Showing posts from category: architects
- The SOFT HOUSE by KVA Matx in Germany.
Making my selection of buildings this week led me to a surprising discovery about the representation of women in architecture. I started with a simple enough premise to select ten buildings by female architects off the top of my head. I was immediately picking out Zaha Hadid, Kazuyo Sejima and Gae Aulenti; I thought this selection would essentially pick itself. Instead, what I discovered was that finding female-designed architecture, when excluding husband/wife teams, is extremely difficult and often the only work I came across was more akin to interior design.
I’m absolutely aware that I’m writing an article about women’s role in architecture as a man. I have three older sisters and should know better, but I’m ignoring the big flashing warning sirens, so I’ll go to the hard facts. Equality in the construction industry is notoriously poor — in the UK for example, just 10% of people employed by the construction industry are women; amazingly the figures for registered, working architects are similarly disproportional at just 12%. This was shocking to me; at architecture school there was equality in numbers — so why is this ratio so low?
The average number of female graduate architects in the UK is 38%, so there is an enormous drop off rate as they enter the professional sphere. When Robert Stern, Dean of the Yale School of Architecture, was asked in 2007 why there are so few women architects in the world, he responded with some interesting insights:
Oh my god I’m gonna… This is a complicated… Architecture schools… like Yale have basically 50/50. Maybe fewer women than men, but not many. And that’s been true of architecture school since I began to teach pretty much. It was definitely not true when I went to architecture school, which was a boy’s club for sure. But women come to the critical points in their career when they embark upon motherhood. And architecture is a totally time consuming — disproportionate to any amount of any amount of money any architect is paid — business. Plus the global reach of architecture today demanding unbelievable amounts of travel — national and international travel — has added to the complication. And so women find it harder. They get torn between their desire to have a family and be with their family and pursue their profession. And I think that’s really the reason that, in the long run, women are not seen where they should be at the top of the profession. Because certainly in terms of their talents and their professional skills, there’s no difference between men and women.
Is there an obvious femininity to the architecture presented here? Should there be? Do you think that the poor representation in the industry might be influencing the work of the few women who do succeed? I think these are questions that must be asked at a very basic level. For me it is a scary idea that our built environment will continue to be dominated by the design of men as it has been throughout history. It is a missed opportunity and a discussion that must be raised. In a world of so-called equality should we expect women to fit into a profession of architecture that was totally evolved by men? Or instead should the profession of architecture adapt to women in an effort for real equality?
More Photos
Via Tom Mallory, COO and co-founder, OpenBuildings.com
Click to enlarge
Via ArchiteXts
An exhibit at the American Institute of Architects headquarters shows off the LEED for Neighborhood Development rating system
The architecture firm Farr Associates, the Chicago Architecture Foundation, and the U.S. Green Building Council have produced a fantastic exhibit on how to create green neighborhoods. It opened in Chicago last year and is now on display at the American Institute of Architects headquarters in Washington.
This carries some symbolism. When it comes to sustainable communities, the architecture profession has been both hero and villain. It has been a hero because many of the early (and continuing) leaders of smart growth and sustainability in our built environment have been architects, from William McDonough to Peter Calthorpe, from Andres Duany to David Dixon. Frankly, in my opinion, architects were way ahead of the environmental community in forging solutions to sprawl. And it’s a good thing that they were, because they gave us environmentalists something positive to advocate.
Continue with article via The Atlantic
aia, architects, architecture, architecture critic, built environment, carbon-neutral office building, Design, eco building, Green Architecture, green buildings, Green Built Environment, Urban Planning
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aia, American Institute of Architects, Andres Duany, Chicago Architecture Foundation, David Dixon, Farr Associates, LEED, Peter Calthorpe, sustainable communities, The Atlantic, U.S. Green Building Council, William McDonough
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Uptick in business has them cautiously optimistic about a rebound
Some of the larger architectural firms in Aspen and Basalt have hired additional employees this spring after cutting up to half of their staffs during the recession.
Poss Architecture and Planning, Harry Teague Architects, Cottle Carr Yaw Architects and Design Workshop’s Aspen branch have each hired three or four workers in recent weeks. Partners in each firm said business is up this spring and they are bringing on additional workers to help with projects on the books.
“This year is just different from last year in a positive way,” said John Cottle, a partner with Cottle Carr Yaw Architects.
However, the owners of each of the firms said they remain very cautious about the business outlook because there is so much uncertainty beyond the next year or so. Bill Poss said 2007 and 2008 were the best years in his firm’s 35-year history. He doesn’t expect business to return to that level in some time. On the other hand, any uptick in business over 2010 is welcomed.
“Last year was pretty bad,” he said.
Architectural firms are somewhat like a canary in the coal mine for the construction industry. Projects they work on translate into work for contractors and subcontractors six months or so later. Poss said he is constantly being quizzed by friends in the construction world who want to know if his business is picking up.
The answer isn’t a simple yes or no. His firm is working on a large hotel in North Carolina that had been temporarily placed on hold when the recession hit. It is an encouraging sign that the owners have felt the economy has recovered enough that they are moving ahead with the design, Poss said. “That’s about a 12-month deal” for his firm, he said.
Poss is getting more calls this year than last year from property owners in the Roaring Fork Valley who are considering building homes. While the interest is encouraging, he noted that “nobody’s pulled the trigger, so to speak.”
Consumers of architectural services, like consumers of all types, are shopping for the best prices. His firm has reduced its prices, which required it to cut costs. That meant laying off employees after the recession struck, and cutting salaries for the remaining staff.
Poss said he and his partners recently hired three more drafting people and interns and are considering hiring a fourth person. Even so, the firm isn’t anywhere close to where it was three years ago in terms of the staff count when it employed 56 people. That fell to about 22 at the lowest point and is now creeping back toward 30 workers, he said.
Poss said business has always been cyclical. He has experienced a downturn every five to seven years. This downturn was different because it was so severe and long. He said laying off so many employees was unpleasant because it had so many consequences.
“I had to lay off 30 families, not just individuals,” he said.
Harry Teague, another longtime veteran architect in Aspen, said it has been common over the years for the staffs of architectural firms to expand and contract, depending on the firm’s number of projects. Employees who were laid off from one firm could usually find work with another.
“The roller coaster is not particularly unique to this time” he said.
What was different in this cycle is that business dropped off for virtually all firms at once, according to Teague. That was tough because people who were laid off had a tough time finding new jobs with different firms.
Teague said his firm’s work is also picking up this year so he has hired four people, boosting the total to 12. He described the positions he hired for as a mix of architects, project managers and designers as well as interns.
Teague’s firm is working on a project at the Aspen Music School campus on Castle Creek Road, including the replacement of a building that can no longer be used. His firm is also designing a school in Crestone, Colo., a home in Telluride and a home in the Roaring Fork Valley. He is also the architect for a river center proposed by the Roaring Fork Conservancy in Basalt. That project is scheduled to be reviewed by the Basalt Town Council and Basalt Planning and Zoning Commission on Tuesday.
Overall, Teague said, it does feel as though the level of activity is increasing.
Cottle said his firm is staying busy with a combination of local, regional and even international projects, a combination of residential and commercial.
“Aspen is stronger than most of the other places where we work,” he said.
The firm is receiving more calls of inquiry so far this year compared to the last couple of years, he said. Cottle is encouraged because potential clients are exploring a variety of projects and seem serious about moving ahead.
The firm recently added four positions, one permanent and three tied to current projects, Cottle said. It’s too soon to tell if business has truly turned around, so he and his partners will remain cautious with their projections and with their hiring. Cottle said they don’t want to get in a position of hiring workers for permanent positions only to lay them off again. That’s rough on everybody, he said.
Cottle Carr Yaw employed 38 workers from 2000 through the end of 2008 and intentionally didn’t expand beyond that point. They laid off roughly half the staff during the lean last couple of years and are back to 20 employees with the recent hires.
Kurt Culbertson, chairman of the board for Design Workshop, said the firm hired two entry-level workers and two mid-level experience workers in its Aspen office within the last six months. The position were for landscape architects. They are looking to fill another two positions.
The firm — which also has offices in Denver, Tahoe, Austin, Salt Lake City, and Asheville, N.C. — works on everything from resort planning to residential gardens. The Aspen office is benefiting from an increase in business overseas as well as domestically and in the Roaring Fork Valley, according to Culbertson. He said some potential clients are even looking into real estate development, which has been on hold for the last couple of years.
Culbertson said the Aspen office of Design Workshop reduced its staff by about half after the recession.
“It hasn’t been fine times,” he said.
He’s been with the firm through five recessions, this one being the worst. The name of the game is living to fight another day.
“You can’t hire people back if you’re not in business,” Culbertson said.
Via The Aspen Times
architects, architecture, architecture jobs, construction, new buildings, recession, Residential, unemployed architects
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Basalt Town Council and Basalt Planning and Zoning Commission, canary in the coal mine, chairman, construction industry, Cottle Carr Yaw Architects, Design Workshop, Harry Teague Architects, John Cottle, Kurt Culbertson, Poss Architecture and Planning, recession, Roaring Fork Valley
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Texas has won Site Selection magazine’s 2010 Governor’s Cup for having the most new and expanded corporate facilities, while Dallas-Fort Worth was third among metro areas of 1 million or more, it was announced Tuesday.
Texas led all states with 424 projects, 50 more than in 2009, when it placed second. Ohio, which won the last four Governor’s Cups, was second with 376 projects, followed by Louisiana, 347; Pennsylvania, 337; and Georgia, 251.
“As well as Texas has done in the past and in 2010, we’re not going to be what we can be, or as strong as we can be, unless we have competition from other states,” Gov. Rick Perry said in a prepared statement.
The Chicago area, including parts of Wisconsin and Indiana, was the top metro area, followed by the Houston area.
Site Selection has awarded the Governor’s Cup since 1978. The rankings are considered a benchmark by corporate real estate analysts.
David Berzina, executive vice president of economic development for the Fort Worth Chamber of Commerce, said the chamber was involved in attracting 10 projects to the city last year, which added 1,057 jobs and $130 million in annual payroll.
The projects included a 190,000-square-foot expansion for General Mills and a 65,000-square-foot expansion for LG Electronics at the Alliance industrial park in far north Fort Worth, as well as the sale of the Ranch Style Beans plant near downtown Fort Worth to Allens Inc., which has reopened the plant to can vegetables and hired about 120 workers.
“We’re consistently ranked, relative to our population, in the top three or four in the last 10 years,” he said.The chamber worked on 89 possible deals in 2010 and landed the 10, Berzina said.
This year, the chamber has worked on seven new relocation possibilities, he said. The targets include a data center, a large office project and a “green energy project,” he said.
“Four of them I would say are warm; three are tire-kickers,” Berzina said.
“Gov. Perry has worked diligently in recent years to make his state pro-business, which is why Texas ranks as high as it does on matters of interest to site selectors,” said Mark Arend, editor-in-chief of Site Selection.
The rankings are based on new corporate location projects and do not track retail or government projects, schools or hospitals. To be considered, a new facility or expansion must involve capital investment of at least $1 million, create at least 50 new jobs or add at least 20,000 square feet of space.
Via Star Telegram
architects, architecture, architecture jobs, Green Architecture, recession
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Alliance industrial park, David Berzina, Fort Worth Chamber of Commerce, General Mills, Gov. Rick Perry, Governor's Cups, green energy, LG Electronics, Ranch Style Beans
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eVolo magazine has run a tidy little competition for the last five years, inviting architects to innovative new skyscraper typologies. Today, the winners of the 2011 Skyscraper Competition were announced and we’ve got a recycling wind turbine, an energy- and water-harvesting horizontal tower, and a re-imagining of the Hoover Dam.
Jury members included SOFTlab principals Jose Gonzalez and Michael Svizos, architecture critic John Hill, Mitchell Joachim of Terreform One, CarloMaria Ciampoli of Live Architecture Network, and a host of other working and teaching architects (see the full list here).
FIRST PLACE: ‘LO2P Recycling Skyscraper’ by Atelier CMJN (Julien Combes, Gaël Brulé)
“The idea behind this skyscraper is to recycle the old cars and use them as building material for the new structure. The building is designed as a giant lung that would clean New Delhi’s air through a series of large-scale greenhouses that serve as filters. Another set of rotating filters capture the suspended particles in the air while the waste heat and carbon dioxide from the recycling center are used to grow plants that in turn produce bio-fuels.”
“The idea behind this skyscraper is to recycle the old cars and use them as building material for the new structure. The building is designed as a giant lung that would clean New Delhi’s air through a series of large-scale greenhouses that serve as filters. Another set of rotating filters capture the suspended particles in the air while the waste heat and carbon dioxide from the recycling center are used to grow plants that in turn produce bio-fuels.”
SECOND PLACE: ‘Flat Tower’ by Yoann Mescam, Paul-Eric Schirr-Bonnans, and Xavier Schirr-Bonnans
Imagined for medium-size cities where vertical skyscrapers do not fit the skyline, the flat tower is a “new high-density typology that deviates from the traditional skyscraper. The medium-height dome structure is perforated with cell-like skylights that provide direct sunlight to the agricultural fields and to the interior spaces. The dome’s large surface area is perfect to harvest solar energy and rainwater collection.”
THIRD PLACE: ‘Reimagining the Hoover Dam’ by Yheu-Shen Chua, United Kingdom
This project merges the programs at the current Hoover Dam — viewing platform, a bridge, and a gallery – into a “single vertical super structure.”
There a long list of honorable mentions, and we’ve highlighted below some especial favorites (clockwise from top left):
‘Sports Tower’ by Sergiy Prokofyev and Olga Prokofyeva, Ukraine
‘RE:pH Coastscraper’ by Gary Kellett, United Kingdom
‘White Cloud Skyscraper‘ by Adrian Vincent Kumar and Yun Kong Sung, New Zealand
‘Seeds of Life Skyscraper’ by Mekano (Osama Mohamed Elghannam, Karim Mohamed Elnabawy, Mohamed Ahmed Khamis, Nesma Mohamed Abobakr), Egypt
‘Waste Collector Skyscraper’ by Agata Sander and Tomek Kujawski, Poland
‘Hopetel: Transitional High-Rise Housing’ by Asaf Dali, United States
Via Architizer.com
architect, architects, architecture, architecture critic, buildings, built environment, carbon-neutral office building, construction, Design, eco building, Engineering, government architecture, Green Architecture, green building, green buildings, Green Built Environment, Landscape Architecture, modern architecture, modern buildings, new buildings
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Hoover Dam, New Delhi, skyscraper
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Skidmore, Owings & Merrill, LLP (SOM) has been awarded the masterplan commission for FTP City in Danang, Vietnam. SOM’s preliminary plan for a sustainable new high-tech community at the edge of the city has been applauded by local authorities, including the Head of Planning and the People’s Committee of the City of Danang. SOM is now working closely with these authorities to finalise the project’s design and ensure its delivery.
The plan has been commissioned by FPT, an up-and-coming national IT and telecommunications company with over 10,000 employees. Covering an area of over 180 hectares, the plan incorporates a wide range of uses organised into a series of distinct districts, including a Town Centre, a Business District, and a series of residential neighbourhoods. The plan also incorporates a new University Campus for FPT University – specialising in information technology, software development and e-services. The campus will also contain a research institute and training centre for FPT employees, allowing new technology to be developed further and put directly into practice.
SOM’s concept is formed on key principles to reduce energy needs and carbon emissions by promoting best practices in mixed-use development in an emerging local context of luxury resorts and single-use residential communities. Instead, FPT City will promote a diverse living community with integrated local services accessed via sheltered and shaded walkable streets. In addition to a web of natural greenways, the plan also incorporates a wide network of smart infrastructure. As a major national IT provider, FPT will ensure the delivery of state-of-the-art communications and information technology to every business and household in the community.
The design also brings to life part of a strategic regional river corridor initiative to be implemented between Danang and Hoi An, a national tourist destination, by establishing a new riverfront eco-park. The waterfront park engages a large existing lake at the river’s edge and will be designed to restore, protect and enhance the wildlife habitat along its entire length and around the lake’s perimeter.
Via World News Architecture
aia, architects, architecture, architecture jobs, buildings, built environment, construction, Design, Green Architecture, green building, Green Built Environment, modern architecture, modern buildings, new buildings
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Danang, eco-park, FTP City, Head of Planning and the People's Committee of the City of Danang, Hoi An, University Campus for FPT University, Vietnam, wildlife habitat
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Don’t string me along says architecture temp Althea Norwood Roberts
* Quarter of jobs created in past year were temporary
* Temps about 2 percent of overall employment
* Companies still cautious about permanent hiring
By Kristina Cooke
NEW YORK, Feb 22 (Reuters) – Althea Norwood Roberts gives employers three months to turn her temporary job into a permanent one. Then she looks elsewhere.
That’s as long as a company needs to see if she’s a good fit, the 35-year old single mother from California believes.
Norwood Roberts, currently temping for an architecture firm, is like millions of other Americans who are wondering if she will get permanent work.
“Temping is kind of like dating. It’s a trial-run for the company,” she said. “If they can’t make up their mind about you after 90 days, it’s probably not going to happen, they’re stringing you along.”
Norwood Roberts, who has a five-year old daughter, wants a job with security, good benefits and a pension. “It is not optional at this point. It is a necessity,” she said.
In the past year, about a quarter of all jobs created in the United States were temporary as companies remained cautious about the outlook for the economic recovery.
Over the past three recessions, temps — who are easier to hire and fire — have suffered the quickest and most severe cuts to their numbers at the beginning of a downturn, and then led broader employment gains when the economy recovered. For a graphic see http://r.reuters.com/geb97r
The pace of temporary job creation after the most recent recession — an average of about 25,000 per month — has been faster than in the past two, potentially a good sign for a labor market struggling with a jobless rate of 9 percent.
In the 17 months after the 2001 recession — the same period which has lapsed since the one in 2007-09 — employers added just 1,400 temporary jobs a month and the lag between the pick-up in temp hiring and the economy starting to add full-time jobs was 10 months longer.
But the faster pace of temporary hiring this time around hasn’t yet translated into significant full-time job creation.
“It will be a really good sign when we see those temporary jobs turn into permanent jobs,” Federal Reserve Chairman Ben Bernanke said this month.
Peter Capelli, a professor at the University of Pennsylvania’s Wharton School, says the jury is still out on whether the U.S. labor market is undergoing a structural change towards more temp workers or whether companies are just biding their time until demand for their products picks up and they add more long-term employees.
“It’s probably a bit of both. Another thing may be that employers are using temp work as a more thorough interview process, so it could be masking permanent hiring,” he said.
That is a trend that Randstad, the world’s second-biggest staffing firm, is seeing.
Randstad said more of its clients than in prior recoveries are using a “temp to perm” approach to hiring, to try the employee out before committing to taking them on.
NO LOYALTY BOTH WAYS
Some companies are actively shifting to what they say is a more flexible workforce.
In January, Lowe’s, the home improvement giant, slashed 1,700 middle-management jobs and said it would add thousands of part-time customer service employees.
One of the middle managers laid off was Dean Lutz, 43, from South Carolina. Lutz says the job market is the worst he has seen in his career, with most available jobs either seasonal or part-time.
“Honestly, jobs available out there aren’t very good.” he said. Companies “don’t want to pay benefits or higher wages.”
Lowe’s move is “emblematic of an evolution that took place starting in the late 1970s in which employers showed less commitment to their workers,” said Gary Burtless, a professor at the Brookings Institution.
But he said there is little evidence to suggest that temporary hiring has become more common in the past couple of years, with temporary workers as a share of overall employment peaking at 2.4 percent at the height of the dotcom bubble.
Despite the faster pick-up, the number of temporary jobs is still down about 15 percent from before the recession.
Tom Bonds, vice president of operations at the Huron Valley Steel Company in Anniston, Alabama, said he expects a shift back to permanent workers once there is more clarity about the economic and regulatory outlook.
“We prefer full-time workers, because they are going to be there … with temps there is no loyalty both ways,” he said.
While temporary workers may be high caliber at times of high unemployment, the cream of the crop may be quickly snapped up once the recovery picks up steam.
Norwood Roberts, the single mother in California, is optimistic. She has had two previous temporary jobs in the past 10 years, both of which turned into permanent positions.
“I have been able to juggle things so far. Some people don’t have that luxury,” she said. “I am one of the lucky ones.”
(additional reporting by Nick Zieminski, Dan Burns and Dhanya Skariachan)
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(c) Copyright Thomson Reuters 2011. Click For Restrictions. http://about.reuters.com/fulllegal.asp
* January ABI 50.0, down 3.9 pts
* New projects index falls 5 pts to 56.5
* Cautious optimism for design industry: AIA
NEW YORK, Feb 23 (Reuters) – A leading indicator of U.S. nonresidential construction activity weakened last month after two months of improving numbers, an architects’ trade group said on Wednesday.
The monthly Architecture Billings Index fell almost 4 points in January to 50.0, a level that indicates neither expansion nor contraction of demand for design services, the American Institute of Architects said.
The billings index is considered a predictor of construction spending about nine to 12 months in the future, since buildings are designed long before they are erected. The latest readings suggest an anticipated recovery in U.S. nonresidential construction may not gain traction this year.
A separate index of inquiries for new projects fell more than five points to 56.5, according to the AIA.
“This slowdown is indicative of what is likely to be a very gradual improvement in business conditions at architecture firms for the better part of this year,” said AIA chief economist Kermit Baker. “We’ve been taking a cautiously optimistic approach for the last several months and there is no reason at this point to change that outlook.”
The AIA’s billings index dropped below 50 in January 2008, indicating falling demand, and stayed below that mark until last November. The separate inquiries index only fell below 50 briefly in 2008. It is typically higher than the billings index, as prospective customers solicit bids from multiple architecture firms.
Most diversified industrial companies get at least some revenue from nonresidential construction, selling machinery used for erecting buildings or components such as elevators or electrical and cooling systems.
- Designing using CAD
As an AEC staffing expert and someone who has sold, supported and trained in CAD products for years, I would love to know your thoughts on this article. For example, why is BIM below the radar?
Architects can now design buildings without lifting a pencil, thanks to computer technology. In fact, digitally conceived architecture can be too complex to draw by hand or to develop using conventional drawings, even those printed by machine. Yet there may be risks in abandoning the pencil and relying so completely on the computer.
Drawing manually used to be an indispensable architectural skill, and not just for mechanical drafting. Drawing by hand was how historic architecture was documented and analyzed, and how incipient design ideas were recorded and explored graphically. For many architects, drawing by hand is both inherently pleasurable and integral to critical design thinking, a way to directly and creatively connect the eye, brain and hand. But today, computers enable architects to do little or no manual drawing, and drawing less by hand may tempt some architects to think less critically.
In architecture offices today, you rarely find a drafting board with a parallel bar, rolls of tracing paper, measuring scales, triangles, drawing templates or boxes of pencils and markers. Instead you see a workstation with a flat-screen monitor, keyboard and mouse. Many designers use computers for “drawing” everything: diagrams, preliminary design studies, three-dimensional views and construction documents. Produced on large-format printers, drawings can even be made to look like hand-drawn sketches.
Computer-aided-design (CAD) has transformed architectural design methodology, not because it eliminates manual drawing, but because it allows architects to compose stacks of drawings at every stage of design. Architects can show clients countless design variations, create realistic renderings and graphic simulations, and produce detailed construction documents.
Once preliminary design studies – site plan and massing studies, floor plan layouts, sections and elevations – are undertaken and a preliminary digital model is created, the architect can obtain three-dimensional views, including animated walk-throughs or fly-throughs. The designer also can modify any part of the project, whether a house or a high-rise, and CAD software can automatically edit and update all parts of the design affected by the modification.
CAD software can manage a vast amount of layered data, keeping track of and coordinating all digital model components and systems, such as the structural skeleton, windows, doors, interior partitions, floor finishes, ductwork and plumbing. These programs can alert the designer if components conflict geometrically and can instantly recompute dimensions, floor areas and material quantities.
It gets even better. When a design is finalized and fully defined in a three-dimensional digital model, CAD programs can print annotated, two-dimensional drawings for bidding, building permits and construction. For highly complex designs that cannot be adequately represented and interpreted using conventional documents, the digital model itself can become the primary documentation.
Architect Frank Gehry’s work epitomizes and necessitates this approach. His design concepts begin as sketchbook squiggles or crumpled paper and are ultimately transformed into volumetrically complicated, expressively curvaceous buildings impossible to draw. The Guggenheim Museum in Bilbao, Spain, the Walt Disney Concert Hall in Los Angeles, the Stata Center at M.I.T. and the Jay Pritzker Pavilion in Chicago’s Millennium Park could not have been designed and constructed without using digital models.
Contractors for these projects directly accessed Gehry’s digital models, not conventional drawings. That was the only way they could calculate and price the enormous quantities of materials and labor necessary to fabricate and install the thousands of steel structural members and metal panels that make up the complex exterior skins of these buildings. Only with advanced computer technology could Gehry’s idiosyncratic approach to design have evolved and his projects been implemented.
Yet if every architect emulated Gehry’s expressive approach, a lot of bad architecture would result. This is because CAD can seductively induce “I can, therefore I shall” thinking. Because architects can digitally model almost any form they can dream up, CAD can lead to excessively complex, overwrought building designs – form for form’s sake. Such CAD-gone-wild buildings may be inappropriate for their sites, functionally inefficient, difficult to construct, way over budget and perhaps even ugly.
During the preliminary design phase, CAD programs also can yield machine-printed drawings that make a schematic design idea appear more precise, refined and resolved than it really is. Before CAD, concepts drawn by hand often were sketchy and loosely delineated with wavy or fuzzy lines laid down by soft pencils, felt-tip pens or charcoal. The art and technique of manual drawing ensured that schematic ideas looked schematic.
The computer is a powerful tool, but still just a tool that must be used properly. Designers who never draw manually still must engage in critical thinking and rational invention, as if they were drawing and designing by hand, even though their hand grasps a mouse instead of a pencil.
Via Washington Post
architects, architecture, CAD, Design
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Bilbao, CAD, Chicago's Millennium Park, Guggenheim Museum, Jay Pritzker Pavilion, Los Angeles, Spain, Stata Center at M.I.T., Walt Disney Concert Hall
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