Staying Abreast Of Professional Developments: The A & E Profession In Transition

The architecture and engineering profession is facing a whirlwind of change and it is a challenge for faculty members to keep abreast of these developments. According to the National University Continuing Education Association, even slower paced technical fields are reinventing themselves at least once a decade. What is the best way for faculty to monitor and adjust to these changes? By gaining some industrial/professional experience through an association with a professional office, for a summer or on a part-time basis. The benefits are numerous when an educator reconnects with their ever changing technical profession. Some of the more recent changes have included: • We are deeply into the electronic-information era. New styles of education are possible and probably required. • The appearance and organization of professional offices has been affected, as the changes being wrought by the computer move at blinding speed. • Student portfolios and educational outcome results have changed. Firm hiring practices and recruitment strategies are much more aggressive. • Firms have expanded the services they provide, and rely more on these expanded services. • The success of a firm is not solely based on technical skills. Firms are better strategic planners and managers attempting to improve their current and future positions. Architectural and engineering design is an enterprise aimed at the future, but how can educators prepare students if they do not understand present practice? Faculty cannot afford to prepare students for an industry that no longer exists. This can be avoided by blending hands-on professional experience with our academic advancements. Furthermore, studies have shown that work experience positively affects faculty attitudes toward teaching and research. Since efforts to improve engineering education cannot be addressed solely through academic means, added professional experience is an important factor in the growth of a faculty member. Many professions require continuing education credits to maintain licensing or other certificates; it is only logical that educators should require the reciprocal of themselves. INTRODUCTION The half-life of an engineer’s technical skills how long it takes for half of everything an engineer knows about his or her field to become obsolete is strikingly short. According to the National University Continuing Education Association, for mechanical engineers it is 7.5 years; P ge 311.1 for electrical engineers it is 5 years; for software engineers, a mere 2.5 years. 1 Keeping in mind the pace of change and growth since these estimates were developed almost 10 years ago, these half-life figures are undoubtedly even shorter today. So as technological changes gain momentum, architectural and engineering professionals must be prepared to treat their careers as dynamic entities that need continuous upkeep and upgrading. 2 How then can faculty, who are not being educated by professional experience or trained by their company, hope to stay abreast of current developments? Just as professionals must stop thinking of education as what they did in college many years ago, educators must stop thinking of industrial experience as what they did with a company many years ago. Everyone must start seeing both academic education and employment experience as a project of life-long learning. According to many, the cornerstone of building a strong education curriculum is balancing practical experience based knowledge with academic inquiry. 3 Then why is not the same required of the faculty, that is, a blending of industrial experience with academic knowledge, thereby fusing practical applications with theory. This would strengthen the ties, and redefine the boundaries between education and practice in the preparation of professionals. A more professionally involved faculty would also improve the interaction between industry and academia, and improve a relationship that is at times lacking in trust and respect. Architectural and engineering educators have a vital interest in enhancing their industrial experience, it would enrich the schools, support experience and sustain learning. Those educators teaching professional courses should not only have currency in their fields but should also be properly credentialed. Experience in the field would provide faculty with first-hand exposure to and knowledge about advanced and creative uses of technology, current trends and cycles that affect the industry, and prevailing professional developments. ADVANCED AND CREATIVE USES OF TECHNOLOGY THE NEW PROFESSIONAL OFFICE LAYOUT: CHANGED BY THE COMPUTER In an effort to amplify communication, many offices, some as early as 1989, discarded all drafting tables. The new office design has PCs at every station that are linked to all the other staff stations, the library, the conference rooms, and project teams’ tables with a data network, telephone and modem. The network supports electronic mail and the Internet, and the telephone system supports voice mail. Discarding all drafting tables also meant re-inventing many the traditional mechanical skills of drawing with pencil and paper. The new artist’s palette includes CADD, rendering tools, pixel editing, desktop publishing and black-and-white and color output devices. Someone who has not been in an architectural and engineering firm for 10 years would not recognize the place. There would be a PC at every station and all would be networked together for ease of information exchange THE ELECTRONIC-INFORMATION ERA: COMPUTERS IN PRACTICE P ge 311.2 According to Dennis Neely, vice president of Industry Marketing for Softdesk ASG, we are now deeply into the electronic-information era. Unlike other transformations in the field (professionalization at the end of the 19th century, or the increased specialization of practice after W.W.II, or even the Industrial Revolution of the mid 1800s), the changes being wrought by electronic information are moving at blinding speed. Practitioners must embrace these tools, or others will be doing their jobs by the year 2000. 4 The long-heralded electronic-information revolution actually began in 1985 when inexpensive software and hardware became sophisticated enough for architects, engineers, contractors, and owners. You no longer need to know how to draft to make perfectly drawn drawings. Today’s software can assist you in making renderings, calculating duct sizes, drawing framing plans, calculating building assembly and energy use. Clearly talent and knowledge are necessary to make good designs and to create proper documents. However, software developers are embedding more data and more evaluation criteria and design methodology within their application programs,. Drawings are “smarter”, capable of changing data associated within them as they are changed. Drawings are now able to generate schedules, soon they will be “writing” specifications. A CADD based structural analysis program evaluates a selected area to be spanned then develops a material schedule, chooses details and draws the framing diagram. CADD generated presentations also allow clients and consultants to share more thoroughly in the design process. If the changes that have occurred during this decade are dramatic, the next decade of architectural and engineering practice will be mind boggling. Those close to it will be better able to discuss it and prepare for its future. CADD: IMPROVES EFFICIENCY AND COORDINATION A typical office has strong computer capabilities incorporating multiple systems, networking and file translating and transferring. They rely heavily on computers to improve efficiency, communication and coordination on their projects. They use AutoCAD as their primary drawing system, for both two-dimensional and three-dimensional applications. One of the most important features is AutoCAD’s interrelationship with database software, which allows it to both count and manipulate objects. Many use multi-XREF schemes that allow for architects and engineers to view each other’s drawings simultaneously. As drawings are revised or altered, the updated drawings are immediately available to the other disciplines working on the project. The integration of CADD capabilities with other software, including spread sheets, databases and word processing packages continues to expand. Many firms belong to file transfer networks, an inexpensive and effective national network that allows them to send drawings, or any type of data electronically instead of via express delivery. Architectural and engineering firms are committed to computer technology to improve not only efficiency and coordination ability, but also communication. Unless one has had first-hand workplace experience with CADD it is difficult to realize how effective it is as a tool for design, documentation and delivery. PROFESSIONAL COLLABORATION BY WIRE: ACCELERATES THE DESIGN PROCESS Architects and engineers are increasing their use of modern electronic communications, particularly the Internet, to collaborate. This has allowed the design process to be accelerated as P ge 311.3 design professionals can exchange documents more quickly, or work on the same document at the same time. More documents get exchanged when you use CADD and collaborate over a network, particularly in the early stages of the project, when the design is modified more often. The Internet helped popularize this way of working, as most of the newer tools are Internetbased. Students appear to accept, understand, and be excited about the fact that computer networks, particularly the Internet, have made it easier, faster, and more cost-effective for architects, engineers, other design professionals, and clients to work together even when they are apart. MANAGING THE PROJECT TEAM: WEB HELPS INFORMATION FLOW A Web page was the answer for an architectural firm when they were trying to get the firm’s project information flow under control. After faxing and