huh?
you mean the gopher?
go for this...go for that? hehheee. I was one of those once.

or the copy lad - well i had to do that back in the day. Suffer under the amonia of the diazo machine (cough cough)

I had one where I answered phones, went for coffee, reorganized the materials library, got office supplies, did as-builts (part cad, but part measuring)... I vastly preferred my all-cad internships. Cad sucks, but being a gopher sucks a lot worse.

I had friends who got model-monkey jobs though, and that's basically on par with cad-monkey, just a matter of preference.

Thank you for your responses! I interested in interning at a firm with more of an atelier environment, involved within art installations, furniture design, etc. rather than your traditional architecture firm. Some firms that have caught my interest are open-office, touraine-richmond, and asymptote. Currently, I am involved within an internship that is quite the antithesis, I “design” in strict adherence to a particular style so much so that the footprint of the building is basically copied from previous project and I plan out the floor plans as if they were simply a puzzle of square footage. Creativity is sacrificed in order to make construction drawings easier to churn out- again as revised duplications of previous projects. I am looking for more dialogue, intellectual design, creativity, and perhaps a broader spectrum of projects. Again, thank you for your input!

Welcome to life outside academia.

I hope you find what you're looking for, while you're at it, see if they have any more openings for me.

In the meantime, find a creative hobby you can get into, it might be your only outlet for awhile.

a;sp. what city? (or state or country for that matter)

designrocks,

i hope money is not an issue for you, since the 'ateliers' you mention will not pay well, for most cases

Thank you again for your responses! Although I am currently interning at an architecture firm in Dayton, OH, although I have also interned in NYC- soho- in the fields of fashion and art direction, as well as an art museum. I plan to return to NYC for my next internship, unless I find a better offer elsewhere.
sameolddoctor- As for the money issue, it is not a major issue, although it would be preferable.
As a artist/architecture student who has worked in a variety of other design fields, I was looking for a firm that melds various design disciplines. any advice would be helpful.

Ok, A few things:
-CAD internships are not always void of design potential.
-As far as I know asymptote doesnt pay at all. ANd you are still their bitch, nothing more, nothing less....
-I think that a good internship is one in which you respect the principal, enjoy their design, and are learning something. Beign a CAD monkey is how I learned about actual building, not just posing as an artist with a chip on my shoulder because I have to do architecture.

CAD internships can be creative, educational, and well, fun....

I have heard good things abou Weiss-Manfredi in NYC

drafting has never been disconnected from design in any of the jobs i have worked on. in your office the distance between design and production is that big?

if anyone who worked for me had the chops i would happily put them in charge of design, but i have not met an intern capable of running a job or designing an actual building. not yet anyway. do you wanna run the jobs or just be part of the design phase?

honestly i think an architecture office does not look like the right place for you. I would look for an office that does art direction (you mentioned you worked at one), or even better, things like set design and the like

one more thing thats very important in the set design world is free-hand drawing and sketching.
The type of work depends a lot on the projects you will be involved with though.

on the other hand i work on projects with artists fairly regularly and we generally do so as equals, whether it is a building or an installation. they bring sensibilities to the projects that i enjoy and vice versa, so there is room for the artist as designer approach if that is your goal. how to get into that kind of position i don't know. the artists i work with are all long established and living on their own output already...

wow. thanks everyone!
jump- As an intern, I do not have the experience to run a job, but, yes, I am interested in becoming more involved in the design phase. It sounds fascinating how you regularly work with artists on projects. What type of firm do you work at? I suppose I am looking not so much for an internship that involves no cad, but moreso, a greater emphasis on design. I wasn't thriled with the projects we were involved in either- mostly civic work. I believe if I find a firm that focuses on projects I am more passionate about, I wouldn't mind the cad at all.

sameolddoctor- I actually did look into set design and art direction, but I do love architecture (albeit not my current internship) and, being a student, would like to intern with more architecture firms in order to grasp a better sense of the field, and perhaps broaden into these fields in the future.

One architect I was talking to mentioned that each firm is distinct, and that his architecture at his studio was a completely different philosophy/idea than the one across the street. I suppose I am just trying to see what's out there. Thanks!

try a small construction company, I work in one and the design dept was run by only 2 people, myself and my boss, He was nice and gave me a lot of responsability , which means many times i screw a lot (still i do), but being in a small company allows me to be involved in all aspects , from meeting with a client to the end of the construction, not always alone, i don't bear all the responsability , the experience is good , same with the stress and the hours, but it is worthy, although i wish the pay was better..., running a project is so difficoult, i thought it was easier, and few ones i had run were so small

mr. rocks,

i have worked with a few artists over the years. usually we became friends first and decided to try doing something together and it went from there. as far as work goes i don't see much distinction between furniture, architecture, art, interior design or graphic design and enjoy collaboration more than working alone, so it is kind of natural. most recently i have been working with this guy:

http://www.shinjiohmaki.net/

not always on architecture but doing installations and such...his site is a bit out of date so nothing we have done together is up at the mo unfortunately.

i work for myself now, not on purpose exactly just as a matter of course in the pursuit of the work that interests me, and the opportunities that have come up. I should be honest in saying that i am recently doing PhD at university of Tokyo so have a bit more freedom to choose the way that i work than most. However i do know there are a few firms who collaborate in just the way i do, so it ain't beyond the pale. good luck finding what you is looking for.

jump- shinji ohmaki's installations are amazing- thank you for sharing the link.

a decent, largish, multidisciplinary office that I know of is Pentagram who have offices in a few different cities worldwide.

I agree with the general comments that CADD drafting and making (and remaking) construction drawings are an important part of the process of getting any building built. Likewise, most interns don't really learn how buildings are made without drawing it or doing the work themselves in a design-build office. Being 'an artist with a chip on your shoulder' doesn't mean much in the real world of offices who have to pay the bills. Segregating and limiting responsibilities within and office is really just a bad way to run an office. It's far better to have all employees be as connected and integrated as possible.

However, if you're a trust funder, independantly wealthy, or otherwise subsidized, the world of unpaid starchitecture is made for you. The better normal offices will slog along trying to improve the world of real buildings for real people while starchitects 'keep it real' by creating yet more palaces for art and playgrounds for the wealthy.

for me, there were a few secrets to getting something out of my internship--which is, in a way, what i guess you are seeking:

1. i tried to exert my creativity in whatever way i could. i used to spend my lunch breaks obsessively filling up sketchbooks. i used to take photos like mad...now i am an architect with a capital A and have no hobbies or avocations whatsoever.

2. i tried to concentrate on mastering the technics and techniques of architecture rather than obsess about "design." "design", to me, is just another term for "synthesis" which is simply putting pieces and parts together to create something greater than the sum of its parts. it's what all artists do.

3. make money. starvation isn't worth it in any field. pay is, in a way, a reflection of your employer's perception of your worth.

thenewold, that was [al]most poetic...

i got to take a beark from CAD today and find product info for doors, ceilings, and display cases.
i also am keeper of all the project binders for one of the projects what i am on, so then i filed a bunch of stuff.

the more experience intern at the office has to deal with RFIs all day...

these activities aren't much more exciting than CAD. but they are a break from your computer. and you do learn from doing them.

it is disconcerting to me to read of so may people not enjoying their various internships, and even worse to read of tricks to get through the shit....

that sort of architeture-as-shit-work was never something i experienced and i would have quit if i felt that i needed to make my way through something i didn't like.

In my first office we had 2 or 3 projects coming in every month or two, and that could only be managed if everyone designed and did the CDs together with very little hierarchy. For each job it all came down to who proposed the best design and we went from there in a frantic but well managed manner. still seems the best way to do things, and in the firms i worked for in later years the structure was even more open (and more design led, thankfully). I would say this is mostly because the offices were small.

Hierarchy is a waste of talent but offers control. Maybe you need to find a smaller office where they can't afford to control so much... the creative places that do collaborations with outside talent are a bit harder to find but are surely out there. seems to me the way architecture is heading anyway so why not get used to it early on...

I'm not really an intern anymore, but on a typical day I:
* do something unpleasant like fire someone
* 'pound the pavement'
* cut wood & make something w/ it
* chase down invoices
* drink a lot of coffee
* eat some donuts
* feel the mid-morning guilt & go ride a bike
* maybe spend some time sketching
* maybe CAD something
* definitely blog

theNewold is always poetic. He likes to sit around and write poetry in his office to woo the clients to pay for EIFS.

I'm an intern that does:

-CD's, DD's, DNOYGB's
-Sk's
-Schematic Studies [sketching, models, 3d, ect]
-Site Coordination
-Product Research
-Hands down redlines [yipeeeee]
-3d Animations
-Promo
-Graphics

I love my office because they dont pigeon-hole people. We all have equal responsibility. The partners are in the studio with us, we all have the same sized desk, same computers and very similiar design taste. It makes for a creative environment when everyone has something to bring to the table.

Ohhh and we have a fashion designer's studio in the back of our space - so during fashion week, the amazon-esque models parade about eating lettuce and sprouts, smoking and trying to spark "intellectual" conversations