Where Architects Originated

An architect is a person involved in the planning, designing and oversight of a building's construction. The word "architect" is derived from the Latin architectus or from the Greek arkhitekton. In the broadest sense an architect is a person who translates the user's needs into the builder's requirements. An architect must thoroughly understand the building and operational codes under which his or her design must conform. That degree of knowledge is necessary so that he or she is not apt to omit any necessary requirements, or produce improper, conflicting, ambiguous, or confusing requirements. He or she must understand the various methods available to the builder for building the client's structure, so that he or she can negotiate with the client to produce a best possible compromise of the results desired within explicit cost and time boundaries.

Architects must frequently make building design and planning decisions that affect the safety and well being of the general public. Architects are required to obtain specialized education and documented work experience to obtain professional licensure, similar to the requirements for other professionals, with requirements for practice varying greatly from place to place (see below).

The most prestigious award a living architect can receive is the Pritzker Prize , often termed the "Nobel Prize for architecture." Other awards for excellence in architecture are given by national and regional professional associations such as the American Institute of Architects and Royal Institute of British Architects . Other prestigious architectural awards are the Alvar Aalto Medal (Finland) and the Carlsberg Architecture Prize (Denmark).

Although architect technically refers to a licensed professional, the word is frequently used in the broader sense noted above to define someone who brings order to the built or unbuilt environment through the use of rational constructs. For example, "naval architects," "software architects," and graduates of schools of architecture working in architecture firms are often called "architects." However, in most countries unlicensed people working in the construction industry are legally prohibited from referring to themselves as "architects."