It’s estimated that I’ve written more than 500 posts on “Life of an Architect”. I’ve done this in the past 3.5 years. If I spend an average of four hours per post (writing, editing, sharing, and replying to comments), that’s 2,000 hours. Last time I checked, that is about a year’s work.

While I was sitting here, reflecting on my work on this site over the last few years, I thought it would be fun to take everyone down memory lane by visiting some of the articles that I have written. This doesn’t sound interesting, so I decided to focus on articles that I found important and pivotal in some way. These are Life of an Architect’s “Greatest Hits,” but they don’t necessarily mean that they’re the most popular.

Even if you’ve seen these posts before, my explanation of why they’re important should shed some new light on their content.

Top Ten Reasons for Being an Architect

Just a few weeks after starting Life of an Architect, I wrote the Top Ten Reasons to Be an Architect article. I was still learning how to insert pictures, use the software, and insert links. All the behind-the-scenes stuff that makes these websites work. Twenty people per day visited the site at the time. After this post went live, my life literally changed overnight. The article appeared in four different magazines and was translated into over 20 languages. This article helped put Life of an Architect and me on the map.

Top 10 Reasons Not to Be an Architect

” The Top 10 Reasons NOT to Be an Architect” was a companion piece to the Top Ten Reasons To Be an Architect”, which was published the next day. I can’t remember one without the other. This post had been the most popular for some time, and I was reluctant to have my name attached to the negative aspects of it. Though not a specific architect, I felt like I had betrayed the other architects.

La Mort aux blocs de verre! Death to glass blocks )

Anyone who has been following this blog for a while knows how much I dislike glass blocks. This article was the one that sparked it all. This line is one that I find particularly interesting:

Why would anyone want to use a glass block? “It is usually used to create some sort of visual screening… like glaucoma.”

I’m a big fan of the writing in this book.

Guide for Residential Construction Costs

The majority of articles that I write for this website are editorials – with good reason. The internet is a place where things seem to last forever, or at least since the early 1990s. I didn’t want to have to go back to replace outdated information. This is because I don’t research much for my articles, but instead, I draw from practical experience and the work I do as part of the job. This was one of the first “real” articles that I wrote with useful and relevant information. This article is one of the most popular ones I have written.

Let Your Sketches Do the Talking

You may have guessed this (or you already know), but I receive a lot of emails from people in all stages of life about what it is like to be an Architect. One of the questions I get asked most often is How can I become an architect if I can’t even draw? To answer this question in a meaningful way, I wrote an article about sketching and its role as an architect. Now, I’ll send them a link to the post.

My Secret Life As a “Hooker Architect”

This was one of my first “dialogues” on the site. I didn’t know what else to say except that I thought it funny. This is because it was the first “dialogue” I wrote on this site. This is a conversation I have had with myself or with someone else. This is an interesting writing style. I’m sure it has a name (barf, sorry, but I don’t have a technique). But whatever you call it, it’s evident in this post.

Kate Borson, Cultural Prodigy: An Interview

This is something I will treasure forever. A few things are as awesome as talking about architecture with an 8-year-old. You want to remember this forever, no matter who you are or whether it’s you or your child. This is also important because I didn’t spend much time considering what it would mean to include my child in an article. The attention this post received made me rethink the non-existent policy. Kate was last seen in a picture on Life of an Architect.

Dominion and Empathy

This was the exception to my usual policy of not posting animal pictures on this site. This post was definitely a Life one. It’s called the “Life of an Architect”. There are certain lines you blur when you decide to blog on my site. You want to create content that’s relevant for other people, but you also want to maintain an online journal. This is one of the few posts that I have made an exception to my rule. This is also the most emotional article I have ever written.

Design Studio Top 10 Things You Should Know

When I was studying architecture, I would have liked to hear certain things. Although I don’t think I would have listened, I could have been influenced by some of the things I heard. This article is for architecture students, who are a large part of my readers. It is on the Life of an Architect. I believe they should be aware of what they do in school.

What is creativity?

Architects were better educated than everyone else. We got the same traditional education, but our degree also included math, art, science and just about everything. It’s a very well-rounded education, and I was proud to have completed the course and earned my degree until I met my now wife. She holds a master’s degree in Math, and her education is the same as mine. Because most degrees (unless it is a degree focusing on Math or Science) are light in math and science, pursuing a degree that includes either one of these subjects will result in a well-rounded education. You don’t have to be an architect to be creative. Just talk to someone with a degree in science, math or music to see that it is more than you think.

Are You a Designer by Nature?

The majority of people believe that a designer is someone who starts with a blank sheet of paper and creates something from nothing. The truth is far from that. Designers have a wide range of ways to view the world and make an impact on it. Even the simple act of describing a construction element can have a profound effect on the final product. The title of the designer is less important than how you think.

It really hurts my face.

I hope that people will notice. If you didn’t already know, I do not work negatively or negatively on this website. I am careful with my language, and rarely (if at all) do I call out people for something they have done wrong. It would be easy to create a website that merely complained about projects and work that I felt had been done wrong. This was the first of two posts where I wrote something terrible. I don’t regret it (despite one commenter saying I was going to hell), but you probably won’t see it on this website again. This project is awful, and I couldn’t help but wonder what someone was thinking when they created it.

Master bath shower, you displease me.

I am a residential architect, and as such, I’m very particular about how my house looks. I don’t think it is a reflection of my skills, even though I did not design or build it. Life of an Architect is a place where I often talk about my house, its design shortcomings and what I would like to do to improve it. Master Bathroom Shower, You Displease Me is one of the best examples. After receiving about 10 emails from people who sketched their computer wallpaper, it seemed like a good piece to feature.

Architect: The Best Job on Earth

It was easy to write this post because it answers the question, “Why do I enjoy being an architect?” and why I think it is the best job on the planet. It’s easy to summarize the reasons I enjoy being an architect. Since I am asked this question every day, I thought it would be nice to explain it.

They would think that I am pretty lucky if I told college-aged architecture students or even recent graduates what I do every day. There is another side to my work that I don’t like, and it occupies most of my time. I won’t discuss it because it’s boring. I decided to get up on my dusty’ soapbox’ and talk about the things I do that make things go.

How do I write my obituary??

After writing for Life of Architect articles for around 5 months, I made a few new friends/supporters from all over the country. We participated in an exercise of writing where we were given a topic and had to write and publish an article about it on the same date. This was a fantastic writing exercise that helped me develop my creativity. This post,’ Write My Own Obituary,’ was one of the toughest topics and one of the most rewarding. No rewrites, edits, or rewrites are allowed. 15 minutes from the start of writing to completion.

It’s harder than you think.

Finally, I decided to include a piece of writing that’s not an article. For the articles that I write, I edit many photographs and graphics. This takes me about three times as long to prepare as the article itself. There are many articles I would love to write, but it would take a lot of time. The graphic design for this post, ‘Architect + Architect = Architect was finally done. The final result (I thought) was both visually and humorous… I felt pretty proud of myself.

There you have it—17 articles that, I was surprised to find, not only altered my perception of things but also changed my behavior. It’s funny that this ridiculous and silly website has had such a significant impact on my professional career. I’m grateful to my wife for supporting me in this “hobby.” I also consider myself lucky to have a positive and engaged audience who visit the site. All the best to you.