It is fun. I often feel like projects are like waves. They start slowly but build up in intensity until it takes everything you’ve got to get the project completed, then it slows down until the next project comes along.

Most of the time you’re working with a group of people, including employees in house, consultants and contractors all working together to construct a building that will be around for years. Sometimes you’re only working on a project for a few weeks and sometimes for a few years. Every one of the projects is different, and every one if them is challenging in their own way. It’s a very rewarding experience.

Usually when you’re first starting in your career, you’ll be doing a lot of drafting using CAD. The more experience you have the less drafting you do and the more managing you do. You manage the team both the in-house team and the team of consultants, answer questions, make sure everything is going smoothly or address the things that are not going smoothly to get things back on track. Every day is different. Every day is challenging and rewarding.

Architects are notorious for working long hours, but it’s fun work. First there is the design, in which we meet with the client to determine what they need and want. We draw that up with some pretty rendering and meet a number of times until we all come to agreement on a design. Then we continue to develop the drawings. It takes a lot of time to complete a set of drawings and detail everything that needs to be drawn. There are specs that are written usually using a pre-written standard spec that is edited for a particular job around the materials used on that project. Once a job is under construction, the architect reviews shop drawings prepared by the sub- contractors for each part of the work. Our Construction Documents are generally guides for what we want. Each sub-contractor has to really work out how to construct their piece of the work in detail. The architect makes regular job site visits usually once a month or once every two weeks to ensure the project is being completed on time, and to confirm that what the contractor is requesting payment for has been completed.

Work Environment: Architects spend much of their time in offices, where they develop plans, meet with clients, and consult with engineers and other architects. We also visit construction sites to prepare initial drawings and review the progress of projects to ensure that clients’ objectives are met. 

Once construction is complete, it’s on to the next project.