are you familiar with Pattern Language, the work of Christopher Alexander?
Yes. I own the book. It is a precious little gem of knowledge. Since I was little I've been able to recognize patterns in nature, in history, and human behavior... and take great pleasure in discerning them and analyzing their inner motives. When I stumbled upon A Pattern Language it was one of those depressingly happy moments when you realize not only that someone thought of your theory before, but his ideas are deeper, more coherent and better developed than your own.
Still, a lot of people seem to never have heard of it, and sometimes you get strange looks if you bring it up, due to the "architecture-without-architects" nature of the book.
Have you heard about his tetralogy on "The Nature of Order"? I have yet to read it (not enough time/money right now)...
By the way what is it like to study architecture? I've been thinking should I study it in the future...
It's great. It's creative. It's always a challenge. It's filled with interesting crazy people. It draws from any and all imaginable fields of thought. An ancient, magnificent art-science...
Drawing is relaxing. Solving floor plans, structures, natural lighting and ventilation, while keeping all in good taste is quite satisfying. The fact that, like language, architecture is an ultimate manipulation of human behavior by means of all the senses, is a mind-numbing concept filled with possibilities. I specially enjoy learning about the history of architecture and urbanism: how the culture, technology, and rituals of a society evolve over time and are embedded in the amazing symbolic language of space.
Of course school work is tiring, but I believe it to be more fulfilling than other careers that focus on memorizing boring theory that you will never actually use and writing shallow essays on pointless subjects... It's pretty hands-on, there's nothing quite like it.
Some people will have you believe it is easy, and that anyone can do it. They have no idea what they are talking about.
Others will be terribly bad at it or will sell their souls just for the money, spewing archi-babble to justify their five-minute design and candy coated renders. At times, the amount of corruption in the architecture world is terribly depressing, and people say that architecture is dead, that it's all celebrity starchitects now... but I study architecture now in order to fix those things. You have to be foolish to study it, see: you must be an utopian, have unending trust that Architecture can and will make life better.
But I must warn you. The rumors are TRUE. You WILL end up forever addicted to coffee. You WILL alienate the few friends you have because you cannot talk about anything else. You WILL stay awake for entire weeks without sleeping, and at the same time be required to hear lectures, work with cutting tools and toxic glues that will inevitably hurt you, finish drawing countless plans and also manage to speak coherent sentences for your project presentations (in which you will be utterly crushed by the huge ego of your teachers). You WILL end up drunk at 4 am on the roof of the School of Architecture building when you have a final project presentation due in 3 hours. Your life WILL be consumed by architecture, you CANNOT escape from it and everywhere you go there WILL be something to criticize. And you WILL end up wearing glasses and black clothes.
Architecture is a harsh mistress. But I love her with infinite passion.
We are all born inside buildings; live, work and play inside buildings; die inside buildings. Studying and designing buildings is a great knowledge and even greater responsibility. It is the human will to happiness, to perfection, to transcendence... materialized.
Do study it.
/rant
I could go on forever on this subject. Do you have a more specific question? Something I should elaborate on?
Oh and thank you both for the welcome and for enduring my stream-of-consciousness. I can't seem to avoid it.
), wastes huge amounts of energy (elevators, heating/cooling, lighting) and disrespectful to its context (it sticks out from the relatively flat city like a sore thumb...).
). But seriously: I have that utopian believe that you can make this world a better place with architecture. It's so big part of our lives even we wouldn't notice it: like you said we born, we live and we die in buildings. I want to be one of those who design those buildings and enviroments where we live and die (sounds cliched but it's true!). It's interesting how many ways you actually could affect on people's lives just by designing buildings -- if the money weren't a problem. I've heard about that corruption, but I believe that it isn't too late to fix it 