Architecture and Construction
Few days back I was reading an article on Archdaily – “ Serious Question – Do architects learn enough about construction and materials?” The image below, which I picked from that article, tells you everything as to how the architects start and finally ends in a project.
So the question arises, what exactly does an architect learn in five years if not about material and construction?
On the first day of my college a student asked our HOD, “Sir, why five years in architecture and only four years in engineering?” He looked at him and said, “On the first year you will unlearn whatever you have learnt so far and then you will start learning from the 2nd year.” With all due respect to all my freshly graduated architects, after passing out you will again need to learn architecture for at least 2 years in an office to understand what people expect from architects.
When I look back at the ways we were taught it was the same story. Design used to be taught three days out of five days in a week. That too in a three hour studio. Building construction used to be one class in the entire week. Structure used to be taught for only an hour on one day in a week. Same was for services. Besides, there was also History of Architecture and Theory of Design and other courses like Graphics. While everyone used to give lot of emphasis on the Design, very little emphasis was given to courses like Structure and Services. I doubt and can’t remember a course on material separately. Whatever I learnt on material was either in the Building Construction class or after passing architecture, in the field.
Surprisingly, there is no subject on the building codes. I was taking some interviews of some architects and surprisingly five out of eight architects, having experience over 5 years, have not even heard of NBC (National Building Code).
When I joined my first office I still remember my first individual meeting with a client. While I was explaining him the design, like a true enthusiastic fresher architect, he was smiling and was enjoying it. But soon I could sense the blankness in the smile. When I finished his first question was ‘Kitne mein banega?’ and I was completely clueless. Thankfully, my senior entered just at the same time and saved me from all the humiliations that day.
Nowadays, when I sit for the interviews of the new architects, I don’t look at how much they have learnt but how much they are willing to learn for the next few years. As an architect one doesn’t need to be an expert in all the fields of construction but then they need to know basics of all the aspects of construction so that they can have control over everything. That is the only way you can make build your concept sketch into a reality.
