101 Things I Didn't Learn In Architecture School
Sarah Lebner, December 2019
Paperback | 5-1/2 x 8-1/2 inches | 118 pages | 25 illustrations | English | ISBN: 978-0648693703 | $18.00
BOOK DESCRIPTION:
This book helps students and graduates of architecture kick-start their career and shave months off their professional development. This book will help you:
- Understand construction basics so you can avoid embarrassing situations and quickly understand instructions.
- Grasp an overview of the industry and business of architecture so that you don’t feel kept in the dark.
- Gain personal tips and helpful resources for an enjoyable and successful work life.
Young architects are expected to learn much of their trade on the job, in an industry that often treats them poorly and stunts their professional development. The profession is crying out for a resource like this that can provide introductions, insight, perspective and mentor-style advice for young architects in the first five years of their career.
Readers are invited to understand concepts through 25 simple diagrams, and language that assumes no prior learning. Throughout the book, further resources are provided as a mind-map of industry information. ...
Sarah Lebner is a young Canberra architect who became registered at 26, and the Principal Architect at multidisciplinary firm Light House Architecture and Science by the age of 28. ... She was recently named the National Emerging Architect of the Year by the Australian Institute of Architects.
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dDAB COMMENTARY:
The "101 Things I Learned®" books, which started with Matthew Frederick's 101 Things I Learned in Architecture School in 2007, are an immensely popular series; its website even boasts that it is MIT Press's "all-time #1 bestseller!" I, like many architects, own the book, although I feel that it is ideal as a studio companion for architecture students and therefore was too late for me, coming out a decade after I graduated from architecture school (likewise, 101 Things I Learned in Urban Design School came out ten years after I went back to school for urban design). The success of the books, particularly the first one, means there will be plenty of detractors, people who feel that the lessons proffered are not the most valuable ones. That's one way of viewing Australian architect Sarah Lebner's first book, aptly titled 101 Things I Didn't Learn In Architecture School.
So what are the difference between what was learned and what wasn't learned? Frederick's book focuses primarily on design studio, spending a lot of time on partis, for instance, those mainstays of conceptual design that see architects distilling their main ideas into formal diagrams. Lebner's book, on the other hand, is more interested in professional practice, technical knowledge, and other practical matters. Are those taught in architecture school? If my undergrad education is any indication, yes, they are. I took professional practice classes, as well as building construction, and computer drafting, though the last was done on my own time at a vocational school since my college was still hand drafting at the time (yes, I'm that old). But if my attention in those classes is any indication as well, they were not nearly as important as design studio and therefore offered information that didn't sink in. Put another way, in my experience — and I'm probably not alone here — much of the practical knowledge of architecture is learned in practice, in those first years after graduation.
Likewise, Lebner acknowledges that the goal of architectural education is not to train people to perform tasks. Instead "it provides you with the rich opportunity to develop your design skills, problem-solving, research capability and creative processes, [...] while exposing you to as many different architects, cities, projects and mentors as possible." In other words, you learn how to think like an architect. Lebner is not alone in thinking her education was inadequate once she got a job and realized she needed another education just to get her work done without assistance from older colleagues. So if Frederick's book is a studio companion for architecture school, Lebner's book is the same for recent graduates embarking on their first job. Ideally, they would down this book in one weekend between their graduation and their first day on the job (not that there's only one weekend between the two, but that the book is a brisk read that should captivate future architects).
Lebner lives and works in a country, Australia, where the sun is in the north and acronyms such as NatHERS, BASIX, and NABERS are used — and known, not reacted to with a shrug of the shoulders. R-values are even different, as Lebner points out in #64: "American R6.0 is equal to Australian R1.1." So of course the ideal audience for this book are graduates who will be working in Australia. This is logical, as it was written by an Australian architect not long after she earned her registration. No matter though, since any technical information in the book is provided as examples, not as resources; technical information is constantly changing, so the book is a starting point for understanding what should be considered on certain things. As a template for an architect's continued education right after college, the book bridges continents, if in more areas than others. And who knows, if it's as successful as Frederick's first book, I could just see a series of geographically specific 101 Things I Didn't Learn In Architecture School spinoffs being produced.
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