You can definitely include professional work in your grad school portfolio. However, you should be sure to only include the stuff that YOU actually did. From talking to advisers at different schools (UCLA , SCI-Arc, UT, USC), they said that faculty members can usually tell when someone included a bunch of professional work that they didn't produce.

So, I wouldn't include work that you didn't have some hand in. If you do, I would definitely note what you did or didn't produce.

You can show this work when applying to any position: grad school, jobs, whatever.

Footnotes are the way to go - credit the firm you worked at and other members of the design team when appropriate. I have some images of work in my portfolio that I didn't actually produce. We had a rendering department at one firm so I didn't actually produce a particular image although i was an integral part of the design team. However, I included drawings, plans, sections, study models, sketches etc. that I did directly work on to back up my involvement.

Architecture is such a collaborative profession at this point that there is rarely a drawing or image that wasn't worked on by many people.

Sometimes you need to be careful about including certain professional work in a portfolio, especially if it's published online. I know that the last two projects I worked on at my Summer jobs were governed by some of the most strict confidentiality agreements I've ever seen...i.e. interior decorators couldn't be sent more than what they needed to design the interior, drawings brought to different offices were destroyed after the completion of meetings, etc. If you are going to include professional work, double check with the office you created it with to make sure you're not violating any of their agreements.

Ok, well - the project in question was a high-rise condominium (bottom floors retail) tower in a downtown metropolitan area. I was working closely with the architect designing the grand entry and curtain wall, and pretty much as involved as a 2-3 year intern could be. I did alot of 3d modeling and rendering and precedent research, and usually found the opportunity to add something personal in each iteration I made. We were in DD phase though alot of elements weren't fleshed out and were still in "pre-design" in a sense (like the grand entry).

So yea I was definitely part of the project team - and with proper footnotes I won't offend any academic advisors? Should I explain my specific role in writing within the portfolio or just save it for the interview?

bump!