27.08.18 - How an architecture education prepares students to be leaders in business as well as design
Why study architecture?
Architecture is about more than designing buildings, "it is also a systematic way of thinking," says Dean Richard Sommer.
Dean Sommer spoke to Greg Hemmings and Dave Veale, hosts of the business podcast The Boiling Point, about the "broad lateral thinking that comes with training or schooling in architecture," and how it prepares students not just to be architects and designers, but effective business leaders, problem solvers, and entrepreneurs.
He cites graduates from the Daniels Faculty who have developed successful careers in healthcare, transit planning, branding and fashion, real estate, and the food business, just to name a few. (Hailed Coffee, pictured above, was started by alumnus Salim Bamakhrama, MArch 2010).
"Architecture requires a joined up way of thinking," explained Dean Sommer, who argued that many of the challenges we now face require the expertise of not just one discipline, but many. An architect brings different perspectives together and is able to consider diverse and competing forces, he says — few fields force you to think that laterally.