Practical Experience

Jane Tankard, Katerina Ruedi Ray

• Publisher: Routledge
• Year: 2012
• ISBN:
  9781136372667
• Edition: 1
• Topic: Architecture
• Subtopic: Architecture General

The year out, or internship, in a professional practice can be the most rewarding experience in an architectural student's education. It can also be a shock to the system to find that architectural working practices are very different to architectural study. This book provides a beginner's guide to professional practice and a step-by-step guide on how to find the placement that best suits your goals. It is the fourth title in the successful 'Seriously Useful Guides...' series.In order to give you a real insight into professional experience, this guide includes real
life case studies from students who have been through the experience and from practices that have taken them on. It guides you through the steps of finding a placement, outlines the norms and expectations for internship in different countries, and discusses codes of office behavior and professional ethics. Contemporary architectural
practices are becoming increasingly diverse and this guide outlines some Practical experience/Internship choices, providing cases studies of award wining firms that offer practical experience. These case studies range from conventional practices based on the art of building, to practices based on digital media or contemporary urbanism. Finally, the term 'critical practice' is becoming increasingly important, and the book provides some definitions and examples of critically based architectural practices.Also in the Seriously Useful Guides Series:
* The Crit
* The The Portfolio
* The Dissertation

Introduction

The Handbook

This handbook provides a guide to the process of finding, keeping, and making the most of the job or jobs you will need to complete your internship year or year out. It explains what to do, when to do it, and the major pitfalls you need to avoid along the way. It outlines existing requirements for the internship year in the USA and professional experience in the UK. It suggests ways in which you can, if you take time to understand the process, use your first few periods in professional employment to gain the kind of experience that is as close to your interests as possible. It outlines different kinds of practice that might fulfil your hopes as well as the expectations of professional systems in the USA and UK. We describe professional experience in a wide range of practices, including emerging practices, and practices in related disciplines that may not, at first glance, seem likely to fit conventional ideas of practice. In addition, the handbook points you to professional organizations in other countries so that you can begin to find out for yourself what the options for experience abroad might be.

The internship year or professional experience year is the first time most undergraduate architecture students spend a significant period in professional architectural or related employment. It is often the first stepping stone in a long career, and is therefore an important one. The right choice at the beginning will allow you to establish a direction for your professional career, and will advance and support your education. The right choice may also open doors you have not imagined, and change the way you think about the design and production of space, from buildings, cities, landscapes, and regions right down to designed objects and virtual environments. It may well impact your choice of graduate study, and beyond. We hope that this book will help to guide you through many of the choices you will need to make as you consider where and how to apply for a position, how to interview, how to be a productive member of an office, and how to make sure that you get as many elements of the experience you need to eventually get licensed or registered as an architect.

The main thing to remember as you read the book is that architectural offices vary enormously in the work they do and the way they treat their employees. Offices can also change with time. Licensing laws and professional charters can change too. We offer you a lot of advice. However, we also strongly advise you to check everything said here with advice from different licensing institutions in different countries and the expectations of individual offices. Nonetheless, if you follow the guidance in this book, and if you add your own intelligent research, this book should support you to make better choices and, more importantly, to have more choices to make in the first place.

The handbook consists of 13 chapters and two appendices at the end listing resources where you can go for more information. It explains the main ways to get the professional experience you need to get licensed or registered in the UK or the USA. We touch on a few variations in the process to show that the relationship between professional experience, education and licensing or registration as an architect varies in different countries as well as within the two countries that form the main focus of the handbook, the UK and the USA.

In Chapter 1, Practicing in the Built Environment, we introduce you to the notion of an architectural office and some key terms you might encounter in practice.

In Chapter 2, The Architectural Office, we elaborate further on the characteristics of an office, discussing the main types of practice you should consider within the architectural profession.

In Chapter 3, Other Types of Office, we introduce other types of practice in the built environment, from interior design and construction to landscape architecture and engineering.

In Chapter 4, Critical and Emerging Practices, we look at alternative forms of practice - the types of architectural and other practice that may not, at first glance, fit the expectations of internship or professional experience at all. We outline the ideas of theorists who have written about critical practice and how to think differently about professional education and professional organizations. We show how some of these ideas explain the recent emergence of critical practices in architecture and why this is an important development for the architectural profession.

In Chapter 5, The Year Out and Beyond, we describe professional experience and the process of becoming an architect in the UK. We outline the expectation for the professional experience period, and explain how the different stages of taking professional examinations relate to professional experience in practice.

In Chapter 6, Internship and Beyond, we describe professional experience and the process of becoming an architect in the USA. We explain how the Internship Development Program (IDP) in the USA works, the expectations of both student and employer, and the different ways in which professional experience and architectural education combine to lead up to the Architectural Registration Examination (ARE).

In Chapter 7, International Experience, we discuss different ways of becoming an architect in other countries, how to look for a job abroad, and some of the main opportunities and limitations.

In Chapters 8-10, respectively, UK, USA, and Other International Case Studies, we introduce a variety of design practices to show how professional experience differs, yet also has much in common, across the world. In order to emphasize differences and similarities among different practices, the firms are presented in a case study format.

In Chapter 11, Finding a Job, we describe some ways of finding and getting the right job. We talk about how to present yourself and your work through your application letter and portfolio, follow-up contacts, the interview and any subsequent negotiations. We make suggestions about what you should expect as a year-out student or intern, and different employment formats and contracts, including variations in benefits.

In Chapter 12, Office Cultures, we outline basic expectations of professional behaviour once you are employed. We cover subjects such as dress code, punctuality, time management, gender, race and sexuality at the office, professional ethics, dealing with clients, community service, socializing with the office, and handling conflicts.

Finally, in Chapter 13, Afterwards, we discuss how to terminate your employment, how to survive termination, how to stay on good terms with former employers, how to move on to the next position, or graduate school, or related fields of practice. We talk briefly about career options after taking the final professional or licensing examination, and how to use your architectural experience when making major career changes. We conclude this chapter and the book by advising you how to use your professional experience to in turn become a good mentor to interns and year-out students yourself.

Appendix A is a bibliography of useful readings about professional experience. Appendix B contains a list of nearly 100 web sites where you can find information about international architectural practice and experience in related practice areas.

In short, this handbook, describes many of the key issues you need to know about when you begin your first experience of practice in architecture. If you use the handbook well, it should help you decide where you want to be heading, how you can find and keep a position that advances your education and career, and what kind of employment is appropriate as a first step on your long journey to becoming a competent and committed professional.

1Practicing in the Built
Environment

Most internship programmes require interns to acquire experience under the direct supervision of a registered architect. Before going into greater detail about the nature of this supervision, it is important to understand that the work of architecture can take many different forms and lead you to a number of different professional destinations. In a global market the work of architecture is becoming increasingly diverse, bringing together architects and other allied design professionals. It is precisely because of this practical diversity that it is very hard to categorize contemporary architectural practices, but for the purposes of this handbook we will outline some examples. This chapter contains such examples. These have been selected from a wide range of professional destinations in contemporary architectural practice as well as other practices in related disciplines in the built environment and the arts. They outline the kind of destinations where it may be possible for you to gain internship credit (USA) or experience you can include on your Professional Experience and Development Record (UK). We hope that this will allow you to think more broadly about your interests, and the areas of practice from which you will be able to learn, and in which you may wish to work.

Before you begin to think about the kind of experience you may want or need, you should be aware that in general the requirements of professional training, including those in the USA and in the UK, can cover a wide range of expertise in various categories and that sometimes you might need to work in several offices in order to fulfil all of them. Also, please note that if you are working under the supervision of a registered landscape architect, engineer or other professional, or in a firm whose practice does not encompass the comprehensive range of architectural practice, your maximum training units or internship credits allowed might be limited. Some offices may offer elements of experience that will not provide training units or internship credits at all, but you may wish to gain experience there in order to better prepare you for the next job that can contribute towards credits or units.

In outlining the kind of practices suitable for a part or all of your year out or internship year, we also urge you to check regularly for any updates or changes in the internship legislation or year-out requirements of your country. You will need to contact the professional licensing organization appropriate to your situation (Architects' Registration Board (ARB) and Royal Institute of British Architects (RIBA) in the UK, National Council of Architectural Registration Boards (NCARB) for the USA), read the information you are given very carefully, usually make telephone calls if anything in unclear, and enlist the help and advice of other professionals as well if some of the process still appears mysterious or confusing. At the end of this book we provide a list of web sites for professional architectural organizations in many countries across the world to allow you to access as much information and key individuals as quickly as possible. Remember, when in doubt, ask, and if still unclear, ask again. You do not want to work for months and find that the time you have spent working will not count towards licensing (unless, of course, you love the work for its own sake).

The Architectural Office

The first decision you will need to make when planning your professional experience year is in which kind of office you are going to be looking for work. If the economy is good, and you are a good student, and also ideally already have a little experience, you may have a fair amount of choice. You may consider working in an engineering, construction, landscape, urban planning or interior design practice, but your choice will most likely first include an architectural office.

An architectural office - one of the most common destinations, and historically the greatest magnet for recent graduates - is a loose common name for wide range practices that vary in size, scope of work, expertise, and location. The design and construction of buildings is a complex process and involves many steps. As an intern in an architectural office you will work under the supervision of a more experienced architect and will most likely have the opportunity to be involved in schematic design, design development, construction documents, construction administration, site inspection and so on. NCARB in the USA defines 16 areas of competency, raging from project programming to community and professional service and it can be a challenge to plug in your experience on a particular project into an appropriate category. To help you make decisions about how best to organize your practical experience, you should always discuss the progress of your internship year or year out with your supervisor, mentor, and other interns, so as to define how various project phases fit into the training area descriptions. You should also make sure that you understand clearly the expectations of your supervisor and mentor (see Chapter 5: UK and Chapter 6: USA, for detailed information), and how they might help you to get a broader spread of architectural experience. Your mentor should act as a guide not only to the experience you will get, but can also help you make choices about where to focus your job applications. Although a mentor is not always perfect, she/he can also help you to present your existing skills and assets so as to have a good chance of getting the job you want and help you understand why certain skills are essential to success and how they fit the professional architectural world. If you need to read more about architectural practice, a list of general readings is included in Appendix A.

Computer-Aided Design and Digital Skills

Whereas the industrial revolution provided a context for architectural production based on physical proximity between users, designers, and sites of production and construction, this condition is now changing. Digital practices are becoming the nucleus of a virtual workplace; physical proximity is becoming less critical and a global distribution of production is becoming more and more normal. The ability to post your files online and send them through e-mail has contributed enormously to the globalization of architectural practices. Glass panels for a building may be produced in Mexico from construction packages digitally created jointly between a design team in New York and a construction documentation team located in India or Russia, then may be sent to California or Singapore for finishing and finally be delivered and assembled as par...

Table of contents

• Front Cover
• Half Title
• Title Page
• Copyright
• Contents
• About the Authors
• Acknowledgements
• List of Illustrations
• 1 Introduction
• Section One: Where to Go
• Section Two: Case Studies
• Section Three: How to Get There
• Section Four: Appendices
• Index