Architect Question

[bitingmidge]

good : [SIZE=-1]Mr Midge - I have an almost full collection of "houses", a mag endorsed by the RAIA. What is most interesting is comparing their first couple of installments with the last half dozen years (I think its about a 15 yr span or thereabouts). Early on, the designs were not very modern, and quite conservative - nothing as avant garde as was produced in the 1920's Bauhaus for example, let alone Harry Seidlers 1950's work. Now - no rules, no conservatism, lots of experimentalism. It seems perhaps we are coming of age, finally.

I will now revert to my true cynical self, and advise that "houses" is/was a publication of the RAIA certainly, but the contributors pay to be there, and as such it is no arbiter of what is good, rather it is a bundle of ads, where architects attempt to seduce prospective clients with work that they determine will be attractive to a particular segment of the community!

NEVER mistake the winner of an architectural award for a particularly competent piece of architecture! That would be like thinking an oscar winning movie was a supreme example of that craft. Both may be, but they are more likely to be popularist pieces designed to attract the vote their peers.

Good architects, CAN do economical work, but its rare. Untill its common then architecture has to live with the view of the general populace about expense and practicality.

I think that is where you are wrong. I have been in a position of engaging consultants for the past fifteen years, and you have to believe that the development industry does not survive if it does not get economical work.

The view of the general populace in the scheme of things doesn't matter all that much to the practice of architecture, it's the development industry from which it derives the vast majority of its income.

Note I am talking the VAST MAJORITY, not all here.

I am also surprised at how often architects take the flack for things well out of their control, in a debate such as this, people are happy to differenciate between architect and designer, yet how many times have you heard someone talk about the "mistakes of their architect" when talking about some backyard draftie?

Hmmm, I'm not really on thread here am I?

I'll try again later!

P

[pharmaboy2]

I think that is where you are wrong. I have been in a position of engaging consultants for the past fifteen years, and you have to believe that the development industry does not survive if it does not get economical work.

Maybe we are both right?

Economies of scale operate in the development industry, so you would expect for a $50,000 archictecture fee to go a lot longer in a $2m build than in a $300,000 build with $30k or 15k fee.

Further single buildings are competing against a myriod of project builders with plans already to go and easy to build, wheras a 20 unit development is always going to be drawn as a once only (whether a designer, draughtsman, or chartered architect) - so the competing cost bases are different.

point taken on houses, but it does illustrate then that the public has also come a long way if those are the houses that are acceptable for publication. Besides I only buy it for the piccies (!) and to steal their ideas for my own castle.

[bitingmidge]

most of us at least have some idea of what works and what doesn't.

I don't believe that to be the case at all!! Firstly the MOST important thing about a house design is designing for climate, and this is where the fundamental lack of knowledge comes to the fore.

You see it everywhere, but particularly in the land ads "North to street" "faces views" etc.

In my (vast ) experience, most of us don't even consider this.

The MacDonalds mansion crowd have bad taste, but it's not the same as not having any taste at all. I'm sure they like the look of their houses - they picked them out of a catalogue after all.

So do a count. Aren't they "most" of us? Before McMansions there were cream venerials, before that the triple-fronters and before that the California Bungalow.

They were all catalogue houses where the impression from the street was the only "design" feature.

"Most" of us live happily in those environments, while claiming to be the arbiters of good taste.

We've all lived in houses long enough to know what we like.

Is what we "like" good design necessarily?

Take our place - the last house we owned had a poky little kitchen on the other side of the house from the lounge.

I'll bet the "architect" copped flak for that!

We obviously spend most of our evenings either in the kitchen or in the lounge, so it's nice to have them next to each other so that SWMBO can call out the cricket score while I'm cooking the chicken parmigiana. In my opinion, these things are far more important than what the house looks like.

Form follows function my friend!


Bugger, I have to do some work... I'll continue later!

P

[journeyman Mick]

I was going to add to this thread but I think it's all been said here and here

Mick

[pawnhead]

I was going to add to this thread but I think it's all been said here and here

Mick

Thanks for the links.
A couple of interesting threads there, with a lot of words of wisdom.

I remember that Fed Square doco. It was a hoot, and wasn't that architect a piece of work eh?
Nigel would've been proud of him.

[Carpenter]

.. and may I now tell you about the carpenter know-it alls?
The ones that suppose themselves to be tradesmen, yet can't read drawings?
I've seen them time and time again contribute to sickening budget blow-outs by not even being able to adequately estimate work just for their own trade, let alone an entire building.

The ones that don't know to prime the faces of joints in exposed timbers before fastening them, or how to fix hardwood weatherboards without having them split as they dry.

There's no shortage of them thats for sure, but its pretty easy to just give them the flick & get a more capable carpenter. Quality control should be the responsibility of everyone, but the buck stops with the principle contractor. If he's not looking after this then I agree all hell can break loose. My point is Architects are generally self regulating & in a much greater position of power, & their typical failings are given a fertile soil to grow in when a trusting client naively surrenders too much control. Most clients I've encountered purposly engage the services of an Architect because they don't feel confident about the building process & want someone to take the helm, & from my observations it rarely goes well.

The ones that hurl abuse at others from the gates while telling each other how great they are.

What? Life's a bit more realistic down on the tools Midge, if you cant walk the talk, it wont take long for someone to pull you into line or send you packing. Maybe the RAIA could organise some site visits to learn how to do this? The hardest lessons are usually the ones that bear the most fruit.

You see, by pointing the finger at just one profession or trade, one can speak many truths, one can get a rise even, but the truth is that all have similar failings, not just the architectural profession.

Couldn't agree more but this thread is about Architects, so I'm just giving my 2 bobs worth based one 25yrs of sporadic encounters with Architects.

If you think the Institute of Architects needs to have a look at itself (and I don't disagree by the way) then by golly, you should look seriously at the Builder's Labourers Federation.

I don't have anything to do with commercial work, but didn't the BLF disappear decades ago? Anyhow, what do you expect from an organisation run by labourers?

[journeyman Mick]

...............Anyhow, what do you expect from an organisation run by labourers?

Well, not too much labouring, that's for sure.

Mick

[silentC]

I don't believe that to be the case at all!! Firstly the MOST important thing about a house design is designing for climate, and this is where the fundamental lack of knowledge comes to the fore.

Well, I was really talking about the internal layout, but that's why I went to a building designer, because he did know how to design for climate. So he took my little boxes and rearranged them in a salubrious way.

So do a count. Aren't they "most" of us?

In certain suburbs of Sydney, certainly. Down my may, there are a few examples of the class at Tura Beach, but most new houses around here look either a bit like mine, or like a gilded birdcage for the preening of silver feathers therein.

Is what we "like" good design necessarily?

Obviously not, judging by some of things I have seen. I'm just saying that people do pay attention to the layout of the houses they live in and perhaps factor it in if they ever get a chance to design their own. I certainly do.

So what is good design? By what factors do you assess a design to say that it is good?

[journeyman Mick]

Just an interesting observation:
Ludwig Mies van der Rohe who is one of the key figures of modern architecture; who headed the Bauhaus for 3 years; ran architecture at the Illinois Institute of Technology for about 30 years; was famous for his "less is more" and "God is in the details" quotes; was responsible for innumerable huge public buildings as well as some iconic chairs and designed the first ever apartment buildings with curtain glass walling; never lived in any of his own, pared down, modern buildings. He chose instead, to live in an old fashioned cluttered house with small windows.

Now I quite like the look of some of his buildings, but I don't think I'd want to live in any of them either. My own humble dwelling was built to a very tight budget by a builder for his elderly mother. More through luck than design its orientation is pretty good, but I would've designed it differently myself. And yeah, I would design my own house and draw it up myself, but I have seen some absolute shocker owner designed places and wouldn't generally recommend it.

More food for thought.


Mick

[pharmaboy2]

thats funny mick - my 2 favourite objects are the Barcelona pavilion and the white barcelona chair! Although still on Bauhaus, I have a Le Corbusier chaise lounge, and it was definately designed for someone 5'10 or thereabouts - they need a largeer size these days!

A new house 2 doors down from us, looks like an attempt at an international modern box, but looks like it was owner designed, then paired down by a builder to price. Brand new 30 odd square home, and Id suggest it'll be D-9 ed by about 2030 - poor render, cheap small windows, no entry relief - black reliefs around windows and top, cheapest construction methods possible.

Maybe that the thing - poor modern attempts have a really high hate factor - you can stuff up the quality of a build on conservative lines and get away with it - the modern design however gives you no such latitude

[pawnhead]

My sisters house that I was talking about earlier, is a very old sandstone semi that only covered half of her double width block. It's a very simple 'two eyes (windows) and a nose (front door) design. The new extension was added to the side, and it's a square box that overhangs the lower section by about a metre and a half. The lower section has wide vertical folding steel and glass bifold doors. The architect wanted to put an expensive shop awning on the front that would have looked hideous.

It actually doesn't look all that bad, and it has grown on me. I'll have to take some pictures of the finished product.

[brynk]

haha all this talk about architects, engineers, builders & tradesmen buck-passing, art, & design made me think the biggest job i've ever worked on to date and incidently, my first job in the commercial construction industry...

(by the way, to me, good design is art is the elegant and economical application of a sound solution to a problem - this can only be achieved by a human or humans doing what they do best - manipulating an otherwise indifferent arrangement of molecules into some entropy-reversing form, initially for their own ongoing survival in the ether and the subsequent amusement &/ pleasure of other sentient beings; the latter which may not necessarily hail from their own species. if your soon-to-be-mum-cum-architect can do all this for a hundred bucks an hour then i say go for it - see if she'll give you a cash discount )

i hunted back through the formwork drawings, engineer's reinforcement & concrete drawings, and finally traced it back to an early architectural floor plan. from memory, the structural steelworker bore the cost of installing a bracket that the engineer okay'd without additional cost that the builder then suggested (as part of our day-to-day management of the job) to the architect, who then turned around and billed time for the 'management' of all of this to the client.

what does this prove? 1) mostbody never really reads the plans until it comes time to make them a reality - sure okay, they look at them; and 2) who was at fault? it was the bloody draftsman of course, for copying and pasting the floor plan from one level to the next

[Carpenter]

From memory, the structural steelworker bore the cost of installing a bracket that the engineer okay'd without additional cost that the builder then suggested (as part of our day-to-day management of the job) to the architect, who then turned around and billed time for the 'management' of all of this to the client.

what does this prove? 1) mostbody never really reads the plans until it comes time to make them a reality - sure okay, they look at them; and 2) who was at fault? it was the bloody draftsman of course, for copying and pasting the floor plan from one level to the next

The levels of complexity that can arise in a project are very often beyond any realistic expectation for anyone to foresee, particularly with an Architect designed project. This is not a criticism of Architects, just a recognition that its the nature of anything outside the square to throw up design & construction challenges. The scenario you describe above Brynk begs the question; Who solved the problem, & therefore who should be the one charging for it? I reckon the Steelworker should have been paid, because he would have provided 50% of the solution, the other 50% would have been from the Builder who would also be paid as this is a part of his day to day managment. The Architect, by nature of his trade as a designer is not predisposed to have much input to the problem at hand. He's a designer, not a structural problem solver. This is the realm of the builder & the relevant trade, but as you can see the Architect (who would have been standing about nodding agreement & contributing bucket loads of bugger all) never misses an opportunity to slug the client. Parasitic by nature, otherwise they'd starve.