The Scope of Our Profession
As a seasoned veteran of architecture school and a green horn in the profession, I’ve begun to wonder what the scope of our profession really is. When you say the word architect, the average person thinks of buildings and construction, but that isn’t really what we do. Right?
During school I did research in “architectural visualization/virtualization” which is a fancy way of saying I made renderings, animations and video games. The interesting thing to me is how exactly similar the process for visualization is to construction. There is a schematic design phase, design development, client meetings, shop drawings, addendums, contracts, etc. Sometimes the ONLY difference is what happens to the work after it leaves the designers office. I’ve said it like this before, “The only difference between architects and game designers is at the end of the design process, one prints it out and sends it to a builder, and the other burns it to a DVD and sends it to Game Stop.” They both have to deal with issues “in the field” making addendums to drawings or fixing UV Mapping Coordinates, reissuing drawings or updating servers.
So what is Architecture? Is it just the design process? Is it just the design process that ends in building construction? Can it exist in isolation or is only a component of a grouping of services?
Who knows…I need coffee.
INTERNal Architect 