You could come to work for me.

sounds good...where do i sign? do you really have a firm or work in the area? if you do i would like to ask you a few questions...

i'm not sure what's going on in new haven - most of the yale professors have their practices in new york. it does have the biggest and best club scene between nyc and the casino though.

I'll move back the day that CT actually starts to make progress. I think it could happen fairly soon, and it was supposed to happen, but hasn't.

The river is gorgeous and there are many nice areas, but I don't think there is any real 'movement.'

Look at places like Stamford for more progressive development (more upscale, closer to NY).

There are probably great development opps there, but there is also so much open land that your competition could just building something next door.

I am interested in this as well too. I recently moved to the Hartford area from down South and am trying to understand the culture here. I have done a bit of research and it seems like there are some decent firms here. A lot of the work also seems to be in the education sector. I would like to compare notes if anyone is interested.

If Connecticut could just get rid of all of the political characters it has in its closet, we might be able to move forward.....until then it is the same ole same ole.

chase....your comment about the yale professors having practices in NY is interesting...anyone know how that relates to the job market in the CT area? ie are the yale grads leaving the area for NYC or is the market pretty saturated with ivy league grads?...i just ask bc boston seems like a very territorial market as far as schooling/job relationship goes (atleast starting out)

hartford is trying to improve, but they have a ways to go. I used to live/work in hartford and for a while it was pretty much dead. still dead on the weekend, but I think it might improve

tskp.com

New Haven and Hartford aren't really the same place, or the same situation. Hartford has more in common with the Springfield, MA area. There are a number of larger firms in the area, and Hartford does have the University of Hartford as its architecture school, but that's hardly large enough to staff those big firms so the pool of architects tends to be a little more diverse than in New Haven. Larger firms around Hartford do a lot of schools, government work, small-town municipal projects throughout the upper part of the state, university projects, and public housing.
New Haven has over 100 firms in the New Haven area alone, many of which are very small, but there are 4 or 5 large firms and a variety in-between. Many Yale professors and alums do have firms locally. It is clearly a Yale-dominated architecture scene, but there are enough firms and enough work to provide plenty of jobs to anybody without Yale (or Ivy) affiliations. Working for Yale profs is kind of a hit and miss proposition. Some of those firms tend to follow the part-time schedules and projects of the profs, or leave young employees alone much of the time to fend for themselves. But there are plenty of other firms. With smaller firms much of the work in southern CT is of course residential. There's a lot of competition, and many of the firms do work throughout New England and in suburbs of NYC.

Nutmeggers!

To decode the comparison to Springfield, Ma: These cities have been in decline for 60+ years. Lots of fantastic old factory/ industrial space with nothing to fill them. The perception for Northern CT and Western MA is the larger towns like Hartford and Springfield are poor and crime ridden while the surrounding smaller towns are doing the places to be.

just yell,
I interned at tskp, and the gc I worked for worked with them. They're probably one of the best firms in ct (in my experience)

citizen4nr Why did you enjoy your experience so much at TSKP? The project types? the office enviroment?

Any opinions on Pelli-Clarke-Pelli, Perkins + Will, or TRO in terms or places to work for as well as quality of work?

P+W is a newer office in the area and is less than 20 people with half being i.d. I think they are growing and still trying to establish themselves. P+W is a huge and recognized firm.

I heard that TRO Jung Brannen does a good bit of interiors but you may want to double check. And I am not too familiar with Pelli.

I would recommend looking into SLAM, JCJ, Tai Soo Kim, and Schoenhardt. The are all heavy design and vary in tems of office culture.

SLAM: SCHOOL PROJECTS
JCJ: CASINOS
TAI SOO KIM: MYSTERY PROJECTS
SCHOENHART: WHO ARE THEY?

Seems like New Haven has a fair amount of small practices. George Knight, formerly of Pelli, started his own firm and has hired Yale students/grads: he's at knightarchitecture.com. He's incredibly nice and a sane person to work for, from what I've heard of friends who have worked with him. Similarly, I hear that Pelli is busy but compensates well; for those who have longer working relationships with the firm and then go back to school or work on competitions, there's the opportunity to work more flexibly -- though this would not be so straightforward if you were a heavy-duty, full-time employee, I'd assume.

does anyone know the inner working of pelli as far as what services they provide...are they more of a design firm that takes projects from concept through DD and dishes the work off to a 3rd party for CD production? if so im assuming this might not be the firm for someone who is trying to complete there idp...any opinions?

just yell,
tsk work as an intern: friendly helpful bosses (they never treated me like crap)
reputation while working for a contractor: their cd's are better than most of the other architects. just better attention to detail.
I'm not saying they're perfect, these are just my observations from my personal experience with them.

mrbrightsides: Pell's office does partner with other firms to do their CDs - but not on every project. There are CD's done in-office too - what percentage of projects this happens on seems to vary with the total workload and staffing. There are people who stay there throughout IDP and manage to get all their units.
citizen4nr: I've worked in a bunch of firms and have yet to meet a contractor anywhere who hasn't told me that whatever firm I'm working for does the best cd's - better, more detailed, fewer mistakes, more comprehensive, more understandable, whatever... I've even had the same contractor tell me this about two different competing firms - so always take that with a grain of salt - it's standard contractor schmoozing procedure!

mrbrightsides,
Other firms in New Haven include Picard Chilton: Jon Picard came from Pelli's office. Generally, like PCP, they usually work with Archictects of Record for CD's.
Kevin Roche John Dinkeloo and Associates is also near New Haven, but seems to be in decline while they work out succession issues. But they have a terrific reputation for producing CD's. If that is your interest, you should consider speaking with them about the production studio.
Another smaller firm with interesting work is Beinfield Architecture in So. Norwalk. Beyond that, most firms in New Haven and Fairfield Cos. are very traditional in their design.
What are you interested in? i.e. building type, etc.

Very interesting comments, and similar to what i've gleaned from other sources.

I'm 1 yr out of my March1, been working in Albany, NY and will be moving to New Haven in months, mostly because the work and firms here seem somewhat dismal.

Anyone know of offices that are hiring? The scene (if i trust my correspondents) is internally networked enough that I'm probably better off to find leads via networking than waiting for job adverts.

FOG Lite is 100% on the Hartford/Springfield comparison. Both cities are fairly miserable but the surrounding areas aren't half bad. That being said, I left that area for Boston as soon as I had a chance to get out.

This seems timely: link

I enjoyed New Haven while I was in grad school at Yale, but I always had the perception that living there as a professional would be a bit depressing.