Vanity Googling: not just for vain people

Vanity Googling, I learned recently, is the name for the act of typing your own name into a search engine and seeing what comes up. It sounds like a silly practice, but it's a really good idea if your involved in a job search. Put your name into a few search engines, like Bing, Yahoo, and (ntach) Google and see what comes up. If you have a really common name (like Mary Johnson), put in your name and "architect" or your college or something else that might actually bring you up. Then check the results for the first five pages.

An article in the September 2009 issue of Real Simple magazine profiles a few good ways to clean up your online profile if you find less than stellar pictures or comments about yourself (or by yourself!) online. (Yes, it's a magazine aimed at women, but both genders can benefit from this article.) It also provides you with a few ideas for adding good stuff to your online profile, like using a LinkedIn profile and even a Twitter account to toot your own horn about your accomplishments.

You can't fight city hall (but you can befriend it)

Nearly any architect I've ever spoken with has complaints and even horror stories about dealing with regulatory agencies--the building inspector that prevents the building from opening on time because of one minor infraction that wouldn't actually prevent the building from functioning properly, the plans examiner that takes six weeks to look at a seven-page set of drawings for a one-room renovation project, the health inspector that interprets an arcane piece of code differently from everyone else and creates a $100,000 headache, and so on. While these may be extreme cases of bureaucracy gone wild, it's important to remember that these folks have a real purpose. They make sure that buildings are built to code and will protect the health, safety, and welfare of their occupants and users. Having a third party to do that is one more set of eyes to catch things that sometimes even you can't check (or forget to check, which happens). A building inspector can call out a contractor on a poorly-constructed detail if you've missed it (or aren't familiar with it), and a plans examiner can catch little mistakes that you never thought about because you've been staring at your drawings for so long that everything looks right to you.

As it is with everyone you meet in work and in life, begin with the end in mind. As you begin a project, figure out the group or groups that will be inspecting your building and reviewing the plans. Often, a trip to the city or county's website to get the name of whoever runs the building department will tell you everything you need to know. Review the jurisdiction's process and find out what kind of drawings and information they want and when they want it and how long it's going to take them to get back to you. After this, you may not be sure that the building department (or fire marshall, or whoever) will even need to see your plans or inspect your project. If you're still not sure, give the building department a call and ask someone about it--you're doing an x or y project that this big; will they need to review it the plans? can you send them a PDF of the demo and new work plans and get their take on it?

Getting a cordial, professional relationship established with someone in charge at the building department so that you can ask questions and get timely answers generally smooths out the entire process. Not only can you avoid some pitfalls up front because you have the "inside scoop" on what plans examiners and building inspectors are looking for, but you also have broken down a barrier between two entities that usually end up on conflict. You are no longer "that damn architect" and "that stupid guy at the building department"; you are instead "Carrie-Ann" and "Marcus". Anytime you can make a working relationship work, based on clear and respectful communication, you make life a little easier for everyone involved.

Got a question you want answered or topic you'd like to see discussed here? Email me in the sidebar or tell me about it in the comments--thanks!

Win, lose, or draw(ing)

Way back in the day, e.g. 1996, when I was in undergrad, I took a mandatory course in college on computer drawing, in which we used AutoCAD v12 as well as a couple of other types of software such as Adobe Photoshop and 3D Studio. The next year, I realized I was so uncomfortable with CAD that I took another class, this time in AutoCAD v13. They kept teaching us CAD in this isolated classroom, but we were all hand drawing in our studios for hours upon hours every semester. When we complained about how this hurt our chances of summer employment, one of our professors retorted, "I can teach anyone to use CAD in a month, but I can't teach you how to think once you get in an office--that's what we're doing here." Even in graduate school, we were all hand drawing, and I only got familiar with AutoCAD v14 (the first Windows-based version) because I got a copy of it to go on my laptop.

After years of using AutoCAD and ADT, I finally began using Revit about a year ago, and it's way way better than AutoCAD. After you get used to the different commands and where those commands are located on the screen, which takes about a month overall, it gets easier to use. I find that it's easier to troubleshoot your own software problems too.

So sound off in the comments: what software are you using right now? Are you using it in an office or a school setting? What kind of drawing did you do/are you doing in school?

Existing conditions: everything deserves a second look

When there's work to be done verifying existing conditions of something--say a couple of rooms or even an entire building that you'll be remodeling or adding onto--most firms send interns, and for obvious reasons. You're cheap, so you bill less to the client and use up less fee, and you're young, so you should be able to crawl over desks and plumbing pipes to take measurements and pictures without slipping a disk. Verifying existing conditions can feel like a thankless task, but it's a great opportunity to learn more about buildings and especially about how complex and difficult renovation projects can be.

The best things to take on a site visit for verifying existing conditions are at least two copies of the plans of the building in question (you'll have a spare if you totally mess up the dimensions you write down, drop it in the mud, or have so many notes written on it that you can't see what you've written), a 25' tape measure (for measuring most interior distances), a 100' tape measure (for measuring exterior distances and some large interior distances), and a digital camera with a backup battery and a backup memory card (you never know). And if you can, bring a colleague--not only can they help you hold the tape measure, but two heads are just better than one when taking field measurements.I find that it's helpful to measure each room, then take a picture of each wall in the room. If the room has a door sign with a room name on it, take a picture of that first so that you know what room you're about to see the walls of. Later, as you're going through your plans and trying to figure out what that window sill is made of or is there exposed electrical conduit in that room, you'll be able to see it. Also, taking that many photos of a room should give you some decent shots of the ceiling and floor. This will help if you have to indicate existing materials in a plan or if you have to draw existing ceiling tile, lights, and diffusers in a ceiling plan.

Thoroughness also comes into play when looking at or using old drawings for an existing building. First of all, you might marvel at how few sheets it took in 1970 to get a building built, and yet they managed to build a three-story hospital with fifty sheets instead of 200, like today. But don't let the thinness of that set fool you--there's a lot of information packed into those old sets. When hand drawing on vellum or mylar (which was and is a lot more expensive than printing or drawing on plain old bond paper), draftsmen and architects wanted to make sure they used every bit of a sheet that they could, so you'll find useful details and tidbits on every sheet. That can make it hard to sift through and find what you need ("just tell me how you built the parapet already!"), but more often than not, the info is there. If at first you don't find the detail you want, keep digging and looking. Scour the plans as well as the roof plans and the exterior elevations for a section marker that's near the area you're trying to understand. Is it on an enlarged plan or elevation instead? Take a breath and take your time. Old drawings will reveal their secrets to those who are patient and careful. If all else fails, ask someone to look at the set with you and see if they can find the detail you're looking for. Sometimes all it takes is a fresh eye on the set, or maybe someone old enough to know where the draftsmen of yore hid the detail you need.

Ask and ye shall receive (mostly)

Walking into an architecture firm with little to no experience can be pretty frustrating and intimidating. I have no problem saying that part of this is the fault of your schooling. For four to six years, you've been told that you're a designer, you're brilliant, and you have all the answers. Suddenly, you end up in the workplace and you have zero answers, but you're supposed to have those answers because you just spent four to six years in college. And college is suppsed to prepare you for the real world, right?

Well, not exactly, not in terms of architecture. Nearly everyone ahead of you at your office recalls that same feeling, however faint, of being confused and freaked out because you don't know what any of the acronyms mean or how to detail a window. You know how to think and how to design, but you're going to need some time to learn the nuts and bolts of the profession. We licensed architects know that. And because we know that, we're expecting your questions. We're more surprised when you don't ask us for help or advice than when you do. It makes us wonder what you're doing over there at your desk when we know that you're right out of college or only have a year or two of experience.

So if we know you don't know a lot, why don't we just explain everything to you when we first tell you to do it? Well, a few reasons: we're in a hurry, if you have a little bit of experience then we're not sure what you know or don't know, but most of all it's that the things that we need to tell you are second-nature to us by this stage in our professional lives. We have no problem explaining things to you, it's just that what we do is so second nature that we forget the reality of your situation.

So, ask. Ask, ask, and ask. It helps to get a few questions together at once if you're having to interrupt a busy boss, but ask. Ask your boss who you can ask when s/he's not available. Ask your boss if they're comfortable with you asking the contractor about details and for input, and then ask the contractor. Sometimes, you'll meet with some attitude from a manager regarding your questions, but that's their problem. Either you can ask and get the info you need, no matter how basic or self-evident, or you can not ask and mess something up big time.

Pulling details out of not-so-thin air

I recently got an email from an intern asking if working at a construction company before working as an architect is a good idea. The intern asked this because he didn't know how a building went together or how to draw a wall section--was working in construction first the way to learn that? The short answer is: not really. Let me say that if you wanted to work at a construction site at some point before taking on an architectural job, then go right ahead. Using your hands to assemble things that someone else drew gives you the perspective of being on the receiving end of some crappy drawings. There's a lot to be learned by doing the job as opposed to watching it get done.

However, the same could be said for architecture. While you all probably took more than one materials-and-methods courses in college (do you still have your copy of Francis Ching's Building Construction Illustrated?), it's hard to remember how to detail wall sections and casework and stone pilasters and so on when you don't do it every day. You'll be doing a lot of detailing during your time as an intern architect, and you'll learn it through a variety of sources. The first is the Ching book I just mentioned. If you already sold yours back after college, shame! SHAME! Go get another copy, now! Other than Ching, I recommend Architectural Graphic Standards. Some offices will buy an office copy or two for everyone to share, but I guarantee you if you splurge on a personal copy, you will have lots of friends in your office. It's more thorough than Ching, and it covers a lot more topics, everything from the turning radii for a variety of vehicles to designing angled theater seating to basic anthropometric standards for nearly anything. It's really, really handy.

The second source is using details from previous projects in your office. This is generally a good thing, but it can occasionally backfire when you copy a detail that's been wrong for a long time and just keeps getting copied into projects. It's also not a good thing when some recent change to codes or building science makes a detail obsolete all of a sudden. That's often something that interns aren't going to know about and architects should know about but sometimes don't (or they know but they forget to tell you). However, these details are usually already drawn somewhere and can be copied and pasted or brought in and traced over (i.e., if it was drawn in CAD originally and brought into Revit). After bringing it in and/or tracing over it, someone needs to review the detail and make sure it applies as it is or if it needs to be revised. When you start working on details, ask your project manager or job captain if there is a project from which you should pull details to start this process.

A third source is, naturally, the internet, but be careful what sites you surf through. One of the best sites is the one kept up by the Building Science Corporation, which has some pretty good reports that sometimes include drawings of the details you may be seeking. Other good sources are websites sponsored by industry and trade associations, which will sometimes offer to review your details and/or specs for you. Three examples of industry and trade associations are:

• Tile Council of North America: trade association for the ceramic tile industry.
• Masonry Institute: trade association for the masonry (brick and stone) industry.
• Gypsum Association: trade association for the gypsum board (drywall/sheet rock) industry.

A fourth source is a product's vendor. If the product is something very specific and somewhat unusual, like a metal panel or insulated glass block, it's worth emailing the company and finding a local rep to provide you with some typical details or even to meet with you and review your details (as well as review the application of their product--if you're specifying a metal panel as a roof when it should only be used as a wall, it's good to have a rep look at it and throw up a red flag before you go too far). You can also use a product rep for help with checking your details, but be forewarned that s/he may try to design a system for you (or edit your specs for you) in such a way that it is prescriptive and only allows for the contractor to use their product. This can jack up the cost of a project unnecessarily.

There are probably more ways in addition to these four, including just asking someone in your office how to do a detail or how to lay something out, but these are the main four I can think of.

Time is on your side

When I started my architectural career back in the summer of 2000, I marveled at my more-experienced colleagues who seemd to be able to pull a detail out of thin air. The design team of which I was part would need to come up with a way to build some oddly-shaped piece of casework or provide flashing at a weird corner where some lumpy-faced stone and a window came together, and suddenly someone who only seemed to be a couple of years older than me would sketch something believable and doable in just a few minutes. It blew my mind. How did s/he know how to do that? How long does it take to get that way? Man, I just didn't learn enough in college. I didn't even feel useful.

Turns out I just needed patience. Well, patience and the ability to keep my eyes open and really notice what I was drawing. When I would draw up the redlines I was given, I would try to figure out why I was putting the flashing there and the sealant here--wouldn't I need sealant on both sides of the window? I'd ask questions about what I was drawing, and sometimes I'd find out that my hunch was right, while other times I discovered the method to the madness I was putting into CAD. Later as I did the CA on my drawings, I would find out how right or wrong I was when I detailed soffits and casework and light coves and wall/door frame connections and so on. A good contractor will ask before s/he changes your drawings on you (and they're supposed to ask, really--it's called an RFI), and they'll explain why they want to change the drawing. You learn from each other.

Now I'm about 9 years into my career, and while that's not long in architect years, I'm amazed when I can suddenly pull a detail out of thin air when I'm drawing something. I can, more often than not, explain to a colleague how I think something should be done and also explain the reasoning behind my point of view. Sometimes my way is the best, and sometimes my colleague has the right idea. Either way, I'm still learning. It's just that now, the things I learn are more complex than what the interns on my projects are learning. Humorist Garrison Keillor once said, "Intelligence is like four-wheel drive; it just gets you stuck in more remote places." Learning about architecture and building is kind of the same thing.

What I want you to take away from this is the knowledge that you will eventually learn how to design and detail a building. The time you spend taking pictures of and measuring existing buildings, looking at old drawing sets and stealing details, and burning through redlines as if your life depended on it is well spent if you're taking a moment to really look at what you're drawing and what each line is doing. Ask questions, look over the drawings, read the specs; at some point, things will begin to make sense when you see how all the pieces work together. The point of this blog is to help explain some of these things and to answer some questions as best as I can based on my experience, and hopefully some of the things I explain here will help you understand what you're drawing and doing.

I have some topics I'm going to blog on over the next couple of weeks regarding details, specs, and drawings, but I want to hear from you: is there a question that you'd like answered or a topic you haven't seen covered here yet? Let me know in the comments or drop me an email in the sidebar of the blog. Thanks to everyone who has sent in comments and questions so far, and keep it up--I need to hear from you to make this blog useful!