Actual question: is crime actually increasing or is the news just horny for crime stories? Frequently crime drops and the local news doesn't care because it doesn't bleed, so it doesn't lead.

I think the weekly shot and injured and the shot and killed body count released every Monday for Chicago is accurate. The police are releasing the figures. Hard to pretend a dead body with bullet holes was not murdered. A lot of the killing is drug related and is related to the southern border with Mexico being wide open. That said the murder rate for Detroit, Baltimore, and St. Louis is higher than Chicago.

None of that answers my question. I am not questioning the accuracy of police statistics. The general crime rate has been on the decline for decades and the murder rate peaked in the early 90s. You wouldn't know that from watching the news though. Gotta keep you scared of the inner city people you know. It keeps viewers tuned in.

There are also variations by location, though - I have no idea about Chicago specifically, but there certainly are some places that crime has been going up even as the general trend has been down.

Anecdotally, I can say for a fact what the crime rate is doing in my city too, if I wanted to sound silly. Even if the stats prove you right eventually, you're pulling shit out of your ass to support your personal biases. As usual. 

I was at the inner harbor over the holidays and felt perfectly safe, so anecdotally I'd say the crime rate is lower than ever. 

Facts don't care about you or your sisters feelings is what I'm saying.

I've walked far longer than what I should have... at 3am... and drunk out of my mind... through parts of Chicago I probably should not have been in. I survived without the addition of a new orifice. I'd say Chicago is the safest city in the world.

If crime is spiking it MUST be connected to a belief that lawlessness won't get punished so crime pays. I cannot figure out whenor why, in the last 6 years, anyone would have ever gotten that idea. It simply defies belief.

We used to go to the Inner Harbor.. You couldn't pay me enough to take my family there now

begs the question how you know these things if you no longer go there

i love how the burbites are the squeakiest wheels and fancy themselves experts on current crime conditions in "their" relevant cities when they in fact aren't the ones experiencing day-to-day life there.

Balimore is drastically losing population as black families are moving to surburbs to seek lower crime, affordable decent housing, and good, safe schools for their children - exactly the same as other families. The fact that the city is heavily minority has nothing to do with Baltimore's rapidly increasing crime rate. There are several majority minority cities that are very pleasant cities to live in or visit. Charleston, SC, and Savannah, Georgia, come to mind. Why is one city safe and agreeable and another a hell-hole? Seems a fair question to ask.

Feeling unsafe is a feeling. Saying the crime rate is increasing rapidly is not. You're entitled to your feelings, not your own facts. Even if you go off searching for facts and find you were right with your assumptions, it doesn't mean you were right at the time you made them, and that is not "a fair question to ask."

.

If you want to see some real crime, check out Sherriff's departments. Tiny Napoleonic fiefdoms who can steal and kidnap with impunity and no oversight or recourse.

Volunteer - you might want to lay off the faux news and brietbart. Come rejoin reality, it's fine.

So Baltimore is not undergoing a crime wave, Inner Harbor stores are not closing, and black families are not fleeing the city. Good to know. And Chicago is not having weekly carnage either. More good news. And New York is doing fine also. I feel better already.

Setting up straw men isn't a winning strategy, big V.

Yes, air travel is unbelievably expensive right now.

part of my family lives overseas and i haven't visited since the pandemic. RT economy flights are $5,000-$8,000 for anything less than 40 hours one way (all 2-3 layovers)... i used to be able to get a 13 hour direct flight for $800 RT. Unbelievable how much the world has degraded over the past few years.

Yeah - after a couple of flights this summer and into the fall, I've decided to pass on any further trips for the rest of the year if possible. Beyond the costs, actually getting on a plane without delays is extremely unlikely these days. Everything about it just kind of sucks at the moment.

I haven't flown in about eight years but have three trips this fall that will involve flying. I just reserved one a few weeks ago, from Maine to Kansas City, and I didn't think it was too bad--around $650 round trip. Maybe that's high? It vastly beats the alternatives...

Part of my thinking about how the city will look in the future is that pretty soon the only use for ground level retail is going to be restaurants, bars, and salons because what else gets people to leave their house in a world where everything can be delivered? Every new apartment building uses the ground floor for the workout equipment, so we'll see a lot of that too.

Interesting article and ideas. I'm not sure how we could possibly design for every imaginable disability but we can certainly consider those who are not fully functioning young males.

I recently learned that stuttering is an official disability, at least in some situations; it certainly feels like that sometimes, but because I've always dealt with it I don't expect others to accommodate me. But in my younger years, when I could barely speak, phone systems were starting to rely exclusively on voice-activated messaging systems ("say "English" for english, etc.) and I often had to hang up. Now that we have texting and there is usually a press-1-for-English options, I am not as constrained. (I can also talk much more fluently now, but that's beside the point.)

I also think about the move in phones and cars to all-touch-screen action. That works fine if you have smooth, clean, dry hands and good dexterity. My hands are often dirty or wet and I can't use my phone. Last fall one night a car crashed in front of my house and being in a rural area it's very dark. My only available flashlight was my phone, and I could not get it to work because my hands were damp. I even tried the voice-activated option but that didn't work either.

Another example is my father-in-law, now deceased, but as a lifelong carpenter and avid gardener, his hands were solid balls of callouses. Touch screens would not recognize his hands. He could use a stylus on a phone when necessary, but that's not practical in a car.

None of this relates directly to the article but I would like to see a future where more of us who are not physically perfect are not constrained from participating in daily life.

Wood Guy, these are all very real and frustrating examples. I’m still angry about learning that some touchless technology, like motion sensor hand dryers, did not recognize Black skin.

Donna, hand dryers are cool and that's pretty weird, but much more importantly, pulse oximeters also can't accurately test with black (or tattooed!) skin. It's complicated and thankfully the are much smarter people than me working on these issues, but yeah, it's disappointing

hopefully, the proposal is paid?

Nope. I've never had a proposal paid for by the client in commercial work. I've done a lot of 'conceptual' designs for a fee as part of the proposal process though.

All our commercial proposals are paid. Why do free work?

Are you doing design work in your proposals? If so then that would be my 'conceptual design' which we are paid for. Other proposals without design you don't get paid for them. I personally have never seen a client pay for a typical proposal.

IE - if the RFP calls for some type of design work then it is normally paid.  If it's just a normal 'show us your qualifications and work' they aren't typically paid.  At least that's my experience over the last 20 years.  

NS - Canada is a different world from the US. It would be extremely rare to get paid for a proposal here.

did you get a tag in the lottery?

Nope. Doing over the counter.

good luck out there!

I know a place where the hunting is good

... but don't tell anyone.

That's where I used to hunt. The elk there are really, really, really, hard. Literally.

laughs in Canadian.  sorry, eh.

Dat der is a mooze. Not a elk. ;)

What are we hunting?

wabbits

Loons?  we hunting loons?

What ever you get, bring it to Alberta cause we know how to make sausage

Heres another angle for you all to enjoy the beauty of it all

I now think I'm going to go to Canada to hunt giant sausage.

How is the LEED licensing process?

LEED is the worst. ....... (*hides behind her LEED A.P. status).

You better hid behind that LEED A.P. you hippy!  ;)

I've been thinking about getting LEED certified but we always use consultants for that and thus it wouldn't be viewed as 'useful' in our firm.

I got my credentials early in the program, so I dont have to do all the specialty upgrading required every year.

Its good to know, in the sense that any new information learning would be good. But fundamentally I don't find it to be particularly effective; it becomes more of an applique checklist than anything. I consider passivhaus or similar measurable types of certifications to be more effective in the real world. Or even just trying to get WG's pretty good house principles in place, despite the fact it isn't a certification and therefore cannot have a plaque put on the front door. .. !

I agree Bench. In addition, LEED 4.1 only seems to work for larger metro areas. It's very difficult to obtain Silver if you're not in a community with at least 500k population. Gold and Platinum are impossible to obtain for projects not in a major metro area.

It's still a good concept though IF the client has the money.  

Being honest, I only decided to get into the LEED exam-taking a week ago. I've traditionally been kinda anti-LEED (for a multitude of environmental morality reasons), but I'm starting to come around. Seems like the GA exam won't be too difficult... we'll see!

I knocked out the GA exam in a few weeks of studying. My office provides the study material to anyone who wants it. Its fairly straight-forward. Annoyingly, I had planned to keep going off that base to get the AP finished, but life got in the way. I'll be starting from the basics again :(

I do recommend getting some sort of structured study material. Its not complicated material, but specific enough that guidance is required.

I responded shortly after you sent it. I'll try again. Short answer is I'd be happy to sign a book for you, and I sent you my mailing address. I wish I had extra copies to send but I'm still waiting on them myself! 

Thank you! I'll look in my email.

The header of my resumé/CV says, "Architect, Geek".

My experience with fireflies is the more you to try to capture and keep them bottled up, the quicker their light withers and they die. Maybe something for HR to understand?

Joking aside, I think nearly all firms are losing experienced staff right now. Too many other opportunities out there that even those who might be happy in their current positions are being enticed to leave for greener pastures.

I'm experienced. While I'd like to make more money I don't want to have to move to a major metro area to do so. Thus I'll stay where I am and have to be happy with getting a 10% raise each year.

I'm not trying to convince you otherwise Chad ... but the pandemic and lockdowns changed things for a lot of people and industries (including ours). YMMV, but there are remote working opportunities out there. I've been working remotely since March 2020 and don't expect to go back to an office anytime soon. I'll make a trip to visit an office once in a while, but I'm thinking that's going to be once every 2-3 months or so. I've gotten assurances from my current employer, and offers from at least one potential employer that I could work 100% remote, no problem. Before the pandemic I don't think I'd be allowed that freedom in any firm I've worked at.

We just made our first new hire in 2.5 years. 20+ year PM. Was paid peanuts at his now-former firm so wasn't really difficult, but we'd been looking for a good 6 months for the right fit. If you asked him, he'd tell you it's a good time to look. I don't think it'll get any better, any time soon.

I think WFH could work for experienced team members.

I personally would need a physical studio at my house to do WFH.  I need that separation between work and home life.  

I've taken over the spare/guest bedroom as my office. Double bonus because now when my parents want to visit I have a legitimate excuse for them to stay at a hotel instead.

Ha! 

My wife works from home - she uses a 450sf loft over our garage as her office / library / craft room. I have a 120 sf bedroom to serve as my office and gear storage. :(

Lucky you! I only have 110 SF. If you count the closet it would be 128 SF, but that's full of my wife's sewing/craft storage, a vacuum, and a couple guitars. If I were to return to the office I'd have something like 80 SF of space (maybe) I could claim as my own. Move your gear into the garage and you've got yourself a decent little home studio.

Wait, you mean HR needs to do more than basic paper pushing? Unfortunately that is how its become. The partners and principals need to be responsible for holding onto good people.

EA - my garage is full. It houses rafts, skis, various shoes, and my small workshop.

Fine, you've convinced me. You need to build a studio or add on to the garage. If you play it right, the garage add-on could increase the SF for your wife's office/library/craft room and she won't even be upset about it.

You folks are spoiled! I've got an old couch and a coffee table in my living room. Not even a dining room table. Sometimes I'll spread out on the floor with a full sized set, until my back starts to hurt at least (or the dog decides to take over)

You've got a small place BB. You should use your architex skills to make the space work. Cuz you know we can bend the laws of physics to fit more into less ;)

All other things being equal, I'd much rather stay where I am until retirement than ever change jobs again, but it keeps getting clearer and clearer how little they're willing to do to keep me here...

I'm a single guy with a dog living in a 2-bedroom house, so I have a pretty darn comfortable "home office" set-up. Unfortunately, I don't think I'd really like full-time WFH and it's a toss-up whether I'd be more or less productive...

Spoiled indeed. I’m just thankful I’m not in the crawl space.

"Behind" as opposed to "sweet blessed relief"? ;O]

Sure. Care to relate this to something specific?

“It’s bloody raw!”

You know I don't speak Canadian very well Non. Speak 'Murican please.

@Chad - "How many architects and engineers does it take to answer an RFI, Alex?"

WTF? You trespass on school grounds and threaten people. That's just stupid. Arrest them.

WTF, indeed…

how should you be billing your time?

The silent part of how you should bill your time? That sounds creepy and illegal. You must expand upon this atelier.

I'm curious as well. Is it something like the CFO at my former company, who thought that as manager of a design team of 4, my time should be 100% billable?

I’m curious for some elaboration on this too. My hot take on billing time is that unless you are billing hourly to the client, we should stop worrying about it. Charge for the service or deliverable, not for the amount of hours we think it will take to put it together.

EA - don't we need to keep track of the hours spent on a project though for internal records?

 Not to mention our fee is based on the amount of hours we think it will take to perform a service or provide a deliverable. 

 Not to mention tracking time spent on additional services .

atelier nobody, tell us more! I'm also super curious.

Basically, management complained about people who bill only a couple hours to a project during a month, as tends to happen when we have a particular question and call a specialist within the company (we're a huge company with many specialists). I said, "OK, so that means when someone calls me with a question and I spend an hour on their project, I just keep billing my time to the main project I'm working on, right?"

Why is management upset about that? I bill out down to 15 min increments for projects that I'm not assigned to.  It's part of being a collaborative office.  

If I didn’t account for the time spent answering those types of questions I get on a daily basis, my timesheet would be mostly billed to overhead. I’ve had as many as 16-18 projects represented on one 2-week timesheet. Most of them with only 30 minutes to an hour or so. All billable work, but not anything that was planned for in the PMs’ work plans. As one of my coworkers use to ask PMs who complained about it, “If I’m not billing this to the project, are you going to pay me? Because I’m not working for free.”

Chad, I agree that is how things (should) work currently in most offices, but I’ve seen too many times when the PMs have no real idea of how many hours something actually takes and their fee projections are off. Then when they realize the project isn’t very profitable they start counting beans and micromanaging everyone’s hours based on a fee projection and work plan that wasn’t realistic to begin with. My hot take is mostly about what it might look if we could throw out the status quo and rethink how we bill for services. I’m not necessarily saying it’s a good idea, or one that I’ve really thought through. I may try to elaborate on it more at some later point.

P.S. I’ve done this only a few times (because it’s a dick move), but I’ve never seen a PM who is doing the bean counting micromanaging thing have a good response when they come to complain about my hours and I ask them how many hours they’ve billed to the project and what their billable rate is.

Freddy Mercury been dead longer. Now, what face will I have to carry on my paper currency?

our new money

Is that a looney?

I want a wallet full of Gord Downey bills.

Pretty much. I couldn't resist telling my partner dead queen jokes. Pretty sure I'm still in trouble.

As a de facto servant to the archaic monarchy, curtesy of my political forefathers polite reservations against big boy/girl pants, I almost made a dead queen snip while on a job showing yesterday in a federal building after passing the queen’s portrait (next to Justin T) c/w black ribbon.

We were out on a job site visit in the mountains of Southwestern Utah just a couple weeks ago and saw a couple bowhunters out to play. We also saw a 10-point mule deer just lounging in the courtyard of the hotel - apparently the deer know where the hunters ain't...

Correct.

You looking for count per year, per project, per day? If so, then answer is yes… although the second one is always client driven. I try to respect my consultants time and not send them half-baked changes until the client is reasonably certain.

You're not designing anything if you wait until the architecture is done. You're just specifying and running calcs. You want to make your job easier? Get on board earlier. Otherwise get fucked.

SneakyPete out here spitting facts. Trains leaving, get on or get off. CHOO CHOO

Choo Choo motherf*#ker. Choo Choo.

None of the above, because we have these things called "meetings" where we go over these things at the same time. WTF.

That doesn't preclude changes from occurring however, especially if it's a change coming from the owner.

To be fair, some of the issues stem from the fact that we have "designers" drawing things that don't work, like ADA toilets, chases that won't accommodate fixture carriers, 4" cmu plumbing chases, or stud walls that don't provide enough depth for plumbing contractors to do their work. Then I have to go through every instance and make sure the damn thing is constructible.

If your designers are designing unconstructable garbage, then you have a WHOLE different problem. If I were your consultant I wouldn't want to be redoing my work as you corrected your errors, either.

Lotta different discussions going on in here that assume different situations.

It's complicated, and better over a beer.

Everything is better over a beer. I'm currently reviewing elevator tender docs (4mil custom cottage) over a 6.2% Oatmeal Stout from a certified Kosher micro-brewery.

I'm crushing it this week. Construction team keeps thinking they're going to hit a home run with their "gotcha" questions, and I keep blowing a 98 mph fastball by them.

Can you translate that into hockey terms?

I'm the goalie, in a one on one, I stoned some pretender, and saved the game.

Wouldn't a proper hockey reference include some broken teeth?

here's some teeth

Sweet goalie body.

Have a good drive Nam. I assume through Kansas but maybe you'll decide to go Texas instead? I prefer Texas for getting to the SE from Colorado.

Oh thanks for tip! We are going through Kansas/STL on way there to see family. However been debating coming back through Memphis or Texas route. Any recommendations on places to stay (halfway-ish) between Dallas and Denver? My memories of I-10 through West Texas, when I was younger aren't great...

I've heard cool things about Trinidad but ideally would like to do in 6-7 hr chunks. Especially with toddler.

Amarillo is surprisingly cool.

Oh nice, that was one of the spots I'd IDed!

Make sure my exterior wall assemblies comply with the code by passing NFPA 285 ... not sure about the rest of you.

Chinese developers laugh at your silly nfpa rules.

Makes me wonder about some of those projects I helped on that were taken to DD and sent to China to finish.

I missed this, mind posting the story / occurance?

Bench, https://archinect.com/news/article/150323951/fire-erupts-in-a-42-story-skyscraper-in-changsha-china

I fail to see any reason to engage with him.

I do get an odd DD feeling from this wanker...

Even better, Donna. Then you'll be the shoulder he cries on. ;o]

Not bad, actually.

which contract is that?

sounds like some of the RFP fine-print red flags my association/insurance keeps email about.

Nightmare clause, real quick way to make sure your G.C. is immediately antagonistic toward the Architect.

This is A232 language. Read it again. This is a tool for the owner to compel reprobates to do their fucking job.

CMA sounds awful. I've been doing CMR lately.

Beta, I get it, I'm just saying that this clause would make most GC's that I've met *actively look* for reasons to blame the architect for scheduling issues, where they might not have otherwise. It just seems like an antagonistic clause to keep in your contract. Like at that point, why not just work with a GC you trust to do the job more?

That language is NOT from the standard AIA A232 document. I don't know who added it to your contract but it's not something I'd like to see in a contract. 

Big picture: there are better ways to get the contractor to finish on time.

(AIA A232-2019 Article 8 in its entirety)

You know, I was kinda skeptical, but willing to accept at face value (I've never been in a project that used an A232), but some of the language kinda raised my eyebrow (like "the Work is behind where it is supposed to be" or "the right to cause other Contractors to work overtime").

First, public schools have a completely different set of circumstances than private projects. Second, due to the multiple prime contracts this gives the CM greater latitude to control outcomes when the primes are not performing based on schedule.

Beta have you seen success with getting any contractor to accept a clause like that? I just don't know any contractor that wouldn't run for the hills as soon as they see that general conditions...

Again, this is school work, with multiple primes. And yes, we're doing schools in four different states.

Now, I should say, I just reviewed another A232, and this change was not added to the general conditions. This leads me to believe that the change cited above was a request made consultation with the owner.

Like b3ta we do a lot of public schools and have something similar in our contracts. The interesting part is that the aforementioned language is from the school district. This is because public school projects are typically a fast track project and on very strict schedules that must be met.

In 15 years doing this type of work I've NEVER experienced an competent GC with experience in fast track projects freak out or run for the hills with such contract language.  

Ugh. What I found out today, pounding head on concrete.

I don't really like clients.

I have a few clients I really like! Three of them in 15 years. ;)

Where are you in the process?

Even in my world of relatively modest home design, it seems that clients can no longer make any decisions until they see every option at least modeled in 3D, and increasingly that's not realistic enough for them either. I have resisted using rendering software so far but I'm not sure how much longer I can hold out.

DD. But it's a super short one. And the 1 1/2" details are going to be important. And I'm the only one who knows the software.

@Wood, it's a serious problem for us too. I've spent hours going through multiple design options, rendered in 3d with materials, only for a client to settle on the original proposal... for the layout of a kitchen in the multi-million dollar house we're designing for them. I'd much rather go back to pretending that 3d doesn't exist as far as the client is concerned.

What about writing the budget and contract around a limited number of options with further options on a T&M basis?

Sadly, I do not write the contracts. But... in custom residential, a certain amount of option exploration should be expected. What kills is the need to produce 3Ds for each of those options, as opposed to being able to just sketch up a plan or an elevation. Being able to quantify those 3Ds is something that's currently difficult, but maybe should be something our profession starts getting ahead of.

It would be really difficult to budget a set number of alternatives to explore - I just issued a plan set for a fireplace that was designed and modeled about 20 times without exaggerating, and on the other end we are finishing a fine house that took 3 years to build with virtually no input from owners. We do bill T&M for all residential remodels, but even then it's a drain, I don't want to see another client that changes her mind every pinterest post she sees. I don't think the problem is visualization as much as it is a consequence of websites like houzz, pinterest, instagram that give clients all the wrong ideas. Sometimes we just throw the towel and let them design the nightmare they're going to use 3 weeks a year.

>> 3 weeks a year

That's the other big issue. A lot of the houses we do are vacation homes on the beach that will be used for a month in the winter, and yet we're expected to program, design, and detail as though they're going to be in active use by a whole family year-round.

Yeah, those are really good points. I'm in the exact boat of needing to render things that fully sideline the main effort.

Dang I am enveous of a few of you in here. I've been trying to transition to single family for a while because that's where the heart is and I'm totally burnt out on $300M+ large developer, institutional and academic work.
Good to know that endless iterations and options are everywhere.

I did single family for a few years. The budgets where in the $300-$500k range in northern MN. They where my second least enjoyable project types to work on.

Damn, second to medical Chad? Only teasing ;). Wouldn't mind northern MN, grew up in the Midwest but cold as hell. Ely is a.beautiful place....also have been thinking where to settle down with my wife. Trying not to let the work interest dictate that but that's also a hard sell. I wouldn't mind easy coast fancy cottages, coastal homes or desert homes. Maybe it's just typical to want to switch it up every few years. We are human after all!

I lived in Duluth, MN for 14 years. Great place but cold. You learn to love it. My worst three project types to work on are:

1. Medical Office - only because of the clients

2. Single Family - only because of the clients

3. 'Speculative' Retail.  aka core and shell work.  

For me, it’s not the typology so much as the scale and the ambition of the project. I like residential insofar as I get to own all the corners. The scale is just right. The individual situations determine how much fun they end up being: the client, their ability to understand & decide, the site, the existing house (if remodel), the timeline & the potential cost climate, etc, etc. All of these (& others) can make or break the process.

I prefer the scale of 'normal' single family homes. 

I find that 50% of residential clients tend to think they understand the process and complexity of the project because 'it's just a house'. As such they tend to ignore the architect and view them a pencil for them to boss around. This also means they tend to think that a fee is 'too high for such a simple house'.

The other 50% of residential clients are great people who value the architects input and view the design process as a collaboration.  Unfortunately most of these clients don't have the money to actually build anything they need. 

Yes I'm bitter.  ;) 

Probably. I sold mine in March. The profits paid for a pretty sick van that I own outright. Glad I got rid of it when I could.

I feel your pain. My last job I kept asking for staff (we were flying with 50% what was in the original contract and corresponding workplan) and never got any. I was working 60+ hr weeks for years. When I finally did get some staff about two months later after having a complete mental breakdown, one of the principals sees me in the kitchen and asks, "So, acrhanon, have you been doing better at managing your time lately?" 

That was the day I decided I'd go live in a van down by the river and they could all go fuck themselves. So far its working pretty well.

I really wish I didn't feel both of these stories so acutely...

archanon - I would have punched that principal in the face and replied with 'as of now I am'.

archanon - that bad eh?

The van is proverbial, but yes, that bad. I don't actually know if I'll ever go back to working in an office. Been doing a tiny bit of contract work as my sanity returns, but not sure what's next. I worked 13,000 hours in 4 years with that firm.

such an iconic voice and style

"As I walk through the valley of the shadow of death
I take a look at my life and realize there's not much left"

Who could have known he was rapping about architecture? RIP to a real one!

Wasn't he promoting porn sites prior to his death?

^$€gg$!!

This place is getting a lot of attention: https://www.cnn.com/2022/10/02/us/solar-babcock-ranch-florida-hurricane-ian-climate/index.html

Yes Babcock Ranch did quite well and I’m proud of them. To their credit, their elevation is significantly higher than a lot of Fort Myers and Naples which lies right on the riverbed, and they didn’t bear the same wind force. Still their lessons on resilience are powerful, telling, and should set an example in the coming years.

I mean the new GoT wasn't bad, what could've caused this? Grey Cup anxiety?

Thats crazy news.

Holy crap.

Wow. Do you know what they were protesting?

No further information was released so no idea on political motives or associations. Likely won't know anything more.  Probably better that way.

Nothing yet on my frozen side of the border. Actually dusted off phase 3 of a commercial dev this morning. Looking at 5 new commercial buildings with that one alone. I think it’s the first of our dormant retail/commercial projects to come back.

We've slowed down a bit but that's because we didn't get the last three projects we proposed on.

money isn't as cheap anymore. speculative work should be slowing down. takes a while for it to hit us though because the money part often has to be worked out before the design part.

SFR doing too well; there's wait lists.

I think the frenzy is dying out a bit, but it hasn't hit projects yet. Check back in three months.

I'm booked out a year (residential) and still getting multiple inquiries most weeks, most of whom don't want to wait that long. That might slow down but I have a niche where my clients usually self-finance their projects so the good times might continue for a while.

We are, and have been, slow this year (residential). Projects started tailing off in Apr/May.

We just had a GC in the office Mon who said he was going to let his subs know that far less work is coming down the pike & their (lazy) exorbitant bids won't work anymore, if they want to work past winter. It was good to hear because we had projects that died in DD because early pricing was so out of scale.

We're in a marketing push currently with a couple projects to keep the lights going.

Pfft, I do that at home. Well not work but reading . . .

They make perfect sense to those using them. I try to avoid using them but catch myself daily... WRB, PHPP, FSPS...

WTF are you talking about axonapoplectic!? IMHO these abbr are all well known by all.  ;)

If it ain't in the fuckin abbreviations list of better not be in the fuckin set.

fuckin isn't on the abbreviations list.

I have sometimes invented my own abbreviations just for fun and a little chuckle when people ask me what they mean. On schematic design drawings when I'm guessing rough sizes of structural members without the help of an engineer, for instance, I'll often use the BAB and BAC tags. I also have a custom rubber stamp buried in the bottom of a drawer somewhere that just says NDFP (Not Dan's Fuckin' Problem).

Come to think of it, with some of the RFIs I've been getting lately, maybe I need to find the NDFP stamp...

REX did the translucent stone better. Bunshaft beat them both.

The spread is like a translucency porn. I counted 10 pictures of the same night view.

very cool.

I like it, although I'd have made the plinth and corners out of local stone instead of white, to tie it in better with the rest of the area.

fascinating and futuristic, resembles the star wars byzantine architecture of future empires. far better than any of the renderings at the time it was designed. surprising to see such intentionally heavy design from calatrava.

and bite the hands of saudis? that's not the way this works my friend; we celebrate megalomaniacs here, too bad if they have to kill a couple of peasants to get whatever imbecility they want and so graciously fill these pages.

More so concerned with American companies fleecing themselves with dirty money (ZHA also very guilty). Ironic that socially if this happens, the mob comes after them. Somehow the industry is quiet here.

remember Jamal Khashoggi? that "industry" was also very quiet.

It's ok. Soon they will add a few more zeros to the end of that death toll.

Is this that LOOOOOOOONNNNNNNNNNNGGGGGGGG building in the desert where everyone is supposed to live their lives in section of the structure and never leave?

https://archinect.com/news/article/150327231/opposition-to-neom-displacement-leads-three-saudi-tribesmen-to-death-sentences

I completely understand the negative reactions to this concept but I think it is probably the most likely model for the future.

Begs the question, why the hell should anyone be generating endless variations paid or unpaid, is a waste of time. If anything this exposes train of thought for some of these firms. Just crank out endless options until you come up with some form that looks "sexy" for the sake of looking sexy.

I also question the implementation of AI in any regard to architecture. If anything for the sake of "efficiency" and even then perhaps only in menial tasks (sheet naming/numbering in Revit as a good example).

I wouldn't mind an AI that would do menial Revit tasks. That and door schedules. ;)

they dont say that mecanoo does that. My impression was that they are talking about how hard it is to be iterative to the degree that is needed in order to excel at the level that office like mecanoo are doing. So AI helps to churn and find unexpected adjacencies. It is a good insight and probably the best take on the Midjourney et al experiment that is going on right now. As far as why it is useful to try random shit out, the answer is pretty clear. Its to find stuff that is not obvious. Most of an architects creative work is about that, whether it is understanding program or developing form. Paint by number is a good business model but not so good for making architecture at the high end. AI offers the promise of getting to that level easier. Pretty cool. Reminds me a bit of the ideas Eisenman was exploring in the 90's somehow.

i think it would be fun for interiors teams to use AI to generate mood boards. break out of cliched looks.

this made the NYT recently: https://www.nytimes.com/2022/10/21/technology/ai-generated-art-jobs-dall-e-2.html

will galloway wrote:

"they dont say that mecanoo does that."

A quick look at their website shows that they do indeed use unpaid internships.   

couldnt find whatever you saw. interns yes, but no mention of working for free.

Will, not hard to see when considering that only the intern section of their career options is void of compensation information in the “what we offer” section.

ah, i see. Our office originally followed internship standards from NL because that is where our office first started and Japan standards were crazy (though after covid who knows how it goes). It was not unpaid. Not high, but not unpaid. TBH, I would be surprised if it is unpaid in this case, especially for a high profile office in these times. You could be right, but I'm not certain you have found the slam dunk you are imagining. In projects in Europe we are working on currently the pay for interns is set by national standards. Again not high, but not nothing. Not sure why Mecanoo would not follow the same pattern we do...

Exactly Non. Also if you look at the job description for their intern positions it only talks about gaining experience. Not to mention if you google 'unpaid internship' and the firms name you'll see that they don't pay their interns.

It seems quite clear Will that they don't pay their interns.  In addition, paying interns a salary that is below the poverty level isn't paying them.  Finally, just because the firms you've worked with in Europe pay their interns very little doesn't mean Mecanno dose the same.  Their offices may not be located in the country's you've worked in.  

But the lettuce!

That's ok, Non--we've been working for the last year on getting a not-for-profit set up, in part to control who can use the name, but in the end decided to just let the idea continue to grow. If anyone asks, I borrowed the discussion group idea and came up with the name, but I don't want to hunt down everyone who uses a similar name without permission.

Is it Siga or Rockwool? They have been good, informal trade partner-type folks.

No. This one is by elastochem. Don’t know them or what they do… yet they claim to work with our office. Probably bumped into junior staff while dropping of a binder or something.

Just looked up Elasrochem - it seems likely they just want to sell you spray foam as the magic bullet for enclosure detailing and are offering free beer to listen to their pitch. I'd ask what kind of beer they have...

What's your new role? And if you can't stand architects, why did you choose it?

archiwutm8 if you loathe working with architects . . .

Why did you try and become one?

Why did you take your new job?

Why are you on this site?

fuck.

Excellent work on the "vault or no-vault" thread, Chad!

You're on twitter - weirdo. ;)

Nah. Had an account for a hot minute back in 2014. Wouldn't touch it with a dead cat.

Never had an account. I'm on Facebook though I've still sold my digital soul.

Never.

Deactivated my (forgotten-about) twitter account yesterday. Got rid of Facebook in about March 2020. Next up will be Instagram some day, but I'll admit that'll be the hardest of all. It feels so good to unplug, even just a little.

Fatherhood and pandemic somehow resulted in me basically abandoning Facebook in recent years. Honestly I also think one driver was I had gotten a bit too deep/heated on the neighborhood / city / urbanist / politics Facebook groups. So I was looking for any excuse...Its been great! Though admittedly I still Twit too much.

Was it ever not a scam?

I Hadn't noticed before the assymmetry of service between paying vs non-paying passegers, a 4:1 ratio in denver and houston.

what is the scam? PreCheck? [just signed up for it this year]

The scam is that that the TSA are providing additional security. They are not. They are only providing the appearance of security.

https://www.securitydegreehub....

Proto, the scam is they're a public agency funded by a national budget, yet they put a lot more resources on their business than in the public service they are supossed to provide to everyone. On Chad's note, I went through TSA in Denver with a 6" fishing knife unknowingly in my backpack, I only found out when I arrived in Mexico.

new page waddup

Good to see you!

Where did you go tduds?

Became a dad, got a promotion, so work and home lives got busier. Also spending too much time on twitter. Incidentally saw an archinect link on twitter and thought I'd pop back in to say hello.

Congrats on the baby and the promotion!

Thanks!

Do these credentials matter to you? To employers? To clients? I probably haven't heard the word "LEED" spoken out loud in five years, and literally not one of clients has requested it in at least a decade (and several hundred projects). Not to discourage you, it's just a question.

My personal opinion is that the less useful ones (LEED) are generally more benign than they are made out to be, therefore reducing their importance. That being said, we do have clients who inquire about

Bench, Well (and others like it) are terms I've only seen thrown around by the gov clients. No surprise that they like to collect acronyms because it makes it look better on paper. Anyways, our interior design department is going through the WELL process right now but does not appear that the bulk of the certification is within traditional practice's scope. Talks about work-life balance, office policies, and proximity of public transport, and other things outside of common services. I label WELL a notch above Feng Shuay.

WELL seems to be the rage for Tenant Improvement and Office Repositioning projects in the commercial and interiors world. Where they lost me was by having celebrities endorsing it on advertisements. Unbelievable lol. I think if they are to pay for the exam and all of that jazz, it does not hurt. I have my own opinions on certifications just as anyone else would. It is marketable for people I feel in certain niches for the profession.

^Celebrity endorsements? Fuck, now I hate it even more.

Ah shit. my reply got cut off above. Basically - i dont necessarily think of LEED and WELL as great programs on their own accord. Rather, we do have clients who inquire about including the designation on projects for their own terms. Fine. Beyond that, its also an easy data point to cite during promotions / negotiations / interviews further down the line.

Beyond that, I do fundamentally believe in good ongoing professional development. Compared to other targets I could go after, these are relatively affordable (compared to, say, PH)

NS - thank you. That was part of my worry, that it focus on non-tangible elements that I dont necessarily think architects have much control over. Ironically, my interest in it was sparked from one of our primary MEP consultants, who did a lunch and learn on new HVAC systems and their relationship to WELL compliance - which I actually think is a useful application here (also i have a lot of respect for this particular consultant, so anything she is promoting i tend to assume is based in good merit).

I still see LEED crop up in government work on occasion.

We're seeing it as requirements for city government buildings and schools.  A lot of the smaller mountain towns are requiring it on all commercial projects without really understanding it.  

in tokyo we see it with interior projects, especially for large european and global companies in japan. Leed and Well both. They are tipping the balance in some small ways, and we can see the effect on builders and developers who are realizing they need to do things differently. Is it enough to change the world? No, not really. It is a step in the right direction though, which is better than not doing anything at all.

You know what they call people who up vote their own comments?

Pathetic Sociopaths.

Truth be told though...

Bta - What's with your beef with enigma / dick?

I hate Wednesday. Oh, and people that Karen their own comments.

How dose someone 'Karen' their own comments? Asking for a friend.

The comment on this string being one indication of Full Karen, this being the other...

Up votes their own comments.

That's just being a narcissist. I always thought of a Karen as someone who was entitled well beyond their actual importance.

I'm curious who this enigma / dick user is.  They started off as a nice enough person who was genuinely contributing to the site.  Now they seem to be devolving into a weird troll.  

They used the Karen phrase. I find it more akin to autofellation, which makes the nom de plume of Dick even more ironic...