The Habits of an Architect
Since practising architecture in an office environment, where we get to apply our knowledge from architecture school to the workplace, we have realised the small habits we have adopted as a result of being immersed in the field.
Being surrounded by senior architects who have been present in the world of Architecture for many decades, inevitably they have honed new habits due to their careers which come out in their day-to-day lives. Our junior roles working amongst these professionals have given us the opportunity to witness them in action. In some cases, we’ve even caught ourselves doing some of the habits that we discuss in the blog post below! Let us know if you have picked up on routines and habits that relate to your field of work.
An Overt Interest in Construction Sites
You may interpret ‘Architects’ as only designers but you’ll sooner or later find out that they also play a significant role within the construction site. So much so, you’ll catch them peeking through the hoarding trying to catch a glimpse of progress or simply a glance into how the works are being carried out.
When travelling between site projects or other meetings, we have realised that our seniors would float around any nearby construction sites for mainly 2 reasons; The first being to see who was commissioned for the project to understand the surrounding competition and the next reason is to see who the contractor/construction company is and whether they are worth considering for our own projects. If we stumble across these construction sites often, it’s also nice to see the final outcome from the perspective of an outsider who wasn’t taking part in the design team. Sometimes it’s nice to just witness somebody else’s design come to life without the stress that comes along with it. Oddly, this is a habit that some tutors would encourage to do for inspiration but it has never come so naturally before. During university, this was not a habit that we had nor an action that we specifically went out of our way to do, but now it’s almost engraved in us to go and see what’s happening!
So, if you happen to catch us eagerly eyeing up a construction site… blame the profession, not us :D
Attention to Detail
After all the portfolio pages, sketch iterations, and model-making sessions, it’s so easy for us, in the architecture industry, to become extremely detail-oriented. The slightest offset in a room setting or second-fix bathroom item layouts will stick out like a sore thumb to us due to the intense level of analysis we reach as the years go by. University teaches the importance of presenting work effectively and clearly so you can approach scenarios of laying out your designs with logic and reasoning. You’ll have valid reasons as to why you have placed a tap on a certain place on the wall - alignment to a tile, centred to the sink, breathing space between the spout and drain, etc. To a person outside of the field, they will take the final outcome for granted when in fact a lot of time and thought process is spent on figuring out the best visual result for the smallest things so the fluidity within a room isn’t lost due to an architectural imbalance. If you follow us on our Instagram page, you will see that electrical and bathroom construction drawings test your boundaries when it comes to alignment, spacing and juggling the domino effect of your actions.
For example,
If you have a kitchen tap centred horizontally to the sink below, you may end up with the tap sitting imbalance between two splashback tiles. To fix the problem you shift the tiles so two tiles meet in the middle of the kitchen tap.
You think that the problem is solved until you realise that you had deliberately positioned the tiles in the previous location to avoid having awkward cut tiles at the wall interfaces. Whilst these are the nitty-gritty minor tweaks in the grand scheme of things, they make the biggest difference aesthetically, when the project is complete.
A client may not even notice all the possible options and it’s our job as designers to nitpick our own design and offer all the solutions. Over time, we become extremely alert to the fine details that someone else would probably overlook.
The Client Voice
If you’ve ever worked in customer service or an environment which requires you to directly talk with a client, you’ll be familiar with this one. What we call ‘the client voice’ is the change in tone and adapted vocabulary when speaking to a potential or current client.
Almost always done so unintentionally, we often find ourselves picking up the phone to clients with this voice that in a way enhances their understanding, builds trust and confidence between the client and architect. Clients tend to feel comfortable when they perceive that the architect they have appointed truly understands their needs and wants from their perspective, so when using the client voice and employing a tone which sounds friendly it fosters a positive response and trusting relationship between the two. Working in an industry where we communicate with many professionals and are ultimately employed by the client, we want to keep them as happy as possible, hence why it’s so easy to slip into this voice.
This is probably also a habit which in the long term benefits the architectural office, hence why we all seem to adapt to it :/ Sounding more understanding and friendly will most likely enhance the clients experience with the architect. Similarly, this will make them feel like their needs and preferences are being prioritised, increasing the chances of them recommending you to a friend or providing positive feedback - contributing to building a good reputation amongst other businesses.
The fact that this is a habit prevalent in many industries and not only the architecture sector, should be evidence enough that perhaps leaning into the client's voice is not the worst and it can even have its advantages…Do you find yourself slipping into a friendly and nicer tone when speaking to clients?
Expressing ourselves with hand gestures…a lot of them
If you didn’t use hand gestures during university and crits to support your explanations and express your ideas, you’ll probably pick up the habit in the workplace, especially since we are always in conversation of new design ideas.
When talking through a concept or trying to relay information, we’ll often find that architects and generally those in the creative industries use hand motions to demonstrate the essence of a concept. Being a visual profession we have gotten so used to explaining ideas without the use of our words, it’s become normal to use motions out of habit to convey, for example an essence of a concept or the flow of a space. We often rely on visual cues to show ideas effectively and expressing ourselves with gestures supports verbal explanations by reinforcing those key points. In many different contexts, we could be using gestures, talking to contractors about detailing, talking to clients on scale and spatial arrangements to try and get them to understand whilst also portraying our enthusiasm or even when discussing in a design team with other professionals.
Having this range of motion when speaking has become such a natural and instinctive form of communication that, most of the time, we don’t even notice it in the moment. So, the next time you see an architect waving their arms about, just know they’re probably talking though or explaining something :)
Have you spotted any of these odd habits with your co-workers or even fellow peers at university? What habits have you picked up at your architectural office? Let us know!
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