10 THINGS ARCHITECTS COULD LEARN FROM IMPROV

1. Teamwork. One can not do it all alone. Sorry divas and Starchitects! Improv teams play well together. Each member of a scene has a purpose and asks themselves, “How can I contribute to the larger picture?” In improv, the better you make your partners look the better you look. Truth is: in improv, everyone is a supporting actor. Hmmm…
2. Play to be creative. Improv actors are trained to play… like when we were kids. If you watch kids play, they are not self conscious. They are uninhibited. They accept, extend, and advance each others play cues. They are open, curious, and laughing. To be creative, in a group setting, particularly in charrettes… if we learn to “accept” one’s ideas, then “extend” it by building on it, and lastly “advance” the idea by basing another idea off of it, we could see more fruitful results.
3. Storytelling. Good improv teams are great storytellers. Architects can learn to communicate the design problem and tell the storied solution from improv actors. After all, how does one take audience suggestions like, “reality TV,” “U2 concert,” and “Leonardo DiVinci” and make it work in a scene!?
4.Performance. Improv can help take stage fright and nerves and use them to your advantage. It will make you fearless. During presentations, own the nerves and don’t forget that every time there is a presentation there is still a need for some performance aspect. One thing I learned from doing improv is that the audience is always rooting for you to succeed. Know that… and check your zipper before hand. If the meeting goes awry, then be confident in having no idea what’s going on.
5. Be agreeable. There is a golden rule in improv called, “Yes, and…” That is, in improv, instead of being able to negate a new idea or direction your partner comes up with, you are required to agree with your partner; and then add information. Doing this takes one from being a listener to a contributor. It advances ideas and dialogue. This can be useful in design charrettes and collaborative settings.
6. Be open-minded. Improv actors can not go into a scene with a preconceived idea and wait to play it. If they do, they will miss some cues and ideas a partner may have thrown out there. And then the scene gets weird. Same goes for design.
7. Justification. In improv there are all sorts of absurdities, mistakes, and contradictions. In a good scene, the actors tie everything together and justify everything. Architects can do the same thing. There are always last minute program requirements that impact massing. We can learn to improvise the design and make sense of changes.
8. Ask questions better. Questions should give more than they take. In fact, don’t ask questions if you can avoid it. Make a statement. There is ownership in a statement. Take a position and see it through.
9. Pay attention to detail. Improv actors listen and observe everything in a scene well. Details lead to the objective. Details will lead architects in developing creative solutions as well. If we are not mindful of details, we will end up just spinning our wheels and making decisions on false pretenses.
10. No agenda for creativity. Set a time a place to be creative. In improv, it’s during a show and the stage is dark and empty. The same could be for architects. Set up a brief time and place. The time shouldn’t be more than 1-1/2 to 2 hours. After that, we lose focus. Shorter, intense meetings are better than longer disheveled meetings. Have a unique place where the creativity can happen. It should be quiet and secluded and permit creativity to occur.
via John Gresko, Project Architect | Chicago, IL, USA
Source: blink.hdrinc.com
The reason it takes five years to become an architect is, that it takes that long to become that arrogant.
Source: archistudent
Why Architecture’s Identity Problem Should Matter to the Rest of Us
One of the best posts I’ve ever read about architecture profession.

Perhaps it was the Legos, or watching Mike Brady belly up to his drafting board on TV. In recent months and years, the likes of President Obama, Brad Pitt, Lenny Kravitz, and numerous other public figures have divulged a love of architecture, going so far as to say they once—or still—wanted to be architects. They, like so many of us, have a romantic view of the architecture world.
It makes sense when you stop to think about it: there are few more creative, more transformative, more direct ways to literally make the world a better place. Almost nothing influences the quality of our lives more than the design of our homes, our schools, our workplaces, and our public spaces.
Architecture can enliven and inspire. Three decades ago this year, at the tender age of 21, Maya Lin, then a Yale student, captivated the nation with her minimalist design for the Vietnam Memorial. Her subsequent work has won acclaim the world over.
We need more architects like Maya Lin to lift us up. But there’s a problem: Lin is not considered an architect by the architecture profession itself. You’d think those within her chosen field would at least embrace Lin as an architect—if not as a luminary, an innovator, or even a genius. Instead, the architecture establishment does something astounding, demeaning, and perplexing: they relegate her to the title of “intern” because she focused on making architecture, rather rites of passage.
Earning a diploma from architecture school isn’t enough to be awarded the title of “architect.” Graduates must also complete a multi-year internship and pass a costly seven-part exam, steps Lin skipped because she was spending her time designing. It’s a long, arduous road that many in the field are either unable or simply unwilling to travel. Shaun Donovan, the U.S. Secretary of Housing & Urban Development, who earned his architecture degree from the Harvard Graduate School of Design, isn’t an architect, nor TED Prize winner and showman Cameron Sinclair of Architecture for Humanity. Architecture school deans, firm owners, and countless others aren’t “real” architects either. These people are doing amazing, world-changing work, exactly what we want and need more architects to be doing.
In fact, more than half of architecture school graduates don’t enter the profession. Fewer still get licensed, which means that the majority of the best and brightest are held in professional limbo or exit the profession entirely. This has been the status quo for decades, and it’s time for a change. We, the public, need architecture and dignifying spaces now more than ever.
Lest you think this title stuff is just semantics, think again. The profession and the public are measurably worse off because of this issue. While diversity in architecture schools is comparable to law and other fields, architecture remains one of the most elite and homogenous professions, clinging to institutional barriers that have thwarted gender parity and diversity efforts. Massive resources are spent on bureaucracy instead of nurturing a more representative profession to serve our diverse society, and supporting architects to create better, more vibrant public spaces.
Rather than spending their energy protecting their territory and titles, what if architects and their associations focused on resolving our nation’s housing crisis, improving our schools, or generally creating more inspiring environments for people to live their best lives? With buildings now accounting for almost half of greenhouse gas emissions, we need an army of architects to go back to drawing board and create more environmentally-friendly buildings, rather than an aging few tending to the drawbridge.
I’m not arguing against professional standards, especially not for a profession charged with making sure buildings don’t fall down. Clearly, there must be ways to demonstrate one’s qualifications in architecture or any other field, and an exam is widely regarded as the most reliable way to do so.
The difference is that medical school graduates are universally recognized among their peers and by the public as doctors even before their residencies and subsequent board exams. Graduates of law schools are considered lawyers even before passing the bar. But graduates of architecture school, who have at least five to seven years of schooling, are recognized with the lowly title of “intern.” They are forced into under-compensated internships as well as warned, policed, and even fined by architect-led state licensing boards for infringing on the word “architect” in any way. Is there any wonder why architecture graduates are defecting in droves?
These inequities, when combined with the economic downturn, are pushing greater numbers of graduates out of architecture, and the profession is weaker for it. More importantly, the public is also losing out, as the creative skills of architecture graduates are channeled into an overly bureaucratic process, rather than into solving very real societal challenges.
For years, even the leaders of the high and mighty American Institute of Architects have recommended reforming and broadening the rules of becoming an architect—starting with what we call graduates. Yet year in and year out, nothing changes due to institutional resistance, protectionism, and self-preservation.
It is high time that architecture focus less on enforcement of titles and fortifying its barriers to entry, and more on creating an inclusive profession truly dedicated to the health, the safety, and the welfare of the public.
Dieter Rams Ten Principles of “Good Design”
Even though it’s written in the sense of industrial design, read this post with a mind on architecture and keep in mind that all design should be started with these 10 principles

Good Design Is Innovative : The possibilities for innovation are not, by any means, exhausted. Technological development is always offering new opportunities for innovative design. But innovative design always develops in tandem with innovative technology, and can never be an end in itself.
Good Design Makes a Product Useful : A product is bought to be used. It has to satisfy certain criteria, not only functional but also psychological and aesthetic. Good design emphasizes the usefulness of a product while disregarding anything that could possibly detract from it.
Good Design Is Aesthetic : The aesthetic quality of a product is integral to its usefulness because products are used every day and have an effect on people and their well-being. Only well-executed objects can be beautiful.
Good Design Makes A Product Understandable : It clarifies the product’s structure. Better still, it can make the product clearly express its function by making use of the user’s intuition. At best, it is self-explanatory.
Good Design Is Unobtrusive : Products fulfilling a purpose are like tools. They are neither decorative objects nor works of art. Their design should therefore be both neutral and restrained, to leave room for the user’s self-expression.
Good Design Is Honest : It does not make a product more innovative, powerful or valuable than it really is. It does not attempt to manipulate the consumer with promises that cannot be kept
Good Design Is Long-lasting : It avoids being fashionable and therefore never appears antiquated. Unlike fashionable design, it lasts many years – even in today’s throwaway society.
Good Design Is Thorough Down to the Last Detail : Nothing must be arbitrary or left to chance. Care and accuracy in the design process show respect towards the consumer.
Good Design Is Environmentally Friendly : Design makes an important contribution to the preservation of the environment. It conserves resources and minimises physical and visual pollution throughout the lifecycle of the product.
Good Design Is as Little Design as Possible : Less, but better – because it concentrates on the essential aspects, and the products are not burdened with non-essentials. Back to purity, back to simplicity.

German industrial designer Dieter Rams and his ten principles of “good design”. The straightforward list lays down key points, clearly stating what makes a good design. This information is a timeless source of inspiration that most any designer can appreciate.
Source: archdaily.com
Want a Job? Don’t Major in Architecture…sometimes the truth hurts
This can easily be a demotivation poster for architecture students
Source: theallnighter
Keep calm and CAD
That “little” change that you’re going to make, always will bring you problems. It’s never just a line moving a few centimeters, it’s another hour of work!!!
Happy Holidays Everyone!
This was a post we reblogged awhile ago and it got us mentioned on archdaily!!! If you haven’t seen it yet, enjoy, and click the photo to check out the archdaily post
(via hush-hushsettledown)
Source: theallnighter
Coming Home from studio, 4am…Shit, forgot I did my laundry…I should have folded it then…fuck it
Ooo, this is such a familiar moment and so sad. I also do this:

Source: theallnighter
Slightly different facts about Architecture

- Architecture received his 5 year Architectural degree in only 4 years
- Architecture doesn’t have a first or middle name
- When Architecture throws a party, he shows up 10 minutes later than fashionably late
- If a Grizzly Bear and a Polar Bear got into a fight, Architecture could break it up
- Architecture averaged 5.4 yards per carry in college but never played football
- In the song ‘12 Days of Christmas‘, the role of “my true love” was written for Architecture
- Architecture prefers his liquor brown and without any fruit
- Architecture has many lovers, usually at the same time
- Architecture told Le Corbusier that he should only use the first five points
- If Architecture enters a room, the temperature will rise by 2.08° degrees
- The Universe is expanding at 74.2km/sec/Mpc … Architecture is expanding slightly more than that
- Architecture owns the Dallas Cowboys football team
- It is generally thought that a female wolf will have one mate in her life … unless Architecture happens by
- Architecture has many secrets, but he will never share them because they would literally blow your mind
- Architecture has entered the Iditarod Alaskan trail race 4 times … and won 4 times
- Architecture invented water skiing on accident
- 74% of all Valentines Day cards are written with Architecture in mind
- Architecture taught Sylvester Stallone how to arm wrestle for the movie ‘Over the Top’
- No one has ever seen Architecture drink water
- Architecture can tell the origin of a piece of brick just by tasting it
- Chromium, the 24th element on the Periodic Table of Elements, was discovered by Architecture
- Architecture has never lost a staring contest
- The ‘Heimlich Maneuver’ was originally called the ‘Architecture Maneuver’ but Architecture thought that was confusing so he changed the name to ‘Heimlich ‘, after the man whose life he saved when he invented the maneuver.
- Architecture has never been married but he has been asked many times
- Architecture passed all the tests on the Architectural Registration Exam without having to take the test
- Architecture once ate 50 boiled eggs on a dare
- You can’t follow Architecture on Twitter, but he can follow you
- Architecture knows the last number in pi
- Architecture can talk about Fight Club
- Architecture’s sh*t actually does smell like roses
- At Christmas time, Santa Claus sits on Architecture’s lap
- Architecture once painted the world’s most beautiful oil painting using watercolors
- Lou skips to my Architecture
- Architecture went into the woods to get a Christmas tree and it fell over for him
- Architecture puts his pants on both legs at a time
- When Architecture chops onions, they cry
- Architecture considers practice to be a form of cheating
- The sun does rise and set on Architecture
- Architecture knows the secret behind Stonehenge
- If you have a good idea, it’s because Architecture let you have it
- When Architecture defuses a bomb, he cuts any wire he wants to
- Architecture actually knows what Willis is talking about
- If a werewolf bit Architecture, it would be cured
- Architecture knows what building Elvis is currently in
- It was Architecture that said that the 7th day was for rest, although he didn’t rest
- Architecture can speak Klingon … but he won’t
- Architecture knows all eleven secret herbs and spices in Kentucky Fired Chicken
- Architecture’s To-Do list has won a Pulitzer
- Architecture doesn’t need short-cut keys in AutoCAD
- It was Architecture that told Paul Revere that the British were coming
- As always, unique and funny in his specific architectural way - Bob Borson - LifeOfAnArchitect.com
Lets learn something:
How is climate change impacting the water cycle?
SOLUTIONS DIRECTOR
Climate change is increasing our risk of both heavy rains and extreme droughts. But why is that? Aren’t the two contradictory? Take a look at our new visual guide to how climate change impacts the water cycle.
You might remember the water cycle from school: Water evaporates from the land and sea and returns to the earth as rain and snow. Climate change is intensifying that cycle. Higher temperatures mean there is more evaporation. Warmer air can hold more water vapor, which can lead to more intense rainstorms. But much of the water runs off into the rivers and streams, and the soil remains dry. More evaporation from the soil increases the risk of drought.
This graphic draws a picture of how global warming changes the water cycle, and in turn is changing the weather we see outside. Take a look at this graphic and share it with your friends.
Architects should care about the envireoment. Architects should thing green.
Christmas for architects
Architecture joke
- Why girls can’t be good architects?
- Because, their whole life, guys have lied to them how much is 20cm / 8 inches.
Girls, please don’t get me wrong and start hating, this is a joke a professor of mine once told.
My apologies :)

German industrial designer Dieter Rams and his ten principles of “good design”. The straightforward list lays down key points, clearly stating what makes a good design. This information is a timeless source of inspiration that most any designer can appreciate.




