Life of an Architect

Life of an Architect

A gifted storyteller communicating the role and value of architecture to a new audience, host Bob Borson uses the experiences acquired over a 25-year career to inform his podcast. A small firm owner, architect, and college design instructor, co-host Andrew Hawkins brings his insight from his 20 years in various roles within the profession. It responds to the public curiosity and common misunderstanding about what architects do and how it is relevant to people’s lives, engaging a wide demographic of people in a meaningful way without requiring an understanding of the jargon or knowledge of the history of the profession. With a creative mix of humor and practicality, Borson’s stories are informative, engaging, and approachable, using first-person narratives and anecdotes that have introduced transparency into what it really means to be a practicing architect. To learn more about Bob, Andrew, and what life is like as an architect, please visit Lifeofanarchitect.com

Episodes

Ep 186: The Rules of Modernism

October 5, 2025 • 57 mins
Every rule was made to be broken, except in architecture, where even the act of breaking rules seems to come with its own set of rules. Modernism promised liberation from the past, but it quickly wrote its own commandments into the story—flat roofs, open plans, white walls, and exposed structure became the expected vocabulary. A movement that arrived as rebellion soon carried the weight of convention, and those conventions still sh...
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Ep 185: Procrastination – Today’s Problem Tomorrow

September 21, 2025 • 60 mins
It’s one thing to be busy and another to be productive – and most of us are far better at the first than the second. The reality is that architects live in a world of deadlines, meetings, and endless to-do lists, but somehow there’s always time to check Instagram, rearrange your desktop icons, or spend twenty minutes deciding which playlist will help you focus before actually doing the work. Procrastination has a way of disguising ...
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Ep 184: The Architect as Brand

September 7, 2025 • 60 mins
The Architect as Brand explores how personal reputation and firm identity collide, coexist, and shape modern architectural practice.
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Ep 183: Tips for being an Architect AND a Good Person

August 24, 2025 • 58 mins
Architectural career tips meet life lessons in a conversation about balancing professional success with being a genuinely good person. This is Tips for being an Architect and a Good Person.
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Ep 182: How AI is Changing Architecture

August 10, 2025 • 61 mins
Discover how AI tools are transforming architecture, from design and research to workflow efficiency, and shaping the future of practice.
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Ep 181: Attitude Reflects Leadership

July 27, 2025 • 68 mins
How leadership behavior shapes culture, trust, and growth - why people mirror what leaders model, and how influence is built through everyday actions.
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Ep 180: Size Doesn’t Matter

July 13, 2025 • 66 mins
The phrase “it’s just a small project” has probably caused more confusion, blown more budgets, and strained more relationships than we’d care to admit. It sounds harmless, maybe even charming - the architectural equivalent of a quick favor. But that phrase carries weight. Because behind every modest addition, bathroom remodel, or garage conversion is the same professional rigor we apply to larger work … just without the benefit of ...
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Ep 179: Is Half the Story Enough?

June 29, 2025 • 63 mins
Architectural influencers on social media can bring real insight to the table while others blur the line between experience and performance, you should evaluate what you’re seeing, questioning why it was shared, and learn how to tell the difference between helpful guidance and a well-lit shortcut.
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Ep 178: Under Pressure

June 15, 2025 • 61 mins
What happens when architects face extreme pressure? Ep. 178 explores how stress reveals character, process, and priorities in practice.
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Ep 177: Hanging Out Your Shingle

June 1, 2025 • 75 mins
There’s a moment in almost every architect’s career where the idea first surfaces—quietly at first, then louder over time: What if I started my own firm? Maybe it’s the itch for creative freedom, maybe it’s frustration with someone else’s decisions, or maybe it’s just the instinct to build something of your own. I’ve had this conversation more times than I can count—at desks, on job sites, over drinks after a long day. It’s a topic...
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Ep 176: Little White Lies

May 18, 2025 • 70 mins
We’ve all stared at the calendar, convinced there’s a hidden twenty-fifth hour—plenty of room to redline that section, nudge the model, and squeeze in just one more detail. “We’ll sort it during bidding,” we promise ourselves, and the optimism buys another day of breathing room. Architects thrive on this kind of self-talk; some versions are harmless, others lurk like change-order booby traps. Today Andrew and I are spotlighting the...
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Ep 175: Stupid Questions

May 4, 2025 • 53 mins
Nobody wants to be the person who asks a question that causes everyone else within ear shot to turn and look at them. We spend the early part of our careers trying to prove we deserve a seat at the table, hoping we sound competent, sharp, with just the right amount of confidence. But architecture isn’t a field you get good at by pretending. It’s a craft you grow into by doing, which ultimately leads to asking questions early, often...
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EP 174: Dear Future Architects …

April 21, 2025 • 71 mins
There are bits of advice that one collects over a 30 year career and when given the chance, some are worth passing on to those who care to listen. While this could have been a lessons from my father sort of episode, we decided to keep things focused on those of us who either are, or want to be, architects, and we are going to pass along a handful of things that we wish we had known at the start of our careers. Welcome to Episode 17...
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Ep 173: Mentorship Matters

April 6, 2025 • 58 mins
Mentorship turns confusion into clarity, builds confidence, and connects you with people who help you grow faster than you ever could alone.
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EP 172: A Week in the Life of an Architect

March 23, 2025 • 66 mins
Most people have no idea what I do for a living, and to be honest, most of how I spend my time doesn’t look like the things I did when I was in college. Have things gone terribly wrong for me? What about Andrew? I’m pretty confident that his role as an architect is different than how he imagined it to be … and I think that this is all okay. It should be an interesting conversation, and possibly a mandatory exercise, to find out how...
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Ep 171: The IQ of an Architect

March 9, 2025 • 53 mins
Being an Architect is difficult and there is plenty of evidence that this is not a vocation that is suitable for everyone. The coursework you will take in college is all over the place – from the drawing and design classes to physics and upper level math requirements, you seem to have to be both an artist and a scientist to go down this path. This begs the question, Just how smart do you need to be in order to become an architect? ...
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Ep 170: Architecture School versus the Real World

February 23, 2025 • 68 mins
There is a moment of realization that occurs when you get your first real job in an architectural office that maybe architecture school and what is now going to be expected from you are a little out of phase with one another. Are you prepared, do the differences matter, and what happens when you come to the conclusion that your job and almost everything you have experienced so far based on your time in college, seem so different. H...
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Ep 169: Architecture Studio

February 9, 2025 • 64 mins
The act of creating architecture is a fairly unique process and the manner in which you learn how to think both creatively and technically is a skill that requires certain training and nurturing to develop. When young and eager architects in training head off to college, this development will take place in the architecture studio. This is a topic that – shockingly - we haven’t pointedly discussed on the podcast before and today, th...
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Ep 168: Architectural Career – Is It Worth It

January 26, 2025 • 65 mins
Building upon our last episode when we discussed the path we have taken to get where we are, how unpredictable and in some cases, how circuitous that path can take, what we didn’t really talk about was if the journey was what we wanted. It’s all fine and dandy to look back and make lemonade from lemons, but now that we are decades into our careers as architect, there is another question we want to ask … Episode 168: Architectural C...
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Ep 167: How Did We Get Here?

January 12, 2025 • 70 mins
It is the start of a New Year, everything still smells fresh and most things looking forward are theoretically in place for an amazing year … at least I think so. Since it is first podcast episode of 2025, today’s conversation is more of an introspective look into a career and just how bad or good things have gone over the last 30+ years. While this is not a look into my own personal diary, it should provide you with a framework wh...
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