Engineering -Vs- Architecture

2011 wrote: »

Clearly a team player :rolleyes:

Clearly a future "Starchitect". Just don't ask him where Rem Koolhaas would have been without Cecil Balmond to do the numbers for him.

architects response wrote: »

5 years at uni and two years experience before sitting the exam for registration means that an architects job is very rigorous and important. it speaks for itself. we are not engineers. we don't try to be. we do learn about structural rules of thumb and this isn't hard to **** up (although i'm sure some could cause they aren't very good at what they do). we learn about, and put into practice more cutting edge and complicated materials and structural systems. yes, it is the engineers job to make sure it's fine. no problem.

comparing architects with engineers is like comparing apples and oranges. yes they are both fruit, they serve the same purposes of creating buildings.

if you ask an engineer to design a beautiful and inspiring building, the architect will probably win. if you ask the engineer to engineer a perfect structure, they will probably win.

if you get santiago calatrava to do both (because he is both an engineer and and architect), he'll probably beat each of them because he knows the secrets of these two DIFFERENT disciplines.

architects response wrote: »

this competitive line of argument is so rediculous, and i only ever hear it from engineers, which begs the question- what is their problem?

some possible answers might be:

1. architects work in a multi-disciplinary field which includes a buildings structure by necessity, and engineers don't like this 'encroachment' because they are arrogant but actually nieve to think that this is truly just their domain.

2. engineers don't often like what architects "stuff up." well, it's your job, so just get used to it.

3. engineers are arrogant and competitive, but aim their competition in the wrong direction because an architect knows that its a team effort to get things done.

btw, an architects job is a nightmare and fairly poorly paid. leave us alone cause although our lives suck a bit, we are trying to improve the world we live in and make it more rich than a purely well engineered one, i.e. function doesn't = perfection (unless you are an arrogant engineer that is ignorant of all this complex theory we architects have to churn through to make sense of a HUMAN world, and not a world of machines).

haha. youre a typical architect alright!

there are not different disciplines at all. they are very much the same.

youre quite arrogant in thinking that people who choose structural engineering have no interest in the aesthetic features of buildings or have no ability in design.

i think youll find that compotent structural engineers are better at design then achitects are at engineering.

architects response wrote: »

this competitive line of argument is so rediculous, and i only ever hear it from engineers, which begs the question- what is their problem?

some possible answers might be:

1. architects work in a multi-disciplinary field which includes a buildings structure by necessity, and engineers don't like this 'encroachment' because they are arrogant but actually nieve to think that this is truly just their domain.

2. engineers don't often like what architects "stuff up." well, it's your job, so just get used to it.

3. engineers are arrogant and competitive, but aim their competition in the wrong direction because an architect knows that its a team effort to get things done.

btw, an architects job is a nightmare and fairly poorly paid. leave us alone cause although our lives suck a bit, we are trying to improve the world we live in and make it more rich than a purely well engineered one, i.e. function doesn't = perfection (unless you are an arrogant engineer that is ignorant of all this complex theory we architects have to churn through to make sense of a HUMAN world, and not a world of machines).

I might be open to argument here but i think 99% of people would prefer to have running water, toilets, electricity, buildings that stand up, heating systems etc etc rather than a pretty building to look at.

To me your comments are just trying to take a brush and paint the engineering profession as lazy good for nothings that can't do their jobs while you seam to put the architects on a pedestal for being underpaid and almost martyrs to their cause. Its not as clear cut as that. I could bet you every penny in my bank account that an engineer would completely design a building down to every nut and bolt better than any architect ever could.

Any architect (and every other profession for that matter) worth his fee knows that he is only as good as the team that surrounds himself with. A bad architect will design a bad building, a bad engineer will come up with a bad structural solution I don't think anyone would argue with that logic.

But i have to ask the question how you feel that you would be competent to design a building in its entirety?
It is one thing to do an outline structural solution using rules of thumb but I doubt many architects would have the knowledge of soil mechanics to design foundations to their optimum, to design structural members to be as small as possible or design reinforcement layouts to ensure correct tension and compression requirements. And that is before I even consider structural dynamics, wind loads, impacts etc etc.

And just to add to what GEETAR said. I did structural engineering with architecture in college. I choose my course because of the fact that it concentrated on engineering but included lectures on architecture. I always wanted to do architecture as a child but when I got to school I realised that maths was my strong subject and that engineering was the field for me. By choosing my course I got a degree in engineering with an appreciation for architecture along the way