[to answer your question: My formal name is William Richard, which is why the AIA knows me as William. But I go by Rich. When my book gets published in the fall, it will say 'by Rich Farris.']
I'm not saying that programming information and creativity are mutually exclusive. To the contrary, I see programming information as a
subset to the creativity. The primary issue is one of emphasis, by the mere fact that artistic creativity and creative processes are far more difficult to learn than objective technical goals. And this means that artstic skills are by far the most neglected, because it's so hard to teach, and so impossible to quantify.
From my perspective, our profession is completely overrun with architects who can rattle off a huge diatribe of technical infromation (to the delight of their clients), all stuffed in a rather pathetic box they want to call architecture. They learned the easy stuff, but missed the boat on the more difficult and intellectually challenging area of artistic education, which is supposed to transport the entire story into something of real value.
The older buildings that nobody wants to tear down, are the ones that go far beyond their programming success. In fact, we rarely know how well the programming really worked, since building
use is so highly dependent on unstable economics. Was the Parthenon a programming success story? Was it on budget? Was the client pleased? Did they move in on time? Do we really care? Does it really matter? Do we have to know those things to know that it is a worthy piece of architecture? Is there any building in any architectural history book, by the mere fact that somebody did great programming? Listening to architects today, you would think that was a primary measuring stick. Yet, none such buildings are ever remembered by anybody. It's only a self-congratulatory effort, if that's all you've got.
That is not to say, we also have some designers who are extremely creative, who can't seem to put together a building that does not leak or fall down. There are some famous names out there that are known for their poorly detailed work. I just know better than to say who they are.
I am a big believer in well built buildings. I spend a great deal of my career working with waterproofing systems, expansion joints, and other complex assemblies that can wreak havoc on a project if not properly tended to. But no matter how proud I may be of my technical solutions, that will only achieve construction quality. On it's own, it won't get us to great architecture. That would be like somebody taking pride in a great car design because the alternator is of very high quality.
My biggest pet peave are professional programmers who call themselves designers, by the mere fact that they have turned programming into a specialty, and in effect, displaced real designers completely from a lot of design processes. Artistic concepts become an afterthought, done in a few minutes, rather than in the driver's seat where they should be. The result is very predictable. We end up with dull buildings, designed via programming, that supposedly function well. It does not take a rocket scientist to learn programming. But some programmers get a lot of clout and power, because their knowledge base is very closely tied to the client's ego and the client's money. Programming is spoken in the client's language, so it's super easy to entice them to the projected 'genius' put on by the programmer. The loser, in the end, is the architecture. The client may not be wise enough to know they've been had, but some of them figure it out after they eventually get a real designer to work with, or more often when they see a competitor of theirs getting something far more creative.
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Rich Farris AIA
Architect
Dallas TX
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