Re: Do You Know What an Architect REALLY Does?

Mark, Publicaty, Public Relations, Litigation, Tax Fulfillment,
Bookkeeping, Accounting, Making coffeee, Entertaining, Reading,
Getting to Work, Wearing clothes, taking bathes are all thins that
architects do! So what. Simply because there are things that are necessary
to maintain a business or stay alive, does not mean that they are or
must be part of an architectural education.

Personally, I am not arguing for a "design-oriented" education. And
I don't draw the distinction which you make between "technical" and
"design". That is a pretty articficial boundary. What I am arguing
for is a "theory-oriented" education as apposed to a "practice-oriented"
education.

I liked the proposal about reducing the term of an architectural
education to three years. However, one of the reasons that all higher
education is becoming longer and longer termed is the failure of
secondary education. Most of the first year and part of the second are
consumed with catch-up in general education, history, writing skills,
basic math and sciences, etc. It would be noice if students were coming
out of high school with a basic general ed competency, but they are not!
So we need to make up for it at the universities.

Maybe ... if we focussed two years on theory after the gen ed base
has been built. a good 5-7 year apprenticeship could serve architectural
education well. I don't see anything wrong with even paying for the
first 2-3 years of apprentiship. One of the real problems with the
current system is that students can't find work because they expect to
be paid when they really don't have the experience or knowledge to
actually produce work of value and really are learning most of the time.
Some system of apprenticeship scholarships/tuition would certainly
releave this problem.

Another problem which I'm sure all of you educators are well aware of
is the numbers game. Even with the low graduation of architects, the
number of graduating students far outstrips the economic demand for
architects. Indeed, if all the students would practice, they would
replace the current architects every five years. Of course, this won't
happen. Instead graduates of architecture usually will do anything
but practice architecture.

The architectural education is a wonderful education, and I for one
advise everyone to study architecture. But, that doesn't mean that
they should necessarily expect to find a carreer as an architect. The education
will serve them well whatever they pursue.

- Ray Lauzzana
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