Architectural internship should be a strong mentoring relationship between registered architects and emerging professionals. The relationship involves a dedicated effort by the architect to teach and develop the intern into a responsible, thoughtful professional. In turn, it is the responsibility of the intern to teach the architect about new, quicker processes of expressing ideas. The architect provides a foundation and knowledge base about building technology and business practices while the intern provides interesting new ideas and enthusiasm for design. In this relationship, both the architect and the intern continually learn and continually teach.

Architecture as a profession is continually changing. Architecture students once learned the art of hand drafting, physical model building, and hand rendering. Today, architecture students have replaced these skills with computer aided drafting, computer modeling, and Photoshop rendering. As the world continues to speed up, clients expect more from their architects in shorter periods of time. As visualization programs improve and processor speeds increase, computers have made it easy to quickly respond to the increasing demands of the profession. Many architects choose to learn about and use the computer because it is a quick and efficient way of responding to clients needs. As the transformation happens from physical architecture to computer generated architecture, interns have the opportunity to play the educator role in the mentoring relationship.

Beyond the requirements of the Intern Development Program (I.D.P.), the transformation from hand crafted expression to computer designing has left recent graduates seeking to understand expression through drawings and modeling. Line weights are often misunderstood when drawing with the computer and the tendency to be able to focus on a particular section of the building has affected the ability to build form and unity. More students enter the field relying on programs such as SketchUp to create wire frame models that
they can use to create perspective sketches. The ability to sketch a thought on a napkin when meeting with a client at lunch is becoming less common. Interns rely on architects to help them discover the lost art of physical expression. An internship should be an architect and an intern, both dedicated towards mutual development and the development of the architectural profession as a whole. Beyond the mentorship requirements of I.D.P., the intern should find someone within their own firm, interested in the idea of cross mentorship on a
daily basis. I have found it helpful for my space to be directly adjacent with my mentor’s space. Having my mentor be able to see my computer screen has been educational for him and has allowed me to continually ask questions, reducing errors in my drawings. It has also allowed me to participate in code research, cost analysis, and materials research while simultaneously developing the design.

The greatest reason to be an architect is that you are always provided the opportunity to learn. While the idea of mentorship has proven very successful over time, the idea of cross mentorship will create stronger professionals in the future.