Simple Line Type Elevations

[Anonymous]

Hi,

I'll begin by telling you i've searched the forum and have not found my answer, so this question may be idiotically basic and if so I am sorry

I want to produce plain line elevations, with no hatching or colours, i.e. the simple kind you may produce in autocad (hiss). I've fiddled and have no idea how to progress.

Thank you for your time, and sorry if i've wasted it.
Richard.

[Steve Jepson]

It's an internet talk forum! How serious is any thing you read on here.
I am just trying to stimulate some conversation while poking fun at some Architects I know who are of the extreme opposite view. They don't see any connection between the experience and knowledge of the Builder and what an Architect needs to know.

Can you be the foreman on a framing crew if you’re not a carpenter?
Can you be the Captain of a ship if you are not a sailor?
Can you be a General of an army if you have never been a soldier?
Can you conduct an orchestra if you can't play an instrument?

Can you be an Architect if you have never built so much as a dog house and can’t draw? Yes!! and it is a crime.

There are plenty of examples in each of the above cases where the tail wags the dog but it is a travesty. The work gets done in spite of the fool pretending to be in charge, not because of him.

The professional practice of Architecture ought to be the domain of experienced builders. This does not preclude their function as Designers, it enables it and enhance it. It provides a legitimate context for understanding it.

I remember my first day of class in the school of Architecture. I was 33 and already an experienced builder and competent architectural draftsman. I was in a classroom full of teenagers with spiked hair and nose rings who never worked a day in their life at any job, and had never even been close to a construction site. My teacher was a girl in her late 20’s.
I built a couple of duplexes and a dental clinic than year. My studio partner at school was a rather effeminate boy from Indonesia. (not that there is anything wrong with that)
My opinion about the education of an Architect has not changed too much from that day to this. He is probably an Architect somewhere in the world. I am not.

[Dwight]

I entered architecture school at 17 having actually hammered some nails and welded some metal. I remember those old-guys-who-knew-something. Such arrogance! "That won't work, you whelp!"

Most of them left in disgust at how unrealistic and naive everyone was, altho that older Germanic fellow who wore a white lab coat could point a drafting pencil using the sanding block like nobody's business. I miss him.

Steve is right that architecture schools should demand some sort of life experience from the students, but the people I met who had this experience were too rigid to have imagination - they know the pragmatic but not the speculative. One guy in my class already had a degree in Hong Kong and work experience. When we got an assignment, he went to the Sweet's catalog for inspiration. I thought: "You idiot! WE have a whole library of architecture magazines to rip off and you want to look at corrugated industrial siding?" They asked him to leave.

My real architectural education only started once i was out of school. This real education taught me to be respectful of tradecraft, and to never think of myself as being "in charge." You need a keen memory for why things need to be the way they are drawn, or not, and give in when circumstance overwhelms.

[Anonymous]

Hello Steve,
I have been thinking about what you are saying and wonder
whether Filippo Brunelleschi is an example or counter example
of what you are saying. What do you think ? It is the opinion of
some, myself included, that there is no sure fire way of assuring
that a person will be competent in any profession. A person
can have lots of experience and education in a field but be
completely incompetent and another person can have no background
in a field but somehow be very competent. Perhaps you are saying
that, outside of the presence or non-presence of genetic talent,
experience and specialized education in a field is better than zip.
Peter Devlin

[Anonymous]

Hi Steve:

I think it goes without saying that to be a good architect one, of course, needs to understand construction. But to have been a framer, finish carpenter, mason, plumber etc. before you can start to be a designer is simply not practical, nor do I feel it is desirable.

Most of us would have lost our creative edge had we spent our early years learning all of the limitations of construction, budget and the building code. School is the time to let your imaginative self grow and not be limited by “real world” constraints. I am not saying student design should not consider structure and materials as that is an inherent part of design, but design should begin more conceptually. Recent grads that work for a firm get all the guidance they need about code and budget from the “old pros”.

There have been scientific studies (don’t ask where I saw it) that indicate the brain is most creative from the late teens to the middle twenties. This is true in both the sciences and the arts.

When I was design partner for a largish firm, I don’t ever recall hiring an older designer who had a strong background in production. The designers who knew production well, always had reasons why things couldn’t be done, rather than creative ideas about what should be done.

I always tell recent grads that if they want to do design then become part of a design group. Don’t go into production for any length of time. Two reasons. First, you will begin to think like a production architect (that is to say in a “responsible” way) and secondly, if you have anything going for you, you will become too valuable to start as a junior designer later. And yes, you have to be a junior designer before you are a senior designer.

These are generalizations of course, but I have seen it happen over and over. Very small firms of 1 to 3 people are a little bit of a different animal.
I fully appreciate that some of you exceptionally talented and capable people can do it all and in whatever order, but that is not most of us.

During my school summer breaks, I was fortunate and worked for a sign and exhibit doing just about everything. I made the conscious decision not to work for an architectural firm until the summer of my fourth year.


Don Lee

[gpowless]

I studied Architecture , and I am a carpenter by trade. I also worked 20 years as a building inspector.

In my experience Architects without a trade or a solid foundation in construction were the worst people to deal with. One example (but there are many):

One of the most difficult problems was getting architects to understand that Barrier-Free design was not an option for them. It was a mandatory requirement and had been since about 1985. Can you imagine what happens when a set of plans comes in for a building with a tight budget and the architect has decided that barrier-free design was too expensive to incorporate? Corridors, doorways, washrooms - all having to be retrofit into an existing design. Needless to say that by the time they were done they resembled butchers more than designers......

And I'm not talking about rural detached zen-type architects, either. These guys were from Toronto, Kingston, Ottawa and Hamilton and their lack of understanding of the building code and construction techniques seemed to be a common theme. I had one guy who I dealt with on a regular basis that I had to mark up the required fire separations in different coloured highlighters to get him to understand the requirements for fire compartmentalization.

I once believed that architects were the "masters of design", having to command an understanding of building anatomy and structural integrity. After working in the capacity of Building Inspector for those 20 years, I see the majority of them as nothing better than poor artists who couldn't make it in commercial art.

And " city planners"? They're just failed architects.

[Anonymous]

Most of them left in disgust at how unrealistic and naive everyone was, altho that older Germanic fellow who wore a white lab coat could point a drafting pencil using the sanding block like nobody's business. I miss him.

Dwight, I don't know how far back you go, but I only used the sandpaper pad to make a chisel point for lettering. I started with the pointer that had a sandpaper cone, then onto a metal spiral cutter and finally an electric carbide bladed sharpener. After a rainy night the old guy I sat across from used to use a cigarette lighter to dry out his leads. We also wore drafting aprons!

[Anonymous]

And " city planners"? They're just failed architects

As I have a degree in planning, I think I should resent that

[Dwight]

And we are ALL failed artists. I notice that our Salem colleague never mentioned "and a fine art and art history degree and two years wandering about and sketching the ruins of Europe, sampling their wine, cheese and other earthly delights, lalala." as a further required architect qualification.

Just to round things out.

New minimum age for an architect: 60.

[Djordje]

Steve wrote:
Can you be the foreman on a framing crew if you’re not a carpenter?
Can you be the Captain of a ship if you are not a sailor?
Can you be a General of an army if you have never been a soldier?
Can you conduct an orchestra if you can't play an instrument?

In the modern world, yes to all of the above. All you need is an MBA.

[Dwight]

Ooo. Even worse.

MBA and architecture are aristocratic businesses.
We all know how aristocrats solve problems:
They ask a servant to handle it.