BEYOND ARCHITECTURE
An architectural education is excellent preparation for many career paths beyond architecture. In fact, the career possibilities with an architectural education are truly limitless. Anecdotal estimates suggest that only one-half of architectural graduates pursue licensure. By applying the ideas listed earlier in “career designing,” one can launch a successful career beyond architecture.
As a profession, architecture offers a myriad of possibilities for rewarding careers – Irene Dumas-Tyson
Career paths beyond traditional practice tap into the creative-thinking and problem-solving skills developed from an architectural education. The interest in these paths is growing; emerging professionals indicate that nearly one-fifth do not plan on pursuing a traditional career in architecture although they still plan to obtain their license.
Over the last number of years, Archinect, an online forum for architecture, has featured over 25 architects who have applied their backgrounds in architecture to other careers fields through its “Working out of the Box” series. While most are still connected to design in some form, the range of career fields is quite diverse – filmmaker, organic farmer, artist, design director at a resort hotel chain, user experience designer, information designer and design technology consulting.
I am certain that architectural graduates who are in command of the powerful problem defining and problem-solving skills of the designer, whill be full capable of designing their own imaginative careers by creating new definitions of meaningful work for architects that are embedded in the social landscape of human activity and life’s events – Leslie Kanes Weisman
More recently, two books have been published on the topic of Beyond Architecture. Below are the details.
what kind of architect are you?
https://www.amazon.com/What-Kind-Architect-are-You/dp/1951541561
Authored by Udo Greinacher
Architecture is commonplace. We inhabit it and use it; it is constantly present; it serves as foreground and background and usually has a story to tell. But apart from its most illustrious makers, we know almost nothing about the people who conceived it: the architects. What Kind of Architect Are You? offers a glimpse into a vast array of professional possibilities and points out meaningful alternatives to the prevailing myth of the “starchitect.”
It provides those in search of an architect with insights into how we work and helps them to formulate expectations. It challenges practitioners to think introspectively and examine how they fit into the architectural spectrum. And finally, the collection documents the cross-section of cultural and architectural practice across America.
Architects After Architecture: Alternative Pathways for Practice
Edited By Harriet Harriss, Rory Hyde, Roberta Marcaccio
Review Architects After Architecture
What can you do with a degree in architecture? Where might it take you? What kind of challenges could you address? Architects After Architecture reframes architecture as a uniquely versatile way of acting on the world, far beyond that of designing buildings.
In this volume, we meet forty practitioners through profiles, case studies, and interviews, who have used their architectural training in new and resourceful ways to tackle the climate crisis, work with refugees, advocate for diversity, start tech companies, become leading museum curators, tackle homelessness, draft public policy, become developers, design video games, shape public discourse, and much more.
Together, they describe a future of architecture that is diverse and engaged, expanding the limits of the discipline, and offering new paths forward in times of crisis. Whether you are an architecture student or a practicing architect considering a change, you’ll find this an encouraging and inspiring read.
Well, do you wish to be an architect or a beyond architect?