what are you looking for out of your office. there's a lot of great offices, but they each offer something different. as for pay, given it appears you are looking for a design oriented firm...it sounds like you will need to either find a cheap closet that you sublet off of someone else or be prepared to live off of your savings for the 6 months.

futureboy,

i am looking for a design practice, but does that necessarily equal low pay? clearly, a manhattan apartment will probably be out of the question. i am working for a high profile office in holland at the moment, and hoping (maybe naively) that it will help me into somewhere decent be paid enough to get by.

what position, going in a slight tangent to the subject, can i get with 2 years experience and all my studies finished?

well, design oriented practices in nyc are notoriously poor paying. right now these practices might be paying slightly more than typical, but then again, the rent prices are ridiculously high.
as for position you should be able to walk in as a junior architect, depending on the office this means you could either be working as staff on a project or managing one (although a short timeline will probably have you as staff). in terms of design, what type of office are you looking for? There are several camps you can go towards: the corporate design offices (SOM, KPF, Polshek) that will pay decently, the architecture as art types (DSR, LTL, etc.) that would be interesting but won't pay as well, the old guard (Eisenman, Meier, etc..), the Digital Gurus (SHoP, etc.), the dutch types (REX, AMO, OMA, post-Open Office types, etc.)...the list could go on, i guess.

in all honesty they all have some draw or another, except maybe the dutch side, having already experienced that side of design.

i am at the stage where it's a real learning experience still, and so there is the desire to see and be part of as much as possible.

i see that you have worked at meier. how was that? was it work all-hours-until-you-drop or more chilled?

MDLER WAS HERE

sting?

Alien Gordon Sumner.

MDLER WAS HERE

Avoid Eisenman! He's notorious for paying $0/hour.

i just have to say, i've never really liked sting, unfortunately - my parents do.

i abhore that song.

eisenman pays peanuts? dang! he was one of the ones i was considering....

forget eisenman, he really pays nothing.
shop is deceptive, they have cool and very mundane projects
dsr would give you a very annoying interview, and drag you on
tschumi has a few projects coming up I hear

in other words, if you're independently wealthy, then go work a t a cool firm for peanuts. If not, I would recommend to look into mid-size offices that do decent work, ie. peter gluck, martin finio etc. that do not do "cutting edge" work but do solid stuff, pay you ok and treat you ok. Live in brooklyn, or skip Ny alltogether and move to LA, the job market is much better there nowadays. Gehry is desparately looking for people, if you're willing to make giant models for a long time.

oh also asymtyote got a bunch of big projects in asia and middle east, they're probably looking. but I hear that they're a mess when it comes to dealing with employees.

ah, no such wealth i'm afraid, so it looks like either a gluck or being a corporate monkey. not so keen on gehry since finishing undergrad and having my eyes opened. LA is kind of tempting, but asymptote certainly is another practice that is very attractive. and i am much used to messy employee dealings!

im a white man in the palais...only lookin for fun...

cyc, check out Lewis Tsuranamaki Lewis, Lindy Roy, Gordon Kipping, Architecture Research Office, or any of that age group of office...a lot of them are actually getting some real ground up work and are looking for good people. They will pay decently enough...you won't have any savings after it, but you will get some good experience. I also second peter gluck's office or Christoff:Finio they do good work.

What's the working environment like at Gluck's office? I've checked out their website and a I have a book with some of their houses, and it looks like the type of work that's right up my alley.

i have known several people that worked for him and they have all loved it. he seems to run a good shop and give a lot of growth opportunities. since all of his work is design build, the scale tends to be smaller...but the level of detail and craft is amazing. he tends to turn out really good detailers and architects with a very strong sense of craft and understanding of materials and how they go together. very tectonic.

Nice... Thanks for the info.

cheers futureboy. these offices look really interesting. i do like the look of lindy roy's stuff. very captivating!

anyone know much about holzman moss or studios architecture, and how it is to work for them? i've heard good things on insiderch.org, but these are just number ratings.