Charles Thornton, one of the world’s preeminent structural engineers, once said that the greatest challenge facing the profession of structural engineering is that “I don’t think we have enough self-esteem and enough confidence in ourselves to believe that what we do is so important... Architects are trained to present, to communicate, to sell, to promote themselves, to promote their industry, and to take credit for what they do.”
As a structural engineer with over a decade of experience, I agree with Mr. Thornton—to an extent.
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How to Succeed as a Young Architecture Professor (Without Dying in the Process)
In this article originally published in Spanish by the Arquia Architecture Foundation's blog, the author Manuel Saga speaks about the important task of involving young professors in architecture schools, arguing that it is essential that the academic route is seen as a real option with as much value as being a “big name designer,” especially when you take into account the current crisis seen within the industry.
Framebench, an online tool for visual collaboration, seeks to alleviate the digital sharing problems architects and designers commonly face in practice. Aiming to do away with file storage systems, FTP clients and other kinds of complex software, this web application allows for teams and individuals to share, discuss and annotate drawings in real time. Framebench suggest that "this could be the online space where you can organize all your drafts and finals, get feedback and approve the work that's finished" - in realtime.
The system works by creating workspaces for teams to quickly share their files with one another. You can share any image, video, or document with your team, who can then view it right there without any downloads or installation. While viewing, anyone can annotate on top or leave comments; these comments transform into discussion threads that can be referred back to and added to later.
This article on Line/Shape/Space by Jeff Yoders discusses how BIM can be used to good effect by bringing different professionals together early on in a design project. By utilizing the shared BIM model over the cloud - or even by providing a dedicated "Computer-Aided Visual Environment" or "BIM CAVE" (seriously) - clashes can be detected early, design priorities can be more balanced, and ultimately the time and cost requirements of a project can be significantly reduced. You can read the full article here.
On August 22, 2011 a live map that charts members of interior design, architecture, and related consultants on Twitter was released into the wild. In only three days it had already surpassed 8000 views, and added 120 professionals to the map.
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