12 Pros and Cons of Being an Architect: All Career Benefits and Disadvantages Explained

In this guide, we are going to look at the advantages and disadvantages of being an architect, to help you decide if architecture is a good career for you.

What you’ll get from this video is the reaction and experience of an architect who has been practicing for more than 32 years and is a former instructor at a prestigious architectural university.

My name is Lee Calisti and I run the solo practitioner firm, lee CALISTI architecture+design, in Greensburg, Pennsylvania.

Although my response is a personal layer, I hope you find it beneficial if you’re considering a career in architecture.

Now, let’s dive in.

Let’s look at some civil facts.

According to the National Council of Architectural Registration Board, there are over 116,000 licensed architects in the United States.

Based on the 2019 survey, 4,000 of those or more are practicing in Pennsylvania where I live and practice.

Is it worth it?

For instance, there are over 900,000 doctors practicing in the United States, according to the Association of American Medical Colleges.

And there are 1.3 million lawyers in the United States, according to the American Bar Association.

So, why are there so few architects?

Although there’s no singular answer, some have chosen to study architecture while they were in college. Some decided, like me, as a young child.

In other words, my answer cannot escape my own personal feelings and my own personal views.

Still, after interacting with so many architects from around the country, through the American Institute of Architects and through various social media channels, this talk begins to capture the views of so many architects in general.

Let’s start on a positive note and look at the perks of being an architect.

1. A Respectable and Lucrative Career

One of the reasons to be an architect is that it can be considered a respectable career, besides the pay that’s involved.

Most people respect us, and they are interested, some amazed, in what we do. That doesn’t mean everyone will hire us or pay us fairly. That’s a different topic.

However, what we do is not a measure of being superhuman, but possessing a talent and skills that are given to so few.

It goes beyond being artistic, as many gifted artists far exceed the beauty in their work.

The cool part is what we make is experiential, larger than a person, and usable, which means something simpler.

2. Self-Fulfillment Opportunities

We make things. I like making things, making things with our hands. We make drawings. We make models. We make scribbles. We make doodles. We make chaos into order.

We make the environment better. We make the community stronger. We make habitable sculpture architecture.

We make some dreams come true. We make some people notice, and I hope that we make some people happy.

Our work is visible, it’s tangible, it’s habitable, and it impacts others.

Architecture cannot be selfish or a personal act only. Yet, I cannot discount the personal and forward feeling of seeing, walking through, and sitting in one of my projects.

We make art. It’s hard to explain how rewarding it is to participate in a profession where our work is observable, palpable, yet made for others.

People use it, live it, study in it, and heal in it. Many buildings and spaces are exhilarating.

Despite our earlier comments about artists, in some ways our work is a little like making art.

So, what do I mean I make art? Well, for me, art is a way of expressing myself in a language more comfortable than words.

It is who I am, what I feel, and how I see the world. It is my lifestyle. It’s not merely pictures, paintings, or sculptures.

My point is not to say that the buildings and spaces we create are art. They are buildings, and they serve our clients’ needs, desires, and at best are artistic.

My art is not making pretty buildings for clients. That’s not precisely the goal. How I approach my work is my art, as do many architects.

Architects are hired as consultants, so to speak, to solve people’s spatial, programmatic, and building needs. They address their functional problems through design.

We agree on terms and we do the work. That is a business transaction, and we work in exchange for compensation.

We use our experience as architects to do what they have commissioned us to do.

Clients don’t ask us to give them or the community a gift. Nevertheless, I won’t simply draw what they ask me to, in a literal sense. I will regurgitate what they request.

It goes beyond having to solve the problem, building codes and budgets, and even delivering pleasing aesthetics.

People expect architects to design on a budget, be code-compliant, be technically correct, and make something attractive to look at and occupy. It’s not even working hard.

That’s a myth for another day. What it is is something else that’s not requested, not paid for, not part of the project, but makes it better.

Another architect friend says that, “Architecture must be this and that. That’s my art.”

Which leads to the next benefit.

3. Improving Communities

We contribute to the built environment. Let’s start with the local impact.

Working in our hometowns as architects, we see our towns transformed. It’s also personal, as our time on a project allows us to develop meaningful relationships with so many people.

The first step in making a broader local impact is being involved.

Find a way to contribute, join a group, volunteer, coach, assist in after-school programs, or get appointed or elected to a local municipal, or city position. We must do something for someone else first.

People want the better, even if they can’t articulate it.

Most, if not all my clients, came to me because they realized that an architect could do what they can’t and bring something to the project that is special and better than others.

We figure out the better within the context limits of our clients’ resources.

Most projects I’ve worked on in the past 32 years have been renovations, additions, or alterations to an existing building. Many of those have been in my hometown.

Some could argue that we should never build a new building again or at least not for a long time. Therefore, we need to be adept at working with existing buildings.

Local impact could lead to a broader impact. It could make a wider difference.

Our profession is constantly changing to keep up with the technological demands and to address local and global climate crises.

Add to that, building technology demands, programming and code adherence to keep the public safe.

We are architects and we believe we have the skills and abilities to benefit and improve communities.

We may or may not be able to help those overseas with our work, but we can look around our neighborhoods and larger cities involved and see where they need help.

Demonstrating our value breeds appreciation, which leads to our relevancy.

I believe architecture is big. I firmly believe that architecture far exceeds the initial client, the initial user, and the one writing the check.

Buildings should outlive us. They should outlive generations.

However, suppose we are going to get this accomplished. In that case, we have to see things through the client’s point of view and develop a solution method to guide them into their decision making with their limitations and find healthy solutions for the environment that don’t break the bank.

In the simplest terms, we need to get it built. Then, we can celebrate the small victories as much as the large ones and not condescend to those without a badge for their building.

Years ago, a good friend responded to me and wrote something about sustainability, based on something I had written.

He wrote, “It’s a return to common sense. Low top tech and low budget solutions is what we need for our buildings to be truly sustainable. Not more gadgets, not more gizmos, or whatnot.”

A building that works with its environment, instead of against it, will last forever or close enough not to matter.

Getting to be an architect can be a challenge, and being an architect can be a challenge as well.

There can be some items considered a con or a negative aspect. However, I like to think of them as challenges.

Based on my experience, from education to founding lee CALISTI architecture+design, here are the nine biggest challenges of being an architect.

1. High Responsibility

The first thing has to do with accountability and responsibility. In the simplest terms, design has to work. The work that we do as architects has to work. No one else will do it after us.

I spend many hours working through solutions until I know that they work.

Mistakes or oversights rarely creep in, but knowing that no one supervises me drives me to be thorough and capable of defending my solution.

The money spent on the construction, as well as on my services, is constantly in the front of my mind. Too much money is at stake, as well as one’s reputation.

2. Necessity to Defend Your Solutions

Everyone should get to talk to the client directly, or be on a construction site among various trades and home builders.

Everyone should be required to present to a client, and everyone should have to discuss the project with the contractor, facing the music, looking them in the eyes and defending one’s position and why you did it is a necessary skill for an architect.

We need to clarify to clients what we did and why we did it. It only takes one rough encounter with a client speaking directly to your face to give you perspective on this issue.

3. Working Overtime

Occasionally we have long hours. Despite the stereotype, this doesn’t mean we work late every night.

Nevertheless, we must work until the project is complete, until things have been worked out thoroughly and until it can be released, knowing that it works, as we said before.

The truth can sometimes or often mean working past the limits of our fee or at least past five o’clock. An owner of a firm or a principal must work until completion, regardless.

4. Tedious Work

Some find the work that we do tedious or mundane. There are so many components and details that need to be worked out.

There are punch lists, meeting minutes, business administrative tasks, and other aspects of what we do as architects that many find to be tedious.

5. Unbuilt Work

Some architects are content with paper or digital versions of manufacturers’ ideas. Great debates occur over whether architecture must be built for it to be considered such.

However, those of us who have been around long enough and have made enough things know that there is a different level of thought and skill given to something during the construction process.

There is so much at stake physically and financially to construct anything that we are often at our best as architects while something is being built.

Our work can most often be judged fairly by visiting in person. Unbuilt work is deflating and unsatisfying, leading us to wonder what it would’ve been like to visit it in person.

6. Uninspiring Projects

The other side of that is uninspiring projects.

Suppose you are a student or someone considering this profession.

In that case, I think it’s imperative to realize, no matter what firm you end up with in your future or whether you own your own firm, at some point it’s almost certain that underwhelming work will come your way.

Face it, sometimes it will fall short of the awe-inspiring projects we see in the glossy magazines.

I dare say the things that people often ask us to do are not because they are looking for capital A architecture, but to allow us to solve their problem. They are less interested in getting an award.

7. Unrealistic Budgets

In my world, every project has a budget, and money influences and affects the design, often against our preferences.

This aspect has hit me hard recently as clients cannot spend more than being stated, so we do our best.

In other cases, clients arbitrarily set a predetermined amount that they are willing to pay, yet it’s disconnected from the program or the project’s needs.

Therefore, it’s crucial to reconcile these two aspects early in the process.

8. Unappreciative Clients

I usually say ingratitude when asked what I like least about the profession. Isn’t it a part of our nature to be appreciated?

Most times it can be identified during an initial interview, where it becomes evident that the client is looking for a product and is less concerned about our expertise, value, or creative ways of solving problems.

It can also appear during the design process or even later where events are mistakenly blamed on the architect rather than the responsible party.

Relationships break down and a genuine lack of appreciation becomes evident.

Unfortunately, contractors and engineering or construction consultants can also be guilty because they are blind to our vision and reduce us as idealists and discount the bigger picture.

Appreciation goes both ways or in all directions.

9. Long and Hard Process to Become an Architect

If you are considering a career as an architect, you might find it hard to get here.

Educational expenses, for starters. The cost of education — from the money and the commitment it takes — is out of reach for too many people.

Unfortunately, for many, this is one of the most important reasons why not to be an architect.

Depending on one’s office where you work in your early days, one may find their opportunity to gain the required experience leading to their exam too narrow, based on their employer’s contribution.

Then there’s the exam. Many find the architectural registration exam cumbersome, hard to schedule, costly, and just too complicated.

We see too many allowing their test-taking process to linger. It takes eight to 10 years to gain licensure after graduation. That’s a matter all to itself.

So, weigh it out. I made my decision years ago. As I’ve always said, architecture chose me.

I was willing to do whatever it takes to get here, and I cannot imagine doing anything else.

Did I say I get to make things? What about you? Are you considering your career in architecture?

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About the Author

Lee Calisti is a 1991 B.Arch. graduate of Kent State University, where he won the AIA Medal of Honor as the top member of his graduating class.

After being in practice for twelve years, he established his firm — lee CALISTI architecture+design — to pursue an interrelationship between practice and teaching.

From 2002 to 2014, he served as an adjunct associate professor at Carnegie Mellon University’s School of Architecture.

Moreover, Calisti is licensed in Pennsylvania and is NCARB certified. An active member of the American Institute of Architects, he currently serves as chair of the AIA Pennsylvania’s Small Firm Exchange.