Though thinking about it now… why is that 10% oh so important if they’re such a small percentage of the pool? Are the 10+ people just too expensive? How can we widen the range to include the 1-5 year or 10-15 year people?
The problem doesn’t seem like there is this gap and 10% of the population is missing. It seems like firms are trying to populate 50% of their office with a demographic that makes up 10% of the pool.
psycho-theres a book called "the renaissance artist at work" that is entirely about the business of the renaissance artist. written by bruce cole a former professor of mine at indianastan university and who now heads up the neh.
I may be misunderstanding your first few sentences. I’m far from an economic theorist but to paraphrase (somehow quoting others lends credibility to ones argument…):
Profit and profitability are crucial for society even more than for an individual business. “Yet profitability is not the purpose of, but a limiting factor on business enterprise..â€
There are modern economic theories which suggest:
The root of the profit motive is the mistaken belief that the motive of a person can explain his behavior. The idea was invented by classic economists to explain the economic reality that their theory of static equilibrium could not explain.
He is suggesting that even if there is a profit motive (though he believes there is not), that it is totally irrelevant to understanding business behavior.
The example that was given is if archangels sat in the CEO’s chair, they would still have to concern themselves with profitability, despite their total lack of personal interest in making profits.
Drucker goes on to suggest that the notion of the profit motive actually causes harm and misunderstanding of the nature of profit (which is what I was trying to suggest) and that it is part of the deep seated hostility towards profit in our society. And that it is “responsible for the prevailing belief that there is an inherent contradiction between profit and a company’s ability to make a social contribution. Actually, a company can make a social contribution only if it is highly profitableâ€
So it seems I’m going to have to give my BA101 instructor a call and tell him to drop this profit motive silliness from the curriculum. ;)
I agree well before 90 days one needs to stop working and have contracts to that effect, but sometimes clients don’t pay (sometimes they go bankrupt). The point being even if you stop work after two weeks of non-payment, you need capital to float your business between payments.
I’m starting to think I should have gone to business school…
vado retro I’ll have to see if they have that at powells.
Looks like I should have started a new thread too. I wonder if forums will ever develop into nested strings which one can navagate throu... never mind... that would just be annoying...
They attempt to limit, not expand, their markets by limiting their practices to clients who offer only the quality of work and projects they want to do. By trading things that cannot be valued in our economic system for things that can, they enter into a world of unfortunate economic and personal instability which casts both themselves and the profession as a whole in a negative light.
i totally disagree with the sentiment behind this. an office that is trying to go after institutional projects like libraries, schools, etc has a hard road when their portfolio and reputation is based on projects that reflect completely different values. if your office is used to working with developer/builders of dairy marts and transmission shops, why should the developer of a class a office building or the facilities director of a university trust that you'll provide the level of design and service to which they're accustomed.
being selective about your projects and clients helps establish who you are as a firm. put some of the cost of this selectivity in the marketing column if you must.
i should also note that i think a lot of architects these days are giving short shrift to their ethical responsibilities as architects. there are multiple stakeholders in your professional ethics: users, clients, yourself, and the public at large. our "economic system" doesn't recognize some of these, but we still need to.
This is better then Wharton 101- great info DSC... wow, rent is cheap in your 'hood.
Regarding specialization- Architecture is increasingly being segregated into areas of practice. Even the schools are starting to focus on specific modes of design. There is an emergence of sustainable design folks that would make McHarg proud, there are 3d visualization centric programs and firms that make greg lynn hot, and then there is health-care... to name a few trends.
From the perspective of a job seeker, there are now less general practices out there then 10 years ago. Most urban firms have really started to narrowly define their practice markets - only in the smaller locals do we still have a general practice where one firm does everything.
So many arch schools attempt to creat starchitects - or at least mis-lead their graduates into believing that this an attainable goal. Call me pragmatic, but I'd rather see more programs specializing in creating experts.
As a profession, we sell our expertice and professional aptitude - that is how we can generate profit. Does IDP create intern experts? No, but firms have the opportunity to nurture personal interests into well qualified professionals that will serve the profession better in the long run.
One other soft cost to consider is the admin support. Add $30,000 to the base math for them. Read: in our model take out one “productive person†to the economic system.
We have placed all of these numbers are in excel, cross correlated to wage per person, payroll, FICA, overtime, then reduction for holiday, sick vacation plus, reduction for meetings / admin stuff. (read: I have about a 46% utilization rate, my pa’s have a 72%, my “exploited interns†(LOL) are closer to 77%.
All in all I know that I need to currently collect $55.54 per hour for the project to break even. Some do, some don’t. We track the hours worked and use them for future proposals.
So if intern number one is at $16.00 per hour his “burden†is 39.54 per hour in overhead costs. This is how that multiplier that is discussed comes into play. This intern’s multiplier in this system is 3.4.
Using the excel sheet if I add n additional intern who works 45 hours per week, that breakeven rate gets reduced to $50.18. This is where some economies of scale kick in. Yet a certain point this levels out because add’l overhead, larger building and what not.
As for 90 days out standing. We lien, we stop work, we don’t give out plans. But to keep some clients we adapt. They pay 18% interest on their past due balances and eventually we collect. However, 5%-7% bad debt is considered normal.
Remember that means that of the 2080 hours that they are working 77% of their time is billable. and LOL means laugh out loud.
When i was an intern it was 85% (10% of the total will always be vacation, personal, holiday). Leaving SOMA (sit on my ass time) was to be only be 5% of the total hours worked ina a year. 104 for those keeping score 2 hours a week. this was spent doing many of the horrible tasks that interns do.
see other threads. how to kill an hour and the intern one.
wow - I gotta admit dsc - you got it down on paper - nice numbers (this stuff get's me going)
I've got a couple of 'business rules of thumb' when it comes to profit:
1) if it's easier and cheaper to stay home and watch TV, don't take the job. IE: if you're going to loose money on it, don't do it.
2) jack the price until they complain. if they're not complaining, you're not charging enough. You may think you'll loose clients this way, but you shouldn't loose sleep over any clients who won't pay you what you're worth. Your good clients know they need you to be financially stable too, and what's important is not more work, but more money as oldfogey said above...train your clients!
I think if all architecture firms followed these two simple rules, we would have no reason to worry about price fixing, or enough pay.
Maybe I overstaed the profit thing. I dont think it's a difficult concept, I'm just surprised at how few people really understand it, most have never really thought it through. Many people think profit is what you take home with you. As in metamechainc's first set of numbers, there was no profit. Unbillable hours, and capital is maybe the misunderstood part, profit is simply how it's paid for.
metamechanics - In terms of business finance there's no real difference between borrowing or using equity. As far as the business in concerned its the same thing, it's often considered better to not use your own money. As you pointed out, developers dont have money, they just know how to get it. Though if you go that route one expense you'll need to activley add in is interest on debt. Whereas if it's equity it's lost potential income, that typically is paid out in divedends, but in private businesses usually it's not paid out, so there is the perception that it's cheaper to use your own money.
i'm with steven ward on this one -- "limits" are a troublesome concept to most architects ... perhaps it's more helpful to use the word "focus" ... professionals who don't try to "be all things to all people" are much more likely to develop the depth of knowledge and skill necessary to deliver a strong, well designed and technically proficient building ... in today's world, "generalists" will struggle -- both economically and professionally -- because they don't never do enough of any one building type to become highly proficient or efficient -- if you need brain surgery, you certainly don't want to hire a family doctor for the work ... you want an experienced surgeon who has done your procedure successfully hundreds of times before.
to me "focus" is good ... "limits" are bad ... a focused firm can operate broadly within its chosen area of expertise and easily demonstrate to its clientele the "value proposition" that it can offer.
There is focus. Educational, factory, production housing, retail, historic preservation you name it. These focused professionals do get premiums for their services.
However there is a greater market for the generalist. There is, <b>in my humble opinion, a greater need for the generalist.<b>
There is too much work that is still being not being done by architects that is left to the contractor.
DI.net had some estimate last summer that the entire market for Architecture services is only 2.5 billion dollars. There are roughly only $100,000 licensed architects out there.
There is roughly 2-3 trillion dollars spent on construction per year.
If we were participating in the entire market our market would be 90 billion dollars.
The local entrepreneur with a $30,000 tenant finish out needs our services too. Nothing too elaborate, just a solid set of documents.
Our focus is the small project. It is entirely strange to me that small is under $3 million.
i think that i'm in a different mindset than old fogey, meta, or babs: i was less talking about specialization/focus than i was old fogey's reference to selectivity in client and the potential resultant product. i'm not saying you have to do libraries to get libraries, but that you have to have developed a reputation for certain values and community-mindedness in order to get projects from organizations which share them. Providing service for developer/builders with lowest-common-denominator 'product' buildings establish a different kind of reputation and make it much harder to get the projects that we might like to have a hand in - those which improve the built environment for the larger public.
i've always gravitated to generalist firms myself because i enjoy that there is a learning curve with most projects and it keeps it interesting. that said, the generalist firm that has stuck to a policy of never accepting work that they didn't think could be a valuable addition to the urban environment have been successful at getting the kind of work that supports this attitude. the firm that takes anything indiscriminately will have a hard time marketing itself toward those projects which are more about "things that cannot be valued in our economic system".
i think it's important to establish values as an architect and then stick to those values in taking your projects. this is NOT being a prima donna and it has nothing to do with starpower or hip trendy design. architects may still take heat and get a reputation for being difficult if they stick to a particular ethical position, but that's also how you establish yourself as a stakeholder in the community and build a reputation for integrity.
The AIA survey also breaks down firm size as well as location. For our firm the range is pretty wide. Our base (not including overtime) for a ALI/Designer Level I (6-10 years, may be recently minted, may not) in our in our policy manual, that everyone has a copy of, is between $35,000 -$52,000.
This allows us some flexibility as well as incentives.
Such as someone with 10 years experience on their resume that really has 5 years experience two times. (read: has done details for 10 years but had not completed a project on their own) would be in the lower end and the star would be on the upper end.
Most of this set in our firm work 45 hours a week.
So someone making $20.00 per hour (41,600 base) would come in at $48,000 per year. It is up to them if they want that extra 5 hours, larger bonus ect.
note: We have been considering someone who has completed IDP but not licensed no longer eligible for time and one half paid overtime.
As for the other markets I hope others will let us know.
I think this goes back to several other threads that touch on the notion of architecture being fundamentally compromised.
Someone pointed out a Richard Serra quote in which he argued that architecture is not at all an art form, that there may be great artisanship and design but art is too personal, architecture is far to compromising to be included under the umbrella of art.
I have to agree. It’s not art. I don’t think it’s a bad thing, people get very defensive about this, but I would find it degrading to call architecture art it’s much more than that.
But it must also be acknowledged that architecture’s role within society as a carrier of cultural capital and historical meaning is not that different for art. The difference is that Architecture as a practice is fundamentally compromised, there are things completely external to “Architecture†which (for better or worse) must be present (handrails in bathroom stalls, fire egress door hardware, lot set backs and building typology), we must engage.
It’s ability to create social change is very real. Life in New York, vs. Los Angeles, vs. Amsterdam, vs Whistler is quite different and intimately linked to the build environment. It is social engineering; it sets the framework for how you live your life.
Mere building must only provide shelter, mediate between two environments, the human body and nature. Architecture on the other hand is more than that. It’s not nothing, but it’s not everything; it isn’t open heart surgery, and it isn’t baking a cake, it may not even be mini-marts or strip malls. It has some fuzzy grey areas, defining it explicitly is probably not possible, but it’s limitations must be acknowledged.
One of the issues I think is that “architects†are required in doing “mere buildingâ€, this is necessary, this is not bad, but it’s not “Architectureâ€, some people get a little… snooty? about this. I have no problem doing work that’s not :â€Architecutreâ€. Not everything can or should be Architecture.
These are two practices based on fundamentally different services being offered, but both are created by professionals with the title architect. I think this is actually a big part of non-architects misunderstanding of what architects do. We have a hard time defining this even for ourselves.
The built environment is a carrier of cultural capital, historical meaning, and economic value. I think we tend to define architecture in terms of how we balance and develop these issues.
I think you cold argue that Walmart has as much cultural capital as the Disney concert hall or the de Young museum, and probably an even greater impact upon how we use and inhabit the built environment. Yet as architects we’re quite dismissive of Walmart. Is that because we view the social change it produces as negative? All the more reason for us to engage it? Weather we view that social change as positive or negative I guess stems from a more fundamental world view that each of us brings.
I guess to use Serras notion of art, just because there is artisanship doesn’t’ make it art, just because it has implications for how we live, doesn’t make it architecture. Our services run the full spectrum from mere building to very real cultural capital, how we define ourselves within that range as architects is I think paramount.
-How many people are in your firm presntly?
-How many ALI 1's presently in your firm?
-How many ALI 1's would you like to add?
This just goes back to my speculation that maybe the discrepencey is due to a demand for a diproportionate number of people that could possibly exist within this experience level. In which case I'm curious why that is such an in demand demographic.
I guess I'm thinking that office heirarchy is sort of a pyramid. There are less and less as you go up, but the reality of talent pool is almost the opposite. (depending on how we draw our circcles, if it's 1-5 6-10 and then 10+, there are going to be crap loads of 10+ people and only a handfull of positions...).
8, 1 actual (two more almost) and 1 to add and one PA to add.
You would hope that the pyramid expands more are coming into the profession. Yet that is not the case. I think that as some get to the higher edge of the spectrum (10+ license) some want to start their own firm. This is true.
The problem stems that the 15+ and up (new category) are more engaged in the politics of practice and do not have the time to train the 1-5 years. In the new cad centric environment don’t have the skill set either. The 10+ are moving toward the 15+ and still have the massive amounts of time to dedicate to the actual production work, as well as the new tech skills needed to work.
BTW I might have both of my positions filled by the end of the month.
Wish me luck.
One was off of our web site. Someone moving to, of all places, Waukegan IL. The other is a direct referral on a family man driving 1.5 hours each way to work.
We barely make more than accountants, and those are MEDIAN salaries. Salaries that no one actually makes. It probably means that the top paid architects make more than the top paid accountants which brings the median up.
I also love how this study for the AIA has starting salaries for Lawyers, Docotors, Engineers, MBA'a and accountants... but the US Buream of Labour Statistics did not have data available for Architects starting salaries?!? Probably because if they knew, there would be some sort fo federal labor law violation...
Most of the data they ar trying to relate seems quit misguided and naieve. Like current births to number of architects registering or enrolling in school? Maybe births 18-30 years ago but even that's fuzzy. They need to compare that as a percentage of people enrolling in school and then a percentage of those that enrolling in architecture. Maybe kids cant afford scool so all enrolment is down not just architecture. Anyway it just seems like they're trying to correlate a lot data in a manner that has no relationship.
The bottom line is that there are roughly 100,000 licensed architects, 8,000 graduating and 35,000 taking the exam. That number surprised me.
I am very surprised the exam passing rates are not higher.
I really did not think the exam was too hard. My wife and I took the last paper and pencil exam in 1996. Actually we met at the exam after the first test. Strange place to pick up women, but I digress. We both passed all of the exams except for design. We then had to wait forever of the computer exam to be implemented 14 months later. The computer version for design was cake compared to the paper and pencil exam.
This has been a diminishing over time and eventually there will be a disruptive innovation that will limit our role even further since we will no longer be able to keep up with demand.
If you look at page 12 total registrations is about 8000, same as number of graduates.
The page 9 stat is "Number of DIVISIONS administered" there are nine divisions, so the 35,000 divisions administered seems half what it should be. The failure rate for total divisions is 35k taken minus 25k passed so that's 10/35 = still almost 30%. That is pretty high.
I'd be curious what the retirement rate is, (129,000 total architects)/(8000 new architects per year) = 16.125 year average carrer (if the same number of architects are retiring per year). If not we're getting bigger (though we probably should be at least at the same rate as population growhth if not more due to the increasign ammount of time that arch. takes).
ok abra, come to london and well set up a international practice-2 broke architects are better than 1.
i am quit impressed with you music video;....the audio was off but i sensed it was rap.
you would have to promise never to publish the audited accounting details on archinect as some lame excuse/justification of exective decisions and you would have to promise not to take that executive architecture program at the gsd. that all i request. if its in your heart, its right.
keep the music coming.
and if your asked to teach that same executive program at the gsd, go for it.
Architects: the new endangered species part two or: are the ranks of the qualified dwindling to nothing
Though thinking about it now… why is that 10% oh so important if they’re such a small percentage of the pool? Are the 10+ people just too expensive? How can we widen the range to include the 1-5 year or 10-15 year people?
The problem doesn’t seem like there is this gap and 10% of the population is missing. It seems like firms are trying to populate 50% of their office with a demographic that makes up 10% of the pool.
psycho-theres a book called "the renaissance artist at work" that is entirely about the business of the renaissance artist. written by bruce cole a former professor of mine at indianastan university and who now heads up the neh.
OldFogey
I may be misunderstanding your first few sentences. I’m far from an economic theorist but to paraphrase (somehow quoting others lends credibility to ones argument…):
Profit and profitability are crucial for society even more than for an individual business. “Yet profitability is not the purpose of, but a limiting factor on business enterprise..â€
There are modern economic theories which suggest:
The root of the profit motive is the mistaken belief that the motive of a person can explain his behavior. The idea was invented by classic economists to explain the economic reality that their theory of static equilibrium could not explain.
He is suggesting that even if there is a profit motive (though he believes there is not), that it is totally irrelevant to understanding business behavior.
The example that was given is if archangels sat in the CEO’s chair, they would still have to concern themselves with profitability, despite their total lack of personal interest in making profits.
Drucker goes on to suggest that the notion of the profit motive actually causes harm and misunderstanding of the nature of profit (which is what I was trying to suggest) and that it is part of the deep seated hostility towards profit in our society. And that it is “responsible for the prevailing belief that there is an inherent contradiction between profit and a company’s ability to make a social contribution. Actually, a company can make a social contribution only if it is highly profitableâ€
So it seems I’m going to have to give my BA101 instructor a call and tell him to drop this profit motive silliness from the curriculum. ;)
I agree well before 90 days one needs to stop working and have contracts to that effect, but sometimes clients don’t pay (sometimes they go bankrupt). The point being even if you stop work after two weeks of non-payment, you need capital to float your business between payments.
I’m starting to think I should have gone to business school…
vado retro I’ll have to see if they have that at powells.
Looks like I should have started a new thread too. I wonder if forums will ever develop into nested strings which one can navagate throu... never mind... that would just be annoying...
I am game:
Waukegan IL.
3200 square feet of space
8 employees.
Liabilities
271- Loan to for start up capital $1,400.00
275- Car 1 344.16
276- Car 2 299.73
Sub Total Expense 2,043.89
Expense
404 - Printing and Reproduction 50.00
425 - Sub-contractors
511 - Small Tools/Equipment 250.00
512 - Freight and Postage 65.00
520 - Rent 2,600.00
526 - Utilities 440.00
529 - Telephone 420.00
530 - Repairs and Maintenance 380.00
532 - Charitable Contributions 100.00
534 - Advertising & Promotion 185.00
535 – Employees Insurance + E/O 2,700.00
536 - Officer's Life Insurance 125.00
537 - Officer's Health Ins. 893.11
538 - Travel & Conventions 35.00
539 - Meals and Entertainment 82.00
541 - Other Taxes
542 - Payroll Taxes 0.00
548 - Permits & Licenses
550 - Interest 150.00
552 - Vehicle Expense(gas) 400.00
560 - Bad Debts
564 - Legal, Acctg, Prof. 150.00
566 - Office Expense 475.00
567 - Bank Processing Charges 50.00
570 - Continuing Education 30.00
580 - Dues & Subscriptions 140.00
850 - Other Expenses 6.00
Sub Total Hard Costs $11,770
i totally disagree with the sentiment behind this. an office that is trying to go after institutional projects like libraries, schools, etc has a hard road when their portfolio and reputation is based on projects that reflect completely different values. if your office is used to working with developer/builders of dairy marts and transmission shops, why should the developer of a class a office building or the facilities director of a university trust that you'll provide the level of design and service to which they're accustomed.
being selective about your projects and clients helps establish who you are as a firm. put some of the cost of this selectivity in the marketing column if you must.
i should also note that i think a lot of architects these days are giving short shrift to their ethical responsibilities as architects. there are multiple stakeholders in your professional ethics: users, clients, yourself, and the public at large. our "economic system" doesn't recognize some of these, but we still need to.
This is better then Wharton 101- great info DSC... wow, rent is cheap in your 'hood.
Regarding specialization- Architecture is increasingly being segregated into areas of practice. Even the schools are starting to focus on specific modes of design. There is an emergence of sustainable design folks that would make McHarg proud, there are 3d visualization centric programs and firms that make greg lynn hot, and then there is health-care... to name a few trends.
From the perspective of a job seeker, there are now less general practices out there then 10 years ago. Most urban firms have really started to narrowly define their practice markets - only in the smaller locals do we still have a general practice where one firm does everything.
So many arch schools attempt to creat starchitects - or at least mis-lead their graduates into believing that this an attainable goal. Call me pragmatic, but I'd rather see more programs specializing in creating experts.
As a profession, we sell our expertice and professional aptitude - that is how we can generate profit. Does IDP create intern experts? No, but firms have the opportunity to nurture personal interests into well qualified professionals that will serve the profession better in the long run.
metamechanic
One other soft cost to consider is the admin support. Add $30,000 to the base math for them. Read: in our model take out one “productive person†to the economic system.
We have placed all of these numbers are in excel, cross correlated to wage per person, payroll, FICA, overtime, then reduction for holiday, sick vacation plus, reduction for meetings / admin stuff. (read: I have about a 46% utilization rate, my pa’s have a 72%, my “exploited interns†(LOL) are closer to 77%.
All in all I know that I need to currently collect $55.54 per hour for the project to break even. Some do, some don’t. We track the hours worked and use them for future proposals.
So if intern number one is at $16.00 per hour his “burden†is 39.54 per hour in overhead costs. This is how that multiplier that is discussed comes into play. This intern’s multiplier in this system is 3.4.
Using the excel sheet if I add n additional intern who works 45 hours per week, that breakeven rate gets reduced to $50.18. This is where some economies of scale kick in. Yet a certain point this levels out because add’l overhead, larger building and what not.
As for 90 days out standing. We lien, we stop work, we don’t give out plans. But to keep some clients we adapt. They pay 18% interest on their past due balances and eventually we collect. However, 5%-7% bad debt is considered normal.
Remember that means that of the 2080 hours that they are working 77% of their time is billable. and LOL means laugh out loud.
When i was an intern it was 85% (10% of the total will always be vacation, personal, holiday). Leaving SOMA (sit on my ass time) was to be only be 5% of the total hours worked ina a year. 104 for those keeping score 2 hours a week. this was spent doing many of the horrible tasks that interns do.
see other threads. how to kill an hour and the intern one.
wow - I gotta admit dsc - you got it down on paper - nice numbers (this stuff get's me going)
I've got a couple of 'business rules of thumb' when it comes to profit:
1) if it's easier and cheaper to stay home and watch TV, don't take the job. IE: if you're going to loose money on it, don't do it.
2) jack the price until they complain. if they're not complaining, you're not charging enough. You may think you'll loose clients this way, but you shouldn't loose sleep over any clients who won't pay you what you're worth. Your good clients know they need you to be financially stable too, and what's important is not more work, but more money as oldfogey said above...train your clients!
I think if all architecture firms followed these two simple rules, we would have no reason to worry about price fixing, or enough pay.
Here's a question (since I'm on the job search, and I fit the qualifications for THIS job)
What's the AIA salary survey say the range is for a 6-10 year person in:
Chicago?
Houston?
Boston?
San Fran?
Would some kind person who has the survey care to check? I don't want to over or underprice myself.
Maybe I overstaed the profit thing. I dont think it's a difficult concept, I'm just surprised at how few people really understand it, most have never really thought it through. Many people think profit is what you take home with you. As in metamechainc's first set of numbers, there was no profit. Unbillable hours, and capital is maybe the misunderstood part, profit is simply how it's paid for.
metamechanics - In terms of business finance there's no real difference between borrowing or using equity. As far as the business in concerned its the same thing, it's often considered better to not use your own money. As you pointed out, developers dont have money, they just know how to get it. Though if you go that route one expense you'll need to activley add in is interest on debt. Whereas if it's equity it's lost potential income, that typically is paid out in divedends, but in private businesses usually it's not paid out, so there is the perception that it's cheaper to use your own money.
i'm with steven ward on this one -- "limits" are a troublesome concept to most architects ... perhaps it's more helpful to use the word "focus" ... professionals who don't try to "be all things to all people" are much more likely to develop the depth of knowledge and skill necessary to deliver a strong, well designed and technically proficient building ... in today's world, "generalists" will struggle -- both economically and professionally -- because they don't never do enough of any one building type to become highly proficient or efficient -- if you need brain surgery, you certainly don't want to hire a family doctor for the work ... you want an experienced surgeon who has done your procedure successfully hundreds of times before.
to me "focus" is good ... "limits" are bad ... a focused firm can operate broadly within its chosen area of expertise and easily demonstrate to its clientele the "value proposition" that it can offer.
Focus is good.
There is focus. Educational, factory, production housing, retail, historic preservation you name it. These focused professionals do get premiums for their services.
However there is a greater market for the generalist. There is, <b>in my humble opinion, a greater need for the generalist.<b>
There is too much work that is still being not being done by architects that is left to the contractor.
DI.net had some estimate last summer that the entire market for Architecture services is only 2.5 billion dollars. There are roughly only $100,000 licensed architects out there.
There is roughly 2-3 trillion dollars spent on construction per year.
If we were participating in the entire market our market would be 90 billion dollars.
The local entrepreneur with a $30,000 tenant finish out needs our services too. Nothing too elaborate, just a solid set of documents.
Our focus is the small project. It is entirely strange to me that small is under $3 million.
i think that i'm in a different mindset than old fogey, meta, or babs: i was less talking about specialization/focus than i was old fogey's reference to selectivity in client and the potential resultant product. i'm not saying you have to do libraries to get libraries, but that you have to have developed a reputation for certain values and community-mindedness in order to get projects from organizations which share them. Providing service for developer/builders with lowest-common-denominator 'product' buildings establish a different kind of reputation and make it much harder to get the projects that we might like to have a hand in - those which improve the built environment for the larger public.
i've always gravitated to generalist firms myself because i enjoy that there is a learning curve with most projects and it keeps it interesting. that said, the generalist firm that has stuck to a policy of never accepting work that they didn't think could be a valuable addition to the urban environment have been successful at getting the kind of work that supports this attitude. the firm that takes anything indiscriminately will have a hard time marketing itself toward those projects which are more about "things that cannot be valued in our economic system".
i think it's important to establish values as an architect and then stick to those values in taking your projects. this is NOT being a prima donna and it has nothing to do with starpower or hip trendy design. architects may still take heat and get a reputation for being difficult if they stick to a particular ethical position, but that's also how you establish yourself as a stakeholder in the community and build a reputation for integrity.
Greun
The AIA survey also breaks down firm size as well as location. For our firm the range is pretty wide. Our base (not including overtime) for a ALI/Designer Level I (6-10 years, may be recently minted, may not) in our in our policy manual, that everyone has a copy of, is between $35,000 -$52,000.
This allows us some flexibility as well as incentives.
Such as someone with 10 years experience on their resume that really has 5 years experience two times. (read: has done details for 10 years but had not completed a project on their own) would be in the lower end and the star would be on the upper end.
Most of this set in our firm work 45 hours a week.
So someone making $20.00 per hour (41,600 base) would come in at $48,000 per year. It is up to them if they want that extra 5 hours, larger bonus ect.
note: We have been considering someone who has completed IDP but not licensed no longer eligible for time and one half paid overtime.
As for the other markets I hope others will let us know.
I think this goes back to several other threads that touch on the notion of architecture being fundamentally compromised.
Someone pointed out a Richard Serra quote in which he argued that architecture is not at all an art form, that there may be great artisanship and design but art is too personal, architecture is far to compromising to be included under the umbrella of art.
I have to agree. It’s not art. I don’t think it’s a bad thing, people get very defensive about this, but I would find it degrading to call architecture art it’s much more than that.
But it must also be acknowledged that architecture’s role within society as a carrier of cultural capital and historical meaning is not that different for art. The difference is that Architecture as a practice is fundamentally compromised, there are things completely external to “Architecture†which (for better or worse) must be present (handrails in bathroom stalls, fire egress door hardware, lot set backs and building typology), we must engage.
It’s ability to create social change is very real. Life in New York, vs. Los Angeles, vs. Amsterdam, vs Whistler is quite different and intimately linked to the build environment. It is social engineering; it sets the framework for how you live your life.
Mere building must only provide shelter, mediate between two environments, the human body and nature. Architecture on the other hand is more than that. It’s not nothing, but it’s not everything; it isn’t open heart surgery, and it isn’t baking a cake, it may not even be mini-marts or strip malls. It has some fuzzy grey areas, defining it explicitly is probably not possible, but it’s limitations must be acknowledged.
One of the issues I think is that “architects†are required in doing “mere buildingâ€, this is necessary, this is not bad, but it’s not “Architectureâ€, some people get a little… snooty? about this. I have no problem doing work that’s not :â€Architecutreâ€. Not everything can or should be Architecture.
These are two practices based on fundamentally different services being offered, but both are created by professionals with the title architect. I think this is actually a big part of non-architects misunderstanding of what architects do. We have a hard time defining this even for ourselves.
The built environment is a carrier of cultural capital, historical meaning, and economic value. I think we tend to define architecture in terms of how we balance and develop these issues.
I think you cold argue that Walmart has as much cultural capital as the Disney concert hall or the de Young museum, and probably an even greater impact upon how we use and inhabit the built environment. Yet as architects we’re quite dismissive of Walmart. Is that because we view the social change it produces as negative? All the more reason for us to engage it? Weather we view that social change as positive or negative I guess stems from a more fundamental world view that each of us brings.
I guess to use Serras notion of art, just because there is artisanship doesn’t’ make it art, just because it has implications for how we live, doesn’t make it architecture. Our services run the full spectrum from mere building to very real cultural capital, how we define ourselves within that range as architects is I think paramount.
dsc_arch
-How many people are in your firm presntly?
-How many ALI 1's presently in your firm?
-How many ALI 1's would you like to add?
This just goes back to my speculation that maybe the discrepencey is due to a demand for a diproportionate number of people that could possibly exist within this experience level. In which case I'm curious why that is such an in demand demographic.
I guess I'm thinking that office heirarchy is sort of a pyramid. There are less and less as you go up, but the reality of talent pool is almost the opposite. (depending on how we draw our circcles, if it's 1-5 6-10 and then 10+, there are going to be crap loads of 10+ people and only a handfull of positions...).
Yes and no.
8, 1 actual (two more almost) and 1 to add and one PA to add.
You would hope that the pyramid expands more are coming into the profession. Yet that is not the case. I think that as some get to the higher edge of the spectrum (10+ license) some want to start their own firm. This is true.
The problem stems that the 15+ and up (new category) are more engaged in the politics of practice and do not have the time to train the 1-5 years. In the new cad centric environment don’t have the skill set either. The 10+ are moving toward the 15+ and still have the massive amounts of time to dedicate to the actual production work, as well as the new tech skills needed to work.
Dsc- hope your billing all the time you're spending posting to recruiting! or do you have a sugerdaddy client that is paying for this research?
I get worried when I see a principal with too much time on their hands...
treekiller
If you go up a few posts you'll see that this is typically under unbillable time, this comes out of the profit ;)
Recruiting is a legitamate task for senior management. So is research... Surfing archinect- you could be fired for that ;-)
with you, fogey. glad to have gotten that perspective out of you, though. the first bullet-points version could be misleading.
My contribution to the discussion. The AIA has released its study of licensing trends in the U.S.
http://www.aia.org/are_registrationstudy06
My contribution to the discussion. The AIA has released its study of licensing trends in the U.S.
http://www.aia.org/are_registrationstudy06
I like the last page - to summarize: "we've been worrying about this since 1988, and still haven't done a darn thing".
At least we make more than accountants!
BTW I might have both of my positions filled by the end of the month.
Wish me luck.
One was off of our web site. Someone moving to, of all places, Waukegan IL. The other is a direct referral on a family man driving 1.5 hours each way to work.
Go figure.
What accountants are you associating with? The accountants I know make a good deal more than us.
reead the study linked above.
We barely make more than accountants, and those are MEDIAN salaries. Salaries that no one actually makes. It probably means that the top paid architects make more than the top paid accountants which brings the median up.
I also love how this study for the AIA has starting salaries for Lawyers, Docotors, Engineers, MBA'a and accountants... but the US Buream of Labour Statistics did not have data available for Architects starting salaries?!? Probably because if they knew, there would be some sort fo federal labor law violation...
Most of the data they ar trying to relate seems quit misguided and naieve. Like current births to number of architects registering or enrolling in school? Maybe births 18-30 years ago but even that's fuzzy. They need to compare that as a percentage of people enrolling in school and then a percentage of those that enrolling in architecture. Maybe kids cant afford scool so all enrolment is down not just architecture. Anyway it just seems like they're trying to correlate a lot data in a manner that has no relationship.
The bottom line is that there are roughly 100,000 licensed architects, 8,000 graduating and 35,000 taking the exam. That number surprised me.
I am very surprised the exam passing rates are not higher.
I really did not think the exam was too hard. My wife and I took the last paper and pencil exam in 1996. Actually we met at the exam after the first test. Strange place to pick up women, but I digress. We both passed all of the exams except for design. We then had to wait forever of the computer exam to be implemented 14 months later. The computer version for design was cake compared to the paper and pencil exam.
This has been a diminishing over time and eventually there will be a disruptive innovation that will limit our role even further since we will no longer be able to keep up with demand.
We are an endangered species.
I think that graph is kind of confusing.
You're looking at page 9?
If you look at page 12 total registrations is about 8000, same as number of graduates.
The page 9 stat is "Number of DIVISIONS administered" there are nine divisions, so the 35,000 divisions administered seems half what it should be. The failure rate for total divisions is 35k taken minus 25k passed so that's 10/35 = still almost 30%. That is pretty high.
I'd be curious what the retirement rate is, (129,000 total architects)/(8000 new architects per year) = 16.125 year average carrer (if the same number of architects are retiring per year). If not we're getting bigger (though we probably should be at least at the same rate as population growhth if not more due to the increasign ammount of time that arch. takes).
I think you have to be careful about "retirement" per se ...
many architects retain their license and continue to practice in some form or another, even after they officially "retire" from their firm.
many others simply cannot afford to retire, in the mainstream sense, and continue to work at some level until they drop.
others simply won't retire because they love what they do.
That's what I mean by retire. Stop practicing, or die, not "retire". I'm sure it's an impossible number. That's why I'm curious.
pick up a woman?
:) reminds me of the stone age cartoon where you knock her over with a club, pick her up by her hair and make her yours.
ok abra, come to london and well set up a international practice-2 broke architects are better than 1.
i am quit impressed with you music video;....the audio was off but i sensed it was rap.
you would have to promise never to publish the audited accounting details on archinect as some lame excuse/justification of exective decisions and you would have to promise not to take that executive architecture program at the gsd. that all i request. if its in your heart, its right.
keep the music coming.
and if your asked to teach that same executive program at the gsd, go for it.
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