WHY I AM NOT AN ARCHITECT 1976
It's 1976, I am 28. In 1967 in the upper sixth I had to choose what I wanted to do at university - for A levels I had done Physics, Maths and Art, as I liked both science and art, and I liked buildings. The obvious career was an architect, so I applied for this course to, I think, Manchester and Sheffield Universities and The Architectural Association in Bedford Square, London. Fortunately Oxbridge did not offer an Architecture course, so I was excused applying there.
After interviews at all three (and the excitement of using the Paternoster lift in the Sheffield Arts Tower), and on my A level results, I was offered places at both Manchester and the Architectural Association. A difficult decision, Manchester was a university offering a degree, the AA was entirely different - avant garde, informal, experimental but only offering a diploma. In the end I decided I wanted two degrees after my name, and went to Manchester, as it turned out perhaps this was the wrong choice.
I survived seven years of intense work to qualify as an architect. Intense, a struggle, but fulfilling and enjoyable - but of course with no responsibility at all and I didn't have to impose my will on anyone - if I screwed up no one died or sued.
Out in the real world was the opposite. I assumed with practice I would be able to do it, but inwardly my whole being said “I don't want to do this”. I was a confident and original designer, but that is actually a small part of the job - basically the client is employing you to relieve him of having to do unpleasant and time consuming tasks. I discovered I was unable to interact with or impose my will on people I was theoretically overseeing, or work the required hours. I was a born employee, the possibility of founding my own practice (the goal of every student) was clearly impossible. I also had an independent streak, liking to think things through from first principles.
There were practices that separated the different stages of the architectural process, each performed by teams dedicated to that function - but they were pretty rare. Perhaps I should have become a designer for one of them. Anyway things came to a head at Howell Killick Partridge Amis. They were building the Fleet Maintenance Base at Plymouth to service our nuclear submarines - a huge job, with huge sheds - steel frames and cladding panels, flat roofs. The job I applied for was designing all the exterior column claddings, there were a lot of columns and a lot of variation. A frightfully tedious job actually, but I needed the money and it was a very prestigious firm.
I was on 6 months probation - so I started just doing general detailing and met Susan who was already working there; in a number of cases the instructions, passed down through a chain of managers each subject to a Chinese Whispers effect turned out not to be quite what was required. The roof was flat, waterproofed by asphalt, with a parapet. I was asked to detail the junction of the roof with the parapet. I of course knew the traditional detail - asphalt can't just be turned through a right-angle, thermal movement twill crack it at the angle, it has to be reinforced with extra asphalt. But I thought “Surely it is simpler to add a small triangular wood fillet into the angle, and dress the asphalt up this in one continuous operation”, which is what I drew.
Three days later, my project manager got the current cost estimate from the quantity surveyor, and it was much higher than expected. The QS said it was due to the triangular fillets (there were rather a lot of roof perimeters), my manager said “What fillets” and looked at my drawing (which he had previously passed as correct). The Partner, probably Amis as the others had died, called me into his office - they had avoided a huge cost overrun by the skin of their teeth and the vigilance of the QS. He thought, of course, that I didn't know the traditional detail. He gave me no opportunity to explain; I should have argued “Was it actually a bad detail; would it have failed; would it have leaked; was it actually more expensive when the asphalting was simpler?”. He said, looking me in the eyes, “Tell me, if we give you more responsibility, if you can handle it?” I replied “Yes, as long as it is completely clear what I have to do” - an impossible answer of course. At the end of my six months I was 'let go', never having detailed a column cladding, and leaving Susan still there.
So I considered my position – I didn't feel I could run jobs, hold site meetings, tell people what to do. I never felt I could charge people the true cost of my time. And my employer considered I was not suitable for the job - well I was willing to accept his verdict. So I reluctantly decided I had to give up architecture. I should have been a journalist or an author, something that one did on one's own. What has happened to my two completed buildings? A mews converted into an office in Golders Green has been re-converted into a flashier office, and a dinghy-house by the lake in Wellington Country Park has been demolished leaving just the ground slab concealed in the grass (new Health and Safety rules meant each dinghy had to have an instructor in it, which was completely uneconomic).
Sic Transit Gloria.
After a year's unemployment I took the first vaguely suitable job; a Land Use Surveyor for the Royal Borough of Kensington and Chelsea town planning department - which developed into a demographer and geographic information systems expert over the next 30 years. A mistake.
15 years later the Victorian house in which my flat was had its periodic maintenance, which amongst other things, included re-asphalting the front steps, so I saw how it was done. The asphalter laid a 25mm thick layer over both the tread and the riser, thus leaving a right angle join, and then (when it had semi-set) went back and added a 45 degree asphalt fillet into the angle. I still think my version was as good, and probably the same cost, as the asphalter wouldn’t have had to return. I still look at asphalted steps and ponder if things might have been different.