6 ms·

The Mind of an Architect

98 points by anonu 10y ago

deleted 10y ago
[deleted]
AnkhMorporkian 10y ago
I highly recommend this episode, if for no other reason than to hear a bunch of architects in the mid 20th century bullshit about silly problems. It really shows you how little people have really changed fundamentally in the past century.
- deleted 10y ago
  [deleted]
- adamnemecek 10y ago
  It's probably not just in the last century though
  - AnkhMorporkian 10y ago
    Absolutely, but having an audio recording of a guy in the 40s saying "Nahhhh" really makes you feel it.
  - pjmlp 10y ago
    Which is why I have so much fun reading several thousand year old manuscripts that have survived to this day and see how in certain aspects, human society has hardly changed.
brudgers 10y ago
The study touches on the central problem with the practice of architecture in the US: pretending the central ethical issue of architecture is the integrity of the architect's aesthetic vision [or less charitably, that architects tend to believe their own bullshit]. Lundy's approach was correct and the collaborative approach is what makes the Sarasota School the most important architectural movement in American history. Lundy is quite a contrast to Phillip Johnson. Like the other giants of the Sarasota School, Twitchell and Rudolph, Lundy was a veteran [1]. Johnson was an early fan of the Nazi's [2] -- something my mentor, the late David Crane FAIA, never could forgive. [1]: Lundy's wartime sketchbooks at the Library of Congress: https://www.loc.gov/pictures/search/?q=LOT%2014007&fi=number&op=PHRASE&va=exact&co!=coll&sg=true&st=gallery https://www.loc.gov/pictures/search/?q=LOT%2014007&fi=number... [2]: A recent article: http://www.vanityfair.com/culture/2016/04/philip-johnson-nazi-architect-marc-wortman http://www.vanityfair.com/culture/2016/04/philip-johnson-naz...
- saeranv 10y ago
  I'm an architect, and personally I've yet too meet an architect who thinks that way. The opposite is true, most architects think the clients and various stakeholders are overly invested in aesthetic considerations and aren't properly educated in other issues. There are significant bodies of architectural theory dedicated to repudiating overly-aesthetic concerns. I work as part of a research lab in a large architecture firm where we are working on ways to communicate the importance of energy efficiency, housing affordability, adequate daylighting, material health etc to the clients, and deliver computational tools to architects, urban designers, interior designers and urban planners so that they can being working with these issues. I have never encountered a situation where someone has opposed or been reluctant to engage these concerns.
  - deleted 10y ago
    [deleted]
  - brudgers 10y ago
    I am a licensed architect. My experience appears to be rather different.
    - dbshapco 10y ago
      If you have five architects in a room, you'll get six opposing opinions on architecture.
      - TheOtherHobbes 10y ago
        And unless one of them is really famous, the final design will be made exclusively of rectangles anyway.
      - brudgers 10y ago
        If you have five architects in a room, more likely they'll be colluding on fees.
- 323454 10y ago
tacostakohashi 10y ago
I'm working with an architect on a small renovation at the moment. So far, it has been a fairly tedious and frustrating experience. One of the main annoyances for me has been that, although the domain is completely different, in many ways it's just like designing software in that it can be very involved, with many interactions between small details that quickly multiply. However, as far as I can tell, while software has stolen some "architecture" terminology, architecture has yet to learn some of the recent advances from software, in terms of prototyping, minimal viable products, and avoiding premature optimization.
- adrianratnapala 10y ago
  All of the ideas you mention work for software because they rely on iterating on a working version. This works because programs are documents. That means you can iterate them like blueprints, but test them like a prototypes. In architecture, and other fields, you can build your documents incrementally. But it's expensive to actually build something. So it makes sense to "prematurely" optimise the design.
  - tacostakohashi 10y ago
    Right - to be clear, I'm just suggesting applying software design principles to architectural plans / blueprints, not to buildings. As an example, coming up with a vague sketch, possibly even hand-drawn, or with inaccurate measurements, to present to a client quickly, and get feedback on, before progressing to a more details. At least with the architects I've worked with, they have a tendency to present plans A, B, and C, which are all incredibly detailed, with exact measurements 3-D renderings, etc, all beautiful to look at. However, it then turns out that I, as a client, really don't like some fundamental things about plan A and B, but can combine aspects of them, and that plan C involved some materials that cost 10x the alternatives, or aren't permitted for use in the building, and are basically a waste of time to discuss. I'm just suggesting that it's good to get client feedback on things at an earlier stage, before fleshing out the detail on things that turn out to have fundamental problems.
    - 10y ago
abcanthur 10y ago
If interested, here is another podcast featuring an interview with the author of the book chronicling this historical episode. http://archinect.com/news/article/149954286/measured-genius-one-to-one-29-with-pierluigi-serraino-author-of-the-creative-architect http://archinect.com/news/article/149954286/measured-genius-...
carsongross 10y ago
This article touches on something that has absolutely destroyed architecture and art more generally: the cult of creativity and the new. This is a very long story, but the short version is that genius is rare, and tradition restrains the mediocre and outright bad, limiting the damage they do and occasionally boosting them up near the genius level. Geniuses who can work without the constraints of tradition, it turns out, can do their thing regardless of the constraints put on them, so it all works out. Now, this doesn't matter so much in the art world because there we can simply ignore the non-geniuses. Unfortunately, this is not the case with architecture.
- deleted 10y ago
  [deleted]

98 points by anonu 10y ago

deleted 10y ago

[deleted]

I highly recommend this episode, if for no other reason than to hear a bunch of architects in the mid 20th century bullshit about silly problems. It really shows you how little people have really changed fundamentally in the past century.

deleted 10y ago
[deleted]
adamnemecek 10y ago
It's probably not just in the last century though
- AnkhMorporkian 10y ago
  Absolutely, but having an audio recording of a guy in the 40s saying "Nahhhh" really makes you feel it.
- pjmlp 10y ago
  Which is why I have so much fun reading several thousand year old manuscripts that have survived to this day and see how in certain aspects, human society has hardly changed.

brudgers 10y ago

The study touches on the central problem with the practice of architecture in the US: pretending the central ethical issue of architecture is the integrity of the architect's aesthetic vision [or less charitably, that architects tend to believe their own bullshit]. Lundy's approach was correct and the collaborative approach is what makes the Sarasota School the most important architectural movement in American history. Lundy is quite a contrast to Phillip Johnson. Like the other giants of the Sarasota School, Twitchell and Rudolph, Lundy was a veteran [1]. Johnson was an early fan of the Nazi's [2] -- something my mentor, the late David Crane FAIA, never could forgive. [1]: Lundy's wartime sketchbooks at the Library of Congress: https://www.loc.gov/pictures/search/?q=LOT%2014007&fi=number&op=PHRASE&va=exact&co!=coll&sg=true&st=gallery https://www.loc.gov/pictures/search/?q=LOT%2014007&fi=number... [2]: A recent article: http://www.vanityfair.com/culture/2016/04/philip-johnson-nazi-architect-marc-wortman http://www.vanityfair.com/culture/2016/04/philip-johnson-naz...

saeranv 10y ago
I'm an architect, and personally I've yet too meet an architect who thinks that way. The opposite is true, most architects think the clients and various stakeholders are overly invested in aesthetic considerations and aren't properly educated in other issues. There are significant bodies of architectural theory dedicated to repudiating overly-aesthetic concerns. I work as part of a research lab in a large architecture firm where we are working on ways to communicate the importance of energy efficiency, housing affordability, adequate daylighting, material health etc to the clients, and deliver computational tools to architects, urban designers, interior designers and urban planners so that they can being working with these issues. I have never encountered a situation where someone has opposed or been reluctant to engage these concerns.
- deleted 10y ago
  [deleted]
- brudgers 10y ago
  I am a licensed architect. My experience appears to be rather different.
  - dbshapco 10y ago
    If you have five architects in a room, you'll get six opposing opinions on architecture.
    - TheOtherHobbes 10y ago
      And unless one of them is really famous, the final design will be made exclusively of rectangles anyway.
    - brudgers 10y ago
      If you have five architects in a room, more likely they'll be colluding on fees.
323454 10y ago

tacostakohashi 10y ago

I'm working with an architect on a small renovation at the moment. So far, it has been a fairly tedious and frustrating experience. One of the main annoyances for me has been that, although the domain is completely different, in many ways it's just like designing software in that it can be very involved, with many interactions between small details that quickly multiply. However, as far as I can tell, while software has stolen some "architecture" terminology, architecture has yet to learn some of the recent advances from software, in terms of prototyping, minimal viable products, and avoiding premature optimization.

adrianratnapala 10y ago
All of the ideas you mention work for software because they rely on iterating on a working version. This works because programs are documents. That means you can iterate them like blueprints, but test them like a prototypes. In architecture, and other fields, you can build your documents incrementally. But it's expensive to actually build something. So it makes sense to "prematurely" optimise the design.
- tacostakohashi 10y ago
  Right - to be clear, I'm just suggesting applying software design principles to architectural plans / blueprints, not to buildings. As an example, coming up with a vague sketch, possibly even hand-drawn, or with inaccurate measurements, to present to a client quickly, and get feedback on, before progressing to a more details. At least with the architects I've worked with, they have a tendency to present plans A, B, and C, which are all incredibly detailed, with exact measurements 3-D renderings, etc, all beautiful to look at. However, it then turns out that I, as a client, really don't like some fundamental things about plan A and B, but can combine aspects of them, and that plan C involved some materials that cost 10x the alternatives, or aren't permitted for use in the building, and are basically a waste of time to discuss. I'm just suggesting that it's good to get client feedback on things at an earlier stage, before fleshing out the detail on things that turn out to have fundamental problems.
  - 10y ago

abcanthur 10y ago

If interested, here is another podcast featuring an interview with the author of the book chronicling this historical episode. http://archinect.com/news/article/149954286/measured-genius-one-to-one-29-with-pierluigi-serraino-author-of-the-creative-architect http://archinect.com/news/article/149954286/measured-genius-...

carsongross 10y ago

This article touches on something that has absolutely destroyed architecture and art more generally: the cult of creativity and the new. This is a very long story, but the short version is that genius is rare, and tradition restrains the mediocre and outright bad, limiting the damage they do and occasionally boosting them up near the genius level. Geniuses who can work without the constraints of tradition, it turns out, can do their thing regardless of the constraints put on them, so it all works out. Now, this doesn't matter so much in the art world because there we can simply ignore the non-geniuses. Unfortunately, this is not the case with architecture.

deleted 10y ago
[deleted]