Can I provide design plans to clients only with my BE degree in civil?
Yes u can.Something to consider at the basic level of residential construction and alteration as an example of the difference:In most municipalities, ALL construction and structural changes must be stamped by a PE, NOT an Architect unless they are licensed as a Professional Engineer, which it is then assumed they have the Engineering abilities to perform the required analysis.
An Engineer with a Structural focus, especially if their experience is in construction or either public/commercial or residential projects is at an advantage as far as crossing over into the Architect’s domain over the Inverse.
An Architect in most cases, would need to go back to school and undertake to work under a Professional Engineer to get even the basic tools of structural design, strength of materials & etc. as part of their competency set.No one would trust most Architects to remotely know how to build what they design.But, Art can be picked up by most engineers, in fact depending upon their schooling, they may already have an eye for design from the art classes required for renderings related to their studies in draftsmanship.
The rest is simply study of architectural forms and history - which, I’m sorry Architects out there, is not some secret sauce only available to students in Architecture departments or Fine Arts for that matter.As far as some comments here on “material qualities” for design. That my good people is very similar to how an Engineer categorizes materials properties.
They actually already do that except from a structural and integrity stand point. Not difficult at all or a far stretch to add the dimensions required for Architectural design.It can be a stretch for an Architect to move into applied engineering if they have no previous background. It will take more work than the Inverse.
