Posts Tagged ‘Architects’

January 11, 2016

How to Build Confidence as an Architect, Tips from 4 Women Architects

by: Taz Loomans

Tweet Sometimes you don’t have all the answers, but thankfully having all the answers is not a prerequisite to building confidence. I’ve struggled for a long time and still do at times with lacking confidence as an architect, even after being assigned large projects and getting my license and being put in charge of teams. The nagging lack of confidence persisted despite other people’s confidence in me. Over time I’ve found that confidence doesn’t come from being perfect and knowing everything, but from a deep reserve within that we can draw on when things get tough. There are many ways…

December 27, 2015

How to Build Confidence as an Architect, 20 Tips from Diane Jacobs

by: Taz Loomans

Tweet “Construction is a very costly endeavor, costing hundreds of thousands or millions of dollars and it is a huge responsibility for architects to be the steward of that kind of money in the form of a building,” says Rosa Sheng, Senior Associate at Bohlin Cywinski Jackson and Chair of Equity by Design. This huge responsibility along with the tremendous breadth and ever changing amount of technical knowledge that is required to be an architect and an education that conditions people to think that they are failures if they do not become starchitects often leads to confidence issues in architects, especially…

December 19, 2015

How to Build Confidence as an Architect, Part I

by: Taz Loomans

Tweet Some years ago I designed a stair for an office building that was too narrow. It was supposed to be a minimum of 48 inches wide, but I designed it to be 36 inches wide. No one caught it, not my supervisor, not the firm’s quality assurance team, and not even the contractor until he had already ordered the steel, which was the wrong size. My firm had to pay for new steel for the correct size stair. I was so ashamed and this hurt my confidence so much, that it was part of the reason I left architecture…

April 13, 2015

Let’s Give a Damn about Gender Equity in Architecture

by: Taz Loomans

Tweet Two weeks ago I was at an event where I was completely inspired and utterly disappointed at the same time. Design Museum Portland screened Making Space: 5 Women Changing the Face of Architecture at the Hollywood Theater and by the end of it I felt like I could change the world. But I was deflated by the fact that the audience was overwhelmingly comprised of women and such few men attended. No doubt this movie is of interest to women architects, but what wasn’t obvious, apparently, is that it is of interest to, and maybe even more important for,…

February 23, 2015

Architecture as if People and the Planet Mattered

by: Taz Loomans

Tweet Last week I watched a Peruvian documentary on the lives of local musicians called I’m Still, screened as part of the Portland International Film Festival. It displayed stunning imagery of mountain-top villages in remote areas of the country where indigenous musicians played their violins, harps and guitars and sang folk songs. I was struck by the indigenous architecture of these villages, which comprised of hand-built stone masonry walls and clay tile roofs. They were beautiful buildings built by families generations ago, perfectly scaled to Peruvian human proportions and completely fitting of Puruvian native lifestyles. Moreover, they blended in with…

January 26, 2015

What do Architects Do?

by: Taz Loomans

Tweet Most people don’t really know what architects do on a day to day basis. Perhaps you have a vague notion that architects make napkin sketches sitting in sleek, low-lit bars playing jazz piano and a few months later fabulous buildings like the Guggenheim in Bilbao by Frank Gehry or the Bullet Building by Norman Foster manifest from that sketch. This is not entirely true, there are a number of people and processes missing from that scenario. A lot of things happen between the napkin sketch and when the doors of a building open and that stretch is where the…

December 01, 2014

A Review of The Timeless Way of Building by Christopher Alexander

by: Taz Loomans

Tweet Modernism was king when I went to architecture school back in the late 90s and early 2000s. And the architect’s ego was carefully cultivated through very severe critiques of student work which quickly established who the stars of the class were and who the laggards were. Architecture was all about what we created and how we could impose our vision on the natural world. Professors blathered on with great delight about architects like Le Corbusier and Oscar Niemeyer. These were architecture’s heroes. Nevermind that their urban planning proposals had little to do with the actual human experience and everything…

September 14, 2011

Interview with Will Bruder – Third Segment

by: Taz Loomans

Tweet Today’s post is the third segment of my interview with architect Will Bruder. If you missed them, make sure to take a look at the first and second segments as well! In today’s segment, Will talks about his vision for transit oriented development in the Valley, what excites him most about our city, the one building type he thinks is in sore need of transformation and finally, who he thinks should be the next mayor of Phoenix. Part VI Will’s vision for transit oriented development: Part VII What excites Will most about Phoenix and the one building type we…

September 12, 2011

Interview with Will Bruder – First Segment

by: Taz Loomans

Tweet One of the reasons I love being a blogger is that I have an excuse to talk with the people I admire most about things I’ve always wanted to ask them. I had such an opportunity two weeks ago with Will Bruder, a world renown architect who is responsible for such architectural masterpieces as the Burton Barr Library, Scottsdale Museum of Contemporary Art, the Henkel Headquarters, and the Vale among a myriad of other projects and project types. In Parts I, II and III of the interview, shown below, we talked about the role of the architect in society,…

April 18, 2011

Interview with Diane Jacobs of Holly Street Studio Architects, Part I

by: Taz Loomans

Tweet A few weeks ago, on March 31, I had the pleasure of speaking with Diane Jacobs, one of the principals behind a small firm in Downtown Phoenix called Holly Street Studio Architects that focuses on public work. Diane’s firm has done some remarkable public projects such as McCormick Ranch Railroad Park, Maryvale Poolhouse and the Core Collection at the Heard Museum. Just recently, the firm was awarded ASU’s new Student Engagement Center tenant improvement project at the historic Post Office in Downtown. Below is part I of my video interview with Diane. Diane on the importance of officing out…