thank you all...you proved my point with an exclamation mark...THANK YOU! i dare say that many of you are educated and truly believe in the architectural process...not pastiche or kitsch....i do not work there....trying to prove a point to a less informed person
Private k-12 day and boarding school administrators/stakeholders know the difference between "public school architects" and "private school architects." The firm you ask about is definitely a "public school architect." Enough said.
maybe not diamond ranch but there's a lot of other interesting, inspiring and decent alternatives between Thom Mayne and a pair of doric columns in a corridor (quite useful for teaching the kids about greek orders on the other hand)
poor educated architectural taste has nothing to do with deliver in time (and in budget) a primary school
nobody made them put that dorky doric stuff in there. That was all them.
I love how the other firm seems to do all their design work on their PDA's. And their team is all foxy yuppie fem-bots (except for that poor old man who seems to have wandered on to the cover of the Light Construction Reader)
i would take this job if i was starting out after school.
why not? do you know how valuable that would be to learn what it takes to design and build a school?
so what, it is not a fame fuck bla bla architect. does it have certain codes that applies to schools per se? does it have assembly spaces? does it have strict ada regulations applied to it? does it have long span structural details in it? does it pushes to learn about teaching and learning? does it deal with specific occupancies and fire ratings? doesn't have stairs and parking lots , cafeterias, kitchens, offices and more? more and more need to know stuff?
why don't you want to learn what these things mean? what do you think you are going to learn from so and so? you gonna learn how to design like him and become a superstar just like him who doesn't even know your name but thinks you are there becouse he is the most better starchitect and his shit smells better than anybody else?
believe me, most famous architects would only wish that you worked at gilberts and know all about school architecture if they are looking for somebody to fill important project team position.
well dont most american public schools look like the schools these guys design? or even worse actually. Fuck it, i dont care if you want to work there or not, actually abra makes somv very good points.
But this ust say something about the emphasis on the education school in the US. And most people dont seem to care two hoots about it....
abra as usual is correct. that's why he was immortalized in song...the points he makes about learning the mundane yet essential aspects of building design will make you more not less valuable. and guess what its practically a free country and you can try to work for whoever the hell you want last time i checked anyway. it might have changed since saturday. any way thats how the class of 1938 feels as well...
believe me, most famous architects would only wish that you worked at gilberts and know all about school architecture if they are looking for somebody to fill important project team position.
but still I'm sure there must be hundreds of anonymous arch firms in the US who also know everything about public school architecture (regulations, standards, etc) and have enough experience and knowledge to build a simple school (in time & budget) which does not have doric capitals here and there
you don't need to have the "Architecture Now!" latest volume on your coffee table.. just an old Aalto or Coderch compilation would do it...
A picture of that corridor -or some of those Gilberts' facades- in your portfolio, no matter how many schools have you built, won't help you at all to get a decent job -with a starchitect or an unknown firm- in the future, me thinks...
man, those guys are such teases, how could they put a photo like that in? i wannna know if the alphabet goes past C......
if your going to do a big alphabet on the floor you gotta do it properly
kinda hard to tell if they are schools or shopping malls, or is it a cunning plan to get kids to stay in school by tricking them into thinking they are skipping class?
our clients will tell you differently. Gilbert Architects has received the following awards in recognition for design excellence.
-->
2006 Learning By Design, Citation of Excellence Award - Upper Moreland Primary/ Intermediate School
2005 Mid-Atlantic Construction Magazine - Council Rock North
2005 AS&U Architectural Showcase, Outstanding Building - Matapeake Middle School
2005 NSBA, Outstanding Facility - Donegal Springs Elementary School
2005 Learning By Design, Outstanding Facility - Elizabeth Pre-K to 8 School #27
2004 AS&U Architectural Showcase - Mazie Gable Elementary School
2004 Mid-Atlantic Golden Trowel Award, International Masonry Institute - Council Rock High School South
2004 Learning By Design, Outstanding Facility - Reiffton School
2003 Business For the Bay - Partner of the Year
2003 AS&U Architectural Showcase, Outstanding Building - Council Rock High School South
2002 Learning By Design, Outstanding Facility - East Pennsboro Area High School
2002 AS&U Architectural Showcase - Kennard-Dale HIgh School
2002 SBIC - Best Practices "Sustainability Award" - Radnor Elementary School
2002 School Planning & Management, CEFPI Impact on Learning Award - Radnor Elementary School
2002 Learning By Design, Outstanding Facility - Radnor Elementary School
2001 Winner of the Governor's Award for Environmental Excellence - Energy Efficiency - Radnor Elementary School
2001 AS&U Architectural Showcase - Tamaqua Area Middle School
2001 Learning By Design, Outstanding Facility - Octorara Primary Learning Center
2000 AS&U Architectural Showcase - Council Rock High School South
1999 AS&U Architectural Showcase - Radnor High School
1999 Excellence in Masonry Design Award, Masonry Contractors Association of Central PA - Cedar Crest High School
1998 AS&U Interior Showcase - J.P. McCaskey High School
1998 AS&U Architectural Portfolio - Liberty-Valley Elementary School
1997 AS&U Interior Showcase (Bronze Citation) - Cedar Crest Middle School
1997 AS&U Architectural Portfolio - Ebenezer Elementary School
1997 AS&U Architectural Portfolio - McCaskey East High School
1997 Grand & Institutional Award, Masonry Contractors of Central PA - Cedar Crest Middle School
1997 Durkan Diamond Award - J.P. McCaskey High School
1996 AS&U Interior Design Award, Honorable Mention - Forest Hills High School
1996 AS&U Architectural Portfolio - Kelly Elementary School
1996 PCMA Architectural Masonry Contractors Association of Central PA - Kelly Elementary School
OK first off: the fypon doric-like columns in the corridor are idiotic. And my exceptionally brief tour around the site left me with the impression that most of their work is aesthetically not even very solid, let alone high quality.
That said: j, abra, vado know of which they speak. Having practical knowledge of how to deal with program, how a building goes together, how a set of CD's goes together to enable a building go together: these are valuable things to have in your experience especially shortly out of school. A solid working knowledge of getting things built will serve you far better when it's time to figure out some tricky sexy cladding detail on a cutting edge project than will an ability to use words like "amorphous indexicality".
As for using experience in a less-than-glamorous firm to get a job with a starchitect, you don't have to show the star-guy you want to work for everything you did at Hack Partners Architecture. You show them what knowledge you gained while working at Hack Partners: detail drawings, cabinet drawings, reflected ceiling plans, etc. - not glossy photos of fake columns! You use your own work on competitions or side jobs to show them your design abilities, then back it up with your catalogue of knowledge gained in the trenches of public school work.
It's in many ways a selfish profession. In any job we should all be sponges, learning as much as possible to serve our larger goals.
I got my start in this professional world working in a firm that specalized in doing public schools not so different than Gilbert Architects. Remember, the k-12 construction market is a multi-billion dollar industry in America. There is a lot of money to be made, and I don't blame any firm for making this their focus.
As J pointed out, public school work is probably one of the most difficult project types. Starting out I feel it was a great foundation to start my career on. For example, in my early 20's I knew more about code than most of my peers. Good design is difficult in that business because of extremely tight budgets and clients that largely could care less about it. Most school boards want to maximize square footage for the lowest possible price, and they want a building that will last 100 years. Sadly most schools are functional floor plans that are extruded up, clad in brick with an EPDM roof on top. The doric columns was probably a designer crying out for something to do.
Sure, we've all got work out there we aren't proud of, and sadly some for me are schools. Then again, I left that firm with a strong well rounded knowledge of how this profession works. That, I could never complain about.
Don't miss those paychecks though. Schools don't pay very well in this business.
Building places that inspire kids to learn, use their imagination, and become whatever they want to be... that is the dream job for me...
and what's with all this racket about wanting to work for a starchitect? I'm aspiring to BE a starchitect not work for one. So quite frankly, I don't care what they think of me. Hmph!
a kid who was especially overgrown could be walking down that hall close to one of the walls, not looking where s/he was going, and then BAM! lodged between the wall and the column so tight they'd have to bring in the "jaws of life"...or at least a good sawzall.
aren't Awards as common as Diplomas from mail-order Churches? I think every ad I've seen says "Schrubb & Fludd Scapes, an award-winning landscape contractor seeks a... "
Work seems fine, if not for being depressingly suburban.
I'll give them credit for not using a FLASH website though. I don't think there's anything more annoying for an otherwise good design firm than to use FLASH. Confusing interfaces that are not indexable by search engines.
In fact, if I was a client looking for an architectural designer, I would automatically eliminate any companies with flash sites. Yes, that means you my precious little design-flake. Now get off my lawn!
They designed my high school. LMAO. I went to Council Rock South. That place was slightly prison-like, both in design and the constant control of student movement. Seriously though the teachers were amazing, dedicated and experienced, but the building left something to be desired. Also, it's a shame that they built it on farmland. All that's left in my childhood home is suburban houses and strip malls. On the plus side every classroom had operable windows, and the classrooms were large with storage, decent science labs, and teacher's had communal office spaces to collaborate in.
Fun fact: It was designed shortly after the columbine shootings, and each section of the school had magnetic doors, which could lock down with the press of a button. We also had lock down drills, which they do everywhere now across the country.
Also the sprinkler system broke and flooded an entire wing of the building soon after it opened. They also cheaped out on the glue they used for carpeting. (It gave off serious fumes, and had to be ripped out).
Other than that... the school was designed sufficiently. And it was needed because the school district was over-crowded.
not the type of architecture I'm really interested in, but i'm not going to ridicule them because they work on a more conventional/standardized level of design than the average-archinector does (or thinks they do). we cant all be heros.
Hot or Not?
Architecture Firm...Hot or Not?
If you have a chance, give a brief reaction to the firm.
Huge Help! Thank you!
Whoops...forgot the link...
http://www.gilbertarchitects.com/
my cats would make this horrible sound when the ate too quickly or had a hairball.
*GACK*
is this a Salty joke? Or do you work there?
If it's a FIRST job... get your experience and then run... very far away... quickly.
gotta be a joke
seems they design the types of school buildings where students end up going on shooting massacres.
mortifying
on fire.
hot architecture is overrated. is there a term for something inbetween hot or not? don't say or...
NOT
I believe Betadine answered your question, JdesP:
It is GACK.
gackasaurus rex
"Crusty Old Curmudgeon"
ether-
I think I worked at that office.
Funny stuff, who the hell has time to make a website like that though?
thank you all...you proved my point with an exclamation mark...THANK YOU! i dare say that many of you are educated and truly believe in the architectural process...not pastiche or kitsch....i do not work there....trying to prove a point to a less informed person
Private k-12 day and boarding school administrators/stakeholders know the difference between "public school architects" and "private school architects." The firm you ask about is definitely a "public school architect." Enough said.
maybe not diamond ranch but there's a lot of other interesting, inspiring and decent alternatives between Thom Mayne and a pair of doric columns in a corridor (quite useful for teaching the kids about greek orders on the other hand)
poor educated architectural taste has nothing to do with deliver in time (and in budget) a primary school
after seeing the interior of that school, i will really think more about homeschooling my child, if i ever have one.
nobody made them put that dorky doric stuff in there. That was all them.
I love how the other firm seems to do all their design work on their PDA's. And their team is all foxy yuppie fem-bots (except for that poor old man who seems to have wandered on to the cover of the Light Construction Reader)
oh the humanity.
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i would take this job if i was starting out after school.
why not? do you know how valuable that would be to learn what it takes to design and build a school?
so what, it is not a fame fuck bla bla architect. does it have certain codes that applies to schools per se? does it have assembly spaces? does it have strict ada regulations applied to it? does it have long span structural details in it? does it pushes to learn about teaching and learning? does it deal with specific occupancies and fire ratings? doesn't have stairs and parking lots , cafeterias, kitchens, offices and more? more and more need to know stuff?
why don't you want to learn what these things mean? what do you think you are going to learn from so and so? you gonna learn how to design like him and become a superstar just like him who doesn't even know your name but thinks you are there becouse he is the most better starchitect and his shit smells better than anybody else?
believe me, most famous architects would only wish that you worked at gilberts and know all about school architecture if they are looking for somebody to fill important project team position.
NOT !!!!!!!! NOT !!!!! NOT !!!!!
sorry .. but I could never bring myself to work in such a firm ..
well dont most american public schools look like the schools these guys design? or even worse actually. Fuck it, i dont care if you want to work there or not, actually abra makes somv very good points.
But this ust say something about the emphasis on the education school in the US. And most people dont seem to care two hoots about it....
worth climbing if the ceiling is high enough.
abra as usual is correct. that's why he was immortalized in song...the points he makes about learning the mundane yet essential aspects of building design will make you more not less valuable. and guess what its practically a free country and you can try to work for whoever the hell you want last time i checked anyway. it might have changed since saturday. any way thats how the class of 1938 feels as well...
but still I'm sure there must be hundreds of anonymous arch firms in the US who also know everything about public school architecture (regulations, standards, etc) and have enough experience and knowledge to build a simple school (in time & budget) which does not have doric capitals here and there
you don't need to have the "Architecture Now!" latest volume on your coffee table.. just an old Aalto or Coderch compilation would do it...
A picture of that corridor -or some of those Gilberts' facades- in your portfolio, no matter how many schools have you built, won't help you at all to get a decent job -with a starchitect or an unknown firm- in the future, me thinks...
man, those guys are such teases, how could they put a photo like that in? i wannna know if the alphabet goes past C......
if your going to do a big alphabet on the floor you gotta do it properly
kinda hard to tell if they are schools or shopping malls, or is it a cunning plan to get kids to stay in school by tricking them into thinking they are skipping class?
so hot right now. right now, hot.
our clients will tell you differently. Gilbert Architects has received the following awards in recognition for design excellence.
-->
2006 Learning By Design, Citation of Excellence Award - Upper Moreland Primary/ Intermediate School
2005 Mid-Atlantic Construction Magazine - Council Rock North
2005 AS&U Architectural Showcase, Outstanding Building - Matapeake Middle School
2005 NSBA, Outstanding Facility - Donegal Springs Elementary School
2005 Learning By Design, Outstanding Facility - Elizabeth Pre-K to 8 School #27
2004 AS&U Architectural Showcase - Mazie Gable Elementary School
2004 Mid-Atlantic Golden Trowel Award, International Masonry Institute - Council Rock High School South
2004 Learning By Design, Outstanding Facility - Reiffton School
2003 Business For the Bay - Partner of the Year
2003 AS&U Architectural Showcase, Outstanding Building - Council Rock High School South
2002 Learning By Design, Outstanding Facility - East Pennsboro Area High School
2002 AS&U Architectural Showcase - Kennard-Dale HIgh School
2002 SBIC - Best Practices "Sustainability Award" - Radnor Elementary School
2002 School Planning & Management, CEFPI Impact on Learning Award - Radnor Elementary School
2002 Learning By Design, Outstanding Facility - Radnor Elementary School
2001 Winner of the Governor's Award for Environmental Excellence - Energy Efficiency - Radnor Elementary School
2001 AS&U Architectural Showcase - Tamaqua Area Middle School
2001 Learning By Design, Outstanding Facility - Octorara Primary Learning Center
2000 AS&U Architectural Showcase - Council Rock High School South
1999 AS&U Architectural Showcase - Radnor High School
1999 Excellence in Masonry Design Award, Masonry Contractors Association of Central PA - Cedar Crest High School
1998 AS&U Interior Showcase - J.P. McCaskey High School
1998 AS&U Architectural Portfolio - Liberty-Valley Elementary School
1997 AS&U Interior Showcase (Bronze Citation) - Cedar Crest Middle School
1997 AS&U Architectural Portfolio - Ebenezer Elementary School
1997 AS&U Architectural Portfolio - McCaskey East High School
1997 Grand & Institutional Award, Masonry Contractors of Central PA - Cedar Crest Middle School
1997 Durkan Diamond Award - J.P. McCaskey High School
1996 AS&U Interior Design Award, Honorable Mention - Forest Hills High School
1996 AS&U Architectural Portfolio - Kelly Elementary School
1996 PCMA Architectural Masonry Contractors Association of Central PA - Kelly Elementary School
http://www.gilbertarchitects.com/awards.htm
you guys are just jealous .....
el sucks
are you serious !!!!!??? ... I'm doomed ...
looks like i'll never win an award !!!
boohoo .... ( ala woohoo style)
OK first off: the fypon doric-like columns in the corridor are idiotic. And my exceptionally brief tour around the site left me with the impression that most of their work is aesthetically not even very solid, let alone high quality.
That said: j, abra, vado know of which they speak. Having practical knowledge of how to deal with program, how a building goes together, how a set of CD's goes together to enable a building go together: these are valuable things to have in your experience especially shortly out of school. A solid working knowledge of getting things built will serve you far better when it's time to figure out some tricky sexy cladding detail on a cutting edge project than will an ability to use words like "amorphous indexicality".
As for using experience in a less-than-glamorous firm to get a job with a starchitect, you don't have to show the star-guy you want to work for everything you did at Hack Partners Architecture. You show them what knowledge you gained while working at Hack Partners: detail drawings, cabinet drawings, reflected ceiling plans, etc. - not glossy photos of fake columns! You use your own work on competitions or side jobs to show them your design abilities, then back it up with your catalogue of knowledge gained in the trenches of public school work.
It's in many ways a selfish profession. In any job we should all be sponges, learning as much as possible to serve our larger goals.
I got my start in this professional world working in a firm that specalized in doing public schools not so different than Gilbert Architects. Remember, the k-12 construction market is a multi-billion dollar industry in America. There is a lot of money to be made, and I don't blame any firm for making this their focus.
As J pointed out, public school work is probably one of the most difficult project types. Starting out I feel it was a great foundation to start my career on. For example, in my early 20's I knew more about code than most of my peers. Good design is difficult in that business because of extremely tight budgets and clients that largely could care less about it. Most school boards want to maximize square footage for the lowest possible price, and they want a building that will last 100 years. Sadly most schools are functional floor plans that are extruded up, clad in brick with an EPDM roof on top. The doric columns was probably a designer crying out for something to do.
Sure, we've all got work out there we aren't proud of, and sadly some for me are schools. Then again, I left that firm with a strong well rounded knowledge of how this profession works. That, I could never complain about.
Don't miss those paychecks though. Schools don't pay very well in this business.
Building places that inspire kids to learn, use their imagination, and become whatever they want to be... that is the dream job for me...
and what's with all this racket about wanting to work for a starchitect? I'm aspiring to BE a starchitect not work for one. So quite frankly, I don't care what they think of me. Hmph!
way to go ... studioghost ..
hey ..,that rhymes !!
a kid who was especially overgrown could be walking down that hall close to one of the walls, not looking where s/he was going, and then BAM! lodged between the wall and the column so tight they'd have to bring in the "jaws of life"...or at least a good sawzall.
shot.
even the font they used for the floor lettering sucks!
aren't Awards as common as Diplomas from mail-order Churches? I think every ad I've seen says "Schrubb & Fludd Scapes, an award-winning landscape contractor seeks a... "
yeah. where's the spoon?
In defense of Comic Sans:
http://www.mcsweeneys.net/links/monologues/15comicsans.html
Work seems fine, if not for being depressingly suburban.
I'll give them credit for not using a FLASH website though. I don't think there's anything more annoying for an otherwise good design firm than to use FLASH. Confusing interfaces that are not indexable by search engines.
In fact, if I was a client looking for an architectural designer, I would automatically eliminate any companies with flash sites. Yes, that means you my precious little design-flake. Now get off my lawn!
Wow, my post on this thread was both helpful and funny. Who woulda guessed that pseudonym name had that in her? ;-)
I wonder if they did this project, too:
They designed my high school. LMAO. I went to Council Rock South. That place was slightly prison-like, both in design and the constant control of student movement. Seriously though the teachers were amazing, dedicated and experienced, but the building left something to be desired. Also, it's a shame that they built it on farmland. All that's left in my childhood home is suburban houses and strip malls. On the plus side every classroom had operable windows, and the classrooms were large with storage, decent science labs, and teacher's had communal office spaces to collaborate in.
Fun fact: It was designed shortly after the columbine shootings, and each section of the school had magnetic doors, which could lock down with the press of a button. We also had lock down drills, which they do everywhere now across the country.
Also the sprinkler system broke and flooded an entire wing of the building soon after it opened. They also cheaped out on the glue they used for carpeting. (It gave off serious fumes, and had to be ripped out).
Other than that... the school was designed sufficiently. And it was needed because the school district was over-crowded.
From now on I must ensure I do better for the next generation of students.
Especially when buildings like this are already out there.
http://www.tezuka-arch.com/japanese/works/fuji/01.html
not the type of architecture I'm really interested in, but i'm not going to ridicule them because they work on a more conventional/standardized level of design than the average-archinector does (or thinks they do). we cant all be heros.
true, we can't all be heroes but we can at least design a decent elevation...
this, to me, is just repulsive and offends on all sorts of levels:
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