16. Gives credit where credit is due. It's pretty annoying when a project gets published or receives an award and the design principal or partner takes all the credit.
DML i think sometimes thats not entirely fault of the "principal" of the office, yes i do also hate when not everyone is credited, but some publications or corporations/organizations who award of give "prizes" dont have the vision to ask or credit all the list of collaborators the office sends, some of them dont even ask for the whole names, i mean they're just like, yeah John Doe architecture, thats it... u know what i mean??..but yeah there's also some pricks who just love to take all the credit...
anyways, this was a thread about something else...
17. there's tacos and fresh fruit water always in the office kitchen
18. we can print jokes about the main arch of the firm and hang it around the office
Well, the request was for the "ideal Architecture Firm Checklist" .... its my view that when you take on projects as pure cash flow you really aren't doing the work in the best frame of mind. Its pretty standard for large offices to have to do it because of the burn rate and overhead. I run a smaller firm and when I took on projects just to keep staff the work turned out crappy because it was a bad project to begin with and always tended to get complicated in a bad way and the clients were more challenging than need be and I never made money out of the deal, ( so why do it )
So I prefer to run a smaller more sustainable office where I have more work than I need, turn some projects away and prefer to work on projects that I / we really like, good clients with respectable budgets........ my version of "ideal".
whistler - ok - I get your drift - I keep forgetting the "ideal" part as I go about my workaday role of making payroll for a mid-sized firm twice each month.
actually, I'm quite proud of the employment we provide - while perhaps we don't meet all of the checklist items here (definitely no tacos in the kitchen) we're not doing too shabby.
Our situation from a growth perspective is a bit problematic as our location prevents us from drawing from a larger pool of skill Architects and designers, therefore the staff we have we want to keep and taking on additional work can be a problem as we just can't get high quality staff to assist with the project delivery servicing of our clients needs.
Our situation from a growth perspective is a bit problematic as our location prevents us from drawing from a larger pool of skill Architects and designers, therefore the staff we have we want to keep and taking on additional work can be a problem as we just can't get high quality staff to assist with the project delivery servicing of our clients needs.
we have a lot of those things, the dog wandering around the office for instance, but here is my list anyways with a hint of cynicism:
-a color printer
-chairs without nasty stains and broken wheels/arms
-graphics cards that can handle graphics, no grandma $600 computers where you can e-mail and use ms word but that's about it.
-company purchased software (not the free version of sketch-up and not, "hey you have illustrator? bring it in and install it on this computer" or, "hey, you have photoshop at home right, tonight can you take this file home and..."
-cell phones for employees that get work calls on personal cell phones. it does add up.
-working HVAC
-email storage, I shouldn't have to clean out my inbox every month or two and decide what to keep and what to toss
-education stipend
uuu yeah decent chairs perfect, comon, i've been in so many offices where they expect ppl to work +10 hours in chairs where u cannot sit more than 1!!
yeah decent computers, also i've been in some starchitects offices where they have sucha crappy computers and expect u to perform to the top, u end up bringing ur own laptop which is powerfull than the office desktops...
cell phones...yeah another thing, i never give my personal one to bussiness related ppl
anyways....arch offices the same crap all over the world it seems
this has been a really interesting thread to read, and i know i'm a little late but i thought i might get some response...
as i am thinking about going out on my own i agree with the client as a collaborator idea but part of the reason i want to go out on my own and do houses is to get away from the client who is an architect!
can anyone speak to that? so many of my previous clients - health care, condo towers, restuarants, etc have architects or arch grads on staff to do the "design" and then hire the firm to get it drafted, permitted and built as well as make it work/be constructible/massage the design, etc. are any of you who are considering the client speaking about these kinds of clients? and if so, is there anyone out there who likes the collaboration that comes with because the client has been educated in an architecture school?!?
i am all for client education, even if it means hand-holding, but i dont want to work with architects all the time. i want to work with people who NEED architects and contractors who do good work.
funk - I have had an exact opposite experience with clients that have on-staff architects. For instance, a large school district I have experience with. Their staff architect was mostly a facilities manager/owners rep. All the design - schematics thru CA was done by us.
Retail is more similar to what you describe, but even at that the staff architects are more or less interior architects setting up store plans.
Overall, in my opinion, anything larger than a couple million proj cost needs a good owners rep and an experienced architect works just fine.
Where does good design fit into all this? I guess that would be number 1 on my list.
I know we all have different definitions of what makes good design. But I feel that as architects, our first obligation should be to design buildings that enhance the public realm while also innovating in terms of materials, sustainability, and experience.
We have an obligation not only to our clients, but to society, because what we make is in some sense in the public domain.
It seems like many firms that are TOO developer-friendly end up sacrificing quality a bit.
because I don't know if lesser men could handle all those beautiful women, let alone doing "interesting work that's formally advanced and forward thinking"...
The Ideal Architecture Firm: A Checklist
15. employs principles of 'voronoi tessellations' in all the work they do
16. Gives credit where credit is due. It's pretty annoying when a project gets published or receives an award and the design principal or partner takes all the credit.
DML i think sometimes thats not entirely fault of the "principal" of the office, yes i do also hate when not everyone is credited, but some publications or corporations/organizations who award of give "prizes" dont have the vision to ask or credit all the list of collaborators the office sends, some of them dont even ask for the whole names, i mean they're just like, yeah John Doe architecture, thats it... u know what i mean??..but yeah there's also some pricks who just love to take all the credit...
anyways, this was a thread about something else...
17. there's tacos and fresh fruit water always in the office kitchen
18. we can print jokes about the main arch of the firm and hang it around the office
a ping pong table should be in the top 10 for sure
Someone should have an MBA...
So Whistler - would you prefer to be "laid-off" or "work without pay" until some "good" work comes in?
Well, the request was for the "ideal Architecture Firm Checklist" .... its my view that when you take on projects as pure cash flow you really aren't doing the work in the best frame of mind. Its pretty standard for large offices to have to do it because of the burn rate and overhead. I run a smaller firm and when I took on projects just to keep staff the work turned out crappy because it was a bad project to begin with and always tended to get complicated in a bad way and the clients were more challenging than need be and I never made money out of the deal, ( so why do it )
So I prefer to run a smaller more sustainable office where I have more work than I need, turn some projects away and prefer to work on projects that I / we really like, good clients with respectable budgets........ my version of "ideal".
how about a decent health plan
whistler - ok - I get your drift - I keep forgetting the "ideal" part as I go about my workaday role of making payroll for a mid-sized firm twice each month.
actually, I'm quite proud of the employment we provide - while perhaps we don't meet all of the checklist items here (definitely no tacos in the kitchen) we're not doing too shabby.
Our situation from a growth perspective is a bit problematic as our location prevents us from drawing from a larger pool of skill Architects and designers, therefore the staff we have we want to keep and taking on additional work can be a problem as we just can't get high quality staff to assist with the project delivery servicing of our clients needs.
Our situation from a growth perspective is a bit problematic as our location prevents us from drawing from a larger pool of skill Architects and designers, therefore the staff we have we want to keep and taking on additional work can be a problem as we just can't get high quality staff to assist with the project delivery servicing of our clients needs.
we have a lot of those things, the dog wandering around the office for instance, but here is my list anyways with a hint of cynicism:
-a color printer
-chairs without nasty stains and broken wheels/arms
-graphics cards that can handle graphics, no grandma $600 computers where you can e-mail and use ms word but that's about it.
-company purchased software (not the free version of sketch-up and not, "hey you have illustrator? bring it in and install it on this computer" or, "hey, you have photoshop at home right, tonight can you take this file home and..."
-cell phones for employees that get work calls on personal cell phones. it does add up.
-working HVAC
-email storage, I shouldn't have to clean out my inbox every month or two and decide what to keep and what to toss
-education stipend
19. radio paradise piped in overhead.
Strawbeary...
uuu yeah decent chairs perfect, comon, i've been in so many offices where they expect ppl to work +10 hours in chairs where u cannot sit more than 1!!
yeah decent computers, also i've been in some starchitects offices where they have sucha crappy computers and expect u to perform to the top, u end up bringing ur own laptop which is powerfull than the office desktops...
cell phones...yeah another thing, i never give my personal one to bussiness related ppl
anyways....arch offices the same crap all over the world it seems
we r trying to get free spanish lessons...
a sweat shop of little cad monkeys tied to their computers in a little room pumping it all day long.
this has been a really interesting thread to read, and i know i'm a little late but i thought i might get some response...
as i am thinking about going out on my own i agree with the client as a collaborator idea but part of the reason i want to go out on my own and do houses is to get away from the client who is an architect!
can anyone speak to that? so many of my previous clients - health care, condo towers, restuarants, etc have architects or arch grads on staff to do the "design" and then hire the firm to get it drafted, permitted and built as well as make it work/be constructible/massage the design, etc. are any of you who are considering the client speaking about these kinds of clients? and if so, is there anyone out there who likes the collaboration that comes with because the client has been educated in an architecture school?!?
i am all for client education, even if it means hand-holding, but i dont want to work with architects all the time. i want to work with people who NEED architects and contractors who do good work.
funk - I have had an exact opposite experience with clients that have on-staff architects. For instance, a large school district I have experience with. Their staff architect was mostly a facilities manager/owners rep. All the design - schematics thru CA was done by us.
Retail is more similar to what you describe, but even at that the staff architects are more or less interior architects setting up store plans.
Overall, in my opinion, anything larger than a couple million proj cost needs a good owners rep and an experienced architect works just fine.
Where does good design fit into all this? I guess that would be number 1 on my list.
I know we all have different definitions of what makes good design. But I feel that as architects, our first obligation should be to design buildings that enhance the public realm while also innovating in terms of materials, sustainability, and experience.
We have an obligation not only to our clients, but to society, because what we make is in some sense in the public domain.
It seems like many firms that are TOO developer-friendly end up sacrificing quality a bit.
20) More beautiful women, lesser men.
a foosball table?
"lesser men"? rather than less men?,
because I don't know if lesser men could handle all those beautiful women, let alone doing "interesting work that's formally advanced and forward thinking"...
touche
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.