those firms you mentioned are the exception not the rule...get out now, run lad run!!!

yes, i know that they are more design-conscious than most engineering firms...but what do architects do there?

I know you make a lot more green at an engineering firm.

as a start, you can try going to the job postings on various engineering office websites and look at the job descriptions of positions offered to those with an architectural degree. you might get an idea about the main tasks and responsibilities. or even browse the job titles and you can speculate on which ones can be performed by someone with an architectural background and then peep the description. I'm also thinking of working for an engineering office.

I image architects at arup do get to design things as many of their latest projects, like Dongtan eco-city are stand alone operations with no input from outside architects.

I had a good mate who worked at an enginneeing practice - local nothing fancy. He got to design loads of stuff but was continually told about the cost, the complexity of the structural layout, etc etc. The engineers didn't understand why he would try and push design...feeling more happy with a CAD file of spaces/details to be revamped with each new project

there is lots of opportunities for coordination and project management... we've all seen what happens when engineers try to talk to architects, so it's better to let an architect do the speaking for the engineers.

so, treekiller, do you think that an engineering firm would actually hire an architect as a PM to direct engineers and tell them how to go about stuff?

anyone out there who has actually worked for any of these firms?

btw, does anyone know about the work or has worked with these dutch engineers: "AKT en Invents"?

that was a joke that architects can't talk with engineers.

what about just a regular old a/e firm? that is pretty common stuff.

There are a couple good things about being the only architect in a large engineering firm.

You get to be the sole expert.
No one questions your decisions.
Access to vast resources.
Better than average pay and benefits.

I can see how it would vary a lot from firm to firm, but generally i think there can be a lot of advantages to working at an engineering firm. You just need to be sure that they are actually interested in what an architect can offer. I work at one of the world's largest engineering firms.

I worked at Buro Happold in NY last summer. They had archs in their sustainability group, and also in the building simulation group. Also, there was an arch in one of the structures groups who was primarily doing revit modeling, as far as I could tell.

thnks gbrainard...so what did the architects in the sustainability group do? actual designs? what was your experience like? i am looking into these kind of firms for summer internships, and would really appreciate any advice/comments.

we had a similar discussion in my office, but we wondering about the landscape architects that work in architecture offices

*dodges beer bottles*

I've been the sole LA in an arch firm, and the sole arch in an LA firm. both ways its been fun.

bertolu, you seem to have very little experience doing what architects do. most of what we do isn't designing buildings. so making a building happen in an engineering office isn't any different - coordinating, researching, calculating, drawing, and so on.

most interships i've done in the past have been only in the design phase of projects, ie. competitons, preliminary designs, never the actual building part. hence my interest in engineering firms, i think i could get that side of the experience from such places...

berto, as far as BH, the sustainability group is focusing on big projects (masterplanning scale). So we were doing research, feasibility studies, coordination, and the like. this sounds like not quite what you're looking for.

Interesting thread! I work in a small team of architectural staff in an engineering company. The disadvantage for us is that the management and the majority of the project members seem to see us as the guys who do the drawings and add a superficial 'design' to the product. We have to shout louder to prove our worth!

I'm working in a facade engineering department in an engineering firm. There are 1/3 of the architects and 2/3 of structure and M&E Engineers. Our responsibility is to cooridinate well with the design architects and coordinate with the engineering. Moreover, we do curtain wall detailing that most of the architect company are not specialising in. Personally, I quite enjoy the dynamic working with the engineers and I like to do detailing, so I'm quite satisfied with the job now.

I am an architect working at Buro Happold NY. gbrainard is correct, we do have quite a few architects working in the office as well as a number of architectural interns. These people are in the Sustainability group, the computation simulation and analysis group, and the complex geometry group. The architect gbrainard mentioned is in the complex geometry group (as am I), and we do alot of revit but mostly for the use of resolving complex geometry. May seem counterintuitive, but the revit structure is our primary software for documentation and bim purposes. Somehow all the complex geometry that is created in other modeling prgrams needs to be put into construction documents and much of the work we do is either translating that geometry into revit or as in the case of what my coleague has become an expert in, resolving geomtric complexities natively within revit through scripting. We do have a number of revit techincians in the office so documentation of most projects (non-complex) is done by them.

The associate in charge of our group is a licensed architect and licenced engineer. The associate leading the computational analysis group is also a trained architect.

gbrainard.. .who are you?

thanks for your replies, that is exactly what I wanted to know.

any other comments from architects working at engineering firms r welcome!

hey monkeyboy... i tried to email you, but perhaps the message didn't get through. drop me a line - i'd love to hear more about what you're doing at BHNY.

I know for a fact that you make more money at an engineering company. Definitely less stress, no crazy work hours.