As a fifth year graduate student, I highly appreciate that the College of Architecture, Planning and Design provides a vast span of architectural typologies to study. In our first four academic years, we designed civic, institutional, cultural, environmental, religious, and housing projects. Consequently, our graduates are typically competent working in firms that practice in these realms. However, can we confidently say we are ready to be a comprehensive architect? My answer is “not quite”.

During my academic experience, my greatest desire was to produce my actual architectural product and see it used by people. As an architectural student, I clearly know my shortcomings - lacking connection between schematic design and real world construction. Without rational construction knowledge, schematic design would forever remain on trace paper or in the computer. In my fourth year, I conceptualized details to produce construction documents in Revit, yet the final products are still far away from the professional level. As the master architect Mies van der Rohe says: “God is in the details.” Looking back to these masterful builders, we can see that the design concept, environmental atmosphere and aesthetics are all bound together through well executed details. A sophisticated architect has the capability to, on one hand, create a MACROSCOPIC concept in a broad scale, and on the other hand, control the MICROSCOPIC architecture with attention to detail and awareness of craft.