An architect designs and sometimes supervises the construction of buildings.

Anything from tunnels that

run far beneath the ground, to skyscrapers that tower above it, architects have always had a hand in
building these great structures. Yes, you too can be an architect! But how, you ask? Just read on, and you
will find out!

Architects have designed the greatest buildings in history, from the stoic World Trade Center in New York,
to the graceful and natural Falling Waters house in Pennsylvania, building styles differ as much as the
architects who build them. One of the most famous architects is Frank Lloyd Wright, who designed the
aforementioned

Falling Waters and also the Robie house in Illinois. He is often considered the most creative architect of our
time for his use of natural surroundings and building materials found in nature. No other man has made
such an impact on architecture as Frank Lloyd Wright.

Architects can work in a variety of conditions, but most work in office buildings that contain architectural
firms of about three to six people. However, sometimes the job demands that an architect go out on the
actual building site to supervise construction.

This is a minor inconvenience to the architects, but on a general scale, architects have extremely
comfortable surroundings that promote less stress among them. Often, and more so nowadays,
architectural firms are adopting CAD programs, or Computer Aided Design as the main tool for designing
buildings. It provides an easy to use interface over the previous pencil and paper method. As a result, CAD
software is growing vastly in usage and many colleges are now offering courses just in CAD.

Often, architects have to make considerations before the actual design phase of any building. The most
important of these is cost. If a building is made of cheaper building materials, the architectural firm gets
more money from the buyer. Other considerations are the style of the building, which depends heavily
upon the surrounding buildings, not to mention the environment, functionality, elevations, and zoning
regulations. The zoning regulations limit the size and shape of the building so that it doesn’t interfere with
the area around the building and the overall skyline of the neighborhood. Often, zoning regulations are a
large problem in major cities, and architects either have to compromise with the zoning authority or have
the building not be built at all.

These compromises are an annoyance for architects and make life a little interesting for these public
servants.

The goal of an architect is to design accordingly to the time with an understanding of the relationship
between space and activity. In his essay Space and Events, Bernard Tschumi says, “There is no space
without even, no architecture without program.” He then continues with, “Architecture cannot be
dissociated from the events that ‘happen’ in it” (Tschumi, 139).
Spaces have always been assimilated with past references, which create a type of familiarization and
attachment to the past that prevents time from moving forward. Because of this assumption about the
form, function, and meaning; thus architecture has been restricted by these familiarization and these
assumptions.