Career chats: Creating and building things
About this video
People who create and build things describe their work. An architect turns clients' ideas into designs and coordinates engineers to produce permit documents; a construction leader builds an LAX terminal extension in two locations and moves the buildings across runways at night; and another enjoys full autonomy to design and build something new.
You'll be able to
- describe the steps an architect follows from idea to building plans.
- explain what makes the LAX project unusual.
- explain why some people enjoy autonomy in creative work.
Key words
- schematic design
- An early, simple drawing that shows the main idea of a building design.
- consultant
- An expert brought in to give specialist advice, like a structural engineer.
- building permit
- Official permission from the government to build something.
- superstructure
- The part of a building above the foundations that people see and use.
- autonomy
- The freedom to make your own decisions about your work.
Transcript
(upbeat music) - My responsibilities include like meeting with clients and listening to their architectural needs for their dream project. Then I take those ideas as an inspiration, and I produce several kind of schematic designs with different concepts for the clients to evaluate.
And after I meet with them, I will consolidate their preferences into one design. At that point, I will start coordinating my design with my consultants, like structural engineer, civil engineer, mechanical engineer, and sometimes even like an interior designer.
And I can put together then a set of documents for the building permit and a contractor to build from.
- Right now what I enjoy the most is the uniqueness of the project that I'm working on right now. It's called the Midfield Satellite Concourse South. It's an extension to one of the existing terminals on the LAX campus. And what's unique about this project is that we're building it in two different locations.
We have the actual site where the final building location's gonna go. We're doing all the underground utilities and the foundations for that. About a mile and a half offsite we're building the actual buildings, the superstructures that people will see and use and walk inside of.
And in October of this year, we're gonna actually move those building segments across the runways, across the taxiways at night, and place them in its final location.
- I love having full autonomy. You know, I get to build everything, and I get to design it all. So since no one came before me, I don't have to like redesign anything or rebuild anything. I don't have to tear it down. I get to decide what it looks like. And that's really cool, and I get to be really creative, and I get to kind of decide, you know, how is this gonna be installed and how is it gonna be implemented, and how are we gonna deploy it, and who's gonna work with me on this?
(upbeat music)
Video © Khan Academy, used under CC BY-NC-SA. Watch on Khan Academy. Puzzicle is not affiliated with Khan Academy.