What type of personality traits does an architect need?

*competitive

*mathematical

*artistic

*intelligent

Out of respect for others, I left the previous answer above. I do not particularly agree however. I am an architect with two masters degrees and 6 years of experience. I agree that architects need to be intelligent. I do not agree they necessarily have to be competitive - there are many architects who are extremely laid back and do not judge their effectiveness/success relative to others. I do not agree architects need to be "mathematical." I believe this is a common misconception. The most complex math that goes into architecture is very basic trigonometric functions (sine, cosine, tangent) - which we use during licensing process to break up forces into an x and y component. Lastly, I do not think architects need to be artistic. If one defines art as drawing, painting, modeling, and deriving at forms that "please the eye" - this is not architecture so much. If one defines art as a skill that can only be obtained subsequent to mastering many other complicated issues - then yes it is architecture in the same way that one might say a talented surgeon has mastered the "art and science" of medicine, or that surgery is an "art form."

I would say an architect needs to be extremely hard working and able to learn an appreciation for facets of architecture that are not quite so glamorous (research egress code, looking through a mechanical engineers drawing to be sure a duct doesn't conflict with a beam, spending his/her evening trying to figure out how a custom designed canopy might be put together and attached to a building, or reading the fine print on a specification sheet for an obscure object like a louver in the wall, or physical properties of steel panels exposed to weather.

The day to day office life of an architect is far from glamorous. We pull our hairs out over extremely small scale issues that an outsider may think is never even thought of. Architects understand these minuscule details are what makes are breaks a project - usually both in profit as well as overall design.

Architecture is a profession of detailing tiny scale things in an attempt at making something efficient, long lasting, and logical

• not a profession of drawing fun pictures of buildings, drinking

lattes in your sleek hip office, wearing all black stylish clothes and attending important galas.

Architects typically have a decent amount of self confidence and/or the ability to take criticism. We must endure a high amount of criticism from professors, peers, clients, consultants, users, and society. Often times the nature of this criticism is not constructive or put forth in a happy tone. Those who would get angered under such times and vent out in return do not have a personality well suited for architecture.