Designing and building/remodeling residential homes

Hi, my name is Djamschid Mehrpuyan and I am expressing enormous interest in becoming a licensed Architect in the (near) future. I am currentl employed full-time as a Digital Cellular Engineer at Motorola CIG since 1986. During the past 8 years, I have been involved with many home remodeling projects during my spare time. I received a BS in Math and Computer Science at the University of Illinois in Chicago.

What I really want to do in the future (near future) is to design, build, remodel, and renovate residential homes, mainly large scale homes of Mediterranean style and homes that have very unique and creative styles. I want to start doing this on my own and maybe some day start my own business. I have sent a similar post to this newsgroup before, but wanted to send it one more time since I got only little feedback, although that feedback was quite helpful.

What I need advise on is how to reach this goal. I spent some time reading through various material at www.ncarb.org which some of you already recommended. I read through some of the Registration Board Requirements for the state of Illinois. For example, Requirement 2 states that

Applicants must NOT have a professional degree from a NAAB-accredited program as the only means of satisfying your board's education requirement?

I dont quite understand this. Does it mean that there may be other means, other than a 3-year Masters program in Architecture, to satisfy the board's education requirements ? Since I am employed full-time, what other means do I have to study Architecture, mainly for residential home design, and what process would I need to follow exactly to go from studying Architecture to getting a license in Architecture.

Here is a statement I got from the IDP guideline brochure:

Since not all boards require a professional degree from an NAAB-accredited program (or equivalent education) to satisfy their education requirement, some boards have alternative paths to registration with less education and more training

Anyone know what these alternative paths may be ?

I am extremely excited and motivated to become an Architect and Home builder. I am also planning to purchase the following CAD programs developed for Architect:. ArchiCAD from GraphiSoft, AllPlan from Nemetschek, and possibly MicroStation from Bentley as well.

Any information is greatly appreciated.

Regards,

-DJ Mehrpuyan

P.S. Please reply all

It is still possible to becoming licensed as an architect without an NAAB professional degree, however, it is not a viable option for most people. The ways one could get licensed in states like IL without a degree are typically: 1. Become licensed in a state not requiring an NAAB degree such as CA (8 years experience). Practice as a licensed architect long enough to meet NCARB certificate requirements (10 years). Then apply to IL using the NCARB certificate. 2. Become licensed in a foreign jurisdiction and practice as a principle for five years. Get an NCARB certificate, apply to IL. 3. Meet some specific grandfathering requirement for IL, which it is too late for you to do. 4. Obtain licensure in another state and meet some specific reciprocity requirement, other than NCARB certificate, such as five years of practice as a licensed architect.

Brudgers made some good points about alternative licensing requirements. Some states don't require architectural registration to work on residential projects, some require it for certain size residential projects and others always require it. To complicate matters, each local jurisdiction has the ability to be more restrictive in their requirements and you might find certain cities that require registrations. If you're planning on concentrating on residential work, find out what the requirements are for the places you'd like to work. While I recommend the education, practical matters may require you to look at different options, such as not becoming a registered/licensed architect.

Also, if you go to www.naab.org you'll find the architecture schools around the country. There are only a few programs that 'allow' for full time work and 'part' time school. Most programs, particularly masters programs, require full time day participation. Having said that, I found a full time job that worked around my school schedule. It was 3 years with little sleep, but I managed both.

As for your software choices...I'd take a serious look at Autodesks Architectural Desktop or Revit (most likely Revit).

Good luck...it's an interesting road to take.