Thursday, November 02, 2006

Registered Architect


8 1/2 Years of College...
$75,000 dollars.
3 Years NCARB intern program fees...
$450 dollars.
9 Registration Exams and study guides...
$2,150 dollars.
Finally being able to call yourself an Architect...
Priceless.



12 years after starting as an apprentice draftsman, I can now call myself an Architect. The path to becoming an architect involved 8 years of being an apprentice draftsman and project manager, 2 college degrees, 3 years being an 'intern architect' and sending credit reports to the NCARB national council, and 9 exams on topics ranging from design to structural engineering. "Architect" is a title protected by state government by a 'title law,' meaning its illegal to present yourself as an Architect without going through the hoops and obtaining a state license. The State licenses architects in order to "protect the health, safety, and welfare of the public" as the phrase goes. It's similar in concept to the legal requirements for being an M.D. in order to prevent quack doctors from killing people.

It's a huge relief to have jumped through that final hoop and finished the goal I've been working towards all these years. Perhaps it's time for a vacation, or better yet some nice big commercial projects to help pay off those student loans.

Dixon Architecture


As some of you have heard, I've starting working with Ken Dixon and his crew over at Dixon Architecture. I'm currently working on 2 monstrous precast concrete manufacturing facilities, some bank work, and a few other miscellaneous projects. I'm really digging my teeth into the large scale commercial work again after having spent the past year doing residential.

Posted here is my design for one of the manufacturing facilities. The client hadn't been satisfied with any of the sketches he had seen to date. So when I came on board I boiled down the numerous different looks and concepts that had been developed for the project so far. I kept some of the concepts, further developed some, and tossed some other out completely. The result was this sleek modernist design. Night and dawn views of a building like this do wonders to show off what might otherwise seem like a fairly boring concrete box, if seen only as a basic line drawing or in a sketchy form. Some projects show off much better with a 'warm fuzzy' sketch, but in this case the crisp photo-rendering definitely came through to really communicate the clarity of the design.





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