#423 - OUR FAILURES IN ARCHITECTURE
SUMMARY
This week David and Marina of FAME Architecture & Design discuss their failures in architecture and advice for aspiring architects. The two touched on design exploration during university; completing assignments on time; having too many ideas; not asking enough questions; external distractions; advocating for yourself as a young professional; not committing to an office; dealing with perfectionism; getting stuck on a certain project phase; too compliant with client demands; explaining project to non-architects; and more. Enjoy!
TIMESTAMPS
(00:00) Introduction.
(01:18) Completing assignment requirements and sacrificing design exploration.
(12:43) Not completing assignments.
(22:38) Struggling with too many ideas.
“One truth with any creative project is the clarity of the statement. If you can summarize a project into one sentence. What is it doing? How is it doing it? The project can be very complex, confusing, ugly, or monstrous… It could be anything, but it needs to have clarity. As one matures, the work tends to become clearer because partly you're not forcing things. When you're younger, you have all these ideas you want to get out on paper…because you're excited and you want to get it out there. But you can't force it. If it doesn't belong in that project, don't shove it in the project.” (31:14)
(32:39) Not trusting teachers.
(37:59) Not asking enough questions.
“When I first started [working in architecture], I strongly felt that I needed to pretend like I knew more than I did to secure a position where I got paid enough money. I was always afraid that if I showed [my lack of knowledge], I was potentially going to be let go or not be hired. When it comes to a feast or famine mindset, because your best hope is to make $38,000 a year, you do everything you can to get that and then hold on to it. It was a survival mechanism that I should not have used, but it was a survival mechanism. I was afraid and thought, “I can't ask that.” It's a mistake because, of course, you're only like 22. You don't know anything.” (39:58)
(43:52) External distractions.
(50:06) Advocating for yourself as a young professional.
“As a young professional, you might feel like you don't deserve things because you're young and inexperienced. [It’s hard to] advocate for yourself, ask for a raise, or ask for things you think would improve your learning experience and career. I feel like the first few years I was taking the back seat. I thought, “I can’t ask for that. I started a year ago. I'm just a young designer. I can’t ask for a raise. I can’t ask for more responsibility.” Then at some point, you see someone else in the office who did it, who started maybe after you and they got [the things you were afraid to ask for]. Then you're pissed off because you understand that if you don't ask for stuff, it's never going to come to you. Then your perspective changes.” (50:20)
(52:26) Not committing to an office.
(56:39) Everyone has their shortcomings and talents.
(59:43) The perfectionist mindset.
(01:08:12) Getting stuck in the design process.
(01:11:42) Complying with client demands.
“Sometimes architects comply with clients’ demands too much. I think that pushing back is something that we don't often do as a profession. For example, saying, “I need more time.” One of the biggest failures for anyone who is dedicated to this profession is the failure to never turn off your brain, and never allow enough breathing room for the machine to restart, reset, and work at full capacity. Pushing yourself to exhaustion is too common.” (01:11:45)
(01:14:51) Explaining architecture to non-architects.
“You have to choose your words and structure them in a manner that makes sense for the audience. Always. However, it's a mistake to only create the presentation from the audience’s perspective. I think it's important to talk about elements that are important to the project, even if the audience might not understand it. Of course, you should try to explain it and not write it off as being incomprehensible. But we get into dangerous territory if we reverse it too much. You can't close the gap between architects and non-architects if you change the language too much and remove portions of the design presentation.” (01:20:23)
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#419 - ARCHITECTURE VS ART, ARE THEY DIFFERENT?
SUMMARY
This week David and Marina of FAME Architecture & Design discuss the topic of Art vs Architecture. They covered the similarities and differences between artists and architects; creative freedom; mediums and materials; provocative vs practicality; public perception; time pressure; pay and value; control over outcomes; the life cycle of art and architecture; is architecture art; the definition of success; and more. Enjoy!
TIMESTAMPS
(00:51) Artists have more creative freedom.
“Architecture is more about synthesizing one's natural tendencies and interests with the ingredients that come with the project. So, I think architecture is interesting because you have this mash-up of different things that the architect has to wrestle with, and the outcome is a hybrid baby of these factors. In contrast, it's much purer for the traditional artist, who has a set of questions, interests, and philosophies and then they express their ideas through whatever medium is most appropriate for them and the topic being explored.” (03:00)
“The process to get to the outcome is much freer for an artist than for an architect because the architectural process is somewhat standardized. We have to use certain units, tools, and graphic representations that work across every office in the same country. We have to use certain languages to express ourselves toward the final results. Meanwhile, an artist could decide to have a completely different process for every piece of art that they're creating. That's because most artists work individually, and do not have to comply with a set of rules for their creative thoughts to be understood by others.” (05:16)
(11:18) Mediums and materials.
(22:46) Provocative vs practical outcomes.
“The fundamental difference between art and architecture is that artists exist to poke at society and ask questions. What they produce only exists to do that [and usually] doesn't offer practical solutions. Architecture is strange because we should be asking big societal questions, but at the same time, we need to propose something that will be practical. It doesn't just exist as a big question statement. It has to perform and provide something useful. Often the questions we ask are related to what we're proposing and with that comes a lot of constraints. Architecture cannot be quite as punchy. It can’t be in your face.” (24:26)
(32:08) Public perception of architect vs artist.
(38:33) Architect vs Artist time pressure.
(44:37) Architect vs Artist pay and value.
(50:50) People involved & control over outcome.
“A big difference [between artists and architects] is how we can express ourselves as creatives and how much control we have over the entire process. We have less control over the outcome compared to an artist. Suppose an artist is doing a large-scale installation, they’ll have control over most parts of the project. Although architects also have a lot of control, it's usually not to the degree of an artist because we work with people from many different trades. It's just a long, convoluted, complicated thing.” (53:14)
(55:12) Life of architecture vs art.
“Architecture and art live in the opposite direction. There is a very defined understanding of the artwork’s life and it's mostly just being preserved as a pristine, perfect thing. Whereas with architecture, when the building is done, it's not finished because it will be used, morphed, remodeled, and changed or degraded over time. It changes because it has a life of its own. It moves with time.” (55:33)
(58:54) Is architecture art?
(01:05:18) Definition of success for art and architecture.
(01:16:01) Summary - Similarities and differences between art and architecture.
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#418 - AUTODESK FORMA & INSIGHT
SUMMARY
This week David and Marina of FAME Architecture & Design are joined by Ellis Herman and Ian Molloy from AutoDesk. The four discussed Autodesk Forma; how Forma works; Carbon analysis in Forma; Autodesk Insight; workflow and dashboard for Insight; adjusting parameters in Insight; challenges of incorporating analysis in design; accuracy of analytical tools; future of architecture software; and more. Enjoy!
TIMESTAMPS
(00:00) Introduction.
(03:16) What is Forma?
(06:53) Forma project location setup.
(13:47) Forma building analysis and Forma Board.
(31:13) Carbon Analysis.
“I think “Actionable Prediction” is a great phrase to describe the challenges of [the design process]. You're drawing loose sketches and ideas [during the design phase], but you're also making big decisions that set the project’s direction in terms of how it deals with the carbon, energy, wind, site conditions, etc…To design a building, you need some information to work with, but you also need to do something to have information. It's so difficult to get it right. I can certainly understand [the benefits of] software that’s easy to use and has standard tools so you can start working without having to ask many questions. Because when you're at the beginning of a project, you don't have a lot of information.” (44:48)
(58:53) Ian Insight introduction.
(01:07:21) Autodesk Insight workflow steps.
(01:17:25) Insight Dashboard and Embodied Carbon Detail.
(01:31:22) Adjusting factors in Insight.
“At the end of the day, all analytical models are imperfectly perfect. Meaning that they're imperfect, but they're perfect for the job that needs to be done now, which is at an early stage. I just want to know what percentage of roof I should use for PV, and how much I can get the client to pay for carbon offsets. It's perfect. You don't need anything more than that. The fact is there are so many different questions and so many ways to look at this data. Sure, you can use Excel or other tools, but they are all complicated. We want to create a tool that an average architect or engineer can get into with reasonable ease to help them understand and get started with building analysis. We want to encourage conversations between architect, client, and engineer around topics like “What are you assuming about this? Do you have a good rule of thumb for that?” (01:38:18)
(01:39:30) Challenges of incorporating analysis into design.
(01:45:33) Accuracy of Insight analytical tools.
“We have seen firms at every scale use it [Autodesk Insight] mainly because it’s accessible. It's already in Revit. We try to keep the barrier as low as possible, and it provides users with something useful. No, it doesn’t have every analysis you need. No, it's not going to do the LEED documentation for you. However, it allows people to be students and gradually learn about certain analyses and exchange their knowledge with colleagues. Eventually, they grow enough confidence to engage specialists and have productive conversations. The experts are also able to curate the way they believe analysis should be run at different stages in the process, for different project types and different firms, and that knowledge can be democratized a lot more easily.” (01:44:06)
(01:49:52) Future of architecture software.
“We're at the beginning of caring about and measuring embodied carbon. So, the data that [Forma] is trained on will be more easily accessible. It will become better and more consistent, which will allow us to create better predictive models more easily. As an industry, we are going to align more and more with reducing carbon intensity, which will make it easier to compare designs and therefore get answers to whether a design is good for the environment. That is a question that is hard to answer currently.” (01:51:12)