When I began my career in architecture, the process of designing a building was essentially the same as it had been for hundreds of years. Plans were carefully drawn, by hand. Equations estimating the capacity of load-bearing walls and ceiling structure were carefully calculated. If you needed to see a building in three dimensions, a model would be built with pain-staking care. Architecture, from inspiration to execution, was a labor-intensive affair.

That’s not the case anymore.

The digital age brought with it new ways of working. Plans no longer require a straight edge and steady hand, computer processors handle much of the complex number crunching and buildings are constructed, byte-by-byte, in the virtual world.

And yet, as much as things have changed, those elements of architecture that first drew me to the profession remain. There’s still a sense of accomplishment when a tricky design problem is solved and a beautiful building that works well in its environment remains the ultimate goal.

The creative road we travel might be different, but the destination is, and will remain, the same.