Why Do Architects Work Long Hours

Architecture as a profession has a reputation for long hours.  Is this reputation warranted?  Do architects work long hours, and if so, why?

Architects work long hours because of perfectionism, hard deadlines, and the culture in the industry.  Perfectionism can cause architects to work hard to produce a product they are happy with.  Hard deadlines require long hours before a certain date.  And the culture in the architecture industry values hard work and lack of sleep.

If you have worked your way through architecture school, you will have heard the phrase ‘a project is never done’ countless times.

Perfectionism

Architects are notorious perfectionists.  And buildings are incredibly complex systems.  When designing a building considerations such as plumbing, air supply, circulation, all come into play.  Not to mention items like budgets, where to source materials, and buildable construction details.  Trying to balance all of these constraints, and more, and then create a beautiful building is what the job boils down to.  And yet finding the balance between these items is an impossible task.  It simply can’t be done.  Designers could work on a project forever – and yet at some point they need to pull the trigger and decide that it is good enough.

And deciding that a project is good enough is completely against the perfectionists’ ethos.  It is common for architects to work very long hours trying to achieve perfection on a project – a goal that is always just out of reach. 

Hard deadlines

The realm of architecture is not the only job field to have hard deadlines.  Virtually every project that an architect will work on will have hard deadlines.  And most projects have a plethora of deadlines!  There is typically a hard and fast date for when construction documents will be submitted.  But before this a project is usually split into three phases, schematic design, design development, and construction documents.  Each of these phases will have specific dates for when that phase is finished and the architecture team will present the progress to a client!  And typically these phases get further subdivided into many small piece-meal steps, each of which will normally have a date and time to present to the client.

It isn’t hard to see how having this many deadlines can lead to long hours.  With the architect wanting to impress the client at every meeting, often long hours are required to get the work done that needs to be done.  Just now I have had one week between meetings with a client, who wants to see his project progress fast!

Culture

This item is hard to write about.  It just is.  Culture is an ethereal concept, like smoke it is hard to pin down – but it is also hard to look past it.

At the end of the day, possibly the biggest contributing factor to architects working long hours is simply the culture.

From architecture school onwards, designers are immersed in a culture that values hard work, long hours, and late nights.  This obviously has its pros and cons – but that is a discussion for another time.

Architecture as a profession has a love of coffee, and a love of all-nighters.  And this is hard to break out of!  Clients have come to expect a certain amount of work by a certain time.  That amount of work can only be accomplished by a certain amount of hours put into the work.  The architect is left with two choices, to work long hours or hire another designer.  With good designers hard to come by, the architect is typically left with one choice.  Work long hours.

To compound upon this, it is almost taboo to work a mere 40 hours a week.  That is considered a ‘light load’, and peer pressure compels many to work up to 50 or more hours a week regularly.

it is almost taboo to work a mere 40 hours a week

Summary

Architects are known for working long hours.  It has become a badge of honor.  Derived in part from the culture, the personality that architecture attracts, and the inherent hard deadlines – the long hours aren’t for everyone.

To read more about this check out these links below:

9 Causes of Long Hours for Architects (Pains Revealed!) – Architecture (architecttwocents.com)

(10) Why do architects work for long hours? – Quora

Q: Architects, do you work long hours? : architecture (reddit.com)