I believe I was born in the wrong era. I struggle to be just an architect as prescribed in current times.
In the early years of my undergraduate architectural education at UTA, I wanted to pursue a Masters in Structural Engineering along with a Masters in Architecture, after completing my Bachelors of Science. My thought was, 'Why should I only know part of the building'?. I should know what holds it up also. I changed my mind after entering into a class called 'statics and dynamics'. I have no interest in the dynamics part of engineering. Why would I want to voluntarily give myself a headache? So since structural engineers need to know both the statics (architect stuff) AND dynamics (rockets scientist stuff) I let the idea go.
I moved on to the concept of urban planning, since that is what my undergraduate minor is in. I began my graduate program in the School of Urban and Public Affairs. The aim was a Masters in City and Regional Planning. There is nothing wrong with writing. But as career field I would not enjoy writing reports as a daily work cycle. I guess I could have saved myself some trouble if I would have asked the one of he architecture professors if city and regional planning was similar to the urban planning that we learned in the school of architecture. Well, it is not. It is more related with government work than urban planning. From my understand they hire the urban planner.
Now I have finally found what I can add in addition to my architecture, construction management. This along with practicing architecture allows me go beyond handing the construction documents to the contractor and moving on to the next project. I would be able to go from the start to the end of a project.
The master builder is what architects were consider prior to 20th century. The master builder designed the structure and carried out all the responsibilities of ensuring that structure was erected and finished. Now the architect only supervises after the construction documents are handed to the contractor/construction manager. The building process is riddled with contracts of liability now. It is a more complicated process than before. New inventions have brought various components into a building. A person can no longer be a masterbuilder within a developed nation like the US.
I should have been born in the era masterbuilders.
-namanis
