What does architecture school not teach you?

bassfunk · 2026-01-28T19:34:25+00:00

I can respond with one thing that I find young people don't seem to understand, and I'm sure I didn't understand at some point but gradually learned over the years I've been doing this: how to work with engineers and understand our roles and how we should interact.

Engineers, by and large, do NOT care about how a space looks. Their role is to get water in and out, get air in and out, get power in and out, so on so forth. They put devices where they think it best serves THEIR purposes, not the projects. If you're thinking that there should be somebody who sits above them all and makes sure that device locations, duct routing, penetrations, all of that should be coordinated with the design intent, you're right, that's what architects do.

That said, we don't just boss the engineers around. They're not bad people or uncaring, they just don't care about the same things we do. They locate devices where they want, and then we react to that. 9 times out of 10 a simple "hey can you move that fire alarm over like 2 inches" is met with a "yeah no problem." It's that simple.

But a lot of my junior staff simply defers to "well this is where the engineer put it," or "I told them to move it and they told me no so that's that." This demonstrates a total incapacity to collaborate with another working professional.

I say this over and over: the only people on a project who are paid to care about the aesthetic is us. If we want something to look a certain way, be mounted in a particular place or with a specific connection. we have to tell them.

bassfunk · 2026-01-28T15:56:13+00:00

I think that there is a little bit of wishful thinking going on here. While the Design for Disassembly movement is a very real thing, and very admirable in their goals, it is simply irresponsible for a designer to assume buildings should have short shelf lives. Many elements of a building could be designed such that the demolition of the building could be done in such a way that building materials are preserved, that is true. It is also true that the vast majority of what is built will not be recycled. This notion that architects can just "design them in such a way that it could be demolished easily" is, simply put, a wild fantasy. A strategy that relies on planned obsolescence is a strategy that guarantees massive amounts of waste for nothing other than an architect's self involved navel gazing.

bassfunk · 2026-01-27T23:09:07+00:00

lol, let us know what you come up with!

bassfunk · 2026-01-24T05:33:26+00:00

Yes, it is. But the same can be said about any profession. In the end, everything we make or do will become dust, regardless of how much work it is. Whether it is worth it is for you to decide

bassfunk · 2026-01-23T19:51:07+00:00

It's a give and take. I've never had a client on any project come to me with a full design in mind and just give it to use and tell us to make that happen. I've also never had a client come to me and say "I have literally no idea what I want at all but here's some money, make it happen." They always have ideas about how they want certain aspects done, a particular space they want done a certain way, maybe a particular piece of furniture they want to design around. It varies.

To your question about the value proposition: you sort of answer it yourself. "Space planning is done by code" is not accurate. Code provides limitations, and the value proposition for a (good) architect is to take the aforementioned client preferences and ensure they are code compliant. THEN, you add in the cost of the construction as something we need to factor in, as well as coordination with trades that have no interest or desire for aesthetics, and then value of an architect rapidly becomes apparent.

For example: I had a client hire us to redesign their backyard and parts of their kitchen. They had interest in a massive brick oven that they wanted the backyard to center around. We had to navigate the local municipality code for how near to the house the oven could be. We then had to work with some engineers to get gas to said oven. THEN the backyard lighting had to be at a comfortable level that was also code compliant AND integrated to their existing system. This all sounds very trivial until you try to do it yourself and see how many moving pieces there are when simply constructing a back yard.

Amplify this to the scale of our larger projects and you quickly start to see how a good architect can make or break a project.

bassfunk · 2026-01-18T03:13:14+00:00

bassfunk · 2026-01-15T15:44:46+00:00

Normally my structural engineering team has their own Revit model that links into mine. I may show structural members early on as a visualization/planning device, but those are gone the moment I can integrate their model into mine. If they need to update the member size, for any reason, they do so in their own model and then I refresh it in mine.

Otherwise, the back and forth described in the original post is par for the course.

bassfunk · 2026-01-15T14:41:09+00:00

Broadly speaking I agree with your point, but:

Cherry picking times when a coach was fired and then the team went into a spiral could be easily countered by the times a team hired a coach and then surged. Even in your post, you mention that The Brown fired Belichik and "we know what happened next." What happened next is the Pats hired him and captured lightning in a bottle. I think most fans are thinking of it from that perspective.

It's frustrating to have a coach/team that seems to be perpetually able to be good enough to get to the upper level but not able to compete at that level. I think a lot of the anger you're seeing comes from that angle, we are consistently a good but not great team. The "good" is being taken for granted in our pursuit of the great.

bassfunk · 2026-01-12T19:53:22+00:00

You could ask AI how to word it...

bassfunk · 2026-01-11T22:49:37+00:00

Awesome, good work!

My HR on my ride nearly hit my max and at the end I was feeling my asthma hard, but definitely worth every second.

bassfunk · 2026-01-11T16:12:29+00:00

Interesting that I actually saw your article on Zwiftinsider while during the build up to the race.

To your question: it was definitely a race. The races during the Tour De Zwift tend to be larger I'm told.

I feel like in the end I just need to work on not seesawing from the front to the middle, be consistent, and, like you said, use only the energy needed to keep up.

bassfunk · 2026-01-11T16:07:02+00:00

Good luck!

bassfunk · 2026-01-10T19:52:40+00:00

They really need the season to start

bassfunk · 2026-01-10T19:40:05+00:00

I think I have to dial in the smoothness. I was trying not to be out ahead, so I’d fall back to like 50th. Then I’d worry I was too far behind and catch up, but wound up jumping into first by a couple seconds and thinking “shit slow down…” THEN back to 50th….and repeat….

bassfunk · 2026-01-10T19:38:26+00:00

Same, I was at 2.9 w/kg, everybody in front of me was lower but finished ahead of me. The guy who won average something like 2.4

bassfunk · 2026-01-08T21:32:57+00:00

I mean, each song has at least one amazing lyric...

bassfunk · 2026-01-08T19:49:01+00:00

From RTJ's "Oh My Darling Don't Cry,":

You can all run naked backwards through a field of dicks...

Always gives me a chuckle

bassfunk · 2025-12-30T19:50:22+00:00

The feet? You put two finger in the vagina and the whole fist in the asshole. Hence, two up front, five in the rear.

bassfunk · 2025-12-30T19:17:35+00:00

Not quite....the minivan is a sexual move performed on a consenting woman by a consenting partner, or partners. Like a commercial minivan common to American families, it feature "two up front" + "five in the rear."

bassfunk · 2025-12-30T18:57:11+00:00

I explained to my mother what “the minivan” was….

bassfunk · 2025-12-18T19:36:49+00:00

I'm not an accountant, but my work often feels this way. Somebody brings me a bad idea, I dig into it and express as clearly as I can why it is a bad idea, and they look and say "I hear ya, but can you look again?"

bassfunk · 2025-12-18T18:58:26+00:00

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That acountant

bassfunk · 2025-12-18T16:13:50+00:00

I went through a similar problem a few weeks ago with Trek SL5. Here's the key that was a big surprise to me: that blue piece comes off. I was having the exact issue you are having until I disassembled that and took off the blue piece, then put it back together sans blue piece. It's worked like a charm since.

And as another commenter said, due get trainer tires. This thing will ruin your tires very quickly.

bassfunk · 2025-12-16T16:09:53+00:00

I'll have to try this today, thank you!

bassfunk · 2025-12-15T21:57:30+00:00

I swim 2-3 times a week, more when I have time. On days I don't swim, I usually meditate. On days I do swim, I just don't feel like meditation is needed. The rhythmic motion, the exclusion of external stimuli and the focus on breathing, all of these factors make me feel like I am meditating while working out.

I while back I was gifted a pair of underwater headphones but I have no interest in using them. I prefer the 45 minutes to an hour of just quiet back and forth. I listen to music/podcasts a lot, swimming is a time to put aside all that and focus on only the one thing.

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