Architects vs. Engineers
Today I read an interesting article about the gray area that differentiates between an architect and an engineer. You can find it here.
It was all about the controversy over engineers designing buildings that they shouldn’t be designing. According to Texas law, buildings that are meant to house large numbers of people must be designed by architects. But the law is vague, so engineers have started designing buildings that architects claim should go to them. Thus the feud between architects and engineers. Architects say that engineers are illegally designing when they are not trained to do so. Engineers say that architects are trying to stake their claim in projects that do not need them. And then, of course, there is the back and forth name calling.
An example of the controversy comes in the form of a Fine Arts center in the Lorena school district. It was designed by an engineer and, although the school district has no problems with the building, architects have protested.
All this boils down to how important design is. In the Lorena case, should a somewhat low-key project require an architect when an engineer can build a useable, standing building? Why pay the extra expense of hiring an architect?
As an architecture student, I feel that the problem lies in public misunderstand what design entails. Most seem to think that architects simply make pretty buildings, that their somewhat unnecessary role is to make buildings pretty. The article itself admits to this generalization when it describes the professions of architecture and engineering:
Architects are the creative souls who produce soaring monuments to human ambition. Critics review their work; glossy magazines treat them like movie stars. They wear fashionable glasses.
Nerdy in a quadratic-equation sort of way, engineers dress like Kinko’s managers and drone on about dimensional stability. With the exception of Dilbert, they remain anonymous until called on to explain why a bridge collapsed.
While it is true that many architects wear fashionable glasses (like my last professor) and have an inflated ego, architects aren’t simply artists. And design isn’t simply about beauty. The article includes Vitruvius’s three points of architecture: firmness, commodity, and delight. This means that architects concern themselves with structural integrity and how people use a building in addition to looks. But the article made it seem that architects only care about pretty and ugly buildings, which is what engineers seem to latch on. They point out the impracticality of always building pretty buildings. It would simply cost too much. And, as one engineer remarked, ”I never knew anybody to get killed by an ugly building.”
That statement is what bothers me so much about society’s ambivalent and ignorant approach towards architecture. We live in a world where good architecture is extremely rare, and bad architecture is normal. From suburban homes to strip malls to the modern office building, architecture in America is mundane and ineffective. And while it is true that all these ugly buildings have not killed us, they do affect how we live.
Good design not only makes a building aesthetically pleasing, but it also enhances the human experience. It improves personal health, increased productivity, enhances our awareness of our surroundings. We complain about how the modern world is cold and inhumane, but much of this is our own fault. We demand bad architecture, and we pay for it with our quality of life.
Furthermore, an untrained engineer cannot design as effectively as a trained architect. People seem to think that architectural design is easy. Just add columns or elaborate moulding or high ceilings and skylights and you have good architecture. That specific elements are necessarily positive. But this is not true. It is like how every homeowner thinks that adding travertine floors and granite countertops will make their house better. But each house it different, and often adding these elements ruins a house rather than enhances it.
The thing with architecture is that most people do not see or think in an architectural manner. Architecture, essentially, is about designing empty space. What matters most is not the walls or windows or ceilings, but the space between all of these elements. Architects know how to make energized spaces, relaxed spaces, intimate spaces, grand spaces, warm spaces, cool spaces. Spaces for standing, spaces for moving, spaces for talking, spaces for watching. And all these spaces are simply filled with air.
This is what engineers cannot do. They view architecture the way everybody views architecture, as objects and not spaces. Good design is important. And while I agree, architects these days often over-design, producing pricy, unnecessary buildings, architects are important in producing a building.
I had this conversation with my family the other day, because we were pointing out the Frost Bank tower to my little brother. My brother didn’t understand the difference between architects and engineers and I think I said something along the lines of, “Architects design everything, the engineers figure out how to build it” to simplify things, but then my dad jumped in. I should refer my dad [an engineer] to this post, haha.