The 2020 Pandemic has fundamentally altered humanity on a global scale. Mass exodus from urban living. Global markets shifted from physical in-person work to remote work. People tore themselves from downtowns, leaving the scar of high vacancy rates in offices, apartments and condos. In 2023 people begin to exit the constant fear of infection. But there are questions of what will become of broken downtowns.
With workers gone, dependent downtown businesses that served them suffered then ultimately closed as well. With residents gone, domestic services also closed. Buildings nearly empty, waiting with conditioned space and sanitized interiors. So what’s to come of these once dense environments? The Urban Renaissance.
A Renaissance, because the purpose of downtown has started to change. Tuning into architectural media, urban clients and developer chatter, there’s been a re-focus to fill empty office and residential spaces in downtowns. Building owners have accepted that they cannot wait around for office employees to return to the office. Because they have also left in-person work for remote work and they love it. Of course remote workers recognize that there are some benefits they miss about working in-person with co-workers. But those benefits don’t outweigh the value of working remotely. For some that means traveling the world while for others that means taking care of domestic chores when they get work done early. It’s a re-focus of work-life balance. Working remote is a reward and a benefit. But people know they can work remote from anywhere – suburbia, tropical locations, mountain cabins and now downtown.
Property owners know this. With the pandemic receding, people are looking forward to getting back out there with friends and family, but not their co-workers. Remote workers don’t need to spend so much time with their co-workers (people they didn’t choose to be acquainted with in the first place). Instead they can seek happy our with their chosen friends and family. Enter the Urban Renaissance.
The perfect mix of circumstances have emerged to bring people together (albeit with a pocket-sized hand sanitizer nearby). That being newly renovated, cheep, clean, dense, convenient urban living opportunities. Owners of tall office buildings have already started renovating their office space into residential living space. Because they’re desperate to fill their empty square footage, knowing that the office worker will not return, so they’ve been offering their spaces at significant discounts, with various perks to attract would-be urban dwellers. Downtowns will not be filled back up with office workers, because the exact typology of office that these tall buildings were created for have no reason to return. Now that all of these businesses have realized the work they do can be done 100% remote.
Downtowns are dense and convenient people who don’t own cars, but have been out of reach due to high cost. The lower rents and benefits will attract all income levels, remote workers and hospitality workers. Even remote workers who once lived in or near downtowns, that retreated to spacious suburban homes, will be drawn back in. Because they miss the excitement of urban life. They never wanted to mow a lawn, tend a garden or learn to cook for every meal – they wanted to enjoy an artisan coffee, meet up with friends at their favorite bar or pizza place. And that’s what they’ll do, come together with their friends and family, young and old, in downtown. There are missing services for such a resurgence of city dwellers though, since many of the previous afternoon lunch restaurants and popping happy hour bars have closed. But with high demand there will undaughterly be a return of the best artisan coffee shops, martini bars, lunch venues and more. Not only will food venues need to be created, but domestic services that provide goods and convenient living will need to either come closer or develop quality delivery options. And there are other business types that will emerge for the individual, rather than exclusively for the 9-5 worker.
The Urban Renaissance will be focused on the individual, rather than on businesses. People will get happy hour with people they choose to call friends, with their family. Rather than meeting people in their false work façade attire, they’ll meet people for who they are. Downtowns are in the process of being transformed to be active places for people to shop, eat and live together.
…on the exam and to become a well-informed architect. This will serve as a guide to those who may struggle to establish studying strategies. This provides non-vested interest subjective opinions and critical review of available study resources and ways to prepare for the ARE Exam. Please share any additional resources with RHW by email, and it may be added to this webpage.
(RHW completed ARE 5.0 and is now a registered architect in the state of Washington)
As a personal note, RHW spent several months assembling materials, reading blogs, trying various online video resources, purchasing different books, trying to use out-of-date study materials, and assessing the best ways to study for the ARE exam. RHW Designs will not reveal contenton the ARE exams, in order to maintain the integrity of the exam and the profession of architecture. RHW does not guarantee results based on the information here – again, this is all subjective and only meant as a starting point for your own studying strategies.
Study Strategy 0 – North Arrow
Before doing anything, look for the North Arrow. North Arrows can be hard to spot, and drawings are not always depicted with North as up. The North Arrow will determine the results of an exam question before you’ve even begun reading the question. This is important for architects, because the sun has a tremendous impact on building design. One example regarding importance of solar orientation is glare. Another example that affects building placement is shadows from nearby buildings or trees. So remember, look for the North Arrow first.
Work-Life Balance
RHW has tracked studying for three exams. So far the results are less encouraging than originally believed. The graph below is an example of a 44-day study trend leading up to an exam. This accounts for a wide variety of content type: Review Manual, iPad Flash Cards, Videos, Wikipedia, Practical Application, AHPP and various other textbooks.
Work-Life Balance encompasses a lot. Each day may include making breakfast, traveling to work, working hard at the architecture firm, traveling home, making dinner, showering, laundry, grocery shopping, visiting friends, holiday or anniversary celebrations or a number of other normal day tasks. If you have a significant other struggling with you, don’t ignore them because they’ll be there for you if you are there for them. If you have children, then all the more power to you! But the key to studying for the exams will be fitting it in anywhere you can and asking for respect and leniency from your life partner and friends (besides, you will be able to design their dream house when you’re done).
After three exams, RHW has shown that one may achieve the following:
2.4 hours per Weekday and 3.7 hours per Weekend day
or 16 hours per Week on average
Given the quantity of time needed to absorb the content suggested by NCARB, this is not enough time (read why below under the header “Reading”).
Each blue line represents one day.
Study Strategy 1 – “Dry” Studying
Primary Study Material for the ARE 5.0
NCARB ARE 5.0 Handbook : read this thoroughly and keep it nearby while studying. It also provides a comprehensive list of all book study resources near the end.
Contract Documents: AIA provides printable, sample, contract docs for ARE Candidates – extremely useful.
The AIA provides a resources page. You’ll find video study materials, sample Contracts, and a discount/promo code for those who are members of the AIA, here: Preparing for the ARE
NALSA / Archiflash: Archiflash is an expensive flashcard app, $150! Whoa! However the content is legit… for ARE 4.0. Because 5.0 is so new, study material is still being developed. However Jared Zurn, Director at NCARB, says that using 4.0 material is a good way to study too. But, RHW suggests keeping the ARE 5.0 Handbook close at hand at all times to verify you’re studying the right material.
Flat out reading content. This will not help a test-taker retain information. Rote studying – studying the same content over and over – may increase the chances of remembering. However as an intrepid architect you must start somewhere, and ‘dry’ studying or reading suggested content will provide the base for where to start understanding architecture.
“Chunking”
Read a Chunk: For about an hour each day, read a section of the ARE Review Manual (or other material of choice) – whether it’s a few pages at a time, or in-between bold titles, or between Example questions in the book.
Take Notes: Make flash cards while reading, make notes and sketches (for visual learners) in a notebook, hi-light the related literature in the book, on printed contract docs, etc.
Study Your Notes: On the bus, at a cafe, during lunch at work
Repeat above in reasonable chunks of material. This will allow you to strengthen important details along the way.
Move on to next chunk.
Reading
Each page of reading takes roughly 5 to 8 minutes.
For true comprehension, estimate +10 minutes per page – this includes taking notes, drawing sketch notes and additional research and going to other resources in the middle of reading a page to read more about a word, term or concept.
(this data has been tracked by RHW during different study sessions)
Contracts, Contracts, Contracts!
It’s clear that an architect needs to comprehend the AIA Contract Documents. Direct comparison of the AIA Contracts to the study books (such as the ARE 5 Review Manual from Ballast, and the AIA Architect’s Handbook of Professional Practice) shows that they pull directly from the text of AIA B101-2007 and the other Contracts.
Taking into account the ‘Reading’ bullet point above: AIA Contract Document B101 has 18-pages of extremely dense material. Judging by how much study materials focus on Contracts, the ARE will be very likely to test your knowledge on Contracts.
Reading B101 alone will likely take more than 10 minutes to read each page, or 180 minutes, or 3 hours. Because of the intense density of the material, you may count on more time per page to comprehend the content and even more time to apply and relate it to real-life situations.
Contract A201 is 38 pages and the study books reference nearly every page of this Contract. A201 may take: 38 pages x 10 minutes per page = 380 minutes / (60 min/1 hr) = 6.3 hours or more!
Some of the sections in the ARE Review Manual by Ballast are over 200 pages, which may take roughly 20 hours just to read.
In other words, plan study time accordingly.
Print out and fill in the Contact Document blanks. One of the most complicated but most important contracts in architecture is theG702andG703. Which are also referenced in the ARE Handbook. Here’s a link to help you learn how to:fill in the blanks
Study Materials
Mead 3×5 notebook keeps flashcards organized. Write a single study word/term/concept at the top of each page along with the resource material and page number, so that it may be verified in the future. Draw diagrams, write concise information and definitions, either on the same side or reverse.
Red pen
Black fluid ink pen (ballpoint pens cause minor strain in the wrist because they are ever-so-slightly more difficult to write with)
Hi-lighter
Sticky notes
Small coffee cup
Stickies and Hi-Lighting with a ‘Grain of Salt’: These tools are useful when used right. Aimlessly putting stickies and hi-lighting will not help. Stickies will get drown in the sea of a thousand pages. The point of these tools is for you to identify the content that needs to be studied, estimate the time it will take to go through that content, form a plan, and then start. TIME Mag reported on some research.
Book Stand – All of the ARE study materials, in physical form, are thick and heavy. RHW found that studying for long periods of time looking down at a book on a table created neck and eye strain. Position the book vertically; or use a computer monitor, for digital materials, that is level with the eyes to avoid neck strain.
Angled at 20 and 70 degrees. Feel free to request a free schematic from RHW so that you may build your own.
Strategy 2 – Visual Learners
Perhaps the majority of architecture enthusiasts are visual – we love images and visual experience, so why study text? Video courses are a great way for those seeking eye candy to rest their brain from the onslaught of textbooks and contracts. Be careful with a belief such as that however, because you’ll find in architecture that the entire career is composed by endless reading, research and math, with less than 4% spent on actual design. Accompanying reading with these online videos will help bolster knowledge, fill in the gaps, and to switch up how your brain is absorbing knowledge:
Black Spectacles: good quality, clean and concise format, and consistent. AIA discounts are available with a promo code, if you’re a member.
The content doesn’t align with the ARE 5.0 exam. RHW subscribed to Black Spectacles (B.S.) to prepare for PcM and PjM, and neither video lessons were valuable for the exam content.
The lecturer over-simplified the lessons to the point where they were not helpful – but instead a huge time sink.
RHW wasn’t able to take full advantage of all the available video content, classes, and ARE prep that come with the packaged discounted subscription. There was just too much information to be packing into a normal work-life-study balance. In other words: the packaged deal wasn’t worth paying more for the slight discount. RHW recommends subscribing and paying for 1-mo, watching the videos for the one exam section you plan to take next, use the promo code from AIA, then cancel the subscription before the renewal date. There is just too much other studying to be done, and you may want to take a break between exams, so you won’t want to pay for this premium service if you’re not using it. Plus, you may use the discount/promo codes each time you renew your subscription when ready to start studying for the next exam.
Kevin Griendling’s Pluralsight: Kevin has produced lessons for both PcM and PjM, the other lessons are currently in the making.
The Amber Book: Poke around this website for all kinds of great resources. Amber Book is not a one-stop shop however, and you’ll need to study other content once you’ve consumed all you can.
Strategy 3 – Testing Intervals
For one month: read, review your own flash cards and sketch notes, watch supporting online videos – repeat.
Then dive into the practice materials provided by PPI (or other resources), and schedule that exam while practicing. Basically one-month testing intervals.
Why one month? Because the amount of information to study is tremendous! You may already be experienced in architectural practice, but that doesn’t mean you’ve been doing it the way that NCARB has constructed the exam, and you may miss large chunks of useful professional guides for good practice.
Strategy 4 – Practical Application
The most complicated part about the exam is that, according to the ARE Handbook, you will be asked to apply knowledge to practical situations. Every question will likely test your ability to understand a real-life issue and respond to it. This is complicated because it can be convoluted. While ‘dry’ studying, watching videos, and using flash cards are all good ways of looking at text and pictures over and over, nothing beats trying to solve problems with your brain.
The most successful study strategy is to generate practical application of the content that you study. What’s nice about the order of the exams is that they generally follow the course of a normal project. From starting a firm, to starting a project, to programming, SD, DD, CD and post-construction. Study by designing a building all along the way!
Imagine a client
Write a contract
Identify a program
Pick a complex building site
Research local codes
Research building codes
Design a building
Then show off the results to your friends
RHW searched first for a building site that encompassed the widest range of problems and complexity, in order to capture as much practical application as possible. Here are some fun renderings that resulted so far:
Try practical application of an architectural exploration with the site that RHW used, then let’s compare designs:
Remember to have fun, this will be the rest of your life after all…
Strategy 5 – After an Exam
Immediately go to your favorite cafe, reward yourself, then break out a notepad, because you’re not done yet. It’s important to reward your brain for hard work – your brain will learn to identify the exam with a reward – an important life lesson.
These exams and study materials will add up in cost. Talk to your architectural firm leaders or HR department about whether the firm will help with the cost of the exams.
RHW will update this page periodically. And please email RHW of any inaccuracies, corrections, or additions. Last update: 2018/02/02
Architects and designers have presented a new fad to the world – black. By introducing this color across the design field – on buildings, cars, clothing, arts and interior design – we are inevitably plunging ourselves into a social construct that surrounds us in darkness.
RHW sees beauty in naturally day lit spaces, and views this new fad of dark color pallets as the inevitable doom of architecture and the built environment.
