After becoming deli developers, I would also suggest focusing rehabbing existing structures rather than spreading farther out and building new ones.
Problem 1) <this one comes first> We need to monetize whatever ideology it is that we have. No amount of talking about occupy movements will help effect change if all of us are relying on some sort of government or church assistance to feed ourselves. Someone needs to be putting money into the government and church pots, and that somebody is ultimately going to have to be us.
Problem 2) People that just want to live in a house somewhere can't afford to pay us a rate that will allow us to sustain ourselves. Our deli has to be profitable. Not only that, but it has to be sooo profitable that we can afford to pay for our design of the deli. That means we either make really good healthy sandwiches and charge so much only 1% can afford them, or we don't design like Frank Ghery.
Problem 3) We either need to influence existing infrastructure or get enough capital to build an entire new city (or town, or development, or whatever) in order to have the foot traffic type comments above. In order to get that sort of money we would need some really really good sammiches.
So, I guess the plan starts with getting a loan or investors to buy a storefront and put a deli in it. Then we sell enough sammiches to pay our overpriced architect (ourselves) and put the rest into buying the next storefront over, and design some housing. Probably multi-family. Has cshannon been helped yet? His or her market may still be under-served (unless he/she wants to invest in a new deli operation i've been thinking about).
O.K so developers of multifamily and single family houing communities and strip malls can only make money if they completely suck. This argument makes no sense. KB homes and others like it are the only ones that can design build and sell? Why can't a good architecture firm do the same but build better stuff? Yeah you need the money to invest but assuming you figure out a way to get the funds together then why wouldn't this work? I know of a local architect who buys homes remodels them and resells them...It is pretty much the same concept but on a bigger scale. Yes I agree that infill needs to be done too, but eventually as the population grows we will need to build more whether in cities or suburban areas. Global population will be 9 billion in 2040.
Recently, an architecture student in London tried to re-imagine the use of gold. In his project, gold is encoded with cultural values of the contemporary world, rather than economic ones. http://pr2011.aaschool.ac.uk/students/aram-mooradian
While the project does contain structures, it also delves into artifacts.
Money makes the world go round. There is plenty of it out there, no shortage of investors, but convincing them to invest in you is difficult.
Architecture is a tiny, tiny piece of the pie, so offering to design as your "stake in the game" is not really worth anything (there's an architect two doors down that will do it for free). You need actual capital in the game, a real investment.
That's the catch 22 with all of this, and why I continually suggest that in order for any progress there needs to be changes at day one, first day of school. There also needs to be investment in entrepreneurship. This requires removal of barriers (lengthy school with irrelevant topics, focusing on financing/business, elimination of licensing restrictions, etc.).
j.a - your example is apt - that guy has capital to buy, he's got actual stake in the game. If you have money, you can do somethign. Without it, you have zero power, no power means no change. If you have the money, you make the rules. Pretty simple, really.
I have always wondered why some arch firms don't get into more aggressive business models. All I can figure is that the folk at the top enjoy their security (there is almost zero financial risk, you can hire/fire so quickly, the only variable out of control is the economy...and we all know what control freaks everyone in the arch world is!)
Our new deli does not have to suck. We have a lot of smart and creative people here who I'm sure can do a great job making it beautiful. However, we will need realistic constraints. If we put back-lit lumasite over all the walls, we are going to have to raise the price of our sammiches quite a bit. Also, some funky shape that will require the framers to spend 3 times as much time will cost a lot more, or having to rent/buy a cnc machine to custom fabricate whatever it is we feel we need to custom fabricate will cost a lot. We just have to restrain ourselves to good design without making our sammiches only accessible to the 1%.
Your architect friend who flips houses intrigues me. Do you know what kind of carpet or paint he puts in them? The nice stainmaster stuff and semi-gloss paint that can be cleaned? Or the throw away stuff and flat paint that the new homeowner will need to replace in a year? House flippers who want to maximize their profit are probably doing the latter.
trace, I totally agree. I think there is also a stigma with the word developer. At one time people thought that computers for the masses was a ridiculous idea, but with innovation and investment that was overcome.
curtram, I agree that there needs to be constraints, but constraints are a good thing.
architecture for the 99%
After becoming deli developers, I would also suggest focusing rehabbing existing structures rather than spreading farther out and building new ones.
Problem 1) <this one comes first> We need to monetize whatever ideology it is that we have. No amount of talking about occupy movements will help effect change if all of us are relying on some sort of government or church assistance to feed ourselves. Someone needs to be putting money into the government and church pots, and that somebody is ultimately going to have to be us.
Problem 2) People that just want to live in a house somewhere can't afford to pay us a rate that will allow us to sustain ourselves. Our deli has to be profitable. Not only that, but it has to be sooo profitable that we can afford to pay for our design of the deli. That means we either make really good healthy sandwiches and charge so much only 1% can afford them, or we don't design like Frank Ghery.
Problem 3) We either need to influence existing infrastructure or get enough capital to build an entire new city (or town, or development, or whatever) in order to have the foot traffic type comments above. In order to get that sort of money we would need some really really good sammiches.
So, I guess the plan starts with getting a loan or investors to buy a storefront and put a deli in it. Then we sell enough sammiches to pay our overpriced architect (ourselves) and put the rest into buying the next storefront over, and design some housing. Probably multi-family. Has cshannon been helped yet? His or her market may still be under-served (unless he/she wants to invest in a new deli operation i've been thinking about).
O.K so developers of multifamily and single family houing communities and strip malls can only make money if they completely suck. This argument makes no sense. KB homes and others like it are the only ones that can design build and sell? Why can't a good architecture firm do the same but build better stuff? Yeah you need the money to invest but assuming you figure out a way to get the funds together then why wouldn't this work? I know of a local architect who buys homes remodels them and resells them...It is pretty much the same concept but on a bigger scale. Yes I agree that infill needs to be done too, but eventually as the population grows we will need to build more whether in cities or suburban areas. Global population will be 9 billion in 2040.
I really appreciate Micah's's comments,
Recently, an architecture student in London tried to re-imagine the use of gold. In his project, gold is encoded with cultural values of the contemporary world, rather than economic ones.
http://pr2011.aaschool.ac.uk/students/aram-mooradian
While the project does contain structures, it also delves into artifacts.
Money makes the world go round. There is plenty of it out there, no shortage of investors, but convincing them to invest in you is difficult.
Architecture is a tiny, tiny piece of the pie, so offering to design as your "stake in the game" is not really worth anything (there's an architect two doors down that will do it for free). You need actual capital in the game, a real investment.
That's the catch 22 with all of this, and why I continually suggest that in order for any progress there needs to be changes at day one, first day of school. There also needs to be investment in entrepreneurship. This requires removal of barriers (lengthy school with irrelevant topics, focusing on financing/business, elimination of licensing restrictions, etc.).
j.a - your example is apt - that guy has capital to buy, he's got actual stake in the game. If you have money, you can do somethign. Without it, you have zero power, no power means no change. If you have the money, you make the rules. Pretty simple, really.
I have always wondered why some arch firms don't get into more aggressive business models. All I can figure is that the folk at the top enjoy their security (there is almost zero financial risk, you can hire/fire so quickly, the only variable out of control is the economy...and we all know what control freaks everyone in the arch world is!)
nobody is forcing anyone to go to mcdonalds ..
stop making excuses
oh fiddlesticks! we're already on page 2! dame iPhone with lack of large screeniness bah!
Nobody forces anyone to do anything. You can choose to be stupid, break the law, etc., etc.
But saying "nobody is forcing anyone to..." is as much an excuse as any statement can be.
Our new deli does not have to suck. We have a lot of smart and creative people here who I'm sure can do a great job making it beautiful. However, we will need realistic constraints. If we put back-lit lumasite over all the walls, we are going to have to raise the price of our sammiches quite a bit. Also, some funky shape that will require the framers to spend 3 times as much time will cost a lot more, or having to rent/buy a cnc machine to custom fabricate whatever it is we feel we need to custom fabricate will cost a lot. We just have to restrain ourselves to good design without making our sammiches only accessible to the 1%.
Your architect friend who flips houses intrigues me. Do you know what kind of carpet or paint he puts in them? The nice stainmaster stuff and semi-gloss paint that can be cleaned? Or the throw away stuff and flat paint that the new homeowner will need to replace in a year? House flippers who want to maximize their profit are probably doing the latter.
trace, I totally agree. I think there is also a stigma with the word developer. At one time people thought that computers for the masses was a ridiculous idea, but with innovation and investment that was overcome.
curtram, I agree that there needs to be constraints, but constraints are a good thing.
this thread just became...
about as provocative as patrick schumacher...
you can sit and try to figure out how to market to the 99% on your butt,
or
go find the 1% and make something out of your career.
architects / designers need to go where the work is!
travel, live, work, experience different culture...diversify urself!
Block this user
Are you sure you want to block this user and hide all related comments throughout the site?
Archinect
This is your first comment on Archinect. Your comment will be visible once approved.