeable future, is going to include as many graphics as possible to support the podcast content, so that even if you don't listen to the podcast, there is something here that is of value. I will also concede that after several lengthy conversations with my wife, I have finally conceded to her point that I should include links to the items I mention or reference so that you don't have to go hunt them down yourself. This was a practice that I have generally avoided since I started writing this blog, but hopefully, this is also of some value. So let's get to it! [Note: If you are reading this via email, you will have to click here to access the on-site audio player] Architectural Sketching - or - How to Sketch like Bob Borson (6:40 mark) Without trying to present you with false modesty, I am fairly comfortable with my ability to sketch ... but this was not always the case. A friend of mine gave me a handful of tips that made a fundamental change to how my sketches appeared. While I don't typically draw perspectives or try to capture the mood of a space, I have been sketching almost daily to create the sorts of sketches I do produce. Sketchbook - (36:04 mark) My business partner Michael Malone is many things, and right at the very top of traits I would assign him is prolific sketcher. He literally is at it every single day and his sketches are rather amazing and absolutely recognizable in their style. I have no doubt that I could pick one of his sketches out amongst thousands of other sketches. The image above is a cabinet in Michael's office and you can see that lining a few of the shelves are loads and loads of sketchbooks. Towards the top are fairly simple, hardback covered volumes, whereas on the bottom are these incredibly nice leather-bound volumes - all of which represent decades worth of ideas and thoughts. Almost 4 years ago I wrote a post on sketchbooks and Michael's handiwork is on full display in this post - Architectural Sketchbooks. These leather-bound sketchbooks are ridiculously nice - almost too nice for me - but Michael uses these types of books to record meeting notes and other "this is what's going on in my life" sort of items. He has been buying these 8.75" x 11" leather journals from Graphic Image for decades - and they certainly have an archival feel to them. The pages are lined and while Michael does produce sketches in them, they are primarily used for record notes and for keeping track of other items ... Like parking passes, museum receipts ... even stickers from jeans. While it might sound a bit random, when taken in as a whole, they are ridiculously cool. And then there are the "regular" sketchbooks that both Michael and I use - they aren't anything fancy ... See? Nothing fancy and if I'm being honest, while they take a fair amount of abuse, they aren't indestructible. I have a few that are in fine working order that dates back to 1990 ... but they sorta look like they date back to 1990. Almost all of mine are 8.5" x 11" hardback books from Strathmore but Michael said he also buys Canson sketchbooks as well. In addition to design concept sketches, Michael will put anything that motivates him in these sketchbooks. And you can see how the ink is bleeding through the pages ... these are not precious drawings, but they are worth holding on to as a reminder of a process of an idea. Apps for Sketching - (26:33 mark) I don't personally use any digital applications to produce my sketches. I have tried a few apps out but found that almost every single one pulls me out of my head and forces me to think about the technology I am using to create them ... which I absolutely hate. I like to have a few moving parts between my brain and the output I am creating as possible. I have no doubt that if I choose a particular app and worked at using it over and over, this "process" would be removed. My friend Lora Teagarden uses a digital sketching application called "Paper" to produce her ARE Sketches books and after watching her use this application for the last few years, I feel comfortable in saying that it works for her.

Life of an Architect podcast discusses the College years in this second episode. How do you pick the right architecture school? Is there a portfolio requirement? What sort of classes should I take? This and more are discussed.

Life of an Architect has finally entered the podcasting world! In the first episode, Bob Borson and Landon Williams discuss why they decided to start a podcast, their objectives for the podcast, as well as possible future topics.