I'm glad I didn't have to deal with some of the newer categories. Since they added Zoning related items... I'd be shit outta luck. I almost never deal with zoning regulations.
About 100 hours of CD's, less than 50 hours in Engineering Systems and Bidding and Contract Negotiation, a dozen in CA. I've been pretty good about trying to spread out hours yet I still have like 6000 design development hours.
"About 100 hours of CD's, less than 50 hours in Engineering Systems and Bidding and Contract Negotiation, a dozen in CA. I've been pretty good about trying to spread out hours yet I still have like 6000 design development hours."
The more I ask people about which hours are that are the hardest for them to get, the more I realize I am almost the opposite. CDs, Bidding and Contract Negotiation, and CA are the three categories I had filled up the fastest. My hardest categories are the early phase stuff like programming, site and building analysis, planning and zoning, etc.
EI, i'll trade you some hours. I have so many early-phase hours.
I think it's the difference between working somewhere that does big, speculative work with developers and a smaller office that builds for real clients.
I recently took a job at a much smaller firm that has tons of built work. Basically wont touch anything without a contract, which is nice, and a big change.
I don't really see it as a big firm, small firm thing. Sure that has a part to play, but I've worked at both and it just depended on the project I was working on and what my strengths were.
For me that meant I was more valuable doing documentation and administration; detailing, coordinating with consultants, reviewing substitution requests during bidding, answering RFI's, telling the contractor to read the spec, etc. I'm not as valuable when I'm the person modeling and rendering the big design moves early in the process. I can do it, sure, but it isn't my strength.
P.S. Why any office touches a project without a contract in place is beyond my comprehension. Ok, maybe a competition ... but those should all be coming out of a marketing budget anyway, right? You know it is just money being spent that will hopefully come back in some other way.
Mar 3, 16 6:12 pm ·
·
E_I,
I hate doing things without a written contract because its just tends to come back to haunt ya.
Everyday, I do and have done a lot of residential work, generally remodel work. I frequently start work with just a handshake agreement, no signed contract. I am NOT saying this is a smart thing to do! But I do think there's a level of intimacy and a personal connection one gets with a residential client that makes it seem less dangerous, usually, to do so. Working with a commercial client or an institution....definitely get the contract; even a retainer or start-up check (which I never, ever ask a residential client for).
Mar 3, 16 7:31 pm ·
·
JeromeS,
I am talking in relation to services to be rendered. If the contract value is above a certain level or the other factors involving substantially involved work, I like the binding agreements to be written that takes precedence over informal tentative agreements.
There are some things I wouldn't care about a written contract for but they are usually pretty small things that are uncomplicated.
I mean MUCH smaller than a building design work or even a room remodel.
I'm calling bullshit, Ricky. Just another occasion in which you are conflating your own reputation.
You have no clients. You have no contracts. You've stated that no one has money in Elbonia, Oregon to pay for design services. Yet you are some bastion of professional practice offering this kind of advice?
So, tell me, what dollar figure is your threshold for drafting 'binding agreements' ? What kind of 'room remodel' do you do?
He charges $30 for a 1-room interior design consultation. For that you get web links to a nifty black velvet flocked poster of a tiger that glows under a black light, and historically accurate reproduction fiberglass reinforced plastic gargoyles.
Yeah, maybe I am conflating my personal experiences with a more generalized condition.
That said, I do think part of it is that generally the small firms don't have the large marketing and overhead budgets to absorb a couple of teams working on nothing but competitions and proposals. Add to that the fact that many medium and large firms pursue international work where a local AOR does all the documentation and CA, and I think it is not a wholly inaccurate generalization.
Residential work is whole different ballgame
Mar 3, 16 10:23 pm ·
·
JeromeS,
One of my clients during the past year was a paid contract. The sum was considerably more than $30 and an occassional small stuff.
As for certain work, if the work in inconsequential or otherwise not warrant the time to do a formal written contract. In one instance, I help an architect out in connection with the permit office in Eugene, Oregon for the county. I happen to be in the area so I more or less served as a conveyor but that was ok. The architect paid for my time to get the stuff printed out and handed and time for what the architect wanted done. It was simple but it save him time traveling from Seattle to Eugene.
Oh my god. This election has me living in terror of Idiocracy sprung to life, but....the yoga joke Rubio told last night really was a sick burn. I can't stop laughing.
this might be the first year that I vote for a democrat - seems like the republicans are a mix of evangelicals and oligarchs. maybe its always been that way and I didn't realize it.
I agree with you Jla-x and in a way that is probably why many people are attracted to Trump, regardless of his position (if he really has one) he could probably negotiate any deal....
almost finished with Hunter S. Thompson's "Generation of Swine", the way he writes about Bush having no chance and being a criminal (Iran/Contra) (1987)... and then his prediction that we will not get and Democrat in the whitehouse until 2000, is quite interesting....
William E. Connolly's "Capitalism and Christianity, American Style" - well, Connolly was raised in the town of Flint, Michigan. His father was of one of the nearly 80,000 people who worked for General Motors in Flint during its peak years..... Chapter 2 - "The Evangelical-Capitalist Resonance Machine"
This continues my interest in re-interpretating Ludwig Feuerbach's The Essence of Christianity as an Economic model - He did say Religion is an Opium and Marx followed that with Religion is the Opium of the people/masses..)
and believe it or not, if you read Guattari's and Delueze's A Thousand Plateaus as was a required reading at various Architectural Academic programs for a while, you would have a basis to read all the above.
Does anyone have good, easy, and cheap ideas for soundproofing between exposed trusses in an industrial space with assembly use? I've found various fabric-wrapped panels and hanging clouds and whatnot but I just keep thinking there must be something really easy to just shove up into the space between. I saw an event space advertised that had a cool-looking ceiling, but when I zoomed in and read the text it turns out it was just spray-foam between the purlins....that foam is not legally allowed to be exposed, is it?!
^Was for us too, wish we had allotted more time for the museum, deeper experience than expected.
Also, for anyone who is making travel plans for the summer, the Flight 93 Memorial is now open in Shanksville PA…real close to Fallingwater & Kentuck Knob, within the Laurel Highlands of PA, gorgeous country….the Museum encompasses more than the 93 Flight, designed for those that can’t make it to Manhattan.
Started interviewing interns for summer how weird. I want to hire all of them and give them a hug. Then I'll go broke because they are useless know nothings. How sad.
probably shouldn't be hugging the kids either. that could be taken the wrong way....
maybe this could lead to better questions. there isn't much you can do to help most of them, but is there anything you can do? encouraging words or something might help ease the sting i suppose. maybe introduce them to other people that might be hiring interns, or introduce them to sales reps (if they hire interns? i have no idea)
interviewing them is good even if you don't hire them, because it's hard to prepare for and it's pretty nerve racking. i think in a lot of cases you can only build confidence with experience, so if there is anything you can do to help them get more interviews that could help.
your heart is in the right place, you just don't have all the money in the world. so, i suppose another option is to get all the money in the world.
I miss NYC like crazy and probably always will, but I certainly don't miss living there. Even as I drove my moving truck across the George Washington Bridge on my way to Cincinnati last year, I knew that some part of me would always be a New Yorker.
My biggest bouts of homesickness for NYC seem to occur while I'm shopping for a suit or dress shirt... Every article of men's clothing for sale in Cincinnati looks like something that would be worn by the manager of a mattress store, and our "flagship" downtown Macy's is a sad joke. I think I just need to schedule a weekend trip back to NYC a couple times a year to do all my shopping.
On a happier note, I just landed another interview with a firm in Seattle that does great work. That's five confirmed interviews in Seattle and four in Portland so far, and I've turned down interviews at a few firms because they either do terrible projects and/or because I've heard they're terrible places to work. Some of these interviews are second rounds after initial Skype interviews, and a couple of them are with firms that have offices in both cities. It feels good to be in demand.
I'll be on a flight out there this time next week, and hopefully driving a Penske truck out there about a month later... Wish me luck.
Congrats David, I've met folks at Colab, ZGF, and Works Partnership Architecture in Portland, all nice people, different scale firms of course, I hope you land in a great place over there. I'm here loathing the door schedule I flubbed, getting submittals now, they picked up a few mistakes, but I still feel like an idiot...
Hopefully I'll make my escape before they start laying the bricks. It's crazy that I've worked for top firms in Chicago and New York, and have interviews lined up with top firms in Seattle and Portland, but the best work I can find here in Cincinnati during a boom economy is entry-level CAD monkey shit on a contract basis. Apparently there are good reasons it's called the Rust Belt.
Thread Central
I'm glad I didn't have to deal with some of the newer categories. Since they added Zoning related items... I'd be shit outta luck. I almost never deal with zoning regulations.
Congrats, archanonymous!
thanks everyone!
About 100 hours of CD's, less than 50 hours in Engineering Systems and Bidding and Contract Negotiation, a dozen in CA. I've been pretty good about trying to spread out hours yet I still have like 6000 design development hours.
Yay archanonymous!!! It's so AWESOME to be done with the tests. You are so close!
archanonymous,
I'll just say congrats with ARE tests and wish you best in prompt completion of IDP.
Enough said.
"About 100 hours of CD's, less than 50 hours in Engineering Systems and Bidding and Contract Negotiation, a dozen in CA. I've been pretty good about trying to spread out hours yet I still have like 6000 design development hours."
The more I ask people about which hours are that are the hardest for them to get, the more I realize I am almost the opposite. CDs, Bidding and Contract Negotiation, and CA are the three categories I had filled up the fastest. My hardest categories are the early phase stuff like programming, site and building analysis, planning and zoning, etc.
Good luck finishing them off.
EI, i'll trade you some hours. I have so many early-phase hours.
I think it's the difference between working somewhere that does big, speculative work with developers and a smaller office that builds for real clients.
I recently took a job at a much smaller firm that has tons of built work. Basically wont touch anything without a contract, which is nice, and a big change.
"real clients" is probably the wrong way to phrase that....
archanonymous,
If they are not real, they are not a client. They would be called prospectives or in the worst case..... rejects.
:)
Well.... echoing curtkram's point.
I don't really see it as a big firm, small firm thing. Sure that has a part to play, but I've worked at both and it just depended on the project I was working on and what my strengths were.
For me that meant I was more valuable doing documentation and administration; detailing, coordinating with consultants, reviewing substitution requests during bidding, answering RFI's, telling the contractor to read the spec, etc. I'm not as valuable when I'm the person modeling and rendering the big design moves early in the process. I can do it, sure, but it isn't my strength.
P.S. Why any office touches a project without a contract in place is beyond my comprehension. Ok, maybe a competition ... but those should all be coming out of a marketing budget anyway, right? You know it is just money being spent that will hopefully come back in some other way.
E_I,
I hate doing things without a written contract because its just tends to come back to haunt ya.
Is that why you havent done anything in your 38 years?
Everyday, I do and have done a lot of residential work, generally remodel work. I frequently start work with just a handshake agreement, no signed contract. I am NOT saying this is a smart thing to do! But I do think there's a level of intimacy and a personal connection one gets with a residential client that makes it seem less dangerous, usually, to do so. Working with a commercial client or an institution....definitely get the contract; even a retainer or start-up check (which I never, ever ask a residential client for).
JeromeS,
I am talking in relation to services to be rendered. If the contract value is above a certain level or the other factors involving substantially involved work, I like the binding agreements to be written that takes precedence over informal tentative agreements.
There are some things I wouldn't care about a written contract for but they are usually pretty small things that are uncomplicated.
I mean MUCH smaller than a building design work or even a room remodel.
I'm calling bullshit, Ricky. Just another occasion in which you are conflating your own reputation.
You have no clients. You have no contracts. You've stated that no one has money in Elbonia, Oregon to pay for design services. Yet you are some bastion of professional practice offering this kind of advice?
So, tell me, what dollar figure is your threshold for drafting 'binding agreements' ? What kind of 'room remodel' do you do?
He charges $30 for a 1-room interior design consultation. For that you get web links to a nifty black velvet flocked poster of a tiger that glows under a black light, and historically accurate reproduction fiberglass reinforced plastic gargoyles.
Yeah, maybe I am conflating my personal experiences with a more generalized condition.
That said, I do think part of it is that generally the small firms don't have the large marketing and overhead budgets to absorb a couple of teams working on nothing but competitions and proposals. Add to that the fact that many medium and large firms pursue international work where a local AOR does all the documentation and CA, and I think it is not a wholly inaccurate generalization.
Residential work is whole different ballgame
JeromeS,
One of my clients during the past year was a paid contract. The sum was considerably more than $30 and an occassional small stuff.
As for certain work, if the work in inconsequential or otherwise not warrant the time to do a formal written contract. In one instance, I help an architect out in connection with the permit office in Eugene, Oregon for the county. I happen to be in the area so I more or less served as a conveyor but that was ok. The architect paid for my time to get the stuff printed out and handed and time for what the architect wanted done. It was simple but it save him time traveling from Seattle to Eugene.
He paid decent for the work involved.
So, arch anonymous = RickB
oh man, that stings.
Oh my god. This election has me living in terror of Idiocracy sprung to life, but....the yoga joke Rubio told last night really was a sick burn. I can't stop laughing.
Sorry archanonymous; you applied the "conflation" verb to yourself, when I was referencing Rick. I thought maybe you were his succinct alter ego...
this might be the first year that I vote for a democrat - seems like the republicans are a mix of evangelicals and oligarchs. maybe its always been that way and I didn't realize it.
Hillary and John McCain are closer together on the idealogical spectrum than Reagan and Trump, Cruz, or Rubio.
i've never cared.
but once they take your guns. (i don't own guns, nor care too
but, once they do take your guns.
bend over, get some vasoline.
My NRA life member dad has made sure it's gun city over here!
i have a bb gun. i wonder if obama is going to come knocking on my door? be nice to meet him. he seems like a good guy.
actually I take it back, am getting into politics via philosophy, which means, yes I don't care what most politicians say....
I agree with you Jla-x and in a way that is probably why many people are attracted to Trump, regardless of his position (if he really has one) he could probably negotiate any deal....
almost finished with Hunter S. Thompson's "Generation of Swine", the way he writes about Bush having no chance and being a criminal (Iran/Contra) (1987)... and then his prediction that we will not get and Democrat in the whitehouse until 2000, is quite interesting....
so I'm pushing off Adorno, Luhmann, and was disappointed with A Thousand Machines by Gerald Raunig, but in Raunig's text some enticing summaries of Karl Marx text I have not yet read - Karl Marx' Grundrisse der Kritik der politischen Ökonomie, drafted in 1857/58, in the "Fragment on Machines ....I'm getting into politics via Marx and becoming a small business owner, but somehow have been classified by my brother who is an economist as a libertarian, ha ;).
William E. Connolly's "Capitalism and Christianity, American Style" - well, Connolly was raised in the town of Flint, Michigan. His father was of one of the nearly 80,000 people who worked for General Motors in Flint during its peak years..... Chapter 2 - "The Evangelical-Capitalist Resonance Machine"
This continues my interest in re-interpretating Ludwig Feuerbach's The Essence of Christianity as an Economic model - He did say Religion is an Opium and Marx followed that with Religion is the Opium of the people/masses..)
and believe it or not, if you read Guattari's and Delueze's A Thousand Plateaus as was a required reading at various Architectural Academic programs for a while, you would have a basis to read all the above.
Does anyone have good, easy, and cheap ideas for soundproofing between exposed trusses in an industrial space with assembly use? I've found various fabric-wrapped panels and hanging clouds and whatnot but I just keep thinking there must be something really easy to just shove up into the space between. I saw an event space advertised that had a cool-looking ceiling, but when I zoomed in and read the text it turns out it was just spray-foam between the purlins....that foam is not legally allowed to be exposed, is it?!
I think I'll start a thread.
tectum is pretty much always the go-to for inexpensive soundproofing
Not kidding, you guys: listen to track 12 from this Howard Tate Live album. You will feel connected to all the universe while you do. So amazing.
^Was for us too, wish we had allotted more time for the museum, deeper experience than expected.
Also, for anyone who is making travel plans for the summer, the Flight 93 Memorial is now open in Shanksville PA…real close to Fallingwater & Kentuck Knob, within the Laurel Highlands of PA, gorgeous country….the Museum encompasses more than the 93 Flight, designed for those that can’t make it to Manhattan.
do it jla-x! too bad its a Monday for most of us.........so apparently Max Weber already wrote a book on Capitalism and Protestant work ethic.... https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Protestant_Ethic_and_the_Spirit_of_Capitalism
and Log 36 and Bratton's "The Stack: On Software and Sovereignty" arrived in mail today....to bad I'm too busy being an architect....
ha Gruen.
you want to be the boss you never had and then you realize you won't make any money doing it.
probably shouldn't be hugging the kids either. that could be taken the wrong way....
maybe this could lead to better questions. there isn't much you can do to help most of them, but is there anything you can do? encouraging words or something might help ease the sting i suppose. maybe introduce them to other people that might be hiring interns, or introduce them to sales reps (if they hire interns? i have no idea)
interviewing them is good even if you don't hire them, because it's hard to prepare for and it's pretty nerve racking. i think in a lot of cases you can only build confidence with experience, so if there is anything you can do to help them get more interviews that could help.
your heart is in the right place, you just don't have all the money in the world. so, i suppose another option is to get all the money in the world.
Have fun, jla-x! I miss NYC so much, too.
I miss NYC like crazy and probably always will, but I certainly don't miss living there. Even as I drove my moving truck across the George Washington Bridge on my way to Cincinnati last year, I knew that some part of me would always be a New Yorker.
My biggest bouts of homesickness for NYC seem to occur while I'm shopping for a suit or dress shirt... Every article of men's clothing for sale in Cincinnati looks like something that would be worn by the manager of a mattress store, and our "flagship" downtown Macy's is a sad joke. I think I just need to schedule a weekend trip back to NYC a couple times a year to do all my shopping.
On a happier note, I just landed another interview with a firm in Seattle that does great work. That's five confirmed interviews in Seattle and four in Portland so far, and I've turned down interviews at a few firms because they either do terrible projects and/or because I've heard they're terrible places to work. Some of these interviews are second rounds after initial Skype interviews, and a couple of them are with firms that have offices in both cities. It feels good to be in demand.
I'll be on a flight out there this time next week, and hopefully driving a Penske truck out there about a month later... Wish me luck.
Congrats David, I've met folks at Colab, ZGF, and Works Partnership Architecture in Portland, all nice people, different scale firms of course, I hope you land in a great place over there. I'm here loathing the door schedule I flubbed, getting submittals now, they picked up a few mistakes, but I still feel like an idiot...
you be towing a Jeep Grande Cherokee?
Congrats / Good luck David!
Think we’re going to need to "build a wall" around Ohio.
To keep people from moving out? New York and Seattle might actually offer to pay for it.
Exactly... I'll tell Governor Kasich where to send the invoices.
Hopefully I'll make my escape before they start laying the bricks. It's crazy that I've worked for top firms in Chicago and New York, and have interviews lined up with top firms in Seattle and Portland, but the best work I can find here in Cincinnati during a boom economy is entry-level CAD monkey shit on a contract basis. Apparently there are good reasons it's called the Rust Belt.
Well it's a big state, you just need to be in the middle high ground where there is no rust.
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