interview #3

This morning I talked with a woman named Satguru over breakfast burritos about adobe architecture. It was a good chat, and she encouraged me to do the adobe construction program and then arch school at UNM.

That seems like perhaps the most doable path to this field perhaps - two semesters learning to build with adobe, then architecture school. Of course that is 4.5 years I think of school. But possibly get some credit for the adobe program since it is a college class.

Also mentioned a couple in Taos that built a 120 square foot adobe to live in since it was the biggest they could build without a permit. That reminded me that building one small adobe house that can be expanded is probably the most economical way to go (and results in somewhere to live sooner, too).

Satguru, despite her Santa Cruz, NM address and unique name, is not a Sikh, which I was thinking she would be. She used to be a Sikh back in the day and says the clothes were great for a designer. I liked that. I said I could never wear that much white, since I don't look good in it. :-)

What else did we discuss. It was less asking lots of preset questions and more just talking. I did ask her about her design development process - sketching ideas, talking to the clients, then moving to the larger scale plan stage, where she starts actually creating the plan that will get used. She does a lot of work on already existing adobe, making them more modern and renovating and preserving them.

She told me that there is a big conference in May on adobe.

Talked about Hassan Fathi, an Egyptian architect who designed the Dar al Islam mosque cum conference center in Abiquiu, and is famous for working on low -income housing in developing nations using techniques like adobe.

Anway, it was a good breakfast. She got very excited for me about this as well! And even said if I learned CAD maybe I could take her plans and put them in CAD. So hey, that is kind of close to a job offer. (I always hear that one gets job offers during these info interviews).