4 People, four pivots into architecture

“You should take the leap.” 

That’s the advice Z Smith, FAIA, has for anyone daunted yet intrigued by the idea of jumping into architecture from a different field. 

Many Americans are considering a career change, with some pondering architecture, but “the commitment involved in retraining and building experience can be considerable,” says Scott MacTavish, a UK-qualified architect, associate, and talent acquisition specialist at Perkins&Will. To wit, NCARB data reports the average time to licensure is 12.3 years.

But despite the challenge of switching into architecture, the transition can be worthwhile and rewarding, whether or not someone pursues licensure. Here’s a look at several people who moved into architecture after spending their early careers elsewhere, starting with Smith.

From physics to principal

Smith, 67, has a background in physics with an undergraduate degree from MIT and a PhD from Princeton. His career path took him to technical jobs at Princeton and in San Francisco and Japan. In the mid-1990s, while working at Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory’s building energy modeling program, he became interested in the impact potential of buildings and in sustainability. 

When he and his wife moved to New York City for her to pursue a graduate degree, he was ready for a change. A chance look at a subway ad for City College courses made something click: “It listed the departments alphabetically. Luckily, architecture was the first bullet point, and I said, ‘Architecture?’ That sounds like fun.”

He went on to earn his master’s in architecture at UC Berkeley in 2002 when he was 42, then became licensed in 2005. After some time at different firms, he joined New Orleans–based EskewDumezRipple in 2009, where he is now a principal and the director of sustainability and building performance. 

He says the firm appreciated the breadth of his experiences. On leveraging his unique background, Smith says, “It’s bringing this idea of physics, of research, and using that to inform the way we make design choices.” 

From graphic design work to architecture studies 

Elizabeth McGrail, 50, came from a family that was “purpose-driven: doctors, attorneys, teachers.” She had always been creative but felt pressure to enter a profession, so she studied accounting “begrudgingly,” she says, and took electives in painting, drawing, and art history. 

After college, she worked in the accounting department at a small marketing firm, but graphic design was always in the back of her mind. She eventually returned to school, earning a graphic design degree from the Corcoran College of Art & Design.

She made career stops in the brand department at AARP in Washington, D.C., and as a designer for nonprofit events, but she encountered a work slowdown after the pandemic. To become more marketable, McGrail decided to learn how to fabricate her designs, a task she usually handed to someone else. 

She began pursuing an architectural illustration certification at a nearby community college and “just fell in love with it.” McGrail had a “revelation” during a lecture about women in architecture given by Caitlin Brady, AIA, an architect and host of the Architectette podcast. McGrail says the lecture made her realize, “OK, maybe this is what I should be doing.” She calls the pivot “scary, but at the same time, it’s exciting.”

McGrail earned her associate’s degree in May of this year and recently began her studies for a master’s degree in architecture at the University of Maryland. Previous graphics work has given her a way into architecture’s design aspects, and she says she knows “how to talk about concept and process, how to rework things and take feedback and integrate it” into what she’s working on. 

A professor encouraged her to figure out why she wants to pursue architecture so that she can keep going when she needs to study all night or loses her computer to hardware failure. McGrail’s “why” is tied into a need to help children. She’s focusing her studies on creating safe education spaces. “Kids that carry trauma and anxiety into the classroom need to feel safe, need to feel seen, need to feel understood.”

From violist to CEO 

Lauren Chipman, AIA, is 43 and grew up around the architecture profession: Her mom and dad started Chipman Design Architecture in 1979. But Chipman had no interest in joining it. At 13, she told her parents she wanted to be a professional musician; that same year, she played Carnegie Hall for the first time as a violist.

She went to the University of Southern California, got her bachelor’s degree in viola performance, and "really started my career in earnest," she says. She played classically in Los Angeles, taught a private studio of 25 young musicians, and did session work, including for Star Wars movies, for Toy Story, and in backing bands on The Voice and American Idol. But working seven days a week in her 30s, she found herself “a little bit stuck.”

Then her dad asked her to join Chipman. “I was like, ‘There’s no way.’ … My entire identity was being a musician.” But she sat with it for three months, eventually changed her mind, and moved to Chicago in 2015. 

A year later, her father named her CEO. In 2020, she went back to school, enrolling in a fully online NAAB-accredited master’s program at Lawrence Technological University for people without an undergraduate degree in the field. She eventually passed all six ARE exams, plus the California state exam.

Chipman credits music for her drive and discipline. “I have these two strengths that are diametrically opposed that have been helpful in my journey: the pursuit of perfection and being able to pivot when things don’t go right.” 

People sometimes ask how she could walk away from her passion for music. Her response: “What I really love is growing people and creating these extraordinary experiences.”

From neuroscience to principal

Peter Knutson, 52, grew up in Fargo, N.D., in a family of healthcare professionals, including a doctor for a father, a surgical nurse for a mother, and a registered nurse for a sister. He’ s the only one who didn’ t follow healthcare. Instead, he aspired to “being the city kid that I wasn’t."

After studying psychology in college, he moved to Bethesda, Md., for a neuroscience research fellowship with the National Institutes of Health. But on weekends, he found himself reading urban critics Jane Jacobs and William Whyte instead of scientific material. He says, “I hadn’t chosen [neuroscience]; the path had been chosen for me, and I felt like I had to change."

That’s why he quit neuroscience. He had $12 in the bank, no job, and no place to live. He worked in a coffee shop until he could afford to return to Minnesota and start taking drawing and history classes.

Knutson was almost 30 when he pivoted to the University of Pennsylvania to study architecture. He figures his research papers got him admitted. "I couldn’t show them spectacular architecture, but I could show them that I can start a project and finish a project."

A studio instructor invited him to China, and after graduation, he moved there for a few years. Then he went on to New York and a scrappy 10-person firm called A Plus I, where he embraced workplace architecture. A year ago, that firm was acquired by Perkins&Will.

He never pursued licensure—"I was never going to put myself in a position to sign drawings," he says—and his work now lives far outside stamped drawings. He follows projects through as “a partner to the architects in the room.”

Outside experience and team needs

So, how might firms see candidates like these four? MacTavish, the talent acquisition specialist, says if someone who had pivoted careers came to his firm, he would “want to understand the actual transition rather that treat these candidates as a category.” 

He points out candidates with untraditional backgrounds might bring useful communication or project-management skills, or other unique perks. “Ultimately, I’m interested in what the person can contribute and how that matches what the team needs.”

Stacey Freed is a freelance writer focusing on architecture and design. She lives in Western New York.