What he said.

This forum/board needs a Sticky section. Desperately. For posts like this. :-)

Thanks for posting this. The more open minded my clients are, the better the project turns out. I don't mind if they bring me a floor plan, as long as they aren't married to it. It's never been (so far) the best solution for their needs and the site.

As is often stated on GW, "People don't know what they don't know". I find this true multiple times daily.

I understand a Drafting service and an Architect are different. Are there different types of Architecture Degrees? We used an Architect to draw up our plans but the different plans for submission to the city was out sourced to an Architectural Engineering firm.

No, a professional degree in architecture in the US is the common degree in the discipline. These may be either 5-year undergraduate (B. Arch) or 6-year graduate (M. Arch) degrees. There are several non-professional degrees such as architectural studies, which is a shorter and less intense four-year undergraduate degree. Architectural engineering is relatively rare (as I remember there are only about a dozen universities in the US which offer AE degrees). Architectural engineering is usually focused on one of several specialties: structures, environmental controls and the like.

Virgil left out the 3 year minimum Intern Development Program prior to taking a weeklong exam which has a first time pass rate around 20%.

[...] taking a weeklong exam which has a first time pass rate around 20%.

:-O

Do you ever recover from this? Recurring nightmares? Eyelid twitches?

Dang.

Sounds like an opportunity for the residential architectural industry to address

I bet the general mindset is if I’m going to build a house I seek a builder not seek an architect

I didn’t see the value in using a residential architect until I jumped on this forum

Which is very interesting as I work with architects Specializing in commercial buildings on a regular basis

It took a while, but I did get over the Architect's exam. The exam is in several different sections. You're allowed to retake sections you fail. In Colorado at that time you could re-take sections for up to 7 years. If you couldn't pass all the sections in 7 years you had to start over. The hardest section for most people was the design section. You arrive at 7:00 am to be presented with a packet that contains a site and a program for a building. You have until 7:00 pm to do a complete design that includes floor plans, site plan, elevations, building sections and engineering drawings.

I took it at the Denver Merchandise Mart... probably one of the most dreadful spaces in all of Denver. The room was organized alphabetically and by how many times you took the exam. First time test takers were in the front. 7th time takers were in the way back about 200 feet from the front of the room where the restrooms were. Those were the folks I felt bad for.

Some pretty talented people just could not design a whole building in 12 hours and never did get licensed.

Sounds like an opportunity for the residential architectural industry to address

A little ways back, I suggested neon rainbow tie dye Hawaiian shirts to help with the PR and visibility, but *obviously* they didn't share my vision. Whatever. Y'all are on your own. :-P

In Colorado at that time you could re-take sections for up to 7 years. If you couldn't pass all the sections in 7 years you had to start over.

I already had a curious respect for architects, but holy cow. I had no idea the testing was so arduous. I'd be a little insulted at, "Will you draw these plans up for me?" too, if I was one of you. Wow.

Some pretty talented people just could not design a whole building in 12 hours and never did get licensed.

So how do you find the talented-yet-unlicensed folks? It's a bit easier to find the talented-and-licensed... What are the common career paths/job descriptions for those who couldn't meet the demands of an insanely stupid, nothing-like-the-real-world scenario in testing?

I mean, really.... A complete, major project in 12 hours? Who *are* these guys who come up with these requirements? They like to kick puppies, too?

I took the test in the late '70's when there was some blowback that the week long test was more of an endurance test in test taking rather than a measure of architectural skills. A thought not without merit.

It was four, four hour sections over two days. Downside was it was only given once a year and all four sections had to be passed at the same time to pass the test. If three sections were passed at and one was failed it was a retake of all four sections a year later. Also, if it was failed, a person didn't know which sections were passed or how good or bad the test went. All that was recieved was a simple pass or fail. By some miracle yet to be understood, I didn't have to come back a year later.

And we didn't have that silly/worthless formal Intern Development Program either. Past employers just filled out a form as to experience when the exam was applied for.

And interestingly, I don't think the skill level of architects that have completed the formal IDP and passed the week long test is any better or worse than the folks who informally documented their experience and took the two day test, especially when I see some of the posted plans here authored by real architects!

Upside was the whole thing was sort of a an informal reunion in that I saw many of my classmates I hadn't seen in a while. Had a blast at a restaurant the night in between and probably stayed out too late drinking beer for having to take the final two sections of the test first thing in the morning!

The 12 hour design portion of the test favored those who could design quickly, not necessarily well. I knew a number of good designers who really struggled with the exam. I'm grateful for the experience since it helped me eliminate indecision and the tendency to procrastinate. It taught me to focus, trust myself and make decisions quickly.

And we didn't have that silly/worthless formal Intern Development Program either.

Sometimes, I think the cohort that's ahead of the up-and-coming folks deliberately adds busywork to hinder the newbies' rates of advancement.

The 12 hour design portion of the test favored those who could design quickly, not necessarily well.

Not unlike other things in our society, where speed is prized above quality.

I imagine, too, that passing the exam -- just the act, in and of itself -- is a kind of bonding experience. Sharing war stories and all that. :-)

It's really neat to have y'all (architects) on these forums. Offering so much knowledge, experience, and humor, for free. It's a perspective most of us don't encounter offline, ever.

If you want to find someone that went to Architect school but isn’t licensed it just takes some asking. I found a residential designer that falls into that category. I never asked why he wasn’t licensed, but since he’s in CO, maybe he was one of the ones that couldn’t create the complete package within 12 hours. Or maybe he didn’t even care to try. I do know he’s been doing it for over 20 years and has designed over 300 homes so apparently it’s not hindering his ability to get clients. He has a great website and has been wonderful to work with and gets things done quick enough for me!

Not all good designers are architects. Not all architects are good designers. However, I know a lot more good designers who are architects than unlicensed designers. Why would someone with talent limit their opportunities by not getting licensed?

"...Why would someone with talent limit their opportunities by not getting licensed?..."

More often than not, it may be because they don't have a degree in architecture and don't qualify for the architectural licensing exam. Of course...there are always some exceptions...

Back when I had my firm we were fed a constant supply of office boy/girls by the one of the local high schools industrial arts teachers. Normally it was a senior who came in after school for 20 hours/week with an occasional Saturday thrown in. They worked full time in the summer following graduation and then left for some university in the fall where we would have another senior start.

One of these kids proved to be exceptionally talented. Although we encouraged him to go to some school and get formal design training, he never seemed interested. After a while he had his own "board" and we started giving him small design projects. By age 25 he was one of our two lead designers and we weren't that small either, about 16 people including 6 architects. He eventually went into business with a person who was an architect and is doing that today with nothing but a high school education. Exceptual design talent but not an architect.

Interesting sidebar: The industrial arts teacher who fed us these students was the same one I had in high school. I got a call from him one day saying from time to time he had a student that might benefit from working in an architectural office and the arrangement worked well over the years. They ran prints, did errands, colored drawings, took my partner and I to and from the airport when needed, etc. I always encouage anyone who wants to become an architect to try to find a job in an architect office while in high school.

He eventually went into business with a person who was an architect and is doing that today with nothing but a high school education. Exceptual design talent but not an architect.

[...]

I always encouage anyone who wants to become an architect to try to find a job in an architect office while in high school.

Thank you for such a brilliant idea!!! :-D My kiddos aren't neurotypical, so I'm always on the lookout for alternative ways to help them do various things. This kind of volunteer work/apprenticeship/intern program could be perfect for them later on, and can be adapted to *so many* fields of interest. Excellent.

Excellent post, ARG. I'm guessing many of us did something similar.

My kiddos aren't neurotypical, so I'm always on the lookout for alternative ways to help them do various things. This kind of volunteer work/apprenticeship/intern program could be perfect for them later on, and can be adapted to *so many* fields of interest.

I worked in an architect office my senior year in high school. During my junior year I figured I wanted to be an architect so I wrote the four or five firms in Northern Virginia within easy driving distance looking for a summer job. The summer gig didn't work out but one firm wrote back that had the same arrangement I described in my post above and if I was willing to work after school I could start in September. Had to give up cross country and track but that was ok.

So I kept my eyes open while doing the stuff we had office boys/girls do years later I described above and soon I had my own board doing press on lettering (remember those Virgil? The draftsmen would mark up the sheet in purple pencil and I'd letter over it) puttng shadows on presentation drawings with "Zip-a-Tone" (and getting VERY good at just cutting the film while NOT cutting the paper....LOL), drawing doors and windows for the schedules, bathroom elevations, etc. They ran all their own prints in house (it was my primary job) so when it was time to print 40 bid sets of a firestation that had 40 sheets, it meant the whole weekend and sometimes more as each sheet had to be fed in individually in the print machine that looked like an upright piano at about a minute a sheet.....LOL!

And when I went off to Va. Tech the next September I had a ready made summer job throughout college.

I always encourage anyone interested in a career to try to get into a place where they can see first hand what it's like, be it a veternarian, lawyer, medicine, finance, building/developing, etc. It's a "no lose" set up..... if the person likes it, they are learning what's it's like in the trenches and if they find they don't like it, it's before valuable time and money is spent in college. And of course when they complete college, they have experience, it's not the dreaded "I have all this expensive education but no experience" scenerio.

And of course, in most any profession , it's not what your know as much as who you know. Contacts are being made in high school that will last a life time. The office boy that came in two years after me, we became partners when setting up our firm which grew to 16 people including six architects and of course, an office boy/girl!

I'd like to know how you get the good interns. We've been getting them out of the local vo-tech program for a number of years now. One success, and a string of @#&$^!. I just had the most recent one bounced out of my office. I think they set her up at a local shelter. Just dumber than a bag of hammers and disinclined to put in any effort. We couldn't even get her to dress appropriately.

I admit, at this point in my career, my patience level for "job shadows" and interns of various sorts is insanely low. And half the female population of three local high schools want to "volunteer" in the kennel. O.o Mostly because actually working there would require a commitment on their part. Having to show up when there are fun things they'd rather be doing.

This has filtered up into the profession itself. My associate recently left, so I'm at least looking for a relief vet to come in one day a week so that I'm not working 6. The most recent one "didn't do surgery." Annoying, but OK, we'll just schedule around that. And then - well, 9 AM is sort of early. She'd prefer to just come in at 10:30. Srsly?

And these are the licensed folks. Ah, the joys of professional licensing. Ours was a 2-day affair. I do remember calling home and having a break-down at my father between the NBE (National Board Exam) and the CCE (Clinical Competency Exam). SO many of the questions were just esoterica. I have no idea why I need to know how many times a rabbit doe nurses her young in order to be a practicing vet, but there it was. I think, at this point, the CCE has been done away with because they couldn't find a way to do a computer-based version that wasn't hackable. Ours used an invisible ink/magic marker. You got a scenario, then a list of things you could do. If you chose to do that thing (run bloodwork, for example) you used the marker to uncover the results. Working your way through all the sections of each "case" should bring you to the correct diagnosis. You got points for all the elements that you uncovered that you SHOULD have uncovered - and lost points for any that you should NOT have needed to do.

For more fun, my state has FINALLY instituted a CE requirement. And, being my state, has not bothered to actually clarify what it is. So, I'm required to have 45 hours of CE by the next time I renew my license - 10 of them as in-person modules. But no idea what the break down by topic will be. Yay!

Possibly I'm just too cantankerous at this point to be trusted with the young ones. Get off my lawn!!

Great rant, Holly! Congratulations! To appreciate all this, one has to have been there.

You can flip it the other way and find there aren't many great mentors as well. I'm most humbled by those that take the time to teach me things. Yes you need to be willing to learn but a good mentor/teacher will dig deep to find your potential.

ARG,

"They ran prints, did errands, colored drawings,"

Is this when you developed your talent for clouds?

This discussion reminded me of a very talented guy I dated during my university years. His father was an architect and he was quite talented but had issues getting work finished and meeting deadlines. He was not happy when the university architecture faculty used his studio project to show off the top quality of work done in the program. The problem was they wanted to take credit for his work but did not share that the project received a failing grade.

I decided to look up his info on the internet and noticed that he is listed as a mechanical designer, and I expect he does very good work. There are talented people who don't fit well into pigeonholes and the construction industry has attracted many of them with opportunities for creativity and quality workmanship

Well, I lack ARG's filtering mechanism. What I mostly get its Mommy coming in to ask if the daughter can "volunteer." Fun fact: This is an instant "no." The kid in question needs to have the gumption to come in personally and ask, preferably with a little introduction letter or something like it to leave for us.

The competition is stiff, and they need 240 hours to even apply to vet school. I just wish I got the serious kids, and not the cohort that just wants to get out of school early. :-P

And yes, I have a subset of clients that regularly calls and insists they know what their pet has and just want to pick up meds. That is also a "no." Not only by office policy, but also the FDA.

There is a regular misunderstanding in the general public as regards licensed professions. Not only did we have to jump through extra hoops, we are also held to a higher standard. For every privilege (i.e. writing prescriptions) there is a responsibility (demonstration of a valid doctor/client/patient relationship).

When you ask a licensed professional to do something that could potentially compromise those responsibilities, the refusal isn't just snobbery - it's a necessary protectiveness of both license and professional reputation. Nobody wants their license pulled. Or even to be put on probation. (My profession is very small - ALL the licensed vets in the US would fit in a large college football stadium). Nobody wants their reputation damaged either among their peers or with the public. Therefore, threatening to trash me to your friends and neighbors isn't really that much of a threat when compared to the potential issues.

I suspect that architects regard requests to "just draw up plans for the house I designed" with the same jaundiced eye. You're asking them to put their own name legally and publicly on something that they did not create from the blank page state. I can see where this is a nonstarter for most of them.

Licenses are a PITA to get, require constant cognizance of Da Rulz to keep, and are typically much more important to the license holder than the general consumer. Even though they largely exist for the protection of said consumer.

As for mentoring relationships, I have a few. But that time and emotional energy commitment gets reserved for the few that prove to be serious FIRST.

Every once in a while someone brings a set of plans they want me to stamp. The last one was a renovation and restaurant tenant improvement. It turned into a really good working relationship once the client saw how I could enhance the project. Together we created a beautiful, very successful restaurant.

Excellent comments, Holly, which apply to every profession and professional. Thank you.

@Summit, glad your request to "stamp a set of plans" morphed into a good outcome for both you and the client.

We've had plenty of prospective clients come into our office with a floor plan they've sketched up on graph paper. They'll ask us to have our staff architect simply "draw it up" but before he does, they need a highly accurate construction cost estimate based on the graph paper plans. It never ends well. Clients get defensive about their designs no matter how illogical they may be (e.g., stairs that don't line up from floor to floor.) The project rarely get built by anyone.

Now, when someone comes to our office with graph paper floor plans in hand, we agree to either file them away (a.k.a. throwing them out) and begin at the beginning or we politely excuse ourselves from further consideration as designer or builder.

For folks who are in "graph paper mode" please consider this: You've probably logged thousands of hours and hundreds of thousands of miles in a vehicle as either a driver or passenger. You've got a definite preference for how a vehicle should look and how it should function. Would you ever sketch one up on graph paper and then take the sketch to the folks at GM's or Ford's design center for them to just draw it up? To be fair, a vehicle is not a home. A home has more parts and costs many times more than a typical vehicle.

I agree with Summit, there is no need to turn down a homeowner if they provide the drawings done by them or the drafter... Have to look in a positive way and It only helps with the design process and helps to get to know the client and their needs, come out with a nice design and build a nice relationship.

I'm not an Architect but I been doing drawings for the last 15 years or so, I do my own drawings for my projects, like additions, complete home remodeling with cross section details, elevations, construction notes, load calculations, etc (no worst if not better than some of the drawings I have seen that came from professional Architects, some even said I'm in the wrong business :-)).

I also been doing lots of drawings for Homeowners and Contractors all over the country, using go-to-meetings sessions online, have them visualize the outcome of their project in 3D, etc before they go see their architect and provide them with dwg files so they can forward them to their architect and if they wish to make improvements,changes, make adjustments to comply with local codes etc and I had nothing but a positive feedback from clients and Architects as well because on many occasions we would have a discussion about the design and also do online session.

That said I have been dealing with many Architects and engineers in over 30 years being in business, I have to say that most Architects I met are highly educated and experienced professionals and it's a pleasure to work with most of them, and they don't care if you come with your own drawings for consultation or to add general notes to get the drawings stamped and ready for a building permit, etc, they're interested to work with you or the client and with a combined effort come to a nice design not to mention it is a pleasure to refer someone to them knowing your client will not be disappointed. It's all about building a good relationship with a client, that is the major goal in any business.

I also met so called " Educated stuck-up" Architects, who know one thing "my way or the highway" and not only with contractors but homeowners as well, not to mention they would get bent out of shape if asked to make a change or if you prove them that something will not work and they just don't want to admit that they wrong, or they missed something, etc or they just don't know any better.

I also kicked many of plans back because of undesized beams or some other details that needed change or correction because of the change in code, or simply overdesigned and will waste a lot of money for the homeowner on things that they don't need.

Also you come across some drawings which indicate one thing and on another page it will have details from something else or from another plan or structure or just taken from the sky. Nothing will match up and you can tell it seems like it was done on the fly and they never took the time to check all the details when visiting clients home, just sloppy and careless work...

Most Architects like Summit (I enjoy reading his posts and great advice he gives), Architectrunnerguy (who is my idol and helped me out a few times:-).) and a few others, you can tell they have an "old school mentality" and willing to work with clients without knocking people down for one reason or another, and their goal is to achieve a satisfactory final results, make a customer happy and build a lasting relationship with a client. You can tell people like that have a passion and love for what they do.

I'm pretty much have the same mentality, I enjoy working with customers who are involved and it don't matter they're educated or not, I don't mind customers who come with sketches, or throw ideas no matter how crazy they might be, etc the goal is to work together, come up with a nice design and build a nice professional relationship throughout the process and afterwards.

Good luck

Readers of this thread, especially those considering doing their own drawings and taking them in to an architect for "stamping" should know that in most (all?) states in the U.S., the architectural practice acts mandate that all drawings from an architectural firm must be either done by the architect or under the direct supervision of the architect.

Violation of a title/practice act risks penalties such as fines and loss of one's license to practice architecture in that state.

Few architects are willing to take such risks.

Consumers should understand the laws which govern the practice of architecture and the reasons architects may not simply stamp or redraw what a consumer may have authored. Besides the legal issues, the are often a host of other reasons why an architect will not simply redraw what a consumer has authored, such as the design may be incompetent and/or unworkable for a wide variety of reasons.

A professional's reputation rides on his previous work. Few architects want their name attached to work which is not professional and creative, and which does not meet the standard each architect sets for her/his business reputation.

As others have written, all of these reasons are the same reason a doctor will not simply write a prescription for a consumer's self diagonsis.

I have not recovered from the exam.