So to make it short : I see pictures of very beautiful houses : ultra modern, full of glasses, beautifully designed etc. I mean you know the houses that you find in magazines etc.
And I'm talking to my friend who's an architect and why he's not doing that kind of architecture and he told me it's because : 1- most of his clients don't have the budget and 2- when they could, that's not what they're asking for.
So I'm wondering, how are architects who do a lot that kind of houses find them ?
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And the same thing about building : Norman foster, Zaha Hadid... even though here, with buildings, it's a bit different as they are doing a kind of competition..
The people who want that sort of house know they need an architect. So, they find one.
People who want generic houses think they need an architect, and they sometimes seek one out. Then the price drives them away and they get a generic builder/book house.
Basically, you might get lucky and find someone, or they find you. You'll do your first one. Then maybe they'll recommend you to like minded people, or like minded people will find out about the one house. Then word spreads.
There isn't some magical fishing hole full of people of this sort, because there aren't many people of this sort.
I've found it common, especially with the Miller House, Farnsworth House, and Glass House, that the owner was someone who was an avid art collector or held above-average value toward art and aesthetics, especially considering artistic theory and motive. So, the architect's parti of their initial concept was essentially a metaphor or some abstraction of thought that formed the backbone of the design concept. To me, this makes a structure more meaningful and therefore more enjoyable if done well.
In order to assert yourself in this niche, in my opinion you start by designing a small or mid-sized commercial project with a contemporary look, because contemporary architecture seems to be more common in commercial sectors. Then a wealthy art enthusiast coincidentally becomes a fan of this project, and then asks who the architect is, and commissions them to design a custom house in the same style. From here, the architect has a residential submission for their portfolio that they can use to gain momentum and gain future commissions of the same project type. Richard Meier is the first person that comes to mind for this, to me.
In the case of your friend, they're too complacent with their current client base and don't feel it's worth the extra effort to network with wealthy art enthusiasts who may want a custom home designed for them. So, they're too lazy to crack into this niche is essentially what I'm saying (or, they simply choose not to).
The best architects challenge themselves to create innovative or spectacular designs regardless of their budget - thats part of the ingenuity of the creative mind, where we're supposed to take deafening rules and use them to our advantage in order to output a beautiful project. But that takes a lot of thought and participation in an iterative design process. That's the hard way, more or less, and the easy way is to just give your presumably uncreative client their uncreative home for their mundane and unexciting lives, like what your friend is doing.
With commercial projects, like when you mention Zaha and Foster, this is either primarily based on an competition they won early in their career, and then the same sense of momentum applied to their later clients and projects, or one of their first clients desired a contemporary and innovative design, which might elicit the same momentum again.
Nov 17, 15 3:43 pm ·
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How to find customers wanting this kind of houses/building ?
Hello,
So to make it short : I see pictures of very beautiful houses : ultra modern, full of glasses, beautifully designed etc. I mean you know the houses that you find in magazines etc.
And I'm talking to my friend who's an architect and why he's not doing that kind of architecture and he told me it's because : 1- most of his clients don't have the budget and 2- when they could, that's not what they're asking for.
So I'm wondering, how are architects who do a lot that kind of houses find them ?
--------------
And the same thing about building : Norman foster, Zaha Hadid... even though here, with buildings, it's a bit different as they are doing a kind of competition..
The people who want that sort of house know they need an architect. So, they find one.
People who want generic houses think they need an architect, and they sometimes seek one out. Then the price drives them away and they get a generic builder/book house.
Basically, you might get lucky and find someone, or they find you. You'll do your first one. Then maybe they'll recommend you to like minded people, or like minded people will find out about the one house. Then word spreads.
There isn't some magical fishing hole full of people of this sort, because there aren't many people of this sort.
I've found it common, especially with the Miller House, Farnsworth House, and Glass House, that the owner was someone who was an avid art collector or held above-average value toward art and aesthetics, especially considering artistic theory and motive. So, the architect's parti of their initial concept was essentially a metaphor or some abstraction of thought that formed the backbone of the design concept. To me, this makes a structure more meaningful and therefore more enjoyable if done well.
In order to assert yourself in this niche, in my opinion you start by designing a small or mid-sized commercial project with a contemporary look, because contemporary architecture seems to be more common in commercial sectors. Then a wealthy art enthusiast coincidentally becomes a fan of this project, and then asks who the architect is, and commissions them to design a custom house in the same style. From here, the architect has a residential submission for their portfolio that they can use to gain momentum and gain future commissions of the same project type. Richard Meier is the first person that comes to mind for this, to me.
In the case of your friend, they're too complacent with their current client base and don't feel it's worth the extra effort to network with wealthy art enthusiasts who may want a custom home designed for them. So, they're too lazy to crack into this niche is essentially what I'm saying (or, they simply choose not to).
The best architects challenge themselves to create innovative or spectacular designs regardless of their budget - thats part of the ingenuity of the creative mind, where we're supposed to take deafening rules and use them to our advantage in order to output a beautiful project. But that takes a lot of thought and participation in an iterative design process. That's the hard way, more or less, and the easy way is to just give your presumably uncreative client their uncreative home for their mundane and unexciting lives, like what your friend is doing.
With commercial projects, like when you mention Zaha and Foster, this is either primarily based on an competition they won early in their career, and then the same sense of momentum applied to their later clients and projects, or one of their first clients desired a contemporary and innovative design, which might elicit the same momentum again.
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