I feel like this would be improved with hyperlinks for context. Many of the points seem to cryptically refer to dangers like "the energy embodied in aluminum" presumably referring to how dangerous aluminium cladding is when on fire. I'd like to know, for instance, what the context is for "the rate at which that carpet you specified off-gasses"
"embodied energy" means the energy needed to create the material. So that involved in mining aluminium, refining ore etc, moving it around the world until it's built into a building.
Carelessly specified new carpets will off-gas VOCs to the detriment of the local air quality (until there's none left in thecarpet material).
In both cases he's saying that an architect should be aware of the wider context of their material choices and consequential effect on both the planet and the building's inhabitants.
>the rate at which that carpet you specified off-gasses
I think the general idea behind this one is know that the materials you select can have an adverse effect on those who have to live with them. Carpet is one example to illustrate the point
Most here are not trained architects. Well, I am a trained architect and also worked as architect for over a decade. That's what we learned at school. That what was considered important. And much more BTW. Architects are generalists. Many architects went on to work in engineering, civil engineering, social studies, informatics/computer science, physics, politics, literature, stage design, city planning, movies, ... You name it, we did it.
My wife is an architect and the one that resonated most with me -- both on behalf of her (especially given architects' pay), and for me as a founding engineer of a software startup 7 years in:
80. The reasons for their tenacity.
Reflecting on this can be enlightening, and like many enlightening things, uncomfortable
Another architect here. I didn't do it yet but I'm really considering a career change. Why? Less exposition to market cycles. Architecture is a _terrible_ field to be during downturns. I passed through one, I won't repeat the experience.
It's not far from reality and it only applies during bull markets. During bear markets being exceptional/connected might not be enough.
As an anecdote, in 2009 when construction plummeted - downturn is a bit delayed, investors finish ongoing buildings but don't start new ones - the company where I was working downsized from 75 to 10 employees in a few months. In small offices (with smallish projects) was even worse.
But, how much will the run-down house cost you? In my area there are so many more buyers than houses available that people are buying shacks for many hundreds of thousands of dollars.
I am in a fly-over and there are "upcoming" areas - pockets between the city and the suburbs, within 10 mins of downtown and other "prestigious office areas" that are almost sure to take off, but total ghetto now. It's not worth risking $200,000 to build a fancy house there, but it's worth $15,000 land, $15,000 tear down, and $20,000 pre-fab.
>I can't have a Soviet concrete-block box-house built [...] //
They're competing with you buying a pre-built house. There's no need to charge that little, in addition people will often pay more to have their own house built, and new carries a premium. So there's no pressure pushing them to make houses low cost. Buy the land, hire a builder .. they'll still charge you too much because your alternative is still to have a pre-built house.
Yea, it's expensive to tear down, usually almost double that even in cheap areas. It's part of the problem to the point where some of my friends discussed setting up a tear-down company rather than trying to mess with conventional real estate.
Edit: Also totally unrelated, but I have always wanted to know what the raw cost for a basement/foundation usually is.
Don't know, depends on the country.
I can give you an example from Europe. Switzerland is one of the highest income highest cost countries in Europe. If it weren't for different regulations mandating Swiss level salaries for foreign workers, import tariffs, taxes (and probably a bunch of other stuff I don't even know about), it would easily be possible to pay only 10-20% for a prefab compared to a non-prefab.
Basically the first sentence of the first section defines it:
"Das Entsendegesetz verpflichtet ausländische Arbeitgeber zur Einhaltung von minimalen Lohn- und Arbeitsbedingungen gemäss den anwendbaren schweizerischen Vorschriften."
Google translate gives this:
"The Posting Act requires foreign employers to comply with minimum wage and working conditions in accordance with the applicable Swiss regulations."
In reality this law is not needed or applied, if it wouldn't be there, nothing would change. The minimum wage is not enforced but is in place implicitly, at least this is what I observe.
Nice. Like:
If a architect (builder) build a house for some one, and does not construct it properly, and the house which he built fall in and kill its owner, then that architect shall be put to death.
I'm not an architect (well, technically my job title is "Architect", but I'm not that kind of architect). But I'd be curious to see a list like this for some other professions, just because it tickles my curiosity.
I'm tempted to create one for anesthesiologists (I'm a retired [38 years of practice] neurosurgical anesthesiologist — I certainly have the time! But I'm too lazy.
Please do one. Even if short. I'd love to read it. I'm a industrial engineer researching healthcare systems. I'm firmly of the opinion that people with decades of experience have truly valuable knowledge locked within. Even a small list would probably delight many here, me for certain at least.
Note: I published it to my blog using a date in the past because it was the fastest, easiest way to create a permalink to use here. I did indeed just create the list (and subsequent post) in response to the comments preceding it. In case you were wondering...
>>The first thing to do upon arriving at a Code Blue is to take your own pulse.
Can you expand on this item, please? I interpret it as "don't just arrive and immediately begin taking action, but take a moment to fully assess the situation because an extra 15 seconds is a worthwhile cost to avoid a mistake". Curious to know if I'm on track.
Also, when I was in hospital (diverticular disease) they put the first IV in my non-dominant arm (at elbow), then the second in my dominant arm .. the second one ended up staying in much longer. I wonder how often that happens; whether in some areas [ER?] it might be sufficiently often to warrant reversing the rule-of-thumb?
Re: #7: it's true! Why in the hand? Because if you put it in the antecubital fossa, you force the patient to keep their arm straight so as not to cause the IV to infiltrate by bending the elbow — this effectively makes the arm unusable. By putting the IV in the back of the hand, you enable full use of that arm. In regards to your hospital experience with the two IVs you had: it's impossible to predict how long an IV will remain functional. In regards to which side to place the IV, in the ER you can omit this nicety: as we/they say, "any port in a storm."
It was always a hit and miss with IVs for me. Sometimes they installed it perfectly, other times it started hurting within an hour. I guess it also highly depended on the nurse - some also had a lot of trouble taking my blood, others consistently got it done within 15 seconds.
I was never asked about hand dominance so during surgery they actually put the IV in my dominant hand and hit a nerve. I couldn't use my dominant hand for a month.
In my state you can't call yourself and Architect or Engineer unless you are actually registered as such. I keep meaning to ask what they call someone who drives a train.
There's a lot of architecture in Shakespeare. The non-Aristotelian structure of his plays, the highly stylized language, the iambic pentameter, the stage directions. You could endlessly examine the structural characteristics of his works.
The list obviously plays with leaving things vague, ambiguous, uncertain. It's funny how this seems to enrage certain people.
There are a few themes in the list, one is sound. That is why I think Shakespeare is recommended. Even native english speakers have trouble with the old language, but the sound of the words conveys even when the diction fails.
An architect should know QWERTY because it is a form and pattern that people are familiar with. One part of architecture is informing people how to use spaces without instructions and to do so, an architect must understand the patterns they are already familiar with
> Why should an architect know Shakespeare and QWERTY?
Well why not? QWERTY could refer to just being able to type. An artist could possibly do well to be able to use a computer? It could also refer to the placement on old style typewriters where the type bars could get jammed if letters used often in the English language were typed in quick succession. (Myth maybe? But interesting to think about anyway for someone that is going to design things for other people to use.)
As to Shakespeare, it has been suggested that people that read fiction/literature of this sort develop empathy and makes you a "better" person.
The placement of keys in such s way that they had a low probability of jamming (whether effective or not) has heavy parallels in designing building entries and exits, planning emergency exit capacity etc. Basically if you’re planning an exit also consider human usage statistics of the connected rooms.
> The placement of keys in such s way that they had a low probability of jammin
It's highly debatable, and arguably a myth. The QWERTY design predated any potential jamming problems. Perhaps it was so foreseeing? It's really hard to believe general ergonomy was the top priority, as all the characters of the word TYPEWRITER are placed in the top row, which could have hardly happened by sheer coincidence, but was very convenient for the sake of sale presentations in the early years...
> This theory [jam avoidance] could be easily debunked for the simple reason that “er” is the fourth most common letter pairing in the English language
Argh, no. E and R are separated by D, 4, and C. It would be nice if someone writing about typewriters actually looked at one.
The bar-adjacent letter pairs, from most to least frequent¹, are MI BY CR NU HN XE HM AZ DC GB ZW VT FV SX.
I take it as a bit of a meta piece about how the knowledge of an individual in an industry should never be limited to only that industry.
As computer programmers, this is perhaps even more important (since we're rarely writing programs for the sake of writing programs), but it's valuable to every industry to have a well rounded and well educated individual.
More specifically, a welder who learns about quarks and neutrinos shows curiosity beyond "an electrical arc creates heat and melts metal", a trait present in individuals who strive to better themselves and their craft.
I think that one should know deeply about its craft.
Architecture is about design so it's fair to think that an architect should know about art and (some kind of) product design.
The analogy that I can think would be something like - A developer should know about network and how the user will use software, this concepts are important even if the programmer do not work directly with this things.
Architecture is the vessel for all of life and work and has a direct affect on the way we live, move, and think.
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Architecture is about all of life and this is why architects need to be more than engineers. They must be poets, philosophers, and lovers.
It was also posted 16 hours ago and sunk without trace, presumably because nobody wanted to say 'this is stupid' incase it was genius and they appeared thick.
>It was also posted 16 hours ago and sunk without trace
OT you touch on something that's always puzzled me about HN, namely often something I posted days ago — that quickly disappeared into the ether — suddenly appears on the leaderboard posted by someone else with hundreds of points and comments. I just chalk it up to my bad karma.
The architects would likely chafe at this complaint and grumble something about interior designers, client budgets, and clients' mistaking a trend for good design
