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Architect

Specialty Definition: Architect

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Specialty Definition: Architect

(From Wikipedia, the free Encyclopedia)

An architect is a person skilled in the art of planning, designing and constructing buildings. See Architecture. Architects are considered professionals, along with doctors and lawyers. The most prestigious award a living architect can receive is the Pritzker Prize.

Although architect is a specific term referring to a licensed professional, the word is frequently used in a broader sense to define someone who brings order to the built or unbuilt environment through rational and irrational constructs using the tools of reason (for example, webmasters or designers sometimes call themselves architects).

In many countries, architects are required to be licensed in order to represent themselves as architects.

USA

In the United States, architects are required to pass a series of exams and pay a fee before they can be licensed. In addition, American architects must have eight years of practical experience (which may include accredited degrees in architecture) before they may become licensed.

The American Institute of Architects [1] is the U.S.A. professional organization dedicated to offering a network of services to architects. Architects who are members of this organization are permitted to use the suffix AIA after their names. Although all members of the AIA are required to be licensed architects, not all architects are members of the AIA.

UK

In the United Kingdom, the term Architect is protected by Law, the latest regulations being made under the Architects Act 1997. Apart from Architects in the construction industry, the only other persons permitted to carry out business using the term are naval architects landscape architects and golf-course architects.

Construction industry architects (the subject of this article) must be registered with the Architects Registration Board (ARB external Link) in order to practice, and who also have the power to suspend or revoke registration. The ARB took over an expanded role from the now defunct Architects Registration Council of the United Kingdom (ARCUK) as a result of the 1997 law. In order to register, an Architect must be qualified in the UK or an European Economic Area country.

The leading professional body for architects in the UK is the Royal Institute of British Architects (RIBA) external link.

See also UK topics.

Notable Architects

The architects in this List of notable architects are in chronological order of when they did their most important work (or emerged), and alphabetized within each time period.

Notable schools which trained architects:

Bauhaus, Weimar, Dessau, and Berlin

Ecole des Beaux Arts, Paris Prarie

See also

• Landscape architect
• Landscape architecture
• Regional planning
• Urban planning
• Urban planner
• Civil engineering
• Civil engineer
• Structural engineering
• Structural engineer
• Clerk of the Works

  Source: adapted by the editor from Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia under a copyleft GNU Free Documentation License (GFDL) from the article "Architect."

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Architecture

(From Wikipedia, the free Encyclopedia)

Architecture is the art and science of designing buildings. A wider definition would include within its scope the design of the total built environment, from the macro level of town planning, urban design and landscape to the microlevel of furniture and product design. Architecture, equally importantly, also refers to the product of such a design.

According to the earliest surviving work on the subject, Vitruvius' "On Architecture", good building should have Beauty (Venustas), Firmness (Firmitas) and Utility (Utilitas); architecture can be said to be a balance and coordination among these three elements, with no one overpowering the others. A modern day definition sees architecture as addressing functional, aesthetic and psychological considerations. However, looked at another way, function itself is seen as encompassing all criteria, including aesthetic and psychological ones.

Architecture is a multi-disciplinary field, including within its fold mathematics, science, art, technology, social sciences, politics, history, philosophy, and so on. In Vitruvius' words, "Architecture is a science, arising out of many other sciences, and adorned with much and varied learning: by the help of which a judgement is formed of those works which are the result of other arts". He adds that an architect should be well versed in fields such as music, astronomy, etc., Philosophy is a particular favourite, in fact one frequently refers to the philosophy of each architect when one means the approach. Rationalism, empiricism, structuralism, poststructuralism and phenomenology are some directions from philosophy influencing architecture.

The importance of theory in informing practice cannot be overemphasised, though many architects shun theory. Vitruvius continues "Practice and theory are its parents. Practice is the frequent and continued contemplation of the mode of executing any given work, or of the mere operation of the hands, for the conversion of the material in the best and readiest way. Theory is the result of that reasoning which demonstrates and explains that the material wrought has been so converted as to answer the end proposed. Wherefore the mere practical architect is not able to assign sufficient reasons for the forms he adopts; and the theoretic architect also fails, grasping the shadow instead of the substance. He who is theoretic as well as practical, is therefore doubly armed; able not only to prove the propriety of his design, but equally so to carry it into execution."

The difference between architecture and building is a subject matter that has engaged the attention of many. According to Nikolaus Pevsner, European historian of the early 20th century, " A bicycle shed is a building, Lincoln Cathedral is a piece of architecture". In current thinking, the division is not too clear. Bernard Rudofsky's famous book "Architecture without architects" consolidated a whole range of structures designed by ordinary people into the realm of architecture. The further back in history one goes, the greater is the consensus on what architecture is or is not, possibly because time is an efficient filter. If like Vitruvius we consider architecture as good building, then does it mean that bad architecture does not exist? To resolve this dilemma, especially with the increasing number of buildings in the world today, architecture can also be defined as what an architect does. This would then place the emphasis on the evolution of architecture and the architect.

Architecture first evolved out of the dynamics between needs (conducive environmental conditions, security, etc.,) and means (available building materials and construction technology). Prehistoric and primitive architecture constitute this early stage. As humans progressed and knowledge began to be formalised through oral traditions and practices, architecture evolved into a craft. Here there is first a process of trial and error, and later improvisation or replication of a successful trial. The architect is not the sole important figure, he is merely part of a continuing tradition. What is termed as Vernacular architecture today falls under this mode and still continues to be produced in many parts of the world.

Early human settlements were essentially rural. As surplus of production began to occur, rural societies transformed into urban ones. The complexity of buildings and their types increased. General civil construction such as roads and bridges began to be built. Many new building types such as schools, hospitals, recreational facilities emerged. Religious architecture retained its primacy in most societies. Architectural styles developed and texts on architecture began to be written. These became canons to be followed in important works, especially religious architecture. Some examples of canons are the works of Vitruvius and Vaastu Shastra in ancient India. In Europe in the Classical and Medieval periods, buildings were not attributed to specific individual architects who remained anonymous. Guilds were formed by craftsmen to organise their trade.

With the Renaissance and its emphasis on the individual and humanity rather than religion, and with all its attendant progess and achievements, a new chapter began. Buildings were ascribed to specific architects- Michaelangelo, Brunelleschi, Leonardo da Vinci, the cult of the individual had begun. But there was no dividing line between artist, architect and engineer, or any of the related vocations. At this stage, it was still possible for an artist to design a bridge as the level of structural calculations involved were within the scope of the generalist.

With the consolidation of knowledge in scientific fields such as engineering and the rise of new materials and technology, the architect began to lose ground on the technical aspects of building. He therefore cornered for himself another playing field - that of aesthetics. There was the rise of the 'gentleman architect' who usually dealt with wealthy clients and concentrated predominantly on visual qualities, usually derived from historical prototypes. In the 19th century Ecole des Beaux Arts in France, the training was towards producing quick sketch schemes involving beautiful drawings without much emphasis on context.

Meanwhile, the Industrial Revolution laid open the door for mass consumption and aesthetics started becoming a criterion even for the middle class as ornamented products, once within the province of expensive craftmanship, became cheaper under machine production. Such products lacked the beauty and honesty associated with the expression of the process in the product.

The dissatisfaction with such a general situation at the turn of the twentieth century gave rise to many new lines of thought that in architecture served as precursors to Modern Architecture. Notable among these is the Deutshe Werkbund, formed in 1907 to produce better quality machine made objects. The rise of the profession of industrial design is usually placed here. Following this lead, the Bauhaus school, founded in Germany in 1919, consciously rejected history and looked at architecture as a synthesis of art, craft and technology.

When Modern architecture first began to be practiced, it was an avante garde movement with moral, philosophical and aesthetic underpinnings. Truth was sought by rejecting history and turning to function as generator of form. Architects became prominent figures and were termed masters. Later modern architecture moved into the realm of mass production due to its simplicity and economy.

However, a reductive quality began to be perceived in modern architecture by the general public from the 1960s. Some reasons cited for this are its lack of meaning, sterility, ugliness, uniformity and psychological effects.

The architectural profession responded to this partly by attempting a more populist architecture at the visual level, even if at the expense of sacrificing depth for shallowness, a direction called Postmodernism. Robert Venturi's contention that a "decorated shed" (an ordinary building which is functionally designed inside and embellished on the outside) was better than a "duck" (a building in which the whole form and its function are considered together) gives an idea of this approach.

Another part of the profession, and also some non-architects, responded by going to what they considered the root of the problem. They felt that architecture was not a personal philosophical or aesthetic pursuit by individualists, rather it had to consider everyday needs of people and use technology to give a livable environment. The Design Methodology Movement involving people such as Chris Jones, Christopher Alexander started searching for a more inclusive process of design in order to lead to a better product. Extensive studies on areas such as behavioural, environmental and social sciences were done and started informing the design process.

As many other concerns began to be recognised and complexity of buildings began to increase in terms of aspects such as services, architecture started becoming more multi-disciplinary than ever. Architecture now required a team of professionals in its making, an architect being one among the many, sometimes the leader, sometimes not. This is the state of the profession today. However, individuality is still cherished and sought for in the design of buildings seen as cultural symbols-the museum or fine arts centre has become a showcase for new experiments in style, today Deconstructivism, tomorrow maybe something else.

Buildings are the most visible productions of man ever. However, most of them are still designed by people themselves or masons as in developing countries, or through standardised production as in developed countries. The architect remains at the fringes of building production. The skills of the architect are sought only in complex building types or those seen as cultural and political symbols. And this is what the public perceives as architecture. The role of the architect, though changing, has not been central and never autonomous. There is always a dialogue between society and the architect. And what results from this dialogue can be termed architecture- as a product and as a discipline.

See also

• Architect
• Architectural history
• Architectural style
• List of buildings
• Forms in Architecture
• List of notable architects
• Skyscraper
• Space Syntax
• Sustainable Design
• Pattern language
• Mathematics and architecture
• Informatics

External links

• Vitruvius' "Ten Books of Architecture" online
• Skyscrapers.com database on skyscrapers and tall structures
• Royal Institute of British Architects
• American Institute of Architects
• Institute for Architectural Theory, Swiss Federal Institute of Technology, Zurich
• What is New Urbanism? - Congress for the New Urbanism
• What is Landscape Architecture? - American Society of Landscape Architects
• Architecture and Urban Research Laboratory
• Canadian Centre for Architecture - International Research Centre and Museum devoted to Architecture
• http://www.architexturez.net
• http://www.pritzkerprize.com/
• http://www.vitruvio.ch/

Related adjectives are architectural and architectonic

The word architecture is also used for the design or act of designing other complex systems. For example computer architecture, software architecture, information architecture. In these cases, it tends to refer to the overall structure of the system.

Source: adapted by the editor from Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia under a copyleft GNU Free Documentation License (GFDL) from the article "Architecture."

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Software architecture

(From Wikipedia, the free Encyclopedia)

Software architecture underlies the practice of building computer software. In the same way as a building architect sets the principles and goals of a building project as the basis for the draftsman's plans, so too, a software architect sets out the software architecture as a basis for actual system design specifications, per the requirements of the client.

History

Software architecture as a concept was touched upon already in the 1960s by (for example) Edsger Dijkstra, but has increased in popularity since the early 1990s, largely due to activity within Rational Software Corporation and within Microsoft.

Views

Software architecture is commonly organised in views, which are analogous to the different types of blueprints made in common architecture. Some possible views are:

• Functional/logic view
• Code view
• Development/structural view
• Concurrency/process/thread view
• Physical/deployment view
• User action/feedback view

Several languages for describing software architectures have been devised, but no consensus has yet been reached on which symbol-set and view-system should be adopted. Some believe that UML will establish a standard for software architecture views. Others believe that effective development of software relies on understanding unique constraints of each problem, and so universal notations are doomed because each provides a notational bias that necessarily makes the notation useless or dangerous for some set of tasks. They point to the proliferation of programming languages and a succession of failed attempts to impose a single 'universal language' on programmers, as proof that software thrives on diversity and not on standards.

Architecture Examples

There are many common ways of designing computer software modules and their communications, among them:

• Client-server
• Distributed computing
• Peer-to-peer system
• Monolithic system
• Three-tier model
• Structured (module-based but usually monolithic within modules)
• Component Software (strictly module-based, usually object-oriented programming within modules, slightly less monolithic)

Related Concepts

There are also a number of concepts which have been used in software architecture including

• software design patterns
• software antipatterns
• standard data models

Software ontology is often considered to be a superset of software architecture, i.e. one 'ontologist' co-ordinates several 'architects', 'integrators', 'data modellers', and the usability, technical documentation and trainers. There may even be some control over marketing and sales presentations if the purpose of these is to determine who the products' users are, or to find out their vocabulary or values, to help the product reflect these.

The foundation ontology presently being standardized by the IEEE is intended to simplify and constrain the work of ontologists to a degree, and will to that degree simplify many decisions in software architecture.

See Also

• Software engineering
• Usability engineering
• Programming paradigm

References

• Software Architecture by Rick Kazman gives a good overview of architectural concepts
• Architectural Blueprints - the 4+1 View Model of Software Architecture by Philippe Kruchen (Rational Software)
• ''Multi-Paradigm Design in C++ - Jim Coplien - outlines all reasonable design approaches possible in C++, which is a particularly rich language but difficult for beginners.

  Source: adapted by the editor from Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia under a copyleft GNU Free Documentation License (GFDL) from the article "Software architecture."

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Synonyms within Context: Architect

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Modern Usage: Architect

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Commercial Usage: Architect

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Image Slideshow: Architect

Photos: Architect More pictures...

Illustrations: Architect More pictures...

Computer Images: Architect More pictures...

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Photo Album: Architect

Thumbnail	Description & Credit	Thumbnail	Description & Credit
	Figure 58. Albert sounder. The idea of Cardinal Cusanus, mentioned in the previous figure, was re-examined by the Italian architect Leo Battista Alberti and subsequentlydescribed by Giuseppe Biancani in 1635. The design was even simpler than Puhler's device. A simple rule of three was devised to derive the depth from the travel time to the bottom and return of the float. Credit: Sailing for Science - the NOAA Fleet Then and Now.		General view of circular stair, first floor, from the north. Photograph by Jack E. Boucher, September 1971. (Reproduction Number: HABS IN,39-MAD,1-11) This beautiful freestanding spiral staircase climbs from the first floor to the attic of the Captain Charles L. Shrewsbury House. Both the staircase and the house were designed by the architect Francis J. Costigan, a native of Baltimore who had moved to Indiana in 1837. Captain Shrewsbury, a wealthy shipping merchant who owned a fleet of Ohio River steamboats, raised his family of six children in this house and often welcomed state officials and other prominent citizens as his guests. Credit: Library of Congress.
	Diagonal view of orchestra, proscenium and stage, curtains open. Copy of 1928 photo of completed theater interior, by Canfield and Shook, photographers, courtesy of Drew Eberson, Stamford, Connecticut. (Reproduction Number: HABS, KY,56-LOUVI,17-47) Going to the movies became quite an event in the 1920s. Large, urban motion picture "palaces" originally incorporated all the amenities found in live theaters, even out-doing them in scale and opulence and adding concert hall features such as great electric pipe organs and elaborately decorated lobbies. The Loew's Theatre chain hired nationally-known theater architect John Eberson, who designed this 1928 theater in a Spanish influenced style called Churrigueresque. Credit: Library of Congress.		Caption: Blueprint of Bldg. 5, Lakeside Ave. Elevation, Prepared for Thomas Edison Library Group by W.O. Bartlett, Architect; 1939; {12.001/1} (jpg).
	Johns Hopkins Hospital, Baltimore : [Floor plans of building for female nurses] / John R. Niernseé, Architect. Credit: National Library of Medicine.		Supervisory Naval Architect Morton Gertler directs Instrument Maker Carson W. Caudle in preparing a model of the submarine for further tests at the David Taylor Model Basin, Carderock, Maryland, 1 March 1956. "This new type of submarine hull design was selected from a systematic series of streamlined bodies developed by Mr. Gertler, who also supervised the thorough development testing program that resulted in the hull and appendages as they now exist on the submarine Albacore." (quoted from the original picture caption). Credit: NAVY.
	Presbyterian Orphans' Home, Barium Springs, North Carolina, "Little Joe" Chapel / The Iron-Craftsmen, art metal work, 12 S. Orianna St., Phila. 6, Pa. ; Harold E. Wagoner, architect. Credit: Library of Congress.		Official residence ("Executive Mansion") for Mary Newton Foote Henderson, 16th Street, N.W., Washington, D.C. Perspective rendering] / Paul J. Pelz, architect ; Jules T. Crow, del. Credit: Library of Congress.
	City Trading Center (1911), park facade. Designed by the noted Siberian architect Andrei D. Kriachkov, this building served as the main administrative and commercial center of the city, Novosibirsk, Russia. Credit: Library of Congress Prints and Photographs Division Washington, D.C. 20540.		William Partridge, consulting architect of the National Capital Park and Planning Commission, photographed with model showing the M[c]Millan Commission plan for the beautification of the Monument grounds [...] / Underwood & Underwood, Washington. Credit: Library of Congress.
Source: pictures compiled by the editor from various references; see picture credits.

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Digital Photo Gallery: Architect
 

"Details" by Sachie Yamazaki Commentary: "Japanese classic architect. they're supporting the roof."	"Draft table" by Peter Skadberg Commentary: "Architect table HIGH RES PHOTO AVIAL UPON REQUEST. CREDIT WHEN PRACTICAL."
Source: photographs selected by the editor, with permission from the photographers.

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Familiar Quotations: Architect

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Use in Literature: Architect

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Non-Fiction Usage: Architect

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Usage Frequency: Architect

Source: compiled by the editor from several corpora; see credits.

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Expressions: Architect

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Frequency of Internet Keywords: Architect

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Modern Translation: Architect

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Ancestral Language Translations: Architect

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Derivations & Misspellings: Architect

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Rhyming with "Architect"

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Anagrams: Architect

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