People don’t even always realize what they hate is the architect. Often people just…know a space doesn’t work and don’t know why. In fact the reason is often the architect’s vanity and/or laziness.Â
In the building trades, everyone hates architects, though. Because instead of resolving that design along a nice line, the architect made the person laying the brick pavers cut that damned stupid notch along the linear drain. Because architects very commonly don’t know or care when they’re making something clumsy and difficult to actually do. All architects should have to do internships in framing, plumbing/wiring, tile-setting, and roofing before they can get a stamp.Â
Architect here. While I disagree with your overall sentiment toward my profession, I do agree with your last sentence and have often said the same thing.
I’ll preface this by saying that I’m in the US, so requirements can and do vary worldwide. We have extensive licensure requirements here, but what often ends up lacking is a practical working knowledge of construction practices outside of a drawing environment.
I understand that not everyone has the physical ability to perform construction duties, but I do believe that classes offering hands-on building experience should be a requirement in college, not an elective.
For example, you don’t need to set foot on a construction site to know how to apply a water resistive barrier system. My university had classes where students would build small mock-ups of such systems to put actual physical qualities to lines in a drawing. The problem, again, is that it was an elective, not part of the core curriculum.
Without this particular learning experience, people fresh out of school will learn how to properly draw waterproofing details but may not understand how the lines in those drawings actually correlate to real building materials in the actual built environment.
I’m rambling, but I’ll end by saying that a great architect is an asset to any project, because they have made an effort to learn how the built environment goes together in reality, not just theoretically, and will collaborate with other disciplines in a way that relies on their expertise rather than undermines it.
Yes, sure. I love architecture, and someone has to create it. But that means I think we need to expect better of the people who do it. And when everyone from entry-level drafters to Frank Gehry is out there drawing shit they don’t understand, what we get is shit architecture and I think we—anyone who cares about architecture, which should be every human being who likes living indoors—deserve better.
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u/im_just_thinking Sep 13 '26
Who tf hates architects? Sure some are weird but they are pretty far down on a list of despicable professions imo