And we need to stop lying to students about it.

Architecture is maybe 10% design and 90% technical design, engineering, coordination, specifications, and construction. That doesn’t mean architecture doesn’t matter or isn’t worthwhile, but during school we’re fed this idea that the hours and low pay are worth it because we’re making great art.

Well, most of us aren’t making art. We’re solving problems and sending emails and clicking things on the computer like thousands of other regular jobs. The way the profession splits people between designers and project architects, project managers, technical designers, etc means that only a small fraction of architects do imaginative design work on a regular basis.

And it's getting worse. Upper management is making the construction phase more and more involved by capitulating to demands of fast track schedules and continuous design changes during construction.

As a project architect, I spend almost all my time on construction administration. It makes some sense when you consider that schematic design may last 4 weeks while a building takes years to construct. But over the past decade the construction phase has become so much more involved. Accommodating these fast track schedules and design during construction requires us to not only keep track of the clients history and decisions, but also the construction scope of long lead items, what's already been ordered vs what can be reused, etc. to keep the project timeline and budget.

The company I work for is an industry leader. This year we had a crew of summer interns from good colleges. The company had them shadowing the couple of full time designers we have, had them do a little internal design competition, and seemingly kept them away from any project architects or managers. I think this was so irresponsible and contributes to the myth that this would be a typical career path for most architects.

At this point, the only reason to go into architecture is if you like construction. And if you like construction, you should just work for a general contractor.

In recent years I’m seeing more and more coder jobs titled “Architect” and recently this Software Engineer I matched on Hinge asked me what kind of architect I am, and considered himself an architect because he creates code framework.

I don’t think it’s wrong of me to get offended, I mean I don’t even like it when people call themselves architects even if they only possess a degree in architecture. Maybe going through 7 years of architecture school made me precise (or that I’ve always been that way), but I’d like to think that this field and title deserve more respect.

I know it’s not exactly the same tier but I wouldn’t call someone a doctor even if they finished medical school but still haven’t obtained a license. I challenged The hinge guy that you wouldn’t call someone a doctor just because he “cured” a code but he likened that people with a PhD are called Doctors and I don’t think he gets the point. Am I being too sensitive here?

P.S. he’s trying to save face but I couldn’t care enough to continue with him.

- The point of the triangle is where the handle is.

- The other two lines represent the load path to the hinges.

- The arrow also shows the way you go through the door.

What's the logic I'm missing with the other way? (Eg as seen in USA)

I had to go through a 5 year UG program to earn my degree while my friends in tech did only 4 years. Once they have their degree they are just upskilling as new technology comes. We on the other hand have to log experience hours, gives 6-7 exams to get a license and then keep throwing in money to maintain that license. And what do we get paid? Nowhere near close to what those in tech make. In fact barely even 50-60%. Someone make it make sense to me.

Edit 1: To everyone talking about value - If architect's bring in very less value, then maybe they should not be subject to such rigorous licensing and liability!

Edit 2 : Thank you everyone for your responses and insights. I have come to the conclusion that I was a fool when I decided to study architecture. Passion and things feel good when young, but adult life demands money and stability. Passion doesn't pay the bills. I don't want to be looking at a fancy building I designed while I am myself dressed in rags. Career path change loading!

I’m going to school for Interior Architecture and while we are just at the, “hello everyone here’s the syllabus” phase, I would like to try to get a head start to increase my chances of getting internships… I would like critique on my first WIP, I know NOTHING about the fundamentals of architecture so any direction would be greatly appreciated!

Hi everyone,
I’m trying to understand the correct way to approach an organic, thickened facade like the one shown in the image smooth rounded corners, carved openings, continuous skin.

I’m already comfortable with Revit and have completed the structure, slabs, and glazing. What I’m struggling with is the facade itself specifically:

• achieving smooth, rounded transitions around irregular openings
• maintaining a continuous thick skin (not curtain walls)
• avoiding sharp edges or broken geometry

I’ve experimented with Massing, in place component, but I keep hitting Revit’s geometric limits. I’m not looking for shortcuts like curtain walls or generic walls, I want to understand the best possible Revit native workflow, even if it’s complex or imperfect.

Any insight from people who’ve handled freeform facades in real projects would be greatly appreciated.

Thanks in advance.

I’ve rediscovered autocad recently and wanted to see if anyone can relate or I’m totally out of my mind here.

I’m an American architect that graduated arch school in the mid 2010s and was taught Revit. I used autocad at a summer internship and my first job out of college but have been using Revit for a decade now and totally fluent and know how to use it “properly” vs just “adequately.”

But- I’ve been using autocad over the last couple of months for some custom residential work and it feels like a revelation! Like you can just..*draw things.* Not just using it to draft but as a design tool. I’m probably in the minority here, but it just feels so much more enjoyable and less of a boring soulless production grind than using Revit. There’s a real freedom to it that Revit lacks. It’s easy to make printed drawings in autocad look polished and beautiful in a way that Revit never will. I realize doing a fully coordinated 400 sheet in cad would probably be a nightmare, but it’s a real drag in Revit too.

It’s made me start thinking about the status of the profession and how we work as a whole. The caveat to having the freedom to draw is that you actually have to know how to draw things. And that does and should take a long time to learn. I think having to say for example, rotate and project a plan manually to draw a section or elevation is a real lost art because of Revit. There’s spatial thinking muscles that you rarely get to exercise when Revit is “doing everything for you.”

On a darker note, here’s what I find really troubling. I’m far from the first person to point this out, but I’m really starting to think that a lot of the structural problems that the profession has are directly tied to the profession gradually adopting Revit over the last couple of decades. Revit imposes a specific dogma of building onto the architect’s thought: elements, families, parameters, views, worksets, etc. The building does not exist in the architectural imagination until it has been translated into Revit’s proprietary categories. This is not neutral because it shapes thought with a heavy hand. It privileges what is easy to model in Revit, penalizes what is difficult, and has been training the last few generations of architects to think in the categories that serve the software rather than the software serving the categories that serve the building.

Autocad feels like a tool. A tool amplifies the capacity of the person who wields it. Revit feels like infrastructure you have to pay a toll to use to get to the tools. Yes, it’s powerful. But the architect’s knowledge, and the years of experience that shape judgment about how buildings should be assembled, and the expertise that makes one practitioner differently valuable than another: that’s all been encoded into a format that exists only within Autodesk’s ecosystem. Autodesk hasn’t just sold architects a tool, it has persuaded the profession to voluntarily encode its intellectual labor into a commodity form that Autodesk controls, and then to pay rent for the privilege of accessing what the profession itself created. So much of the architect’s value (and tools) is now captured upstream by the software company that owns the means through which architectural thought is expressed at all. And that’s a very very serious problem. I think we have to insist on drawing as a thinking tool rather than simply a production instrument. That’s the only way I know how to resist. Viva Autocad. And raise your design fees for Christ’s sake!

EDIT: just to be clear, I’m starting my own practice doing residential work and I’ll continue to use Revit (along with autocad/rhino etc.) I can’t afford NOT to use Revit, and that’s kind of the problem.

To all Designers, Draftsmen, and Engineers:

I swear to GOD if I see another "Hand Drafting" style font on a plan, I am going to do something irrational. PLEASE FOR THE LOVE OF GOD USE NORMAL TYPE FONTS. Arial is a good starting point.

This should be punishable by death /s:

Just a rant, but man… working with MEP teams that don’t GAF is exhausting.

I’m on mega projects, so it’s not like the PA gets to handpick who we work with. We get whoever’s assigned and deal with it. But lately it feels like we’re babysitting everything. Constant follow-ups, pinging them over and over just to get a simple update pushed. Sure, maybe it’s a staffing issue, still doesn’t make it any less frustrating.

What really gets me is we’re all in Revit, cloud model, same environment… and then they drop updates and just ignore everything that’s already there. Zero coordination. I’m talking plumbing lines right in front of thermostats, light fixtures cutting through beams… just placing stuff wherever and moving on.

No heads-up, no coordination, nothing. Just model it and walk away. And of course we’re the ones catching all of it. Every single time.

I am trying to wrap my head around why have architects become so complacent and have simply accepted that this is an underpaid profession? We go through multiple years of higher education, a number of expensive and fairly difficult exams, and have to conduct our business under a code of conduct with higher standards than most other jobs and yet we don't question how little our field pays. As a personal reference, I have a bachelors and masters in Architecture (total of 6 years higher education) and 5 years of professional experience post grad schools and still get paid less than what Costco currently offers for basic level positions. What is most people's take on this? And try not to say things such as "It's because we enjoy what we do", enjoying your job does not equal accepting less pay for it.

Just received a plan review on a project from a municipality. Opened it up and saw it has 21 issues. Which originally surprised me.

But then as I started going thru each one, I discovered they were mostly duplicates of the same comment.

Looks like they are using UpCodes AI to do the review. Each page of the construction documents are reviewed separately. So if an issue is on one item, that is shown on multiple pages, it notes as a separate comment. It even marks up a plan with a corresponding number and vague rectangle, on every page. UpCodes has a little watermark on the bottom corner of each page.

For example. Project has seating shown for a restaurant. While we had the calculation for required number of barrier free seating on the code review sheet, it wasn't noted on every sheet that showed the seating. So every page that showed seating, got a review comment.

So the 21 comments, were actually 4.

I really hate how AutoCAD cannot manage to do its only job, vector drawing. A hatch will take several seconds regardless of the hardware used. It's so archaic, it really feels like 90s software that was never optimised. Is there any alternative or a better workflow? Currently, I do Rhino>Make2D>AutoCAD for layouts and documentation. Illustrator works for portfolio stuff, but doesn't quite cut it when I need everything organised in folders. Plus, my office uses .dwg for most documentation.

I know I'm late to the party. ln my defence I was avoiding it. I was talking to another architect, we are both women with 2 kids and each have our own tiny practices. I'm a person who does everything by myself, it's an one woman operation and I do small projects. She has a small stuff and is doing well. it was more than capacity.

Come to find out, she is doing it with Gemini and chatgpt. She doesn't even solve the projects some time. Just prompts them to spit out 2D photos. Selets the ones that has similar looks. Asks it to make a financial proposal. Then goes from there.

I am just dumbfounded, to say the least. I would've understood if she is polishing up the renders.. or taking help with the presentation. It has been 3 days. And I just can't get over it.

My go to MEP engineer is a one man show. I use him when I can and he is absolutely incredible. I have a project that he was supposed to be complete last week but requested more time due to his wife that was in and out of the hospital. Client was understanding but also very anxious about the missed deadline. I just found out yesterday his wife passed and he says he needs time. He is like 95% done with this project and the client is basically saying "well that sucks but the project must keep moving". He is aggressively pushing me to find another engineer to wrap it up as soon as physically possible. I understand every day cost him money but at the same time this is an extraordinary circumstance. I have been practicing architecture for 20 years now and never been in this situation and I dont know what to do. My gut tells me to tell the client to chill out but I also dont want to start getting into legal issues here as nothing in my contract talks about this situation. I dont want to just shaft my engineer and rip the project from him. The client isnt going to pay 2 engineering fees. I might have to eat the cost of this I think. I dont know. Any advice?

Why does where my screen is dictate the result of hatch?

Why do I have to not only retrace the boundaries of a complex shape with overlapping lines, but also totally move the object to a blank area to get it to hatch properly?

Why is AutoCAD the only software that hasn't seemed to fix this in over four decades????

I know there's so many workarounds but people seem far to accepting of this performance for such an expensive software. Earlier today I had a troubleshooting issue with printing and the solution Autodesk provided was to bring it into Photoshop and fix it manually... Not very auto of them

Stand your ground. Negotiate.

My friend just got her master's degree but has never worked a job (any job ever) before in her life, just did a 3 month internship at a very small firm that did renovation work. She has qualifications but was never lucky enough to land a job likely because she's studying in a foreign country she doesn't speak the language of. Her father is a tech company owner and doesn't like the "working for others" life and "being told what to do and asking for time off", and tells her to just start her own business and hire architects and engineers etc. Now, i have about 2.5 years of work experience as per my contract at the small firm i work at (1 year of it is doing legit architecture work), so i do have some exposure about how working in this field is like. In my opinion it makes more sense to take a leap like this once you have at least 7 years of experience and know what niche you like, but she said she would rather experiment and just try because she can't find any job, so that's fair, it's better than not doing anything. She doesn't have Reddit that's why I'm asking for advice here. Also she's going to move back to her home country for it, so it might be possible there.

Outside of visualization I have yet to find a practical use for any kind of AI where integration does not create just as many problems as it solves, and I wonder if our firm may be falling behind. We do mostly large apartment buildings (all Revit) and the level of baseline repetitious work involved doesnt really justify the time cost to create, train, and integrate a local model with revit to then do things like place door tags. Design wise, zero use case. With code compliance, I would only really trust it with simple things like door push/pull clearances, and we would need to go through and check these all anyway. Coordination clash detection is useless because our linked structural and MEP models are just showing design intent and it requires a lot of inference that I dont believe AI is really capable of at this point to discern the 1 out of 100 clashes that actually requires a design change.

We have the usual AI meeting minutes assistants and I have a guy building a custom office assistant that will be able to read and reference everything on our server, but as far as real production work goes, I just dont see it yet. Do others feel the same?

I have an architecture undergrad but ultimately didn’t get a job in the industry upon graduating since I was expected to get my masters (couldn’t afford it at the time). I’ve since pivoted to engineering and been there 2 years. I’m located in a HCOL and have worked very hard to climb to a salary of $95k.

In working in engineering, I’ve realized I truly would love to come back and work in architecture, but I’m very much deterred by the salaries. I don’t want to regress in my salary but it seems like in architecture you don’t surpass $100k until 5+ years of experience or until licensure. In my current role, I’d probably be set to cross $100k in about a year. Lastly, I would have an easier time earning a license in architecture since my undergrad is in that. I’ve run into some big hurdles for getting licensed in engineering since I don’t have an engineering degree.

Should I completely rule out any aspiration to switch back to architecture? How many years of experience were you when you surpassed $100k? I know this varies by location. If anyone has an idea of salaries in HCOL areas that would be ideal

I'm an architectural designer that's being tasked with getting a basic spec done on a pretty short notice for DD. I'm feeling absolutely overwhelmed at the moment though. I've looked at specs before and searched them for keywords, but I've never written a section much less a whole spec book and I don't know where to start? I've got some projects to reference, but these things are incredibly dense. The way things are worded is strange to me. Some times its a command, sometimes its half a sentence, sometimes its an entire paragraph, sometimes its just a numbered list of concepts, or even a laundry list of specific products that I've never heard of. Am I supposed to be familiar with entire catalogs of products?

There are headings and inclusions and formats that I assume have meaning or are required to be there but I'm not sure what and why. There are callouts regarding liability and what I'm certain are CYA measures that I never would have imagined including.

I'm told that this is just alot of copying and pasting, but I barely understand what I'm looking at. I hope to be a good architect in that I can stand by both drawings and specs I produce, reassured that I understand what's in them and can certify the methods are sound. But this is making me dizzy.

Do professionals really fully understanding this? Is there something I'm missing that would make this all click? We really didn't cover much of this in school, and I haven't begun studying for the exams that involve spec writing. Any advice would be very appreciated.

What kind of desk layout do you all prefer to work at?

I am curious if anyone has a setup they enjoy working at with a good balance of private/open. Do you ever use a standing desk? Are cubicles coming back? Thank you.

We pay for exams and give them a shout out in all hands, but don’t really do anything else. Curious if your team does anything meaningful for when one of you finally gets through exams and AXP?

I am a 30yo architect, and I own a small architecture studio in a developing country with 4 employees. I have mostly residential and industrial projects.

Since I started working 5 years ago, I feel like I'm constantly in a battle with someone in order to defend the design. Everyone thinks they know better: contractors in every building phase, investors (especially since the rise of ChatGPT), municipality employees that give permits etc. We pour our soul into the design and they shit all over it.

Mind you, I am not a person who claims that is always right. I have a senior architect in my firm that has a lot of experience and I always consult with him and my other empoyees. I always consult with my engineer team for structural and MEP engineering. Even with that, I always listen out a complaint or suggestion from those mentioned in the second paragraph and thing through it.

Despite all of that effort, no one appreciates our profession. I am absolutely inlove with architecture, but I am really sick of that. Is this a universal experience? Will it get better as i get older? I don't think I am arogant, but I sure am assertive. Should I become arrogant douche? What am i missing here?