ok - i agree with the "work needs to be done" mentality in the last couple of comments, and although i believe good offices need to be flexible, so do their employees, married, children, single or hungover...the slackers out there are slackers regardless of marital/child status...
HOWEVER, if i were to put myself in a position to lay off a large group of staff, their families would count on my decision making process - that's being human in my book (that's my personal opinion). I will go further: the second of six waves of lay-offs in my office included someone who was married for a few months, bought a house one month before, and had his first child the week before said lay-off; he took it in stride, and luckly found employment within a couple of weeks - the remaining staff took notice, and never looked at the leadership the same way, and i never felt so sh*tty and guilty about a layoff in my whole life.
As someone who has participated in more of these decisions over the years than I find comfortable, I've learned that there are no criteria for such decisions that will make sense to everybody.
I believe that most firms, faced with the need to reduce staff, probably look first at which of their employees are engaged in projects that would suffer if they left, and which of their employees represent solid long-term potential. I know that's always been the starting point in all the firms where I've been. However, I'm sure not all firms will take this approach.
But, at the end of the day, you still are forced into making decisions that - no matter how you slice them - still SUCK. We're forced into making decisions that negatively impact people's lives -- often severely. The human part of a person generally tries to soften the blow and sometimes leads to decisions that aren't fundamentally the best "business" decision.
I recognize the flaws that occur in the thinking sometimes, but I can live with that. I want to be "human" first and "business like" second. Hopefully, those two dimensions can be balanced to a reasonable degree.
I've seen a firm partner - a mother - work her damn ass off during a year-long battle with breast cancer (thankfully, she won). I've also seen 20-somethings call out sick because they had a hangover.
Again, everyone has their own ideas about what constitutes working hard enough. I understand how frustrating it is for young staff to feel that parents are getting more slack on work load, but I'm also confident that those young staffers will, after working hard in the beginning of their careers, have a new perspective should they become parents. That was certainly my path - and yes, I've on occasion called out sick because I was hungover!
I just want someone to make this prolonged nightmare go away.
From a 20-something year old's perspective (without a souse and kids but would really like to have them sometime in the near future) it really puts us in quite a bind.
I've seen many people get laid off who arent even close to finishing IDP. And with that garbage 6-month rule all that IDP experience vanishes as if it never happened. So when these people want to get back into the profession (God knows when that's going to be) they would Essentially be starting from scratch -- all that experience down the drain. And the worse part about it is the waiting game -- they have no idea when they can be architects again!
I mean I agree that the AIA has its advantages, but for the most part many of us see it as a glorified country club largely in cahoots with those working against our profession.
blackflag and BlueGoose bring rationalism to the table. If anything it's not about if you're married (i'm not) or have kids (i will soon) - but it's about will the project suffer without you there. And I know others have mentioned before on this- but you need to make yourself invaluable to every project. How you accomplish that is up to you. Just staying late and/or getting in the office early doesn't mean you're invaluable- it sometimes means you're more costly to keep on the project. But just doing your "8 hours" without having accomplished anything is just as costly and worthless.
And I'm waiting for the judgement on the fact I'm not married- but do have a significant other- and *shutter* am expecting....
"the AIA has its advantages, but for the most part many of us see it as a glorified country club largely in cahoots with those working against our profession"
.... oh, please!
if you had any direct association with the AIA you'd understand the total absurdity of that statement.
As has been stated repeatedly here on archinect. "we" are the AIA ... the Institute is not some abstract concept ... it is the members of the profession working toward some common goal(s). It is only as effective as the efforts of the members make it.
Those who complain so bitterly about the AIA tend to be those who are doing so from the unwelcome position of outsiders. IMHO, if you're not a member, actively engaged in the work of the Institute, you have no credible basis for your complaints.
Can someone explain how the 6 month rule applies adversely in this case? It would seem like a good idea if you got laid off to go ahead and document all of your IDP from the firm you are leaving, and get it signed off on...
med, are you arguing that w/o the 6 month rule, somehow a person would get laid off, leave the profession for a few years, and then decide to go back to architecture, re-approach their old firm about signing off on IDP hours from before they got laid off? why not just get it all signed off on when you leave or soon thereafter?
there's also an implication in your last post that the AIA somehow controls/runs NCARB, which they don't.
As I read NCARB's revised regs, the 6-month rule applies only to the requirement to document and report experience within a certain time frame or it won't count toward IDP. That's not something that will be impacted by an individual being laid off...being laid off won't prevent you from documenting and reporting work experience that occurred prior to the layoff. Besides, the 6-month rule doesn't go into effect until July 1, 2010 -- if we're lucky, maybe this economic mess will have passed by then.
I believe this rule is intended soley to ensure that work experience is documented in a timely manner -- making it much easier, and more accurate, for both the firm and the intern to remember what the experience entailed. I can't see how this is a bad rule since I see so many interns who seem to wait for an extraordinarly long time to document their professional experience.
Also -- to reinforce gresham's point -- AIA and NCARB are totally separate organizations with totally separate governance structures. If you have a beef with NCARB, take it up with NCARB.
I think what med is referring to is a rule under IDP in which experience does not count unless you worked for a given employer for six consecutive months at minimum. So if you work there for 5.5 month's and get laid off you can not claim that as work experience under IDP.
Med
"The 6 month rule" is a separate rule that NCARB has instituted which refers to filing for experience credit.
"... - but you need to make yourself invaluable to every project. How you accomplish that is up to you."
+i has a very valid point...something to keep in mind though is if you're working in a large firm (in particular), and there are 10 people on your team, and you're all working on a single project - and that's all you're working on - you will want to consider becoming invaluable beyond the project itself - i.e. specialization, client relations, expert in technology, "go-to" guy for BIM, LEED, etc..
being a good employee is not enough, gotta have the long term value (whatever that may be), it's hard work.
then again, being the offspring of the boss or marrying into the family helps, too.
I hear med's complaint, but I think it stems from a lack of proper representation of interns within the AIA, and a continued ineffectiveness of both the AIA and NCARB to educate and the latter to enforce proper mentoring and training. NCARB's 6-month rule is an attempt at holding interns more accountable (NCARB is apparently working on an alternative due to the current economic situation, but is moving too slowly, IMO), but neither organization seems very successful at helping interns advocate for their own training, and getting the message across to firms that strong professional development is actually beneficial to business.
There are things like this: intern architect friendly firm program at the Boston society of architects - but how many firms actually pay attention to this?
anyway - med - you are aware that NCARB and the AIA are two wholly separate institutions? the AIA is a dues-paying professional organization that advocates for the preservation of our profession - NCARB is the umbrella organization for state licensing boards.
last post- and how do I know that NCARB is working on an alternative to the 6-month minimum rule due to the current economic climate? I asked them about it.
Not to quibble, but the NCARB IDP Guidelines published in July 2009 establish the following criteria:
To earn training units in most work settings, you must meet the following requirements: FULL TIME: 32 hours per week for a minimum period of eight consecutive weeks PART TIME: At least 15 hours per week for a minimum period of eight consecutive weeks
Maybe I'm missing something, but I just don't see anything that says "experience does not count unless you worked for a given employer for six consecutive months at a minimum"
Yes it defiantly used to be six months because there is a bunch of work I was not able to count because of that... if they changed it then I will be re-submitting my work.
apologize for blowing up earlier - thought a lot about things....
not everyone laid off at my ex-firm was a "family" person. one of the best guys i had working with me was a single guy. the guy was on another level of consciousness (sp? i could care less) when it came to CAD - management, short cuts - he was a workhorse with logic and thus efficient as hell. never worked late - didn't need to because he got his stuff done and then some. the catch? no degree - basically had a mid-life change of plans and went to C.C. to learn CAD.
the working late "trait" is a badge of honor in the profession - but it's not always effecient / cost-effective.
reasons for lay-offs? single? licensed? married? - none of this really matters. effecient? dedicated? experienced? - no, that doesn't save you either. these are unique times, unfortunately there is not a lot of rhyme or reason. as much as i hate being in this state of unemployment, i know the guys at my ex-firm and others cringe at having to do these staff reductions. how they're not hitting the bottle or worse, i wouldn't blame them. it's painful when you stick up for someone to be promoted and then have to turn around a year later and say "i've got to let you go".....
... and in those 5 years I have had enough bullshit between NCARB, the state board, and Prometrics that I've decided it's not worth getting licensed for what I want to do.
some of the confusion about "minimum duration" may arise from the fact that the different state licensing boards set their own requirements about this criteria and NCARB defers to those state boards.
I've written NCARB directly on this question and will report back here if I receive an answer.
toasteroven wrote: but I think it stems from a lack of proper representation of interns within the AIA, and a continued ineffectiveness of both the AIA and NCARB to educate and the latter to enforce proper mentoring and training.
The AIA NAAB and NCARB all have members or seats on their boards appointed by the other organization to promote effective communication. The American Institute of Architecture Students is the organization that deals with interns and lead a very successful campaign to force starchitect offices to pay their inters by organizing a nationwide boycott of their speaking engagements. Michael Graves, Frank Gehry, Renzo Piano and the like make more money speaking at colleges and universities at 20-50K a pop then the actual billings from their design practice. I know when I was head of the guest speaker series where I went to undergrad we wrote into the bylaws that we cannot do business with individuals who do not pay their interns. The AIAS has a seat at the national board for the AIA and NAAB and their national offices are located in the national office building of the AIA. When a school is visited by an NAAB team at least one of the team members is an AIAS representative. AIAS also has representatives involved in the IDP program and pushed for the current system as well as the recent rule changes.
But the AIAS is not for everyone and there is a representation gap between licensed and Student. This is where I am and it is frustrating. I don’t know how many hours working at an office that were wasted since I had all of my CD and systems integration credits done, some credits are much harder to get than others IE Site supervision.
IDP, I think the idea that credits expire in 6 months is incorrect, but you do need to maintain your file which cost $$$$ last I recall it was $60 ish. Let your file close and reopen it and it is much more. In fact the rule changes that came along with the 6 month filling deadline also included a wonderful change that allows you to log IDP credits under the supervision of licensed architects from different states.
pjn26 - there is a group within aia that bridges that gap. it's the national associates committee. they have all the same structure the aias has - a permanent seat on the board, liaisons to every other major committee, etc. granted, associates can cover other people than simply those who are not yet licensed, but the vast majority of associates are traditional career path architects who simply are not licensed yet.
i'm not sure i've ever seen an architect that could charge 50k a lecture - want to name a name on that one? the highest i ever saw working on a lecture series was gehry at 10k. almost everyone below the biggest superstars was 1k plus travel. maybe the times have changed in the past few years....
Gehry was the one who asked for 50K 25K per day he would be away from the office. Zahad was even more, we passed and went for James Whines instead and I think he was a lot more fun. The more prestigious the school the lower the speaking fees so a public school just beginning their B arch program is going to pay more than Yale or Berkley. Many of these architects have agents managing their speaking tours and other PR stuff much like a celebrity musician or Film or TV star would.
pjn26 - wow. that's crazy. we actually got his partner (at the time) to come down to tech to lecture about bim (in the early days). he rocked. did a lunch, everything else. cost us travel costs only, which he split with a project they had on the east coast at the time.
i can't imagine how any of those super, super stars would be worth that much...
80 grit - absolutely. looking to push other design related material we have, as well as one non design related side business.
you have to be able to cross market yourself. when times are tough you have to rely on your secondary skills to make some side money. as for myself, i worked in the trades and doing design/build, i learn basics of plumbing/electrical/etc and every now and then this is what puts a few extra dollars in my pocket. then getting into graphic design and photography as another paying outlet....
i hope the best for everyone.... i have been there too many times and have learned real quick that you have to have other plans already going so you can jump to another ship when needed.....
article on job insecurity stress that may be of interest (apparently it's worse to feel like your job is about to be cut than to be actually unemployed...)
firm in north texas "gfnf" let 9 people go last monday (down to 60+, previously 100+ in january). included in this batch were licensed architects, leed ap's, and revit users. project types included retail and commercial.
rtkl in dallas hired some contract workers (previously layed off architects) in february - some of their contracts will be out next month so they're thinking about their next move.
on a lighter note, a few real estate developers and small architecture firms (under 50 persons) have recently hired in the area for unadvertised positions.
New Mexico finally started seeing the effects of the recession around June of this year, largely due to the increased amount of out-of-state offices coming in and getting the work and also the increased amount of local offices competing for state and government work that previosly they didn't bother with. About the only projects going on right now are education projects, many of which are just accessibility improvements and reroofing. Commercial work is all but non-existent.
Many offices in Albuquerque have started to shed employees (myself included) over the last few months and are really struggling to stay afloat now that they actually have some competition for work. The potential up side is that hopefully these places that have been doing the same boring work year after year will start to rethink their dated models of production and actually start producing some decent and relevant work in this state. It's hard to say though, since NM is something of a third-world country.
Thanks, also LOL @ third-world country comment. I'm from New Mexico and that's why I love New Mexico.
I haven't been able to get exact figures but it doesn't seem like Santa Fe's market has been hit too bad. I say that because permits haven't seemed to drop much over the course of the last two years. In fact, the falling housing prices seem to be encouraging suburbanism in Santa Fe.
Not to get into another suburbs vs. city argument, building suburbs in the desert is absolutely retarded.
Since most firms are private, it is hard to gauge what exactly they are doing. I picked Santa Fe because of it's protectionist aesthetic qualities-- meaning the forcing of style in Santa Fe means that most of the work is done by Santa Fe architects.
It actually seems the firms are so small that it'd be hard to even call them botique firms. So, I kind of want to sell myself as an assistant. Like, I do not want to even do planning anymore.
I recently found out that a family member formed a corporation for his buisness about a year and a half ago... and listed me legally as the CFO because I rountinely give him advice, set up his accounting system and gave him templates to do his own marketing.
So, now I have a year and a half worth of experience as an executive in a company that grosses a million and a half a year.
Should I list this on my resume? Would it be fraudulent?
"I picked Santa Fe because of it's protectionist aesthetic qualities-- meaning the forcing of style in Santa Fe means that most of the work is done by Santa Fe architects."
Ha! It's funny because that's exactly the reason I hate living here. Design decisions are all predetermined so most projects feel like little more than selecting something out of a catalog. Just add stucco!
I think in that part of the world... restricted design choices may actually be a benefit. I'm all for expression but sometimes I kind of feel like expression architecturally is like being at a hipster dance party.
Everyone is "expressing" themselves to such an extent that you start to just ignore it all.
I guess if you're an Architect... being in Santa Fe must suck but I do applaud them for starting and sticking with a tradition.
Like I said, to each their own. Obviously there is enough of an interest for there to be people doing it.
For me Santa Fe has becoming something of a stylistic pastiche purely for the entertainment of east coast yuppies out to buy Georgia O'Keefe knockoffs and Turquoise jewelery. It's all totally fake and all totally the same building copied 100 times.
I'm not saying Santa Fe/New Mexico needs Frank Gehry to throw metal shit everywhere but at least something Dwell magazine worthy on more than a random fluke basis would be nice. After you've spent 3 years doing projects with the same faux stone buttress, same stucco reveals, same structureless wood trellis, etc. it gets really old. When the most exciting detail of the project is the entry canopy, well I think you see where I am going.
It's all a personal call though. There were plenty of people at my old office that loved what they were doing and had no interest in doing any differently. I was not one of those people and likely was a reason for me getting axed. The lack of jobs elsewhere and the ability to live at home right now means I'm either looking at sucking it up and trying to get another job here making Disneyland-Southwest or working retail for Christmas. Between the two, I think I am choosing retail.
and we can collect the tears of east coast tourists and crunchy santa fe hippies when they see their town defiled with "crazy futuristic architecture" in little keepsake jars and sell them at a mall kiosk during the holidays!
I know this is off topic but in regards to Santa Fe I do not think keeping to a faux aesthetic is productive in keeping and "sticking with a tradition"
The tradition was adobe, not wood frame stucco. Now the tradition is just a style applied to facades. How is that not a form of expressionism? There is no true historical use, just the appropriated aesthetic which is not truly historic.
And Santa Fe is full of West Coasters and Texans as much as East Coasters. It is basically a museum tourist "place" that is supported by museum funds from Houston, LA, and New York. For instance almost all the exhibits at Site Santa Fe are supported by the MFAH, MOMA, etc.
Then there are also the life size oil paintings of Troy Aikman available in the Plaza galleries...highlighting the regional craft of Santa Fe. Or as the locals like to refer to it, Fanta Se.
My firm has an office in Albuquerque. I have no idea how they are doing but from what I gather all of our western US offices are slow and/or struggling.
My last time in Santa Fe years ago, a gentleman nicknamed Eye Ball took me and the first Mrs out to dinner. We were picked up in a limo and taken to this wonderful resturant where a naked lady painting hangs over the bar. Apparently she had been taken down and at the request of the clients put back in place. So there be you links to the old west. We had a great dinner and EyeBall was such a know regular that no bill came to the table. We just got up and left when the evening was over. One of the stories Eye Ball told was about when he was a young man and thinking about building a house. He set an appointment with Philip Johnson for a meeting. He showed up to the meeting and Johnson was running late but since he had flown in from Texas he just waited for him to show up. Johnson came flying thru the front door and saw Eye Ball sitting there in the lobby and miss took him for someone who was to assist him that afternoon,
where he was hanging pictures at a Rockerfeller residence. He told Eye Ball, "come along, we have things to do" So Eye Ball went off and spent the day listening to Johnson impatiently telling him to adjust the painting one way and then another. At the end of the day on the way back to the office Eye Ball, managed to edge in that he had considered hiring him to design his house, but after an afternoon with him he would look other places. I can say Eye Ball lived a good live, private Jet, Summers in Southern France, and oh ya a member of the Board for the Santa Fe Opera.
Layoffs....layoffs......
ok - i agree with the "work needs to be done" mentality in the last couple of comments, and although i believe good offices need to be flexible, so do their employees, married, children, single or hungover...the slackers out there are slackers regardless of marital/child status...
HOWEVER, if i were to put myself in a position to lay off a large group of staff, their families would count on my decision making process - that's being human in my book (that's my personal opinion). I will go further: the second of six waves of lay-offs in my office included someone who was married for a few months, bought a house one month before, and had his first child the week before said lay-off; he took it in stride, and luckly found employment within a couple of weeks - the remaining staff took notice, and never looked at the leadership the same way, and i never felt so sh*tty and guilty about a layoff in my whole life.
I am haunted by layoffs.
As someone who has participated in more of these decisions over the years than I find comfortable, I've learned that there are no criteria for such decisions that will make sense to everybody.
I believe that most firms, faced with the need to reduce staff, probably look first at which of their employees are engaged in projects that would suffer if they left, and which of their employees represent solid long-term potential. I know that's always been the starting point in all the firms where I've been. However, I'm sure not all firms will take this approach.
But, at the end of the day, you still are forced into making decisions that - no matter how you slice them - still SUCK. We're forced into making decisions that negatively impact people's lives -- often severely. The human part of a person generally tries to soften the blow and sometimes leads to decisions that aren't fundamentally the best "business" decision.
I recognize the flaws that occur in the thinking sometimes, but I can live with that. I want to be "human" first and "business like" second. Hopefully, those two dimensions can be balanced to a reasonable degree.
I've seen a firm partner - a mother - work her damn ass off during a year-long battle with breast cancer (thankfully, she won). I've also seen 20-somethings call out sick because they had a hangover.
Again, everyone has their own ideas about what constitutes working hard enough. I understand how frustrating it is for young staff to feel that parents are getting more slack on work load, but I'm also confident that those young staffers will, after working hard in the beginning of their careers, have a new perspective should they become parents. That was certainly my path - and yes, I've on occasion called out sick because I was hungover!
I just want someone to make this prolonged nightmare go away.
From a 20-something year old's perspective (without a souse and kids but would really like to have them sometime in the near future) it really puts us in quite a bind.
I've seen many people get laid off who arent even close to finishing IDP. And with that garbage 6-month rule all that IDP experience vanishes as if it never happened. So when these people want to get back into the profession (God knows when that's going to be) they would Essentially be starting from scratch -- all that experience down the drain. And the worse part about it is the waiting game -- they have no idea when they can be architects again!
I mean I agree that the AIA has its advantages, but for the most part many of us see it as a glorified country club largely in cahoots with those working against our profession.
hi LB- sorry for not emailing yet- but I will.
blackflag and BlueGoose bring rationalism to the table. If anything it's not about if you're married (i'm not) or have kids (i will soon) - but it's about will the project suffer without you there. And I know others have mentioned before on this- but you need to make yourself invaluable to every project. How you accomplish that is up to you. Just staying late and/or getting in the office early doesn't mean you're invaluable- it sometimes means you're more costly to keep on the project. But just doing your "8 hours" without having accomplished anything is just as costly and worthless.
And I'm waiting for the judgement on the fact I'm not married- but do have a significant other- and *shutter* am expecting....
.... oh, please!
if you had any direct association with the AIA you'd understand the total absurdity of that statement.
As has been stated repeatedly here on archinect. "we" are the AIA ... the Institute is not some abstract concept ... it is the members of the profession working toward some common goal(s). It is only as effective as the efforts of the members make it.
Those who complain so bitterly about the AIA tend to be those who are doing so from the unwelcome position of outsiders. IMHO, if you're not a member, actively engaged in the work of the Institute, you have no credible basis for your complaints.
File, why the 6 month rule? Especially in light of so many people getting laid off? No one has ever been able to answer this.
Can someone explain how the 6 month rule applies adversely in this case? It would seem like a good idea if you got laid off to go ahead and document all of your IDP from the firm you are leaving, and get it signed off on...
med, are you arguing that w/o the 6 month rule, somehow a person would get laid off, leave the profession for a few years, and then decide to go back to architecture, re-approach their old firm about signing off on IDP hours from before they got laid off? why not just get it all signed off on when you leave or soon thereafter?
there's also an implication in your last post that the AIA somehow controls/runs NCARB, which they don't.
med ... you may misunderstand the 6-month rule.
As I read NCARB's revised regs, the 6-month rule applies only to the requirement to document and report experience within a certain time frame or it won't count toward IDP. That's not something that will be impacted by an individual being laid off...being laid off won't prevent you from documenting and reporting work experience that occurred prior to the layoff. Besides, the 6-month rule doesn't go into effect until July 1, 2010 -- if we're lucky, maybe this economic mess will have passed by then.
I believe this rule is intended soley to ensure that work experience is documented in a timely manner -- making it much easier, and more accurate, for both the firm and the intern to remember what the experience entailed. I can't see how this is a bad rule since I see so many interns who seem to wait for an extraordinarly long time to document their professional experience.
Also -- to reinforce gresham's point -- AIA and NCARB are totally separate organizations with totally separate governance structures. If you have a beef with NCARB, take it up with NCARB.
I think what med is referring to is a rule under IDP in which experience does not count unless you worked for a given employer for six consecutive months at minimum. So if you work there for 5.5 month's and get laid off you can not claim that as work experience under IDP.
Med
"The 6 month rule" is a separate rule that NCARB has instituted which refers to filing for experience credit.
"... - but you need to make yourself invaluable to every project. How you accomplish that is up to you."
+i has a very valid point...something to keep in mind though is if you're working in a large firm (in particular), and there are 10 people on your team, and you're all working on a single project - and that's all you're working on - you will want to consider becoming invaluable beyond the project itself - i.e. specialization, client relations, expert in technology, "go-to" guy for BIM, LEED, etc..
being a good employee is not enough, gotta have the long term value (whatever that may be), it's hard work.
then again, being the offspring of the boss or marrying into the family helps, too.
just a foot note...carry on.
I hear med's complaint, but I think it stems from a lack of proper representation of interns within the AIA, and a continued ineffectiveness of both the AIA and NCARB to educate and the latter to enforce proper mentoring and training. NCARB's 6-month rule is an attempt at holding interns more accountable (NCARB is apparently working on an alternative due to the current economic situation, but is moving too slowly, IMO), but neither organization seems very successful at helping interns advocate for their own training, and getting the message across to firms that strong professional development is actually beneficial to business.
There are things like this: intern architect friendly firm program at the Boston society of architects - but how many firms actually pay attention to this?
anyway - med - you are aware that NCARB and the AIA are two wholly separate institutions? the AIA is a dues-paying professional organization that advocates for the preservation of our profession - NCARB is the umbrella organization for state licensing boards.
oh - anyone know what happened to archvoices.org? nothing since 2006?
all you youngsters might want to read up here on the history and ongoing debate over IDP.
last post- and how do I know that NCARB is working on an alternative to the 6-month minimum rule due to the current economic climate? I asked them about it.
Not to quibble, but the NCARB IDP Guidelines published in July 2009 establish the following criteria:
To earn training units in most work settings, you must meet the following requirements:
FULL TIME: 32 hours per week for a minimum period of eight consecutive weeks
PART TIME: At least 15 hours per week for a minimum period of eight consecutive weeks
Maybe I'm missing something, but I just don't see anything that says "experience does not count unless you worked for a given employer for six consecutive months at a minimum"
file- they must have changed it recently - It used to be 6 months minimum. I asked them that question back in may, though...
Yes it defiantly used to be six months because there is a bunch of work I was not able to count because of that... if they changed it then I will be re-submitting my work.
apologize for blowing up earlier - thought a lot about things....
not everyone laid off at my ex-firm was a "family" person. one of the best guys i had working with me was a single guy. the guy was on another level of consciousness (sp? i could care less) when it came to CAD - management, short cuts - he was a workhorse with logic and thus efficient as hell. never worked late - didn't need to because he got his stuff done and then some. the catch? no degree - basically had a mid-life change of plans and went to C.C. to learn CAD.
the working late "trait" is a badge of honor in the profession - but it's not always effecient / cost-effective.
reasons for lay-offs? single? licensed? married? - none of this really matters. effecient? dedicated? experienced? - no, that doesn't save you either. these are unique times, unfortunately there is not a lot of rhyme or reason. as much as i hate being in this state of unemployment, i know the guys at my ex-firm and others cringe at having to do these staff reductions. how they're not hitting the bottle or worse, i wouldn't blame them. it's painful when you stick up for someone to be promoted and then have to turn around a year later and say "i've got to let you go".....
toaster: perhaps it was your questions in May that prompted NCARB to implement the change in time for the July publication of new IDP Guidelines.
who says NCARB doesn't /won't listen to practitioners?
well... I asked them about it 5 years ago...
... and in those 5 years I have had enough bullshit between NCARB, the state board, and Prometrics that I've decided it's not worth getting licensed for what I want to do.
this "changing employment" is a bit unclear, but refers to "minimum duration" which I believe is 6 months:
http://www.ncarb.org/Experience-Through-Internships/~/link.aspx?_id=20B816F2F6D643B69FECB4DF8A41526D&_z=z
see also here for those who are unemployed:
http://www.ncarb.org/Experience-Through-Internships/Meeting-NCARB-Experience-Requirements/Work-Settings/Unemployed-Options.aspx
some of the confusion about "minimum duration" may arise from the fact that the different state licensing boards set their own requirements about this criteria and NCARB defers to those state boards.
I've written NCARB directly on this question and will report back here if I receive an answer.
toasteroven wrote: but I think it stems from a lack of proper representation of interns within the AIA, and a continued ineffectiveness of both the AIA and NCARB to educate and the latter to enforce proper mentoring and training.
The AIA NAAB and NCARB all have members or seats on their boards appointed by the other organization to promote effective communication. The American Institute of Architecture Students is the organization that deals with interns and lead a very successful campaign to force starchitect offices to pay their inters by organizing a nationwide boycott of their speaking engagements. Michael Graves, Frank Gehry, Renzo Piano and the like make more money speaking at colleges and universities at 20-50K a pop then the actual billings from their design practice. I know when I was head of the guest speaker series where I went to undergrad we wrote into the bylaws that we cannot do business with individuals who do not pay their interns. The AIAS has a seat at the national board for the AIA and NAAB and their national offices are located in the national office building of the AIA. When a school is visited by an NAAB team at least one of the team members is an AIAS representative. AIAS also has representatives involved in the IDP program and pushed for the current system as well as the recent rule changes.
But the AIAS is not for everyone and there is a representation gap between licensed and Student. This is where I am and it is frustrating. I don’t know how many hours working at an office that were wasted since I had all of my CD and systems integration credits done, some credits are much harder to get than others IE Site supervision.
IDP, I think the idea that credits expire in 6 months is incorrect, but you do need to maintain your file which cost $$$$ last I recall it was $60 ish. Let your file close and reopen it and it is much more. In fact the rule changes that came along with the 6 month filling deadline also included a wonderful change that allows you to log IDP credits under the supervision of licensed architects from different states.
Does anyone know how Santa Fe is doing?
I decided to move there.
I went to school with on of the archvoices guys. it was basically two people. it ended when he went to law school. he's now with the USGBC.
tvs is down to about a 100 in the ATL??? wow.
my small firm seems to be picking up. but we still don't have money to fix/replace our copier.
pjn26 - there is a group within aia that bridges that gap. it's the national associates committee. they have all the same structure the aias has - a permanent seat on the board, liaisons to every other major committee, etc. granted, associates can cover other people than simply those who are not yet licensed, but the vast majority of associates are traditional career path architects who simply are not licensed yet.
i'm not sure i've ever seen an architect that could charge 50k a lecture - want to name a name on that one? the highest i ever saw working on a lecture series was gehry at 10k. almost everyone below the biggest superstars was 1k plus travel. maybe the times have changed in the past few years....
Santa Fe, i grew up there
always slow
good luck, let me know how that goes
visit the orignal santa fe while you are there Los Cerrillos, and buy my old house ;)
and when i say old i mean 1600's old
Gehry was the one who asked for 50K 25K per day he would be away from the office. Zahad was even more, we passed and went for James Whines instead and I think he was a lot more fun. The more prestigious the school the lower the speaking fees so a public school just beginning their B arch program is going to pay more than Yale or Berkley. Many of these architects have agents managing their speaking tours and other PR stuff much like a celebrity musician or Film or TV star would.
On Archvoices,
John Cary is now with Public Architecture and won Designer of the year 2009 from Contract Magazine
just curious if anyone is looking outside the profession and learning other skill sets......
as i have told my friends for years... diversify yourself....
and don't give me some bullshit saying like 'architecture is my life and.........."
pjn26 - wow. that's crazy. we actually got his partner (at the time) to come down to tech to lecture about bim (in the early days). he rocked. did a lunch, everything else. cost us travel costs only, which he split with a project they had on the east coast at the time.
i can't imagine how any of those super, super stars would be worth that much...
80 grit - absolutely. looking to push other design related material we have, as well as one non design related side business.
you have to be able to cross market yourself. when times are tough you have to rely on your secondary skills to make some side money. as for myself, i worked in the trades and doing design/build, i learn basics of plumbing/electrical/etc and every now and then this is what puts a few extra dollars in my pocket. then getting into graphic design and photography as another paying outlet....
i hope the best for everyone.... i have been there too many times and have learned real quick that you have to have other plans already going so you can jump to another ship when needed.....
article on job insecurity stress that may be of interest (apparently it's worse to feel like your job is about to be cut than to be actually unemployed...)
http://www.livescience.com/health/080828-job-insecurity-health.html
firm in north texas "gfnf" let 9 people go last monday (down to 60+, previously 100+ in january). included in this batch were licensed architects, leed ap's, and revit users. project types included retail and commercial.
rtkl in dallas hired some contract workers (previously layed off architects) in february - some of their contracts will be out next month so they're thinking about their next move.
on a lighter note, a few real estate developers and small architecture firms (under 50 persons) have recently hired in the area for unadvertised positions.
xaia...i believe i'm familiar with "gfnf" - their logo looks similar to the UL logo....i knew some good people there...
Orochi_
New Mexico finally started seeing the effects of the recession around June of this year, largely due to the increased amount of out-of-state offices coming in and getting the work and also the increased amount of local offices competing for state and government work that previosly they didn't bother with. About the only projects going on right now are education projects, many of which are just accessibility improvements and reroofing. Commercial work is all but non-existent.
Many offices in Albuquerque have started to shed employees (myself included) over the last few months and are really struggling to stay afloat now that they actually have some competition for work. The potential up side is that hopefully these places that have been doing the same boring work year after year will start to rethink their dated models of production and actually start producing some decent and relevant work in this state. It's hard to say though, since NM is something of a third-world country.
Thanks, also LOL @ third-world country comment. I'm from New Mexico and that's why I love New Mexico.
I haven't been able to get exact figures but it doesn't seem like Santa Fe's market has been hit too bad. I say that because permits haven't seemed to drop much over the course of the last two years. In fact, the falling housing prices seem to be encouraging suburbanism in Santa Fe.
Not to get into another suburbs vs. city argument, building suburbs in the desert is absolutely retarded.
Since most firms are private, it is hard to gauge what exactly they are doing. I picked Santa Fe because of it's protectionist aesthetic qualities-- meaning the forcing of style in Santa Fe means that most of the work is done by Santa Fe architects.
It actually seems the firms are so small that it'd be hard to even call them botique firms. So, I kind of want to sell myself as an assistant. Like, I do not want to even do planning anymore.
I recently found out that a family member formed a corporation for his buisness about a year and a half ago... and listed me legally as the CFO because I rountinely give him advice, set up his accounting system and gave him templates to do his own marketing.
So, now I have a year and a half worth of experience as an executive in a company that grosses a million and a half a year.
Should I list this on my resume? Would it be fraudulent?
"I picked Santa Fe because of it's protectionist aesthetic qualities-- meaning the forcing of style in Santa Fe means that most of the work is done by Santa Fe architects."
Ha! It's funny because that's exactly the reason I hate living here. Design decisions are all predetermined so most projects feel like little more than selecting something out of a catalog. Just add stucco!
To each their own I guess.
Hey, it's good for business!
I think in that part of the world... restricted design choices may actually be a benefit. I'm all for expression but sometimes I kind of feel like expression architecturally is like being at a hipster dance party.
Everyone is "expressing" themselves to such an extent that you start to just ignore it all.
I guess if you're an Architect... being in Santa Fe must suck but I do applaud them for starting and sticking with a tradition.
Should I just stop looking there, then?
Like I said, to each their own. Obviously there is enough of an interest for there to be people doing it.
For me Santa Fe has becoming something of a stylistic pastiche purely for the entertainment of east coast yuppies out to buy Georgia O'Keefe knockoffs and Turquoise jewelery. It's all totally fake and all totally the same building copied 100 times.
I'm not saying Santa Fe/New Mexico needs Frank Gehry to throw metal shit everywhere but at least something Dwell magazine worthy on more than a random fluke basis would be nice. After you've spent 3 years doing projects with the same faux stone buttress, same stucco reveals, same structureless wood trellis, etc. it gets really old. When the most exciting detail of the project is the entry canopy, well I think you see where I am going.
It's all a personal call though. There were plenty of people at my old office that loved what they were doing and had no interest in doing any differently. I was not one of those people and likely was a reason for me getting axed. The lack of jobs elsewhere and the ability to live at home right now means I'm either looking at sucking it up and trying to get another job here making Disneyland-Southwest or working retail for Christmas. Between the two, I think I am choosing retail.
Maybe I should get a job on the design committee since I have a "planning degree" and let you do whatever you do to offend the Santa Fakes.
... and we'll laugh about it all day long.
I want glow-in-the-dark paint, dichromatic glass, faux fur everywhere and lots of metal. Putting that out upfront.
and we can collect the tears of east coast tourists and crunchy santa fe hippies when they see their town defiled with "crazy futuristic architecture" in little keepsake jars and sell them at a mall kiosk during the holidays!
I know this is off topic but in regards to Santa Fe I do not think keeping to a faux aesthetic is productive in keeping and "sticking with a tradition"
The tradition was adobe, not wood frame stucco. Now the tradition is just a style applied to facades. How is that not a form of expressionism? There is no true historical use, just the appropriated aesthetic which is not truly historic.
And Santa Fe is full of West Coasters and Texans as much as East Coasters. It is basically a museum tourist "place" that is supported by museum funds from Houston, LA, and New York. For instance almost all the exhibits at Site Santa Fe are supported by the MFAH, MOMA, etc.
Then there are also the life size oil paintings of Troy Aikman available in the Plaza galleries...highlighting the regional craft of Santa Fe. Or as the locals like to refer to it, Fanta Se.
My firm has an office in Albuquerque. I have no idea how they are doing but from what I gather all of our western US offices are slow and/or struggling.
<aside>
dot-dash-name, you might enjoy this article by Dave Hickey about the Dialectic Utopias of Santa Fe and Vegas.
<back to layoffs>
i wish i was in santa fe right now having me some huevos rancheros.
My last time in Santa Fe years ago, a gentleman nicknamed Eye Ball took me and the first Mrs out to dinner. We were picked up in a limo and taken to this wonderful resturant where a naked lady painting hangs over the bar. Apparently she had been taken down and at the request of the clients put back in place. So there be you links to the old west. We had a great dinner and EyeBall was such a know regular that no bill came to the table. We just got up and left when the evening was over. One of the stories Eye Ball told was about when he was a young man and thinking about building a house. He set an appointment with Philip Johnson for a meeting. He showed up to the meeting and Johnson was running late but since he had flown in from Texas he just waited for him to show up. Johnson came flying thru the front door and saw Eye Ball sitting there in the lobby and miss took him for someone who was to assist him that afternoon,
where he was hanging pictures at a Rockerfeller residence. He told Eye Ball, "come along, we have things to do" So Eye Ball went off and spent the day listening to Johnson impatiently telling him to adjust the painting one way and then another. At the end of the day on the way back to the office Eye Ball, managed to edge in that he had considered hiring him to design his house, but after an afternoon with him he would look other places. I can say Eye Ball lived a good live, private Jet, Summers in Southern France, and oh ya a member of the Board for the Santa Fe Opera.
here is NM for you, dilapidated and ultra poor : ghost-towny
this one eye guy sounds like the reason we are in the problem we are in now, classism
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