In November, it will be 50 years that I found myself in a drafting room in my father’s engineering firm, later to become an architecture/engineering firm.
I was being paid minimum wage and was being taught on the job. Some people say “trained” but they use to do that to animals in circuses.
Somebody once said that the best way to learn something is by doing it.
Real-world experience implies having the knowledge and skill to do the work.
Mechanical drawing was a skill, but many others were involved. An immense amount of knowledge is required to do the job of design, when you know full well that what is on the paper will be built in the real world. Ideas turn to reality.
Front Elevation
I sat at my drafting table and had roughed in an idea of a front elevation of a little building that was going to be a liquor store. The small town in which it was to be built at the corner of Main Street and C Street had fought tooth and nail to keep the store out of the town, but in the end it was approved and I decided to go with a colonial style look.
My father walked in and said, “Who makes those windows?”
I said, “I don’t know.”
He said, “Over there are Sweet’s Catalogues that have everything in them. Look up windows and find out the rough and finished openings, the model number and make sure that what you draw is available.”
I found Anderson Windows had what I needed and the exact model number and the other specifications went into a book of specifications for the building, which my mother typed and ran copies for contractors who wanted to bid on the work of building from our plans and specifications.
On the plans were door and window schedules for the exact doors and windows to be used for the building, which did get built and also set a trend for colonial style to show up on new buildings and even on street signs. This gave the town a quaint look and some continuity in design which continued after our project was complete.
Moral Of The Story
Be specific and thorough and leave nothing to chance whenever and wherever possible.