Architects have a lot to learn from the sound engineering of the ancients(nautil.us)
nautil.us
Architects have a lot to learn from the sound engineering of the ancients
http://nautil.us/issue/24/error/why-we-should-let-the-pantheon-crack
63 comments
As a software "engineer", I've always been envious of architects and the well-defined path to mastery that exists in their field. You start off as a lowly apprentice and only through years of study and practice can you progress.
As a result, the best architects in the world are generally forty and above and there is a correlation between age and competence. There is no 22 year old rockstar architect. The bar of competence is so high that six months of concentrated effort is simply not sufficient for an outsider to become a professional architect.
As a result, the best architects in the world are generally forty and above and there is a correlation between age and competence. There is no 22 year old rockstar architect. The bar of competence is so high that six months of concentrated effort is simply not sufficient for an outsider to become a professional architect.
I'm a software engineer that went through architecture school and I think you're glorifying architects a bit here.
The only reason why architects have a more gradual path as you describe is because there is a LOT of gatekeeping and feedback on your work is a LOT slower.
To become an architect you have to ideally go through schooling at a specific set of schools and then after that you have years of internships where you are at the mercy of the architect who supervises you. If you end up with a not-so-friendly boss you could end up working years of your youth in an unpaid internship and end up NOT getting any credit. That's years of delay to licensure. After getting enough credit and hours you still to take multiple exams, paying out of your own pocket, to get licensed. And unlike software, aspiring architects cannot spend a weekend or two to build projects on their own to put on a portfolio of work, and problems from anything you design can take months or years to crop up.
And even after all that only a tiny minority of architects end up in firms like SOM (like Google but for architects) and get to work in glamourous projects. The vast majority of architects just work on run-of-the-mill housing (not unlike CRUD apps) where the combination of building codes, the client's budget, zoning and other requirements often prevents you from doing anything too flashy.
The great thing about software really is the fact you have the independence and ability to build and publicize your own stuff whereas in all the other formal professions you can't without oversight.
The only reason why architects have a more gradual path as you describe is because there is a LOT of gatekeeping and feedback on your work is a LOT slower.
To become an architect you have to ideally go through schooling at a specific set of schools and then after that you have years of internships where you are at the mercy of the architect who supervises you. If you end up with a not-so-friendly boss you could end up working years of your youth in an unpaid internship and end up NOT getting any credit. That's years of delay to licensure. After getting enough credit and hours you still to take multiple exams, paying out of your own pocket, to get licensed. And unlike software, aspiring architects cannot spend a weekend or two to build projects on their own to put on a portfolio of work, and problems from anything you design can take months or years to crop up.
And even after all that only a tiny minority of architects end up in firms like SOM (like Google but for architects) and get to work in glamourous projects. The vast majority of architects just work on run-of-the-mill housing (not unlike CRUD apps) where the combination of building codes, the client's budget, zoning and other requirements often prevents you from doing anything too flashy.
The great thing about software really is the fact you have the independence and ability to build and publicize your own stuff whereas in all the other formal professions you can't without oversight.
> The vast majority of architects just work on run-of-the-mill housing (not unlike CRUD apps) where the combination of building codes, the client's budget, zoning and other requirements often prevents you from doing anything too flashy.
In talking with civil, naval, and mechanical engineers that I know, this type of "crank out another one similar to the last one" work seems to be the norm. I used to be aerospace and thought it was just my company. New part designed, do the same type of analysis and write it up and send it to the FAA, they rubber stamp it. But it's remarkably similar in many fields. The civil guy I know says for every new road/bridge they review it's just the same shit over and over. It's just a white collar assembly line everywhere. It reduces errors and is efficient as a division of labor, but it's not very fun.
In talking with civil, naval, and mechanical engineers that I know, this type of "crank out another one similar to the last one" work seems to be the norm. I used to be aerospace and thought it was just my company. New part designed, do the same type of analysis and write it up and send it to the FAA, they rubber stamp it. But it's remarkably similar in many fields. The civil guy I know says for every new road/bridge they review it's just the same shit over and over. It's just a white collar assembly line everywhere. It reduces errors and is efficient as a division of labor, but it's not very fun.
>> "crank out another one similar to the last one"
That's because they can't stand up a micro-service or API to crank those things out.
That's because they can't stand up a micro-service or API to crank those things out.
that should be your startup idea! "automate that boring civil engineering design with the agi 5000".
Same applies to countries where Software/Informatics Engineering is a proper title certified by the Engineering National Council, not a paper title.
http://www.ordemengenheiros.pt/pt/a-ordem/colegios-e-especia...
https://www.anerkennung-in-deutschland.de/html/en/engineerin...
http://www.ordemengenheiros.pt/pt/a-ordem/colegios-e-especia...
https://www.anerkennung-in-deutschland.de/html/en/engineerin...
Can't say I've ever found a job ad in PT that required that title, though. But hey, maybe it'll get some woman to marry us, as their marketing materials imply: https://preview.ibb.co/gRKupq/eng.png
> The great thing about software really is the fact you have the independence and ability to build and publicize your own stuff whereas in all the other formal professions you can't without oversight.
By the same token, software isn't really a professionalized activity: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Software_engineering_professio...
By the same token, software isn't really a professionalized activity: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Software_engineering_professio...
Agree. I also work in the building industry (Electrical Engineering - power distribution for buildings) and I love software because of the instant feedback loop.
In software, you make a typo and you get an error immediately. You fix it and go on.
In architecture, you make a typo and you hear about it 6 months later, and it's a $200,000 change order (exaggerating...somewhat).
In software, you make a typo and you get an error immediately. You fix it and go on.
In architecture, you make a typo and you hear about it 6 months later, and it's a $200,000 change order (exaggerating...somewhat).
> In software, you make a typo and you get an error immediately. You fix it and go on.
This level of thing is usually silly, ultimately-meaningless errors. (The rare exception being the metric-vs-imperial type things that literally blow up eventually.)
There are many other errors we make every day building software that lead to years or decades of tech debt. The thing we need to figure out is how to get better at making better up-front decisions on that. Being better at monitoring the long-term feedback produced by our designs, so that instead of saying "we should rewrite this in a new framework" we can say "we should restructure this doing X and Y to prevent these types of problems from coming back."
This level of thing is usually silly, ultimately-meaningless errors. (The rare exception being the metric-vs-imperial type things that literally blow up eventually.)
There are many other errors we make every day building software that lead to years or decades of tech debt. The thing we need to figure out is how to get better at making better up-front decisions on that. Being better at monitoring the long-term feedback produced by our designs, so that instead of saying "we should rewrite this in a new framework" we can say "we should restructure this doing X and Y to prevent these types of problems from coming back."
The costs of making better decisions need to be measured against the costs of making poor decisions. Most (but certainly not all) software is ephemeral. If you knew what would be in use in ten years and what would be in the bit bucket, you might make different choices. If you were liable for your choices and mistakes for years and years after your product shipped, you would examine them closer as well.
This is also the case in software "engineering". Don't assume a code monkey who's 22 and can produce a piece of software with heaps worth of technical debt is a master of anything. The best software engineers in the world are generally mid-career (40-50) and have gone through lots of large projects in several different roles.
Just because our industry doesn't want to acknowledge that, doesn't make it less true.
Just because our industry doesn't want to acknowledge that, doesn't make it less true.
Anecdotally, will say age doesn't matter, but at least 7+ years of experience across different projects and languages.
My uncle is an architect (now a master architect) and knowing his career path makes your comment kinda amusing.
Uncle got a Bachelor's in Architecture, and was able to draft plans, but wasn't able to give them actual approval. You need a Master's degree and a certification through the state government, and often the Master's degree is done as part of your employment at a larger firm. And you need another Master-Architect to sponsor your master's, so the larger architecture firms sponsor apprentices-- but they do so with a pretty significant pay-cut to working apprentices.
My uncle is a bit of a scoundrel, looked at that system, and was like "screw that", and solely did drafting. Sure he couldn't finalize plans, but he specialized in doing drafts quickly. (He's admitted that his drafts were probably lower-quality and smudgier than other's, but they were done _far_ faster and cheaper.) He did this for a few years, and from all the drafts he's learn a fair amount.
So after 5 years of working as a freelance drafter, a young guy who has a newly minted Master-Architect cert reaches out to my uncle and asks if he's hiring. My uncle thinks about it and says--- yeah, actually, I am. With a master-architect on staff he can submit actual plans to cities. In addition my uncle asks the young master-architect to sponsor my uncle in a master's certification. The way that my uncle talks about it, it was almost a sham of a "sponsorship"-- especially since my uncle was both more experienced than and the employer of his sponsor.
Uncle got a Bachelor's in Architecture, and was able to draft plans, but wasn't able to give them actual approval. You need a Master's degree and a certification through the state government, and often the Master's degree is done as part of your employment at a larger firm. And you need another Master-Architect to sponsor your master's, so the larger architecture firms sponsor apprentices-- but they do so with a pretty significant pay-cut to working apprentices.
My uncle is a bit of a scoundrel, looked at that system, and was like "screw that", and solely did drafting. Sure he couldn't finalize plans, but he specialized in doing drafts quickly. (He's admitted that his drafts were probably lower-quality and smudgier than other's, but they were done _far_ faster and cheaper.) He did this for a few years, and from all the drafts he's learn a fair amount.
So after 5 years of working as a freelance drafter, a young guy who has a newly minted Master-Architect cert reaches out to my uncle and asks if he's hiring. My uncle thinks about it and says--- yeah, actually, I am. With a master-architect on staff he can submit actual plans to cities. In addition my uncle asks the young master-architect to sponsor my uncle in a master's certification. The way that my uncle talks about it, it was almost a sham of a "sponsorship"-- especially since my uncle was both more experienced than and the employer of his sponsor.
To be fair, the most well known examples of architecture tend to cost a lot of money to construct, and people spending lots of money want someone with experience. If you look at painters for example, a lot of them produce great work at relatively younger ages than architects, probably because the barriers to entry are lower.
Still, it seems that in the arts, you can continue to produce great work for a long time. For example, Frank Lloyd Wright was around 67 years old when Falling Water was built and Leonardo Da Vinci was over 50 when he painted the Mona Lisa.
Still, it seems that in the arts, you can continue to produce great work for a long time. For example, Frank Lloyd Wright was around 67 years old when Falling Water was built and Leonardo Da Vinci was over 50 when he painted the Mona Lisa.
> Frank Lloyd Wright was around 67 years old when Falling Water was built
As a teenager in rural Wisconsin, Frank Lloyd Wright worked for a graduate of MIT school of architecture and then went to Madison to work for a civil engineering professor at UW Madison. His big break was to run away from home and go to Chicago, which was in the midst of the largest building boom in the history of the world up to then, where he was hired within a day of arriving by the firm owned by the MIT grad he worked for years before.
The guy started very early and then never stopped working.
As a teenager in rural Wisconsin, Frank Lloyd Wright worked for a graduate of MIT school of architecture and then went to Madison to work for a civil engineering professor at UW Madison. His big break was to run away from home and go to Chicago, which was in the midst of the largest building boom in the history of the world up to then, where he was hired within a day of arriving by the firm owned by the MIT grad he worked for years before.
The guy started very early and then never stopped working.
What, no architectural bootcamps? No shiny new frameworks? No this will disrupt everything? No hype cycle?
Meh, I think architecture has its own version of it, with extreme form-over-function, and new projects insisting they have to look clever and pretty, even when those aspects make them near useless.
A friend on Facebook recently posted about an example of a bike path with three sharp turns that made no sense for being used as a bike, but -- the architects were happy to point out -- made it look like a big bike wheel from above. Hooray!
A friend on Facebook recently posted about an example of a bike path with three sharp turns that made no sense for being used as a bike, but -- the architects were happy to point out -- made it look like a big bike wheel from above. Hooray!
Re: bootcamps, there are several non-credit summer programs offered by major architecture programs (Harvard, Berkeley,..) that help prospective students expose themselves to architecture school and more importantly, help them develop a portfolio to apply to the full program. These programs are proportionally just as (very) expensive and (extremely) time consuming. A not small number of degree seeking students come through that track.
PLOT cofounders Bjarke Ingels and Julien de Smedt were in their mid-twenties when they started out. Today, Bjarke Ingels Group is among the most influential firms in the world. Julien's own firm is also doing well, last I heard. Their old boss at OMA, Rem Koolhaas, started that firm when he was barely 30. Still a bit older than 22 years, but closer to that than 40. They're the LeBron James exceptions that prove the rule though. Though there are some amazingly talented architects in their 20's, it usually takes a lot of time to get the momentum necessary to be able to be the figurehead of an organization that depends on hefty commissions to keep running. Bjarke Ingels' openly flouts the architect-as-artist model of expecting clients to bend to their every whim and instead opts for an approach of mutually beneficial compromise. It's hard to argue with the results he's achieved. By trading some of his starchitect's share of cultural capital, he's gained the trust of influential clients on an accelerated timeline. It takes a special skillset to merry that to a coherent and compelling design aesthetic, which I think is also undeniable in BIG's case.
I've read a bit of Christopher Alexander, and at least by his view the profession of architecture was in a fallen state conducive to soulless work. I don't know myself, except I've been to Barcelona which must've been doing something different.
I'm pretty sure Alexander would see the same problems in most Barcelona architecture as he does in other cities. The design in Barcelona is very good by the standards of European cities (and exceptional relative to a lot of places) but the paradigm for architectural practice is still, broadly speaking, the modernist one. Alexander wants to go back to preindustrial vernacular building practices.
The employed architects I know are mostly miserable designing medical office buildings and similar crap, where design = shave a few hundred bucks off of the cost of every aspect of the project.
Napster was written by a 19yrs old.
Bram wrote bittorent when he was 26yrs old.
Justin Frankel was 22yrs old when he wrote gnutella with Tom who was 25yrs old.
I mention these systems, because these were apps that needed to operate at scale.
I mention these systems, because these were apps that needed to operate at scale.
And they all leveraged some incredible pieces of infrastructure that were built up for them over several years by those with more experience, the primary examples being the Linux Socket library and the TCP/IP protocol.
Building an application that can "scale" doesn't mean it's well built. Modern software engineering sits on the shoulders of giants, especially older ones who came out of research labs.
Building an application that can "scale" doesn't mean it's well built. Modern software engineering sits on the shoulders of giants, especially older ones who came out of research labs.
As other people stated: they build standing from the shoulder of the giants.
And even if they had started from zero, these guys are the exception, not the norm.
We can find 20 year-old geniuses in every camp.
And even if they had started from zero, these guys are the exception, not the norm.
We can find 20 year-old geniuses in every camp.
I'd be interested in a field where someone wasn't standing on the shoulders of giants.
Yes, yet I wonder how good they would stand if someone did a proper Software Engineer review of their architecture and code quality.
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That's likely because buildings are very expensive to build, and so who is going to risk tens of millions of dollars on a 22 year old architect with no track record?
I found it interesting wandering around the ancient sites in Egypt to see what survived 4000 years. Granite was the easy winner followed by heaped structures of softer rocks.
The problem with that for architecture is most structures are meant to be occupied, and being inside a heaped structure of softer rocks isn't very nice. I do wish that I got to see a structure meant to last millennia built in my lifetime. On that timescale, I _just_ missed Mount Rushmore.
Does it count if the building is continuously maintained along the way? Something like https://www.smithsonianmag.com/smart-news/this-japanese-shri..., but with less conscious effort towards ritualistically maintaining the layout.
If so, I think plenty of buildings will survive. If not, it’s a strangely specific definition to me, since still standing but un-maintained and unused isn’t a goal I would shoot for.
If so, I think plenty of buildings will survive. If not, it’s a strangely specific definition to me, since still standing but un-maintained and unused isn’t a goal I would shoot for.
Considering how many structures from thousands of years ago are still around, I'd be shocked if there weren't any 21st-century buildings standing thousands of years from now.
Rebar makes buildings a lot stronger, but also has the unfortunate property of rusting. That makes it less strong and expands it, damaging other parts of the structure. It also is more or less everywhere.
Also, modern buildings often are designed for a given economical lifetime. If you order a structure that can be maintained for 50 years at $1M a year, that’s what you will get. You likely can keep it standing for centuries, but at ever-increasing maintenance costs.
On the other hand, we are building so much that, statistically, something will be standing thousands of years from now.
Also, modern buildings often are designed for a given economical lifetime. If you order a structure that can be maintained for 50 years at $1M a year, that’s what you will get. You likely can keep it standing for centuries, but at ever-increasing maintenance costs.
On the other hand, we are building so much that, statistically, something will be standing thousands of years from now.
Thousands of years ago, the king did a levy for labor and demanded whatever he wanted.
Today, you need to build a building designed to depreciate in 30 years to maximize your taxes.
Today, you need to build a building designed to depreciate in 30 years to maximize your taxes.
Doesn't something lasting 4,000 years imply massive over-engineering?
depends, if you want your glorious mausoleum to last _forever_ then it lasting 4000 years would imply "correct" engineering to me
If your message is “there are forces at play which can erase your civilization entirely from the face of the earth” then no, it’s “just enough” engineering.
The article title is confusing architects with structural engineers.
Yep, but the issue is that in "modern times" the two professions were divided.
Up to roughly the end of the 19th century (and in some cases even in the early 1900's) an architect was also a structural engineer, and a structural engineer also an architect (and BTW in the classical times the architect was also the structural engineer and the site director, in some cases even the builder/contractor).
The gap between the two professions has become - in my experience - wider, and with the (needed) addition of other professional and "specialized" figures (geologists, plant engineers, etc.) each profession has become narrower in scope, to the point that sometimes it is difficult to have an architect and a structural engineer communicate properly, as they each lack a "global" vision on a project.
Up to roughly the end of the 19th century (and in some cases even in the early 1900's) an architect was also a structural engineer, and a structural engineer also an architect (and BTW in the classical times the architect was also the structural engineer and the site director, in some cases even the builder/contractor).
The gap between the two professions has become - in my experience - wider, and with the (needed) addition of other professional and "specialized" figures (geologists, plant engineers, etc.) each profession has become narrower in scope, to the point that sometimes it is difficult to have an architect and a structural engineer communicate properly, as they each lack a "global" vision on a project.
On the other hand, some architects could stand to learn quite a bit from structural engineers...
>On the other hand, some architects could stand to learn quite a bit from structural engineers...
... and viceversa.
As said above as I see it the real issue is the (modern) separation/specialization of those professions.
... and viceversa.
As said above as I see it the real issue is the (modern) separation/specialization of those professions.
It is also confusing in the sense that it uses the term "sound engineering" with 'sound' being the 'good/sturdy' definition, whereas the whole phrase is interchangeable with a field of study within architecture(sound/acoustic engineering)
That threw me; I wondered all the way through when the author was finally going to get around to the part about acoustics.
The Lindy Effect in action again. People should always seriously study things that have survived a long time, instead of downplaying them due to neophilia.
Isn't part of this talent gained thru motivation, in turn judged necessary as they had "skin in the game"?
https://skeptics.stackexchange.com/questions/18558/were-roma...
I hope one day they say the same thing about us programmers of the present time.
Hello from 2018 and sorry about JavaScript!
Hello from 2018 and sorry about JavaScript!
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The megaliths of Bolivia and structures all over the world which man could not replicate prove this. It would seem that the more we turn our back on the natural world and our history, the more we hold ourselves back from break throughs in many areas.
Who says we can't replicate them? It's just not economical to do so and really serves no purpose. The world has generally moved past projects with superstitious/dubious meaning attached to them and does an actual cost/benefit on most large scale endeavors. Except for some developing countries with growing economies who have something to prove.
You are correct we probably can today. The biggest prehistoric megalith blocks are somewhere in the neighborhood of 1,500 tons, perfectly milled. The modern record for the largest structure lifted by crane is 20,000 tons. So we have an order of magnitude capability on be ancients.
However what is certainly true is that there was a long period in between where we couldn’t. From at least 1000 BC to sometime in the 1900s AD it would’ve been physically impossible to recreate Baalbek. Yet somehow thousands of years before that ancient people did it.
My pet theory is they used compound reed boats, canals, and locks to do it. But in the end we don’t know.
What’s clear is there were people more similar to us than we are to the Elizabethans in terms of technological capability, and they were totally wiped out. No stories, other than myths, no pottery, no metals, nothing left of them except the most durable giant stone remnants.
In other words: the up and to the right trajectory of history is wrong. There are bigger cycles in civilization than all of history combined can illuminate.
However what is certainly true is that there was a long period in between where we couldn’t. From at least 1000 BC to sometime in the 1900s AD it would’ve been physically impossible to recreate Baalbek. Yet somehow thousands of years before that ancient people did it.
My pet theory is they used compound reed boats, canals, and locks to do it. But in the end we don’t know.
What’s clear is there were people more similar to us than we are to the Elizabethans in terms of technological capability, and they were totally wiped out. No stories, other than myths, no pottery, no metals, nothing left of them except the most durable giant stone remnants.
In other words: the up and to the right trajectory of history is wrong. There are bigger cycles in civilization than all of history combined can illuminate.
I think we will find proof if we start digging into the flood deltas and the near shore oceans depths. The floods at the beginning and end of the younger dryas washed over most, if not all of the earths land mass, in a catastrophic way. Then the sea rises, burying the washed out remains of civilization under a few hundred feet of saltwater. If were going to find anything, I think it will be there. That's my hypothesis anyway.
Good idea.
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I wonder what the budget would be to make a more or less exact duplicate of the Great Pyramid.
I hear that slave labour and not worrying about workplace injuries really reduced budgets for the original.
Plasticity theory is presented as an alternative to the finite element method, but in fact they are usually used together. While plasticity theory explains how materials deform, the FE method makes possible to apply this theory to complex structures.
In any case, the problem cannot be FEM, but how it is applied and how the results are interpreted. It is very likely (even expected) that applying the requirements used for steel or concrete structures to the Pantheon will give you wrong results, but that does not mean FEM is the problem. Blindly doing simulations without having a good model and being very careful of how boundary conditions are applied and how to interpret the results, on the other hand, is becoming a greater problem as the necessary hardware becomes more affordable.