I would welcome some more comments from you Steve on the role of
collaboration among architects as I am engaged in writing a book on
intellectually productive collaborations, thanks, Vera John-Steiner
Well, I can't give you any insight into how architects collaborate into
their work, but being an architecture student, I may be able to help you with
that. Others may see it differently, but the environment here in the
architecture school at RPI is that everyone is getting critiqued all the time
from both professors and classmates. It works to a great advantage. I often
find things in my designs that I wouldn't normally see otherwise, and it
wouldn't help either if those critiquers did not give us alternative design
solutions to help resolve certain problems in the design. Recently though, I
have been in two design studios where we have worked collaboratively with
students in majors outside of architecture. One studio I worked in, we worked
in collaboration with structural engineering majors from the start of our
design, and when we had certain structural wquestions about our design, the
engineers were there. At the same time though, if we may have been oushing a
structure the wrong way, they would offer alternative solutions, but I would
make sure that I would still be able to get what I wnat aesthetically in the
design. It turned out really well, and it was a good feeling to know, as a
student, that I had a design that really pushed the structural devleopment of
my design, but yet still knew that the building was also going to stay up in
the end, with such an elaborate structure. Currently, I am ina design
development studio, where I really investigate and devlep one of my designs.
This semester we have really engaged with professionals of different fields.
We've been critiqued in our designs by structural and mechanical engineers as
well as contractors. It all has produced a very positive effect on my design.
The key thing to understand though is that it was always pushed to bring the
engineer, contractor, etc. in from the begiinning of a design, and the
architect's design will be that much better and that much easier, plus we end
up all learning from one another.
I hope this helps Vera.
-- Stephen Van Hoose 5th Year B.A. Architecture Student Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute School of Architecture Troy, NY mail: vanhos who-is-at rpi.edu web address: http://www.rpi.edu/~vanhos