#ArchiTalks 37 “what was i thinking?”

Please bear with me I am having some formatting technical difficulties, but i think the second version will be ok on the mobile format.

“what was i thinking?”

“what was i thinking?”

I mean…

WHAT WAS I THINKING???

Or

WHAT was i thinking?

I mean Architecture?  I had always liked art, i thought that i would be an artist, and then i wondered:

Will i ever be able to make it as an artist?

How much money could i make?

I have a friend (no, it wasn’t me, because i will tell you if it is) who wanted to be an artist and her
father who was a doctor said,

“What?  So do you think that you are going to sell your paintings on a street corner in Paris?”

I think she didn’t think that sounded all that bad but needless to say one of her degrees is also
architecture.

My mother had told me, “get a degree so that you can be self-sufficient”, idk maybe that had
something to do with it, but i think if it had, i would have picked a more lucrative degree, like in
business..

But when we were supposed to do research on careers in the eighth grade, and choose 3 options
from a “recipe box” of sorts, totally different than my kids’ career investigation that was a software
program that is upgraded for every senior year.  I chose:

Artist

Drafter (because i wasn’t good at math)

Architect

University Tun Hussein Onn Malaysia

From a graphic of a presentation at Taylor's University

(I especially enjoy the differences in these two graphics, these are not the ones I saw in 8th grade, but
I am sure that the top one was fairly similar to the graphic I saw on the card and I am not going to make
any comments on the lower one)

I figured that i would be able to support myself with that career.

I also went to art school while I was in high school, Saturday Teen Art Classes.  I told my art teacher
that i was thinking about going into architecture and he said, “i think you will feel limited”

I don’t feel limited, i can still make art, i can still draw and paint, I can use it as a way to express
an architectural design but I can also just do it for me.

And as i graduated and took architecture design classes, i liked it

Granted….

It wasn’t like it wasn’t fu*@ing hard work, it absolutely was, it was staying up for a few days, it was
getting sutures when the exacto knife slipped, it was questioning whether i should go forward with my
plans…

but i liked it and even though there were crits that maybe didn’t go my way, i did pretty well, i liked to
design, i liked to draw, i liked to paint, and i liked the creative aspect of it.  I liked looking at a problem
statement and coming up with a concept, doing research on building types and programming and
what the needs would be of the users and transforming a design from a mere idea into a physical
reality.

And i even liked the other architecture students!
most of the time

I spoke to one of my children’s art professors and he said, “architecture is practical” ” and i said, “well,
i see it as transforming a two dimensional drawing into a three dimensional reality.  

I don’t think he was very happy with me….

But he paints cityscapes.

WHAT is Architecture.

What WAS i thinking?

Well, i had a plan and i had an idea of what the life of an architect was going to be like

And yes, in some ways my idea of what it would be like was like what i wrote in

Architecture vs. Reality


http://inmawomanarchitect.blogspot.com/2015/02/architecture-in-real-world-architalk-6.html

Gwathmey Siegel Bel Air House that I drafted the structural plans for when I worked at
Gordon L. Polon's Consulting Engineer's Office

I thought that I would work for an office and make a ton of money and live in a house like the ones
I . I actually wanted to live on the beach in Malibu and have a wondeful
house like the ones I was drafting for the firms I was working for in Los Angeles...
(the traffic is horrific and who wants all those people in your back yard anyways???)

What WAS is Architecture



What was I thinking?

I was a young girl, i was a young woman, i became a wife, i became an architect, i became a mother,

i became an older woman

I am a woman architect

I know a lot of women don’t want to hear that

I know a lot of women just want to be known as an architect.

Of course i want to be known as an architect.

I am hoping that some day we won’t say woman architect or we will say man architect, i hope we
won’t be saying “shitty men architects”  i hope we can resolve that in some way and i don’t want it
to be that we can now say, “shitty women architects”

I didn’t pick a career that was “popular” for women. I picked a career that has less women than men.  
I didn’t pick it because of that, i didn’t choose architecture because of the competition, my competition
is with me.  I didn’t choose architecture because i wanted to be the only woman at the table, i chose
architecture because i liked, I don’t like to use the term love with anyone but people but i really liked it.

I was Architecture.

What was I THINKING?

I’m not sure i was thinking that much about it when i chose it.  I thought it would be a good career,
i liked it, i would make money, I wanted to do it even after I learned I might not make money.

I don’t think that i was thinking that i wouldn’t be able to pass college algebra, even though i was
told by the high school guidance counselors that i didn’t ahve enough math to get into the local
colleges, i told her that I was moving to California to attend a community college and I would get my
math there ( I still haven’t finshed college algebra).

first image that comes up on google images for
michele grace hottel, architect
but this is more like what my house looks like
because of the condition of it

I have said it before, when I told my parents and other people in my family that I wanted to become
an architect, nobody told me that I couldn't. It wasn't until I was in architecture school and I started
to get the feeling that maybe I wasn't seen the same way. It wasn't until I met some other people
who felt that women shouldn't be in architecture, it was ok for men to do it, but not for women. It was
ok for women to do it, but not women who didn't want to be one of the guys. It was ok for women to
do it but not women who wanted to be mothers and it was definitely not ok for women architects who
wanted to be mothers and wanted to take time off of their careers and ever hope to want to come
back...
i mean that can be as bad as selling your house in California and ever expecting to be able to move
back again.

I think I am more a feeling person and i go with my feelings and intuition and then figure it out as i

go along.  Maybe not for a lot of architects who want to plan everything out in their lives and then
when it doesn’t go as planned, they bail, they leave the firm, they leave their spouse, they leave
architecture, i don’t know.

I guess maybe I wasn't thinking about all of the stuff that could go wrong that much.

It felt good, I did it and I didn't look back in regret.

At least most of the time...

THINKING was Architecture.

So...
What was I thinking?

I was thinking that I wanted to be an architect.

I am now offering sponsorship opportunities and I am grateful for that. Please contact me via my website below for more information.

MGHarchitect: Michele Grace Hottel, Architect

If you want to read about what other architects are thinking, please follow the links below!

Lora Teagarden - L² Design, LLC (@L2DesignLLC)
What was I thinking?

Cormac Phalen - Cormac Phalen (@archy_type)
What was I thinking?

Jeremiah Russell, AIA - ROGUE Architecture (@rogue_architect)
what were we thinking: #architalks

Eric T. Faulkner - Rock Talk (@wishingrockhome)
WWIT -- Convenience Kills!

Michele Grace Hottel - Michele Grace Hottel, Architect (@mghottel)
“what was i thinking?”

Brian Paletz - The Emerging Architect (@bpaletz)
What was I thinking?

Jeffrey Pelletier - Board & Vellum (@boardandvellum)
What Was I Thinking? (Learning from Your Mistakes When Starting a Business)

Jim Mehaffey - Yeoman Architect (@jamesmehaffey)
What was I thinking?

Mark Stephens - Mark Stephens Architects (@architectmark)
What was I thinking!

“what was i thinking?”

“what was i thinking?”

I mean…

WHAT WAS I THINKING???

Or

WHAT was i thinking?

I mean Architecture?  I had always liked art, i thought that i would be an artist, and then i wondered:

Will i ever be able to make it as an artist?

How much money could i make?

I have a friend (no, it wasn’t me, because i will tell you if it is) who wanted to be an artist and her

father who was a doctor said,

“What?  So do you think that you are going to sell your paintings on a street corner in Paris?”

I think she didn’t think that sounded all that bad but needless to say one of her degrees is also

architecture.

My mother had told me, “get a degree so that you can be self-sufficient”, idk maybe that had

something to do with it, but i think if it had, i would have picked a more lucrative degree, like in

business..

But when we were supposed to do research on careers in the eighth grade, and choose 3 options from a “recipe box” of sorts, totally different than my kids’ career investigation that was a software program that is upgraded for every senior year.  I chose:

Artist

Drafter (because i wasn’t good at math)

Architect

University Tun Hussein Onn Malaysia

From a graphic of a presentation at Taylor's University

(I especially enjoy the differences in these two graphics, these are not the ones I saw in 8th grade, but I am sure that the top one was fairly similar to the graphic I saw on the card and I am not going to make any comments on the lower one)

I figured that i would be able to support myself with that career.

I also went to art school while I was in high school, Saturday Teen Art Classes.  I told my art teacher that i was thinking about going into architecture and he said, “i think you will feel limited”

I don’t feel limited, i can still make art, i can still draw and paint, I can use it as a way to express

an architectural design but I can also just do it for me.

And as i graduated and took architecture design classes, i liked it

Granted….

It wasn’t like it wasn’t fu*@ing hard work, it absolutely was, it was staying up for a few days, it was getting sutures when the exacto knife slipped, it was questioning whether i should go forward with my plans…

but i liked it and even though there were crits that maybe didn’t go my way, i did pretty well, i liked to design, i liked to draw, i liked to paint, and i liked the creative aspect of it.  I liked looking at a problem statement and coming up with a concept, doing research on building types and programming and what the needs would be of the users and transforming a design from a mere idea into a physical reality.

And i even liked the other architecture students!

most of the time

I spoke to one of my children’s art professors and he said, “architecture is practical” ” and i said, “well, i see it as transforming a two dimensional drawing into a three dimensional reality.  

I don’t think he was very happy with me….

But he paints cityscapes.

WHAT is Architecture.

What WAS i thinking?

Well, i had a plan and i had an idea of what the life of an architect was going to be like

And yes, in some ways my idea of what it would be like was like what i wrote in

Architecture vs. Reality

http://inmawomanarchitect.blogspot.com/2015/02/architecture-in-real-world-architalk-6.html

Gwathmey Siegel Bel Air House that I drafted the structural plans for when I worked at Gordon L. Polon's Consulting Engineer's Office

I thought that I would work for an office and make a ton of money and I actually wanted to live on the beach in Malibu and have a wondeful house like the ones I was drafting for the firms I was working for in Los Angeles...

(the traffic is horrific and who wants all those people in your back yard anyways???)

What WAS is Architecture

What was I thinking?

I was a young girl, i was a young woman, i became a wife, i became an architect, i became a mother, i became an older woman

I am a woman architect

I know a lot of women don’t want to hear that

I know a lot of women just want to be known as an architect.

Of course i want to be known as an architect.

I am hoping that some day we won’t say woman architect or we will say man architect, i hope we won’t be saying “shitty men architects”  i hope we can resolve that in some way and i don’t want it to be that we can now say, “shitty women architects”

I didn’t pick a career that was “popular” for women. I picked a career that has less women than men. I didn’t pick it because of that, i didn’t choose architecture because of the competition, my competition is with me.  I didn’t choose architecture because i wanted to be the only woman at the table, i chose architecture because i liked, I don’t like to use the term love with anyone but people, but i really liked it.

I was Architecture.

What was I THINKING?

I’m not sure i was thinking that much about it when i chose it.  I thought it would be a good career, i liked it, i would make money, I wanted to do it even after I learned I might not make money.

I don’t think that i was thinking that i wouldn’t be able to pass college algebra, even though i was

told by the high school guidance counselors that i didn’t have enough math to get into the local

colleges, i told her that I was moving to California to attend a community college and I would get my math there ( I still haven’t finished college algebra).

first image that comes up on google images for michele grace hottel, architect but this is more like what my house looks like because of the condition of it

I have said it before, when I told my parents and other people in my family that I wanted to become an architect, nobody told me that I couldn't.  It wasn't until I was in architecture school and I started to get the feeling that maybe I wasn't seen the same way. It wasn't until I met some other people who felt that women shouldn't be in architecture, it was ok for men to do it, but not for women. It was ok for women to do it, but not women who didn't want to be one of the guys.  It was ok for women to do it but not women who wanted to be mothers and it was definitely not ok for women architects who wanted to be mothers and wanted to take time off of their careers and ever hope to want to come back...

i mean that can be as bad as selling your house in California and ever expecting to be able to move back again.

I think I am more a feeling person and i go with my feelings and intuition and then figure it out as i go along.  Maybe not for a lot of architects who want to plan everything out in their lives and then when it doesn’t go as planned, they bail, they leave the firm, they leave their spouse, they leave architecture, i don’t know.

I guess maybe I wasn't thinking about all of the stuff that could go wrong that much.

It felt good, I did it and I didn't look back in regret.

At least most of the time...

THINKING was Architecture.

So...

What was I thinking?

I was thinking that I wanted to be an architect.

If you want to read about what other architects are thinking, please follow the links below!

Lora Teagarden - L² Design, LLC (@L2DesignLLC)

What was I thinking?

Cormac Phalen - Cormac Phalen (@archy_type)

What was I thinking?

Jeremiah Russell, AIA - ROGUE Architecture (@rogue_architect)

what were we thinking: #architalks

Eric T. Faulkner - Rock Talk (@wishingrockhome)

WWIT -- Convenience Kills!

Michele Grace Hottel - Michele Grace Hottel, Architect (@mghottel)

“what was i thinking?”

Brian Paletz - The Emerging Architect (@bpaletz)

What was I thinking?

Jeffrey Pelletier - Board & Vellum (@boardandvellum)

What Was I Thinking? (Learning from Your Mistakes When Starting a Business)

Jim Mehaffey - Yeoman Architect (@jamesmehaffey)

What was I thinking?

Mark Stephens - Mark Stephens Architects (@architectmark)

What was I thinking!

Please contact me via my website below for more information on the firm and sponsorship of the blog and podcast.

MGHarchitect: Michele Grace Hottel, Architect