AutoCAD User Group Of the Pocono's

Architecture Page

Hello and welcome to the AUGOP Architecture page!

Architecture has been my chosen profession since my junior year of highschool some 18 years ago. As my old Latin teacher once said, a job or even a career are just that, but a profession is a work ethic you profess and not a job you merely go through the motions with.

I would read my mothers home and garden type magazines and modify floor plans or read about interior decorating. I enjoyed the intricacies of mechanical drafting and the visualization of three dimensional parts into their orthogonal components. College was also a good experience, exposing me to the parti and the all nighters and the critique and to the technical aspects of architecture of which I fell in love. The artistic pursuits never fully appealed to me but the technical aspects with its order and symmetry and even structured asymmetry appealed to me immensely. Here, I was in control with a structured thought process and script for designing. Not to the point of being mechanical but in the sense of having a framework in which to design. I never did pursue architectural history, finding it, I dare say, boring. Perhaps I didn't give it its just due. Perhaps I can still find the time now with the help of electronic encyclopedia and the Internet... find a past architect that can rekindle my spirits in architecture. Wright, Corbo, Meis, Sullivan, they all appealed to me in one way or another.

But I am a man of numbers and presently I belong to that 25% of architects that have branched out to parallel disciplines. I have moved away from the practice of architecture to the support of computers in architectural/engineering environments. Although I do practice on a limited basis and design "over the shoulder" of our in- house architects, there is this struggle I go through each time someone asks me what I do for a living. I could say I am an information systems manager or a CAD manager or a computer manager, or a network administrator but I invariable say I am an Architect. There is a mystique, a respect for architects by some but I feel not by the general public. People, except some contractors, respect architects but do not value their services. That is probably the most critical reason I have strayed from the design end of the profession to the technical side. Most home buyers are satisfied with rubber-stamp boxes on a rectangular piece of grass that has become the commodity of habitation. Commercial developers want an EIFS clad plywood box on a sea of asphalt. "Make it look nice, but keep it cheap, there is no budget, we'll write off repairs later or collect on insurance. Why go to an architect when the builder throws in the "design" for free. Get an architect only when the law requires one."

The technical side of architecture is more cut and dry and predictable and analytical. I use my analytical skills everyday in trouble shooting computer problems and people problems. The great visionary has fallen prey to the great collaborator. No man is an island but that is what architecture schools teach. I guess it is the schools responsibility to expose the student to the various nuances of the profession and let God weed'em out. Remember, half the architects in the world graduated in the bottom half of their class. Schools emphasize design freedom maybe because they know you will not have the chance to fully develop it in the real world... (JS)

Partial Portfolio

View My Partial Portfolio

By James Spinola, RA, CCCA

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A paper on...

A Myth of the Development of Architectural Language

By Prof. Barry Jackson, NJIT

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The Construction Specifications Institute

My CSI HomePage

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