Biggest Challenges Faced By An Architect At A Boston Architecture Firm
Nima's biggest challenge as an architect is balancing multiple projects with varying intensities, requiring constant time management and the ability to "zoom out" from immediate tasks to consider the broader project vision and past ideas. This necessitates proactively scheduling time for strategic re-evaluation and potentially even restarting aspects of the design process, a skill learned and honed through experience.
Project Management, Time Management, Problem-Solving, Overcoming Challenges, Design
Advizer Information
Name
Job Title
Company
Undergrad
Grad Programs
Majors
Industries
Job Functions
Traits
Nima Shariat
Architect
Boston Architecture Firm
University of California, Santa Cruz
Harvard University, Graduate School of Design, Master of Architecture 2022
Computer Science, Economics, Fine Arts, Music
Arts, Entertainment & Media, Architecture, Construction & Design
Creative
Video Highlights
1. Balancing multiple projects with varying intensity and deadlines requires effective time management and prioritization skills.
2. Maintaining a broad perspective on projects, avoiding tunnel vision, and strategically stepping back to reassess the bigger picture are crucial for success.
3. Integrating past learnings and ideas into current projects, while also being open to making significant design changes, is a continuous learning process that requires careful planning and time allocation
Transcript
What is your biggest challenge in your current role?
One challenge is balancing multiple projects and being on several different teams. Projects ebb and flow in terms of intensity, so it's about managing my own time to ensure I'm giving each project my all and the attention it deserves.
At the same time, it's very easy to get tunnel vision into the tasks at hand. There's so much information coming at you on a given built environment project from all the various fields that you can get locked into that exact moment. It takes effort to zoom out again and see what the road ahead looks like, and also where you were before in earlier stages.
A lot of good ideas come from the past, and you have to bridge the gap. So, handling all that information but also being able to zoom out to consider larger design decisions is important. These decisions can lead to improvements and a seismic shift.
I've noticed this in school too; it's easy to take a design, constantly iterate, and get zoomed in. But sometimes, like with an essay, you have to scrap it and come back from scratch. You notice that many good ideas from before return, making it easier to develop and resulting in less baggage.
Doing that in a professional setting with strict deadlines is difficult. It takes effort to bake in that time in the process and always anticipate what's ahead as you're going through it.