Architect? - 9780262518840

Since 1985, Architect? has been an essential text for aspiringarchitects, offering the best basic guide to the profession available. This third edition has beensubstantially revised and rewritten, with new material covering the latest developments inarchitectural and construction technologies, digital methodologies, new areas of focus in teachingand practice, evolving aesthetic philosophies, sustainability and green architecture, andalternatives to traditional practice.

Architect? tells theinside story of architectural education and practice; it is realistic, unvarnished, and insightful.Chapter 1 asks "Why Be an Architect?" and chapter 2 offers reasons "Why Not to Be anArchitect." After this provocative beginning, Architect? goes on to explain and critiquearchitectural education, covering admission, degree and curriculum types, and workload as well assuch post-degree options as internship, teaching, and work in related fields. It offers a detaileddiscussion of professors and practitioners and the "-isms" and "-ologies" mostprevalent in teaching and practicing architecture. It explains how an architect works and gets work,and describes architectural services from initial client contact to construction oversight. The newedition also includes a generous selection of drawings and cartoons from the author's WashingtonPost column, "Shaping the City," offering teachable moments wittily in graphicform.

The author, Roger Lewis, has taught, practiced, and written extensivelyabout architecture for many years. In Architect? he explains -- for students,professors, practitioners, and even prospective clients -- how architects think and work and whatthey care about as they strive to make the built environment more commodious, more beautiful, andmore sustainable.