Here's one: Uncle Tony, my father's best friend, a NYC developer, who I'd known for 40 years and done at least half-a-dozen projects with. All at HUGE discounts, of course, because he's a developer and because of the 'family' connection.
Uncle Tony asks me to design a house for him. He negotiates a design/build fee of <15% which I accept for the above reasons as well as needing the work, with a stipulation that if the project doesn't get built I get 2/3 of the full fee for doing the design. Needless to say the fee is fixed on a budget of $1.8m for a project that is in the $2.6m range, which he justifies by his being a developer and saying watch how cheap he's going to build it.
I execute a design that eventually doubles in size due to the various neuroses of his OCD / germophobe wife (the only acceptable entry to her house would be the decontamination facility in Dr. No, except staffed with cheap Eastern European immigrants - I could regale you for hours with stories just about this woman's psychoses but that not the point) and Uncle Tony's developer 'instinct' to max it out. Thus 4,000 sq.ft. turns into 8,000 sq.ft. including a couple of outbuildings.
With the design essentially complete the wife brings in the Feng Shui master from Chinatown, a wizened old man with a young Chinese woman translator. The Master divines the site, checking for spiritual remnants of lost burial grounds and some other stuff intended to impress the mentally unstable. In the end the design passes the Feng Shui test with flying colors - no money leaks, no health leaks, no luck leaks - with the single exception of a toilet facing a door, which was only positioned that way at Uncle Tony's insistence (I don't want to get into what this all means or doesn't but it might be a good subject for another thread).
So now the design is done, working drawings executed, permit in hand. The wife has even secretly buried a talisman at the site for luck. But all this time the she has been saying she'll never live there because it's too far from town (security), too close to the woods (ticks), too close to the farm fields (pesticides). While I've been working my friend Rob has been showing her houses. Hundreds of them. And then she buys one. A spec house that has idled on the market for years. Two miles out of town, in the woods, in a deep depression that used to be a landfill (read dump).
At this point I've got another project going, oddly enough a renovation / addition for the fourth owner of Uncle Tony's first house, originally designed by my father. The money is flowing, Uncle Tony is not building but hey, he's my uncle and I don't need the cash, so I let it sit. You can see where this is going ...
A couple of years go by. The crazy wife is losing her mind over the PoS spec house she bought. The air handler is in the attic, accessed through the master BR closet ceiling. Which means that every six months, some service tech (read dangerously criminal looking dirty immigrant) has to get into Mrs. Antiseptics closet (one of many conditions that I anticipated and designed for in the house that was never built). I'm swinging a hammer and doing whatever the hell I can to scrape by. So I call Uncle Tony and remind him of our agreement. He says he doesn't remember, but sure he'll pay me if he owes me, just send the agreement. Which I do.
A few weeks later he's in my studio, and we're talking about the fee due. Uncle Tony says "I'm thinking about designing a smaller house for that site and feel funny having to pay you for the previous house if you're going to design another one."
Without belaboring this any more, that turned into "I'll pay you but I'd rather be your friend than work with you again". Which turned into a partial payment. As far as I can tell, he still owes me $10k.
And the reason I'm writing all this? Because I just got a call from Mrs. Crazypants, who's had 16 "floods" because the PEX is failing and do I have a good plumber.
There was some small satisfaction in telling her that her husband had stiffed me ("Tony would never do that") and what goes around comes around, so as much as I'd like to help I won't. After insistent pleading - in an absolute panic because the water was dripping and she wouldn't let the plumber she was using into the house - only the basement - she hung up on me when it finally became evident that I wasn't going to bend over for her.
The $2.6m spec house she bought has had plastic garbage bags taped up over the windows - which are NEVER opened - for years.
I learned very early in my career that doing projects for family and friends only brings disasters and ruins relationships. Every architects knows that!
PEX? haha we will not touch that and neither will any of our consultants!
Cripes. Miles that's tragic. I can't too it except for the tv crazy clients who wanted a tv in every room including the bathroom. They divorced before it made it through DD.
Miles.....tell me the Toilet is facing the door so just in case you uncle Tony bites it on the toilet, they can carry him out of the Bathroom Feet First.
I would tell you about my worst client but it is all tied up in a Lawsuit, so I best keep it to myself.
I would love to tell you about my second worst client, but it would turn into a book....People with big heads, silver tongues, and a memory that last less than a day can be bad clients. I think I broke the camels back the day I laughed at him, and he realized I was really laughing at him. I have no problem telling contractors to keep there distance cause he is going to have their pocketbook before the project is done.
Crazy story, but tragically, completely believable.
From experience, single-family res. is just NOT worth the headache.
For this market - we, as architects, are required to act as marriage counselor / psychotherapist, and are dropped into a labor pool that includes cut-rate drafters.
Miles, not to poke a finger in your eye, but as someone who is starting a new office, do you think a better contract and billing could have helped? Any wisdom "how I should have done it differently" would be useful. I know that you can't always screen your clients in advance and working with difficult clients is part of the game. So what to do?
One of my worst was the very wealthy guy whose email sign off was a bible verse about how god will bless the worthy with riches, and this guy was the cheapest bastard you ever met. Apparently Jesus told him to refuse to pay the tile guy because one of the grout joints was 1/8" too thick.
contracts will only help if you are taking somebody to court. But as soon as you take them to court you are out of your deductible and usually insurance companies end up settling, so you are out of money anyways.
You have to look at the fees owned and try to figure out if its worth it with and if you at the end will get anything at all if not pay and lose even more.
We've taken clients to court before and after they lost they had the balls to come back and try to hire us again for other projects.....
its the installation problems and often the connections that are the problem that can cause many problems in the future and not the tubing itself. Luckily I've ran into it years ago and will not touch it again. There are night mare stories online if you'd like to read, but after replacing all the plumbing in one of our apartment complex projects, we decided we will not proceed with PEX on any project without the owner signing off on it.
gruen, Our legal system is just like politics: the guy with the most money wins. In the luxury residential market every client is rich as Croesus, and most have the attitude of entitlement that goes along with it.
Thus contracts are essentially useless. The cost of collection can far exceed the cost of the fee being sought, and rich clients know this and use it against you. It's a game you can't afford to play.
Rule of thumb: the fee has to be at least 6 figures before it's worth fighting over. You can easily spend half of that and years of your life trying to collect. Odds are probably the same as craps or roulette.
Jaffe's First Law (Norman Jaffe): The value of a service is inversely proportional to its degree of completion.
Jaffe's Second Law (Miles Jaffe): If you need a lawyer, it's already too late.
The O.J. Simpson Rule: The only color that really matters is green.
I get large retainers, bill small amounts frequently, never release work without payment and head for the hills at the first hint of trouble. I don't compromise my work or ethics and do everything in my power to make projects successful. I refuse to spend my time papering the file in anticipation of legal action. Been there, done that, never again.
Small claims court is very limited ($3,000 in NY) but can serve as an effective tool for even partial collection at minimum expense ($15 filing fee). I had a multimillionaire client send lawyers from NYC to defend a small claim. It cost them more for the lawyer than it would have to pay the fee owed. Which I got.
Binding arbitration in AIA contracts is a minefield. It's essentially court without rules. Anything goes, and everything depends on the arbitrator.
before turning over drawings for permits, I usually bill 85% and the rest after permit!
I've had clients not pay after we submitted, but then we got a correction letter to which we didn't want to respond and the client quickly came to our office and dropped off payments. I don't like to have hostage situations with drawings, but I will.
Miles, that's pretty much what I'm (planning) on doing- w the added "retainer is applied to final invoice & no drawings w/o pay". Fingers crossed that it works... I need some more of these real world lessons wo the real world mistakes, aka:experience
I tried that once. The client was a lawyer who unilaterally decided to deduct a portion of the retainer against the first payment. Funny thing was, with the retainer he sent a cover letter specifying that payment was according to the exact paragraph in the contract that described "retainer held against final payment". By the time I got the partial payment I had done another month's worth of work. I quit and held the drawings hostage for full payment to date. This was only effective because the contractor was literally sitting on site (fast-track) with a full crew waiting for drawings while the client tried to screw me.
I don't work for lawyers anymore.
You can't treat every new client like a crook. Act in good faith, get a big retainer and bill small and often. At the first hiccup stop work. If money is not forthcoming, adios with a letter of termination for non-payment.
WOW what a story i really enjoyed reading that (except for the getting stiffed part). Really shows what an architect has to go thru in his or her career and how to get back at bad clients.
I just dealt with a truly wonderful *client* but was reminded again how a little cash discreetly handed over can help smooth over some difficult issues with *tradespeople* on the job - important when you want to keep a happy client happy.
Fun story, all of mine were very similar and all involved cheating husbands, trysts & divorces. Here are my 3 Rules:
If a client is paying you with their own money there will always be problems.
Forget the last-month retainer just add a month’s fee to your proposed fee and forget about collecting it – it’s the last-months’ pay no one ever pays.
Forget all rules and just do whatever you have to do to survive.
"I'm thinking about designing a smaller house for that site and feel funny having to pay you for the previous house if you're going to design another one."
HA! fucking developers...
Notoriously dirtbag, but there are things you can do to try to leverage payment:
Don't achieve any milestones in the project, until you are paid in full for the work to that point. example Don't move past schematics until you are paid for that portion of the work, or DD, CD's, don't go for permit till you are paid. Just hold the drawings till you get your money at all phases. It will come across as a strange thing to do, but it will send the message to your client, that they are not going to get shit without paying you first.
Question: Did your client pay your consultants? because that is a really easy way to loose good consultants; connecting them with a scum bag client and not getting paid either...Funny thing about it though, for some reason, developers seem to pay the consultant team, because they are "doing the real work" and architects are just some artsy fartsy bullshitters that do minimal work..From my experience.
You can also write a payment schedule into the contract and hold to it, in the case you get a mellow, trustworthy, non-developer client, make exceptions on a case by case basis to move projects forward faster...
Holding back drawings? Did that once, suspected no final payment so I held the finished CD’s until paid-in-full – developer said “Fuck-You”, hung up, took the last issued set to another architect who cut-pasted his title block over mine, sealed them and got the permit. As Miles has said, you don’t screw with people who have more money than you do.
We used to hold permits until payment but then owners started threatening building officials with legal action and a policy decision was made that the permit goes with the property, not the one who filed and paid for it.
Carrerra...did you file a complaint with the state board?
as non-sequitur said...there should be some disciplinary action...
And fuck the architect that would do that...but I guess for every dirtbag developer, there are 10 dirtbag architects that would throw you under the bus for a dime...
Avoid working with shitty developers if you can, that is one of the fastest ways to become jaded in this field.
Well, I went wild! Was tipped off by the plans examiner…he said he couldn’t do anything….went to my attorney…you know what those guys say….went to the State Board, they said they would look into it, but didn’t, looked into copyright infringement, but back then I didn’t understand it. Just got fucked. Drove by this ass-holes office a while back, has a Bentley parked in his lot….anybody want to buy a self-storage facility set of CD’s?
Miles, how are you, and your 1%er clients going to survive the coming apocalypse you keep harping on about, or are you going to be living off of your trust fund, while you keep bashing architects? Shouldn't you go back to designing vacuums for Dyson?
Exactly Miles, you are fortunate to be the lap dog of the 1%, and do their bidding, I'll keep slinging mud at bootlickers like you, living off of daddy's cred.
you're insulting him for the environment he was born in rather than criticizing his actual designs or ability to design beta. that isn't grounds to make you a better or more 'real' architect or designer than him.
Yeah, you might be right curt, perhaps I should have dad who was a celebrated architect too, that way I could live off my father's legacy, unfortunately for me, my old man is an alcoholic, Vietnam vet, but hey it's never too late for me to learn.
ouche some rolled out of the wrong side of the bed. Miles life might look easy but I'm sure he was looking over his shoulder for most of his life, but then living it to the fullest. His Shit actually doesn't stink. well I have never been that close....but his projects do have merit. I have yet to see anything b3 has done so I can't comment on the work.
I don't think I was being critical of Miles work, or his father's work, but I did wake up on the wrong side of the bed, and for the negative comments, I apologize.
I would like to note, for the archinect record, the flaming irony with which I am called jealous, by Miles for pointedly targeting the idea that I am supposed to take seriously the criticism of the profession, and it's so-called superstars, by someone who is one, not an architect, and two, designs homes for Long Island/Hamptons elitists.
Miles, I am sorry for launching my tirade at you, you deserve better, lately, you have pushed my buttons, and I can't stand reading all of your negative posts. I have nothing but respect for your father's work.
As for my work. I have been pretty clear about not showing anything I do, for anyone I don't know. I am not as confident as Miles, or Lauf - and while I think he has all the charm of slug - I think what he is doing, is beyond brilliant, I just wish he'd sell me a copy of his book.
b3ta, I think pretty much any residential architect is working for elitists. And if you think the license is what makes the architect, I can show you a lot of guys who don't deserve one.
As to superstars, it would be more interesting to hear why you think they are so great than that other stuff. Also, being so enamored with them, I'm curious why you didn't come to Rem's defense.
PM me and I'll send you a copy. Unless of course you were talking about Lauf's book.
JeromeS, was I apologize, and I am sorry not clear enough for you, military?
Miles, what I think, is that there are plenty of homes in the Twin Cities, designed for young families, that aren't with deep pockets. Not everyone lives in the Hamptons, and yes, my property taxes are $2400 a year.
Actually, technically, I do think a license makes an architect. You're an industrial designer, you can't tell me, can't, that when you hang with other designers, that you don't laugh at the crap Zaha, or Gehry makes, that isn't architecture. Fuck, I do.
I don't sweat the starchitects, in fact, I think they do the profession a great service. They bring attention, good and bad, to a profession, that never really existed in the cultural zeitgeist. They also, by sheer gravitational pull, allow for other architects to ride the tail of the comet, because as we all know, Gehry, Mayne, and Rem, are typically too busy to jump at a moments notice, because a client wants to move today. So, a client wanting a profile/signature building, and can't get the starchitect, will get exposed, and go to LTL, Jeane Gang, Julie Snow, David Salmela, or the numerous other "non" starchitects doing great work.
They are a necessary evil. Do I "adore" them? No. Do I hate them? No. Do I want to teardown their works, because I may not like one particular building? No. For a long time I hated Gehry's Weisman museum, the movement never translated to the interior, but since the addition, and since I've had a chance to see the building from different perspectives, I've grown to appreciate it.
As for Rem, I haven't read the piece yet, but I won't defend everything you, or others hate, I just had enough of you and others gripping about the profession, when, for the most part, none of these architects have any affect on your, or my day to day.
Oh, I forgot, did you have a book too? I was speaking about Lauf, but if you have a book, of course I'd like one. I love books.
The most important and most difficult thing in our profession is getting good clients.
Only slightly more important, and just as difficult, is getting rid of bad clients. In time.
But sometimes we have serious difficulty in getting good clients, and because of that refuse to get rid of bad ones. At those times we must let everyone else think we are doing great, and that our bad clients are actually the world's best.
Failing to do so will oddly enough only prevent us from getting good clients again and breaking the bad cycle.
Miles, think about a new prospective client, a good descent client, doing research about you on the internet and reading your post. Forget Uncle Tony and his wife, but how do you come across? Would you hire you??...
I don't bullshit anyone, and because of that I've lost more potential clients than I can count. The truth often blows them out the door. Which is good, because the very last thing I want to do is be in business relationship based on misrepresentation. In fact the very first thing I do is give new clients a copy of my book.
There are three things I want to do. Good work, have fun, and get paid. I find that the first and second are essentially the same thing, and that the third tends to follow as a matter of course if you take care of them. Everything is relative, but those three things are often precluded by big budgets and the kind of clients that have them.
Worst Client Ever
As long as we're sharing, how about bad clients?
Here's one: Uncle Tony, my father's best friend, a NYC developer, who I'd known for 40 years and done at least half-a-dozen projects with. All at HUGE discounts, of course, because he's a developer and because of the 'family' connection.
Uncle Tony asks me to design a house for him. He negotiates a design/build fee of <15% which I accept for the above reasons as well as needing the work, with a stipulation that if the project doesn't get built I get 2/3 of the full fee for doing the design. Needless to say the fee is fixed on a budget of $1.8m for a project that is in the $2.6m range, which he justifies by his being a developer and saying watch how cheap he's going to build it.
I execute a design that eventually doubles in size due to the various neuroses of his OCD / germophobe wife (the only acceptable entry to her house would be the decontamination facility in Dr. No, except staffed with cheap Eastern European immigrants - I could regale you for hours with stories just about this woman's psychoses but that not the point) and Uncle Tony's developer 'instinct' to max it out. Thus 4,000 sq.ft. turns into 8,000 sq.ft. including a couple of outbuildings.
With the design essentially complete the wife brings in the Feng Shui master from Chinatown, a wizened old man with a young Chinese woman translator. The Master divines the site, checking for spiritual remnants of lost burial grounds and some other stuff intended to impress the mentally unstable. In the end the design passes the Feng Shui test with flying colors - no money leaks, no health leaks, no luck leaks - with the single exception of a toilet facing a door, which was only positioned that way at Uncle Tony's insistence (I don't want to get into what this all means or doesn't but it might be a good subject for another thread).
So now the design is done, working drawings executed, permit in hand. The wife has even secretly buried a talisman at the site for luck. But all this time the she has been saying she'll never live there because it's too far from town (security), too close to the woods (ticks), too close to the farm fields (pesticides). While I've been working my friend Rob has been showing her houses. Hundreds of them. And then she buys one. A spec house that has idled on the market for years. Two miles out of town, in the woods, in a deep depression that used to be a landfill (read dump).
At this point I've got another project going, oddly enough a renovation / addition for the fourth owner of Uncle Tony's first house, originally designed by my father. The money is flowing, Uncle Tony is not building but hey, he's my uncle and I don't need the cash, so I let it sit. You can see where this is going ...
A couple of years go by. The crazy wife is losing her mind over the PoS spec house she bought. The air handler is in the attic, accessed through the master BR closet ceiling. Which means that every six months, some service tech (read dangerously criminal looking dirty immigrant) has to get into Mrs. Antiseptics closet (one of many conditions that I anticipated and designed for in the house that was never built). I'm swinging a hammer and doing whatever the hell I can to scrape by. So I call Uncle Tony and remind him of our agreement. He says he doesn't remember, but sure he'll pay me if he owes me, just send the agreement. Which I do.
A few weeks later he's in my studio, and we're talking about the fee due. Uncle Tony says "I'm thinking about designing a smaller house for that site and feel funny having to pay you for the previous house if you're going to design another one."
Without belaboring this any more, that turned into "I'll pay you but I'd rather be your friend than work with you again". Which turned into a partial payment. As far as I can tell, he still owes me $10k.
And the reason I'm writing all this? Because I just got a call from Mrs. Crazypants, who's had 16 "floods" because the PEX is failing and do I have a good plumber.
There was some small satisfaction in telling her that her husband had stiffed me ("Tony would never do that") and what goes around comes around, so as much as I'd like to help I won't. After insistent pleading - in an absolute panic because the water was dripping and she wouldn't let the plumber she was using into the house - only the basement - she hung up on me when it finally became evident that I wasn't going to bend over for her.
The $2.6m spec house she bought has had plastic garbage bags taped up over the windows - which are NEVER opened - for years.
I learned very early in my career that doing projects for family and friends only brings disasters and ruins relationships. Every architects knows that!
PEX? haha we will not touch that and neither will any of our consultants!
Miles.....tell me the Toilet is facing the door so just in case you uncle Tony bites it on the toilet, they can carry him out of the Bathroom Feet First.
I would tell you about my worst client but it is all tied up in a Lawsuit, so I best keep it to myself.
I would love to tell you about my second worst client, but it would turn into a book....People with big heads, silver tongues, and a memory that last less than a day can be bad clients. I think I broke the camels back the day I laughed at him, and he realized I was really laughing at him. I have no problem telling contractors to keep there distance cause he is going to have their pocketbook before the project is done.
This thread could easily turn into 'can you top this?'
I spent 14 years in a collection action.
snook, shoot me an email and I'll send you my book.
Crazy story, but tragically, completely believable.
From experience, single-family res. is just NOT worth the headache.
For this market - we, as architects, are required to act as marriage counselor / psychotherapist, and are dropped into a labor pool that includes cut-rate drafters.
It's a no-win situation from the start.
One of my worst was the very wealthy guy whose email sign off was a bible verse about how god will bless the worthy with riches, and this guy was the cheapest bastard you ever met. Apparently Jesus told him to refuse to pay the tile guy because one of the grout joints was 1/8" too thick.
gruen,
contracts will only help if you are taking somebody to court. But as soon as you take them to court you are out of your deductible and usually insurance companies end up settling, so you are out of money anyways.
You have to look at the fees owned and try to figure out if its worth it with and if you at the end will get anything at all if not pay and lose even more.
We've taken clients to court before and after they lost they had the balls to come back and try to hire us again for other projects.....
Donna,
its the installation problems and often the connections that are the problem that can cause many problems in the future and not the tubing itself. Luckily I've ran into it years ago and will not touch it again. There are night mare stories online if you'd like to read, but after replacing all the plumbing in one of our apartment complex projects, we decided we will not proceed with PEX on any project without the owner signing off on it.
So you do copper plumbing instead, poop?
gruen, Our legal system is just like politics: the guy with the most money wins. In the luxury residential market every client is rich as Croesus, and most have the attitude of entitlement that goes along with it.
Thus contracts are essentially useless. The cost of collection can far exceed the cost of the fee being sought, and rich clients know this and use it against you. It's a game you can't afford to play.
Rule of thumb: the fee has to be at least 6 figures before it's worth fighting over. You can easily spend half of that and years of your life trying to collect. Odds are probably the same as craps or roulette.
Jaffe's First Law (Norman Jaffe): The value of a service is inversely proportional to its degree of completion.
Jaffe's Second Law (Miles Jaffe): If you need a lawyer, it's already too late.
The O.J. Simpson Rule: The only color that really matters is green.
I get large retainers, bill small amounts frequently, never release work without payment and head for the hills at the first hint of trouble. I don't compromise my work or ethics and do everything in my power to make projects successful. I refuse to spend my time papering the file in anticipation of legal action. Been there, done that, never again.
Small claims court is very limited ($3,000 in NY) but can serve as an effective tool for even partial collection at minimum expense ($15 filing fee). I had a multimillionaire client send lawyers from NYC to defend a small claim. It cost them more for the lawyer than it would have to pay the fee owed. Which I got.
Binding arbitration in AIA contracts is a minefield. It's essentially court without rules. Anything goes, and everything depends on the arbitrator.
Dona: yes, copper, PVC or CPVC
Jaffe,
before turning over drawings for permits, I usually bill 85% and the rest after permit!
I've had clients not pay after we submitted, but then we got a correction letter to which we didn't want to respond and the client quickly came to our office and dropped off payments. I don't like to have hostage situations with drawings, but I will.
retainer is applied to final invoice
I tried that once. The client was a lawyer who unilaterally decided to deduct a portion of the retainer against the first payment. Funny thing was, with the retainer he sent a cover letter specifying that payment was according to the exact paragraph in the contract that described "retainer held against final payment". By the time I got the partial payment I had done another month's worth of work. I quit and held the drawings hostage for full payment to date. This was only effective because the contractor was literally sitting on site (fast-track) with a full crew waiting for drawings while the client tried to screw me.
I don't work for lawyers anymore.
You can't treat every new client like a crook. Act in good faith, get a big retainer and bill small and often. At the first hiccup stop work. If money is not forthcoming, adios with a letter of termination for non-payment.
WOW what a story i really enjoyed reading that (except for the getting stiffed part). Really shows what an architect has to go thru in his or her career and how to get back at bad clients.
^ ^ It's not really "getting back" if everything was pre-arranged and subsequent fees withheld...
Miles, this blast from the past discussion reminds me why I don't do residential work but great story nonetheless.
I just dealt with a truly wonderful *client* but was reminded again how a little cash discreetly handed over can help smooth over some difficult issues with *tradespeople* on the job - important when you want to keep a happy client happy.
Fun story, all of mine were very similar and all involved cheating husbands, trysts & divorces. Here are my 3 Rules:
"I'm thinking about designing a smaller house for that site and feel funny having to pay you for the previous house if you're going to design another one."
HA! fucking developers...
Notoriously dirtbag, but there are things you can do to try to leverage payment:
Don't achieve any milestones in the project, until you are paid in full for the work to that point. example Don't move past schematics until you are paid for that portion of the work, or DD, CD's, don't go for permit till you are paid. Just hold the drawings till you get your money at all phases. It will come across as a strange thing to do, but it will send the message to your client, that they are not going to get shit without paying you first.
Question: Did your client pay your consultants? because that is a really easy way to loose good consultants; connecting them with a scum bag client and not getting paid either...Funny thing about it though, for some reason, developers seem to pay the consultant team, because they are "doing the real work" and architects are just some artsy fartsy bullshitters that do minimal work..From my experience.
You can also write a payment schedule into the contract and hold to it, in the case you get a mellow, trustworthy, non-developer client, make exceptions on a case by case basis to move projects forward faster...
Holding back drawings? Did that once, suspected no final payment so I held the finished CD’s until paid-in-full – developer said “Fuck-You”, hung up, took the last issued set to another architect who cut-pasted his title block over mine, sealed them and got the permit. As Miles has said, you don’t screw with people who have more money than you do.
^ that architect would loose his stamp very quickly in my jurisdiction.
don't go for permit till you are paid
We used to hold permits until payment but then owners started threatening building officials with legal action and a policy decision was made that the permit goes with the property, not the one who filed and paid for it.
What is this the wild wild west? Do we just bend over then?
Welcome to the service economy. Knee pads are a good investment.
Carrerra...did you file a complaint with the state board?
as non-sequitur said...there should be some disciplinary action...
And fuck the architect that would do that...but I guess for every dirtbag developer, there are 10 dirtbag architects that would throw you under the bus for a dime...
Avoid working with shitty developers if you can, that is one of the fastest ways to become jaded in this field.
Well, I went wild! Was tipped off by the plans examiner…he said he couldn’t do anything….went to my attorney…you know what those guys say….went to the State Board, they said they would look into it, but didn’t, looked into copyright infringement, but back then I didn’t understand it. Just got fucked. Drove by this ass-holes office a while back, has a Bentley parked in his lot….anybody want to buy a self-storage facility set of CD’s?
the friends & family rate is double
Miles, how are you, and your 1%er clients going to survive the coming apocalypse you keep harping on about, or are you going to be living off of your trust fund, while you keep bashing architects? Shouldn't you go back to designing vacuums for Dyson?
The 1% won't be effected in any real way unless currency collapses completely and the world shifts to value what you can do instead of what you have.
b3ta, I wonder where that will leave you? Insults aren't going to get any more valuable.
^Haha....love it.
Exactly Miles, you are fortunate to be the lap dog of the 1%, and do their bidding, I'll keep slinging mud at bootlickers like you, living off of daddy's cred.
you're insulting him for the environment he was born in rather than criticizing his actual designs or ability to design beta. that isn't grounds to make you a better or more 'real' architect or designer than him.
what brought this on?
^ I'm guessing jealously, and probably a serious inferiority complex.
^^Where's the mute button for that douche?
do you have a rash on your ass from the betadine?
beta go take your meds
ouche some rolled out of the wrong side of the bed. Miles life might look easy but I'm sure he was looking over his shoulder for most of his life, but then living it to the fullest. His Shit actually doesn't stink. well I have never been that close....but his projects do have merit. I have yet to see anything b3 has done so I can't comment on the work.
I don't think I was being critical of Miles work, or his father's work, but I did wake up on the wrong side of the bed, and for the negative comments, I apologize.
I would like to note, for the archinect record, the flaming irony with which I am called jealous, by Miles for pointedly targeting the idea that I am supposed to take seriously the criticism of the profession, and it's so-called superstars, by someone who is one, not an architect, and two, designs homes for Long Island/Hamptons elitists.
Miles, I am sorry for launching my tirade at you, you deserve better, lately, you have pushed my buttons, and I can't stand reading all of your negative posts. I have nothing but respect for your father's work.
As for my work. I have been pretty clear about not showing anything I do, for anyone I don't know. I am not as confident as Miles, or Lauf - and while I think he has all the charm of slug - I think what he is doing, is beyond brilliant, I just wish he'd sell me a copy of his book.
Oh God, don't complement him, he hates that.
was that an apology?
b3ta, I think pretty much any residential architect is working for elitists. And if you think the license is what makes the architect, I can show you a lot of guys who don't deserve one.
As to superstars, it would be more interesting to hear why you think they are so great than that other stuff. Also, being so enamored with them, I'm curious why you didn't come to Rem's defense.
PM me and I'll send you a copy. Unless of course you were talking about Lauf's book.
JeromeS, was I apologize, and I am sorry not clear enough for you, military?
Miles, what I think, is that there are plenty of homes in the Twin Cities, designed for young families, that aren't with deep pockets. Not everyone lives in the Hamptons, and yes, my property taxes are $2400 a year.
Actually, technically, I do think a license makes an architect. You're an industrial designer, you can't tell me, can't, that when you hang with other designers, that you don't laugh at the crap Zaha, or Gehry makes, that isn't architecture. Fuck, I do.
I don't sweat the starchitects, in fact, I think they do the profession a great service. They bring attention, good and bad, to a profession, that never really existed in the cultural zeitgeist. They also, by sheer gravitational pull, allow for other architects to ride the tail of the comet, because as we all know, Gehry, Mayne, and Rem, are typically too busy to jump at a moments notice, because a client wants to move today. So, a client wanting a profile/signature building, and can't get the starchitect, will get exposed, and go to LTL, Jeane Gang, Julie Snow, David Salmela, or the numerous other "non" starchitects doing great work.
They are a necessary evil. Do I "adore" them? No. Do I hate them? No. Do I want to teardown their works, because I may not like one particular building? No. For a long time I hated Gehry's Weisman museum, the movement never translated to the interior, but since the addition, and since I've had a chance to see the building from different perspectives, I've grown to appreciate it.
As for Rem, I haven't read the piece yet, but I won't defend everything you, or others hate, I just had enough of you and others gripping about the profession, when, for the most part, none of these architects have any affect on your, or my day to day.
Oh, I forgot, did you have a book too? I was speaking about Lauf, but if you have a book, of course I'd like one. I love books.
The most important and most difficult thing in our profession is getting good clients.
Only slightly more important, and just as difficult, is getting rid of bad clients. In time.
But sometimes we have serious difficulty in getting good clients, and because of that refuse to get rid of bad ones. At those times we must let everyone else think we are doing great, and that our bad clients are actually the world's best.
Failing to do so will oddly enough only prevent us from getting good clients again and breaking the bad cycle.
Miles, think about a new prospective client, a good descent client, doing research about you on the internet and reading your post. Forget Uncle Tony and his wife, but how do you come across? Would you hire you??...
I don't bullshit anyone, and because of that I've lost more potential clients than I can count. The truth often blows them out the door. Which is good, because the very last thing I want to do is be in business relationship based on misrepresentation. In fact the very first thing I do is give new clients a copy of my book.
There are three things I want to do. Good work, have fun, and get paid. I find that the first and second are essentially the same thing, and that the third tends to follow as a matter of course if you take care of them. Everything is relative, but those three things are often precluded by big budgets and the kind of clients that have them.
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