Majority of the dickwads that wander onto this forum asking questions like School vs school, "Where can I get an internship", "Thesis topic" and just general bullshit questions about schools which you could get on google, really piss me off.
If you can't do a quick google to compare and analyse schools which will affect the next several years of you life you maybe aren't ready for school.
"PLZ PRATT VS RICE, WHICH ONE" TTNK YU. fuck off
Honestly, if you can't simply go on a recruitment website and then google one of the firms names to look if they do internships, why would anyone hire you?
Asking others to do your thesis? yeah man...I'm not even going into this one, maybe you're in the wrong subject.
Agree 100%, archiwutm8. I totally ignore every school choice and thesis thread. No.
Have I mentioned lately that I'm spending time at my job looking for another job? I have a baaaaad attitude about this place. It's toxic. I think it's really NOT healthy for humans to spend a lot of time on something we really feel unrewarded by.
I'm such a GenXer.
Also, NonSeq and everyone with young kids: my boy turns 13 next week. He is SO MUCH fun right now. Those years of having a toddler/young senseless creature who needs almost constant supervision are *exhausting*. But now I'm having so much fun with this young man. It gets better. I mean, it's all good, and so fleeting, but just gets better and better!
Donna, I think complaining to coworkers and/ or allowing yourself to fall into the trap of looking, wondering, waiting for your next job can indeed be really bad.
I let it happen to myself at my last job, and not only did it make me miserable, but it allowed me to convinced myself to take a job that wasn't right for me - be careful!
I hear you, archanonymous. I know it's a toxic environment that I can either shrug off or let seep in, and I'm trying to stay mindful of the pros of this job along with the cons. Part of the problem is I have freelance jobs right now that are SO much more fun (I had a great site visit to one yesterday, I love being on site!) yet I can't spend enough time on them because I also have a real job.
So I'm not frustrated with architecture, I'm just frustrated with working in a large institution.
your job was pretty good for a while wasn't it donna? seemed to me you were excited for a while anyway. was that just kind of the excitement of something new, or did something change? suppose it was you or them?
Why not start my own studio = health insurance. It's the crazy anti-small-business US healthcare system. Ugh.
Yes, curtkram. I was very excited when I started this job. Then the person I specifically started here to work under got fired. Then the Board decided it was more important for this cultural institution to make money than serve the public, so we started charging admission. Then my new boss became obsessed with saving money over doing quality work, which was a decision backed by the Board.
Yeah, I'm so over this place. I do love my coworkers, mostly. I would feel bad leaving them because we have a great team struggling against shitty circumstances!
Donna, it's a little boy and were so excited to see him grow. We're all looking forward to bring him home but he needs to fatten up first. Fingers crossed his hospital stay in intensive is short.
Aw, Non, I wondered if he was able to come home yet or not. Fingers crossed for you all and that mom's tummy surgery heals quickly too! And I hope you are getting to touch him in NICU to get that body contact they and we crave! Hugs.
Olaf, if there is good concrete on a project you bet I'm touching it. The first time I see a Zumthor project I'll probably be arrested for feeling it up.
Plumbing issues all weekend: water heater started leaking, got it replaced under warranty, but then we discovered the water softener membrane has sprung a leak and is dumping resin balls into the system, which is probably why the water heater was leaking! So now the plumber has to come back to replace the water softener on Monday! Aw, homeownership.
And, also, agree with Volunteer: David the Sony project is beautiful. I love the mismatched chairs int he cafeteria and the overall playfulness of it. The reception desk is beautiful, do you know who made it? Also, and I hate to be *that architect*, but is that terrazzo platform that the stairs land on ADA?
Thanks... I'm not certain about the reception desk or the terrazzo platform. The project was split into two contracts, one for Sony's actual tenant improvement work and another for all the base building improvements that were part of the landlord's agreement with Sony (new lobby, escalators, elevator upgrades, etc). Each contract had a different client, different team of consultants, and different general contractors. I was doing CA for the base building side of the project, so I wasn't as involved with the TI side.
The building is all kinds of bizarre... It was originally planned to be over 100 floors tall -- higher than the Empire State Building -- but the builders ran out of money and stopped construction in the 1920s after only the first 30 floors were complete. So we're left with the bottom third of the art deco "wedding cake" massing, but with all the structure and infrastructure to support a 100-story office tower, including 50+ elevator shafts and the monumentally-scaled lobbies at street level. Various parts of the building had also been modified over the years, with the documentation not always available.
Construction continued in fits and starts from the 1920s until the 1950s, but each time they resumed construction, they used completely different techniques than they had used previously. None of it was very well documented, so about once or twice a week I'd get a call from the GC after they discovered some bizarre condition in the field after knocking down a floor slab or wall. (Example: two 18-inch chilled water risers right where an escalator was originally supposed to go.) Nearly every detail for the new skylobby on the mezzanine (shown best in the 6th image) had to be re-worked on the fly by yours truly in response to some crazy field condition.
It was a stressful project, but we had a great team and the contractor genuinely wanted to make it a good project. It broke my heart to walk away from that project before it was complete because my housing situation in NYC had gone completely to shit. In retrospect, I should've found a way to stay in NYC long enough to at least see the project through completion.
David - project is even cooler when you hear some history behind it.
Everyone (especially older archinect alums)... gut instinct - is there a recession coming? I am thinking about switching jobs. Worried this is a bad time to go to a firm that services lots of developers.
Recession is inevitable, is due despite the fact that we never really had a full recovery. Developer work can stop on a dime while public work has a flywheel effect. Fundamentals are all bad, numbers being shored up for the election, after that all bets are off.
My current firm (where I just started a few weeks ago) does mostly developer work, which makes me a little nervous. Developers here in Seattle are still building like crazy, but I'm told they're being much more cautious now than they were a couple years ago. As long as people keep moving to the city they'll need new housing, so hopefully things will stay busy for a while longer.
On the other hand, I'm hoping to buy a townhouse or condo out here sometime within the next 5 years, and I'm growing increasingly worried that it will be impossible unless there's some kind of sharp downturn in the housing market.
It's a bit of a catch-22 and there's a part of me that's worried I'll end up crawling back to Cincinnati with my tail between my legs in a few years, but I'll try to make the best of the current boom while I can.
Jun 7, 16 12:44 am ·
·
David Cole,
Not all recession cycles are deep (as bad). So hopefully this next one won't be so deep and long as the last one. Hopefully it won't be enough to be heavily noticed aside from being maybe a little sluggish couple of years and back to normal. Some recession cycles are subtle and only lightly noticed. In other words, I hope it would be something that you can keep your course without too much trouble. The last one as we been through was particularly worse than most of the others.
Now the tricky part... I am looking at two offers from two "top 10" ranked corporate firms (whether Design Intelligence, Crains, Arch Daily doing the ranking, or by revenue, by design quality, or the "most admired" list, they are both in the top 10 consistently) and I need to make a decision soon.
I wrote an article. It's not about architecture, but people seem to like it so I thought Archinecters might like it too. Dunno if it deserves its own thread... anybody I'd expect to comment on it will read it here anyway.
tduds I read your article yesterday. I can't recall if you flat out said you're voting for Hillary or not? And please don't answer that if that wasn't the point, which i don't think it was. I spent a long time reading a long discussion thread on FB by a friend who is encouraging Bernie supporters to vote for Hillary because the alternative is so much worse (this is my position, too, BTW.) The anger among people who are pledging to either sit out the vote or even vote Drumpf is terrifying.
Your article is reasoned and considerate. I feel like voting for the Dem no matter who it is is the most reasonable thing right now. but I hear people on my friend's FB saying they absolutely cannot in good conscience vote for Hillary, then giving reasons (neo-liberalism, colonialism, war-mongering). These people feel very passionately that they have to take a principled stance by NOT voting for Hilary. And I get that. It's passion, and sometimes passion should rule our decisions.
Then I think about the things I am passionate about, and then the things people I consider crazy racist backwards idiots are passionate about, and I realize that they think my views are as idiotic as I do theirs.
And then I don't know what to think anymore. I'm guessing my vote for Hillary at this point means I'm more interested in slow change than in chaos. But I understand people getting impatient, too.
Jun 8, 16 4:40 pm ·
·
In my opinion, once you have your presidential candidates, (not just these primaries before hand), it becomes a matter of what is the best prudent decision to make from the choices available.
I'm holding off on that until I see my choices.
I may very well choose someone from neither party. If Hillary gets Joe Biden on the ticket as the running mate.....
I voted for Sanders in the primary (by the time Oregon voted it was basically a moot point, but I felt like it was good to be counted), and I'll happily vote for Clinton in the general. Not just as a "Never Trump" vote, I genuinely think Clinton will make a fine president.
To the point, though: I'm more excited about the number of candidates on the Portland ballot who I think are true progressives than I am about who the president is going to be. I think the people who think getting Bernie elected is the solution to all their problems need to start learning about those local candidates in order to actually get solutions to their problems.
Mostly I just get annoyed at how much attention the presidential election gets relative to smaller elections. It's disproportionate to the amount of power each group actually has to affect our lives.
Jun 8, 16 5:48 pm ·
·
Yes, tduds,
It is the local (grassroots) where these happen that directly effects our lives. The national stuff doesn't do anything really to directly effect our communities and life in our communities. National government deals with the broader national and foreign affairs. As for our day to day life, it is the local governments that affects our day to day lives.
balkins you've already stated many times you're voting for Donald Trump. You've defended him in a very long thread before. you're as ignorant and racist as him.
tduds, spot on, and that's one of the reasons i feel bernie was flawed; he didn't do enough of what the Ron Paul group did, work on the state and local candidates.
my other issue had more to do with the people voting for bernie, they are by and large, an unlikeable hoard, and i have a hard time trusting their passion, and their putting passion to work for everyone. they seemed to me, in many cases, educated elites, telling working class people, and those of us who were from working poor families why we were wrong and mis-guided. that shit don't fly.
Jun 8, 16 7:43 pm ·
·
no_form,
Where did I ever said I will vote for Donald Trump?
Balkins, you talked about how you were afraid of black people when you lived in the SFV. There was a whole story about it. And elsewhere on this forum have made racist statements. I'm not going to wade through your 1000's of post to cite it word for word.
You are an idiot. I don't hate or dislike people because of their race. One of my best friends was 'black' (African American). I don't like the racial stuff brought on by the "gangsta" subculture which made it dangerous for anyone who is white. Especially during the time frame after the Rodney King trial, the L.A. riots in the early 1990s and the then on-going O.J. Simpson trial.
I don't dislike or hate a person because of their ethnic background. I don't like a person because of their personality and attitude they project.
Do you understand that?
If not, I feel sorry for your lacking of any sense. By the way, I didn't live in SFV. I lived in Carson, California and for a short period in my life in Santa Monica / West Los Angeles area.
tduds nice article and worth posting for us architects, i am assured many on this site are more than average with regard to thought beyond architecture, good company........with that said as long as I have been aware of this thing called the presidency I have decided its not a real serious gig since George W., but if I was older maybe I would probably go back further, who knows. Politicians are not qualified for office. (our) Government is not qualified to manage citizens. Movements can all be shut down with proper backed legislation from the top down. you are correct in starting at the grassroots, but if the big boys want to shut you down - they will. voting for Hillary is like voting for George H.W. Bush, maintaining his father's and friends legacy (for HW see a Generation of Swine by Hunter S. Thompson).....anyway, reading Max Weber's - Protestant Work Ethic and the Spirit of Capitalism, I feel like any day now I will enter the same catatonic state he did before writing that book. See Calvanism, see America.
It's interesting to me how many threads start with "So...". I believe this is a millennial cultural thing, but I'm not sure. What's the point of the word "so?" Is it ever necessary?
Thread Central
RANT:
Majority of the dickwads that wander onto this forum asking questions like School vs school, "Where can I get an internship", "Thesis topic" and just general bullshit questions about schools which you could get on google, really piss me off.
If you can't do a quick google to compare and analyse schools which will affect the next several years of you life you maybe aren't ready for school.
"PLZ PRATT VS RICE, WHICH ONE" TTNK YU. fuck off
Honestly, if you can't simply go on a recruitment website and then google one of the firms names to look if they do internships, why would anyone hire you?
Asking others to do your thesis? yeah man...I'm not even going into this one, maybe you're in the wrong subject.
Agree 100%, archiwutm8. I totally ignore every school choice and thesis thread. No.
Have I mentioned lately that I'm spending time at my job looking for another job? I have a baaaaad attitude about this place. It's toxic. I think it's really NOT healthy for humans to spend a lot of time on something we really feel unrewarded by.
I'm such a GenXer.
Also, NonSeq and everyone with young kids: my boy turns 13 next week. He is SO MUCH fun right now. Those years of having a toddler/young senseless creature who needs almost constant supervision are *exhausting*. But now I'm having so much fun with this young man. It gets better. I mean, it's all good, and so fleeting, but just gets better and better!
Donna, I think complaining to coworkers and/ or allowing yourself to fall into the trap of looking, wondering, waiting for your next job can indeed be really bad.
I let it happen to myself at my last job, and not only did it make me miserable, but it allowed me to convinced myself to take a job that wasn't right for me - be careful!
Donna, come London!
I hear you, archanonymous. I know it's a toxic environment that I can either shrug off or let seep in, and I'm trying to stay mindful of the pros of this job along with the cons. Part of the problem is I have freelance jobs right now that are SO much more fun (I had a great site visit to one yesterday, I love being on site!) yet I can't spend enough time on them because I also have a real job.
So I'm not frustrated with architecture, I'm just frustrated with working in a large institution.
your job was pretty good for a while wasn't it donna? seemed to me you were excited for a while anyway. was that just kind of the excitement of something new, or did something change? suppose it was you or them?
“Freelance” = Like saying you’re only going to have sex outside your marriage once.
Why not just start your own studio?
josh at least you weren't fondling the building like i do often
Why not start my own studio = health insurance. It's the crazy anti-small-business US healthcare system. Ugh.
Yes, curtkram. I was very excited when I started this job. Then the person I specifically started here to work under got fired. Then the Board decided it was more important for this cultural institution to make money than serve the public, so we started charging admission. Then my new boss became obsessed with saving money over doing quality work, which was a decision backed by the Board.
Yeah, I'm so over this place. I do love my coworkers, mostly. I would feel bad leaving them because we have a great team struggling against shitty circumstances!
Donna, it's a little boy and were so excited to see him grow. We're all looking forward to bring him home but he needs to fatten up first. Fingers crossed his hospital stay in intensive is short.
Time to finish that nursery.
Aw, Non, I wondered if he was able to come home yet or not. Fingers crossed for you all and that mom's tummy surgery heals quickly too! And I hope you are getting to touch him in NICU to get that body contact they and we crave! Hugs.
Olaf, if there is good concrete on a project you bet I'm touching it. The first time I see a Zumthor project I'll probably be arrested for feeling it up.
sorry to hear about the collapse donna. always hate to see a good institution falter like that. best of luck making the new venture successful.
My Sony project in NYC just got published!
Plumbing issues all weekend: water heater started leaking, got it replaced under warranty, but then we discovered the water softener membrane has sprung a leak and is dumping resin balls into the system, which is probably why the water heater was leaking! So now the plumber has to come back to replace the water softener on Monday! Aw, homeownership.
David, Congrats on the wonderful building! The slideshow shows how well-done the project is.
Also, my Alvin electric eraser finally broke. I've had it since undergraduate school. Sad.
And, also, agree with Volunteer: David the Sony project is beautiful. I love the mismatched chairs int he cafeteria and the overall playfulness of it. The reception desk is beautiful, do you know who made it? Also, and I hate to be *that architect*, but is that terrazzo platform that the stairs land on ADA?
Thanks... I'm not certain about the reception desk or the terrazzo platform. The project was split into two contracts, one for Sony's actual tenant improvement work and another for all the base building improvements that were part of the landlord's agreement with Sony (new lobby, escalators, elevator upgrades, etc). Each contract had a different client, different team of consultants, and different general contractors. I was doing CA for the base building side of the project, so I wasn't as involved with the TI side.
David, I'm loving those ceiling tiles in the 2nd image. Are they new or original?
Those are original.
The building is all kinds of bizarre... It was originally planned to be over 100 floors tall -- higher than the Empire State Building -- but the builders ran out of money and stopped construction in the 1920s after only the first 30 floors were complete. So we're left with the bottom third of the art deco "wedding cake" massing, but with all the structure and infrastructure to support a 100-story office tower, including 50+ elevator shafts and the monumentally-scaled lobbies at street level. Various parts of the building had also been modified over the years, with the documentation not always available.
Construction continued in fits and starts from the 1920s until the 1950s, but each time they resumed construction, they used completely different techniques than they had used previously. None of it was very well documented, so about once or twice a week I'd get a call from the GC after they discovered some bizarre condition in the field after knocking down a floor slab or wall. (Example: two 18-inch chilled water risers right where an escalator was originally supposed to go.) Nearly every detail for the new skylobby on the mezzanine (shown best in the 6th image) had to be re-worked on the fly by yours truly in response to some crazy field condition.
It was a stressful project, but we had a great team and the contractor genuinely wanted to make it a good project. It broke my heart to walk away from that project before it was complete because my housing situation in NYC had gone completely to shit. In retrospect, I should've found a way to stay in NYC long enough to at least see the project through completion.
david, that narrative is NYC Architecture in all it's glory, awesome history. thanks.
David Cole,
Nice job, at least.
David - project is even cooler when you hear some history behind it.
Everyone (especially older archinect alums)... gut instinct - is there a recession coming? I am thinking about switching jobs. Worried this is a bad time to go to a firm that services lots of developers.
Recession is inevitable, is due despite the fact that we never really had a full recovery. Developer work can stop on a dime while public work has a flywheel effect. Fundamentals are all bad, numbers being shored up for the election, after that all bets are off.
My current firm (where I just started a few weeks ago) does mostly developer work, which makes me a little nervous. Developers here in Seattle are still building like crazy, but I'm told they're being much more cautious now than they were a couple years ago. As long as people keep moving to the city they'll need new housing, so hopefully things will stay busy for a while longer.
On the other hand, I'm hoping to buy a townhouse or condo out here sometime within the next 5 years, and I'm growing increasingly worried that it will be impossible unless there's some kind of sharp downturn in the housing market.
It's a bit of a catch-22 and there's a part of me that's worried I'll end up crawling back to Cincinnati with my tail between my legs in a few years, but I'll try to make the best of the current boom while I can.
David Cole,
Not all recession cycles are deep (as bad). So hopefully this next one won't be so deep and long as the last one. Hopefully it won't be enough to be heavily noticed aside from being maybe a little sluggish couple of years and back to normal. Some recession cycles are subtle and only lightly noticed. In other words, I hope it would be something that you can keep your course without too much trouble. The last one as we been through was particularly worse than most of the others.
^^Don't you have to be involved in economic activity to have recession?
Just got a new job. I'm ecstatic.
congrats sneakypete!
Wife is very much against my investment plans, i think one more good recession might convince her!
jla-x, that's good advice.
Now the tricky part... I am looking at two offers from two "top 10" ranked corporate firms (whether Design Intelligence, Crains, Arch Daily doing the ranking, or by revenue, by design quality, or the "most admired" list, they are both in the top 10 consistently) and I need to make a decision soon.
First world white male problems, i guess.
Shuellmj, that sounds like diversivication; Au, Ag and Pb...
I wrote an article. It's not about architecture, but people seem to like it so I thought Archinecters might like it too. Dunno if it deserves its own thread... anybody I'd expect to comment on it will read it here anyway.
https://medium.com/@timdudley/bern-out-aec98bfd32ca#.9pr74g4re
tduds I read your article yesterday. I can't recall if you flat out said you're voting for Hillary or not? And please don't answer that if that wasn't the point, which i don't think it was. I spent a long time reading a long discussion thread on FB by a friend who is encouraging Bernie supporters to vote for Hillary because the alternative is so much worse (this is my position, too, BTW.) The anger among people who are pledging to either sit out the vote or even vote Drumpf is terrifying.
Your article is reasoned and considerate. I feel like voting for the Dem no matter who it is is the most reasonable thing right now. but I hear people on my friend's FB saying they absolutely cannot in good conscience vote for Hillary, then giving reasons (neo-liberalism, colonialism, war-mongering). These people feel very passionately that they have to take a principled stance by NOT voting for Hilary. And I get that. It's passion, and sometimes passion should rule our decisions.
Then I think about the things I am passionate about, and then the things people I consider crazy racist backwards idiots are passionate about, and I realize that they think my views are as idiotic as I do theirs.
And then I don't know what to think anymore. I'm guessing my vote for Hillary at this point means I'm more interested in slow change than in chaos. But I understand people getting impatient, too.
In my opinion, once you have your presidential candidates, (not just these primaries before hand), it becomes a matter of what is the best prudent decision to make from the choices available.
I'm holding off on that until I see my choices.
I may very well choose someone from neither party. If Hillary gets Joe Biden on the ticket as the running mate.....
Thanks Donna!
I voted for Sanders in the primary (by the time Oregon voted it was basically a moot point, but I felt like it was good to be counted), and I'll happily vote for Clinton in the general. Not just as a "Never Trump" vote, I genuinely think Clinton will make a fine president.
To the point, though: I'm more excited about the number of candidates on the Portland ballot who I think are true progressives than I am about who the president is going to be. I think the people who think getting Bernie elected is the solution to all their problems need to start learning about those local candidates in order to actually get solutions to their problems.
Mostly I just get annoyed at how much attention the presidential election gets relative to smaller elections. It's disproportionate to the amount of power each group actually has to affect our lives.
Yes, tduds,
It is the local (grassroots) where these happen that directly effects our lives. The national stuff doesn't do anything really to directly effect our communities and life in our communities. National government deals with the broader national and foreign affairs. As for our day to day life, it is the local governments that affects our day to day lives.
I don't mind meeting you sometime.
balkins you've already stated many times you're voting for Donald Trump. You've defended him in a very long thread before. you're as ignorant and racist as him.
tduds, spot on, and that's one of the reasons i feel bernie was flawed; he didn't do enough of what the Ron Paul group did, work on the state and local candidates.
my other issue had more to do with the people voting for bernie, they are by and large, an unlikeable hoard, and i have a hard time trusting their passion, and their putting passion to work for everyone. they seemed to me, in many cases, educated elites, telling working class people, and those of us who were from working poor families why we were wrong and mis-guided. that shit don't fly.
no_form,
Where did I ever said I will vote for Donald Trump?
no_form,
How am I racist?
I'm afraid of orange people.
no_form,
You are an idiot. I don't hate or dislike people because of their race. One of my best friends was 'black' (African American). I don't like the racial stuff brought on by the "gangsta" subculture which made it dangerous for anyone who is white. Especially during the time frame after the Rodney King trial, the L.A. riots in the early 1990s and the then on-going O.J. Simpson trial.
I don't dislike or hate a person because of their ethnic background. I don't like a person because of their personality and attitude they project.
Do you understand that?
If not, I feel sorry for your lacking of any sense. By the way, I didn't live in SFV. I lived in Carson, California and for a short period in my life in Santa Monica / West Los Angeles area.
tduds nice article and worth posting for us architects, i am assured many on this site are more than average with regard to thought beyond architecture, good company........with that said as long as I have been aware of this thing called the presidency I have decided its not a real serious gig since George W., but if I was older maybe I would probably go back further, who knows. Politicians are not qualified for office. (our) Government is not qualified to manage citizens. Movements can all be shut down with proper backed legislation from the top down. you are correct in starting at the grassroots, but if the big boys want to shut you down - they will. voting for Hillary is like voting for George H.W. Bush, maintaining his father's and friends legacy (for HW see a Generation of Swine by Hunter S. Thompson).....anyway, reading Max Weber's - Protestant Work Ethic and the Spirit of Capitalism, I feel like any day now I will enter the same catatonic state he did before writing that book. See Calvanism, see America.
today - 118 miles transit bus, 19 miles subway, 5 miles cab, 2.5 miles walk (mainly running).....didnt get much done today
and back to work....
It's interesting to me how many threads start with "So...". I believe this is a millennial cultural thing, but I'm not sure. What's the point of the word "so?" Is it ever necessary?
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