As human beings, our instinctive need forces us to find safe ways to live and shelter. Psychological studies unveil that this is caused by a survival method. Our number one priority as living things is to remain safe and far away from any significant danger. In very early times, we had to deal with rain, snow, extreme heat and other climate conditions. We had no access to any solid shelter or a way to completely be protected from all these things. However, our response to this situation was to create stronger houses. Houses were made out of wood, leaves, and mostly plants. Thousands of years later, we started a period known as the stone era. In this period of time we were able to build structures with stone. It was easy to see how stone was a lot stronger than wood when it came to rain and wind. Also, rocks remained fresh during very hot climates. Wood, in the other hand, tended to start fires when it was too hot. Little by little we started discovering different new technologies that were helpful for our ways of living. A long time later, we started using various mixtures that worked as a pasting material between rocks more efficiently. This was the principle of cement. As our chemical technology became more advanced, so did our architecture.
About 100 years ago, buildings were already all over cities. Also, it was easy to see that they were many stories in each building. No one was creating single story projects anymore. People was able to see that our technology and knowledge allowed us then to finally make bigger things and take more advantage of the space we used.
The truth is that we have never been independent from our contexts and what surrounds us. Of course, we lived as nomads for some time, and that was the reason why a strong existential instability came to us in that time. However, the more we accept our need for shelter, the better we can start using our knowledge to improve our way of living.
Today, structures are mostly built by two groups of professionals; engineers and architects. There are a lot of persons that are not clear about the difference between these two. Some say that architects only take care of the design; others say that engineers only revise designs and approve them. However, they are both very necessary, especially when it comes to today’s modern structures.
Architects are directly specialized in creating a functional, efficient area that not only looks well, but also accomplishes al its objectives. So they are not just about designing layouts, but also taking care of every little aspect that makes a structure actually work. What do engineers do then?
Well, in most of all countries, engineers take care of the pure scientific aspect of a project. By this I mean all the calculations, measurements and safety measurements that building a structure can require. Most of all engineers are also able to design very competitive layouts and complete several architecture jobs. However, architects are normally not 100% capable of creating designs as exact as n engineer would. Obviously, engineers receive several courses that an architect never gets to learn such as physics, more math and others.
What advantages does architecture has over engineering? Well architecture is a lot more artistic, and the career itself is oriented to an artistic direction. Architects also take management courses that make them capable of completing several managing jobs as well. Architects can be hired as graphic designers or other artistic jobs differently from engineers whose labor is purely scientific.
