In Philly, otto design group is a design-build company doing very interesting work.

John Ronan Architects in Chicago. I spent a week job shadowing with them over Spring Break this year. They don't do design/buid, but their projects are all pretty nice. When I was there, there were about 8 people employed, including the principal.

Website

thanks so far, i have actually seen both of their sites before and sent a resume and work to them, at the time they werent hiring, but that was a month ago, maybe ill contact them again.

SAAW in philly, but only if your a girl

In Philly:

I no particular order:

Wesley Wei
Michael Ryan
Sanvold Blanda
Kieran Timberlake
Agoos Lovera
Erdy McHenry

Some may be bigger than 20 I can't think of any others....

and I second Otto...

...you mean Erdy McErdy

(i had mchenry as a prof last year)

dragthelake... you work at saaw and want some females there? or they just seem to hire females.

i knew i would get one wrong....thanks

jbirl...you didn't get it wrong i think dtl was sayin that
mchenry isn't too involved...or something.

it is erdy mchenry..at least in name

i have a couple friends that work there and they seem
to like it.

firm doing interesting design-build in philly:

http://onionflats.com/

family-owned. can't vouch for how they hire or how it is to work there. main guy taught design-build studio at penn.

Move to Chicago.

i went and visited chicago about 2 weeks ago for an interview and it was fantastic. i haven't been able to make it to philly yet, so i would be going there blind, but onion flats is what got me interested in working there. i talked to tim mcdonald and it seemed like they were in between jobs. didn't get to really talk much more about how they operated though. any take on good and bad in chicago and/or philly?

to clarify...

i dont work at SAAW...but ive heard of there fancy for hiring girls...which is fine with me except im not a girl

i did work for OnionFlats. (tim was my theisis advisor at Philadelphia Univ) i stopped working there bc of thesis demands, i know the ragflats project wrapped up recently...dont know where their next project is
FYI, tim is not a registered architect.

also check out www.minustudios.com
(bunch of Phila Univ grads working throughout a few major cities...industrial, interiors and arch/build)

if your into design/building: MNB architecture (another philly outfit)
possibly some actual office work there as well
i spent about 2 months there before landing a fulltime desk job to get the IDP ball rolling

it is erdy mchenry officially, sorry for the confusion...dont know if i should explain why me and my classmates coined it 'erdy mcerdy' since larslarson knows some people from there...nothing big, just not interested in burning any more of whatever bridge is left.


...but the firm im at now (in manayunk part of philly) is 6 guys, 0 ladies...and our boss has mentioned adjusting that.

....whew