It's really sad how architecture firms will bend over backwards to entertain every retarded idea that a client has. I think architects give their clients too many choices. Could you imagine if these clients had to design their own cars?!

My first Job I worked at a firm which did alot of Public Housing renovations.
All of thse buildings were good examples of World-War II- Era Modernist Housing Blocks designed by some of the better local architects at that time.
Then <my old firm> came in - one boss in particular took ownership of the projects and proposed applying prefabricated pediments and neoclasical mouldings to the facades in an attempt to "spruce things up". I had to draw this crap. It was hell. He sucked - his design ability was non-existant, and I contributed to the demise of Our City's modernist collections.

ouch
that is harsh

this discussion raises the question, at least to my mind, of when an employee has the right to tell their employer/client that they are flat out wrong and when one just refuses to do what is asked of them. Is this even possible at all? Or am I going to have to put up with doing crap that I disagree with until I have my own firm and say, clients hire my firm because they like the work that comes out of it and not because I will sell my soul to keep the place in business.

it was three am on july fifth, our party was begining to dwindle down and only 30 or so people were left on the back porch. we were all feeling pretty good from the consumption of drinks over the course of the day/night. well i brought out the left over fireworks and started lighting thunderbombs and bottle rockets off. Not one of the thirty people standing around thought this was a terrible idea. Needless to say my neighbors were pretty much pissed at me and came outside to yell and scream bout being woken up. It was very stupid. Why do i tell this story? If someone designs something that terrible and everyone stands around and does nothing you are all at fault, be it the client or the project designer. Say something at least, prefab pediments and moulding on a building like that is a sin.

Believe me, I spoke my mind continually. They fired my negative ass after five years! It was one of those days you remember forever...a milestone. I have a great job now and would probably still be there if not for the [involuntary departure]...with them...contributing....self-destructing.
Aside from speaking your mind, the best thing to do is to leave them behind.

I took advertising and corporate design classes b/c I was interested in identity design. A few relatively innocuous assignments but also things like.. was supposed to brand something in a false or even dangerous way. I.e. graphically implying that a medication is safe/healthy nutritional supplement without actually saying it is safe. Or rebranding a company to imply that it is super environmentally conscious when it's actually indifferent. Those professors had the attitude "Do whatever the client wants, you can't pick and choose." In two cases I chose not to do an assignment so I have a couple C+ on my transcript now.. er. Fortunately I have never been asked to do anything that crappy for a client. Mainly because i DO pick and choose my clients (and employers) in the first place and they wouldn't ask me to do anything so gross. I will work for someone that's kinda boring to pay bills, but not downright unethical.

Also I encountered a few profs who discouraged us from specifying maximally eco friendly materials... rather they discouraged us from making that concern a priority when it didn't just happen to coincide with the look the fictitious client originally wanted to achieve. But generally was able to argue that you could work with the aesthetic of any material to come up with something attractive and it ended up not being a big deal either to myself or them. Most profs were very encouraging about it.

ArchAngel, were you working in Boston at the time? This story sounds familiar... But then again, there are probably lots of firms that "fix" early modernist public housing...

I love prefabricated pediments and neoclasical mouldings. I think i'm going to put some on my car to make it look more elegant.

No not Boston....west of Boston.....can't give a name. It seems alot of cities are trying to revitalize their public Housing, as the Federal government is cutting the umbilical cord on these failing programs...the cities (maybe boston) and local taxpayers are now picking up the tab. There has also been alot of discussion about how the modernist aesthetic has contributed/accelerated the failed housing, that it is dehumanizing and hardens the souls of the inhabitants, when we all know it has nothing to do with the Building and everything to do with the people living there. It was never meant to be a neighborhood, for generations to remain as they have, but temporary shelter for people in transition.....I think the modern aesthetic communicates a temporality of tranition and the notion of progress. Leave if you dont like the austere conditions.....but don't change it to be softer, cozier, more conducive to repopulation. If there's one thing traditional architecture symbolizes is establishment, and the institution of Public Housing is a modern invention with a more recent past than is being fabricated through a disguised building envelope.
Extruded Foam shapes won't do dick to a machine for degeneration.

First week on the job and my boss comes to my desk around 3:00 in the afternoon screaming about the need to design a few "vehicular entry features" into your common strip mall. He gives me the lowdown and says that they had better be delivered to the client by 9:00 am the next day, and then he bails for the day. So I proceed to design these massive cantilevered steel trusses with vines and shit growing all over them, resembling something like an industrial ruin from an abandon fertilizer plant. Anyway, the client calls my boss the next afternoon after having received the "entry features" only to tell him that we had been fired from the project due to those ridiculous designs. I received a good ass chewing, but did not get fired. I thought it was rather hilarious. Apparently the client wanted something more like white columns and gabled tin roofs. I lasted only a few more months there before my sanity became severely threatened and I left.

Tenn - I like your style. It takes courage to up-and-leave...while it is at times the best for an individual, many defer quitting for sake of convenience, only driving themselves and everyone around them nuts. It's not healthy to stick around a place that drains your enthusiasm about architecture. Nice job on the apocalyptic presentation - the "vines and shit" are perhaps the only thing that connected.

i don't know if any of you know the site of the 1982 World's Fair (unsanctioned) but at this fair a large yet relatively short steel tower was built. Atop this tower they placed a glass spere, the glass was gold. This is called the Sun Sphere. It was once featured in an episode of The Simpsons. Anyway, a man approached our office concerning his grand ideas for the renovation of the Sun Sphere...first step tear it down. Second step, rebuild it in prefabricated concrete. Third step, incorporate three huge stone lion's heads wtching over the city and breathing fire...(i'm not kidding.) The man had dirt under his nails, was wearing suspenders and a belt, could not find the glasses he had on his head, and wanted our firm to front him the money to the bank. Amazing.

a low budget housing complex, for the wife of certain ambassador so she could go out on the papers as one of those first ladies who does "important" work for the poor, the thin is that she did not care for design, she just wanted something of "high impact" as she put it, she even mentioned that the disneyland model is something great because it can get built anywhere, regardless of site conditions, etc. i presented a vernacular model of settlement, she prefered the disneyland type

"The man had dirt under his nails, was wearing suspenders and a belt, could not find the glasses he had on his head"

Are you sure that wasn't a certain well-known, piano-playing, former Ground-Zero-competitor architect we all know and love?

Not mine but one I heard and know to be true.

There is a certain apartment building in Auckland CBD with a roof top penthouse built by a developer. The penthouse [the developers residence] has a curved eaveline over the deck based upon the cleavage of the developers wife at the time.

I have been told that a tracing of sorts was made on which to base the eaveline, but this could be embellishment, and I dont know if the architect made the tracing. Nevertheless, the building with the aforementioned eaveline exists and I think of this story every time I drive by.

I've seen bluetack that was'nt as tacky.

Everyone please note this is an old, old thread, but thank you for reviving it diabase as it reminds me of this story.

I worked for a firm that did restaurant interiors, a lot of it very fun, trendy, but cool enough. One client had a small local yogurt chain called - important! - "Sweet Temptations". They were successful, so she decided to open a new chain of Caribbean-style chicken take-out joints. She enlisted our entire small firm to have a late-afternoon brainstorming session to come up with a name for it. Several of us were on deadline and were in no mood to chitchat about fun, cutesy chicken names. So halfway through the meeting my buddy slips me a note that says "Fowl Temptations".

I was a useless quivering ball of silent giggles instantly, so much so that I had to excuse myself to go to the restroom.

liberty....I be working on a diner which isn't a diner...and yup the client has a so called background in design....yikes....I should go to bed and call in sick in the morning...cause I have had a major Brain Fart...and nothing is coming to my mind other than draw more fricking booths... and diner counters... It is a nightmare...it is a real nightmare....People the Diner is Gone...it has left the building....The 50's are over...gag...gag...over....no one wants comfort food anymore.....not even Sarah Palin.. oops sorry about that... I'm sure she will have fresh fish shipped in for every occassion if she is part of the next junket holding america hostage. Along another note my vote for Obama has been canceled out by my cousin who lives in Alaska cause she is as dumb as Sarah Palin. I think they acutually attend the same church and yup her husband is retired National Guard, who served under the Grand Dame. So fricking people get out and vote...and tell your story or were....."Shit up a CreeK"

haha the 'Fowl Temptations' had me giggling.

So a friend of mine was working at a branch of an international firm. He wandered into the MMM (monday morning meeting) and was told he would be working on a large commercial project. It was essentially a sky scraper. The building went right up to the site boundaries and was essentially an extruded block. He was asked to 'cut bits off' and 'do things' with it to make it look like it was 'designed'. He left soon after.

that actually sounds pretty fun, jordan. i mean, there's no responsibility, right? you could make an argument for almost anything if the only criteria is to make it look designed.

better yet, he could have developed his own private agenda based on what he thought should happen and then run with it - after the fact, cook up some simplistic explanation for how it would 'look cool'.

I think he actually just banged his head against the keyboard.

looks like an opportunity for a shiny instant icon with a hole in it. as for me the list really is too long.

"Could you imagine if these clients had to design their own cars?!"
http://www.thetruthaboutcars.com/is-this-the-ugliest-car-ever-built/
about as ugly as a 73 monte carlo.
"Juliano was driven from the church..." (heh heh)

"Third step, incorporate three huge stone lion's heads wtching over the city and breathing fire.."
er, was he dressed like this?
http://damnedmemo.files.wordpress.com/2007/12/necromongers.jpg