I've heard about them.
Their website doesn't offer much info.
What about the others I mentioned?

I currently work in a large corporate firm.
So I understand the grind.
I alos have over 5 years exp. now.. kind of seen what "j" means..
Guess what I'm looking for is particulars other than website info on these firms. Website's are always constructed to represent the"best of"..
What I want to know is - IN terms of people, work types these firms pursue(besides pay the bill STUFF), attitude and impression they have on the architectural community locally..

scogin elam

all I can offer on Plexus, having never worked there, is that they are younger, energetic, they teach, they have a social/cultural attitude that they pursue diligently (as far as I know) in their projects, and they get good architecture built. I can't say for sure, but they don't seem like the type to take on "pay the bills" work that they don't believe in.

My experience is limited to an interview that some peers and I did with them for Architrave, and the corresponding lecture and gallery exhibit. They are UF undergrad / Princeton Grad. That's all I have...

opinion wise, i know nothing about tvs or cooper carry. i am working in a building by portman here in downtown though.

by the way, good luck here in atlanta.

tvs will more than likely pay you more than other places in town, but you'll have crank consistant 10-12 hour days and do good work to be noticed. that's the price you pay working in a place with 300 employees. one of the plexus partners lurks around on this site every once in a while (at least, i'm pretty sure its him) he's worked at portman, tvs, and cooper carry. so maybe he can help you out.

Anyone work or have any contacts at Scogin Elam-?

Scogin Elam is a strong design firm. The workload is known to be intense but very inspiring, they really like large mockup models.
They expanded in size and project in the past 3-4 years.

had a friend work at scogin elam. it isn't large. they just moved into a new office in the past year which is supposed to be nice. they are very creative indivduals who spend a lot of time in the office. he had told me that mack scoggin and merrell elam, the partners, were there all the time as well, not just the staff and interns. they are also supposed to be very nice people. there work is very interesting to me in that they seem to experiment with materials (reasoning behind the large scale mockups i presume). i heard it was an all the time gig, so if that deters you i wouldn't bother (one of the reasons i think he ended up leaving the firm.)

plexus 1 does in fact lurk around this site, but because of the large numbers of inquiries they get i wouldn't hold out for a response. my firm works with them on occasion (with one of the partners formerly employed by my current place), and what i can tell you is this: they are the most intensely devoted people i have met in the field thus far (hopefully i will live long enough to meet a lot more people like them). they constantly talk about architecture and the environment around them. they also don't bullshit when it comes to the work they see around them, they tell it like it is. if it sucks, they say so, and then give you ten reasons why. if its good, they say so, and then try to figure out it could be better. very intense.

i work at msme (scogin elam). its like having two full-time jobs, but i love it. i really feel like im at the best place in atlanta. although i often wish we did more work that directly affected atlanta (i care about the city i live in).

I've worked at plexus (in addition to where you probably work now momentum) and i enjoyed it. they can hardly ever settle for what is on the page, constantly questioning, and refining till the end (sometimes to a fault, but i could think of worse faults).
it seems part of their office culture is to swell and contract when work load permits it. during my time there we had as many as 13, and as few as 2 people employed. and i think they've gone through another entire cycle since i've been gone. their teaching jobs help afford them the luxury of not taking work they think is lame.

As an intern (graduate architect) I worked at both Lord, Aeck and Sargent (150-200), and at Stanley Beaman & Sears (around 50.) They both were friendly places, offered good training, and gave me many design opportunities. Great places to get started and had good pay / benefits. Have also done work for Perkins+Will (very large), which was reasonably interesting.

I guess the firms you mentioned (TVS, Cooper Carry, Portman) are ok corporate firms, but a bit souless.

i worked at tvs for a year. like most environments, it is what you make of it. at the time at least [1999-2000] it was a good experience for me. learned a lot about doing a set of construction documents and organizing drawings. learned about detailing [not as much as would have wanted to].

environment was nice. i noticed [at least in my studio] they quickly identified who was working automatically and who was thinking about what they were doing. and who said they liked to design but really just wanted to paint pretty pictures. we had all those types, and the people on top noticed quickly and acted accordingly.

tvs [as many large firms] works in studios, in order to break the corporate scale. they were good at providing opportunities for interns to track and complete their idps [good business, they can then charge more for their time, but still good]. but the studio you get assigned to is key. there are zombie boring studios, super hard working studios [that would be the convention centers], interesting studios [the international studio gets to have a bit more fun].

if you have specific qualities, you may be able to negotiate a particular studio, usually you are just assigned whatever needs you most. i know tvs fired a lot of people after 9/11 and heard some contradictory rumours about how now it's better or worse or the same as before [different friends]. there has to be someone who's more up to date than me that can tell you what's going on now.

ps. david green, gatech professor, recently joined lord aeck & sargent. brock green used to be a good choice for nice work in atl. maybe you want to look a little into that.