architects are all prostitutes...sadly. welcome to the real world.

* Spoken with good humor, but truthfully.

Justin, you're just out of school, you need to learn. ANY job in ANY firm doing ANY kind of work is going, at this point in your career, to be a valid learning experience.

Don't take such a dramatic martyr-ish attitude towards it. Be open minded, ask TONS of questions of your employers/seasoned co-workers, suck up every bit of knowledge that you can about construction, financing, client relations, office management, scheduling, space planning, HVAC/structure integration, dealing with contractors, dealing with consultants, marketing yourself...did you learn any of that in school?

You'll have plenty of time to design euphorically awesome buildings in your life - architecture is a long profession. In the meantime, design the hell out of that bathroom layouts you'll be doing, and enjoy!

I've been reading posts here on Archinect for a while now. I do believe that the originator of this thread has posted just about the most naive and arrogant post to cross my screen in all of that time.

I am just astonished at the apparent total lack of awareness of what's happening to our beloved industry right now and the huge amount of suffering that is taking place as a result.

Dude if someone is willing to give you a job with somewhat decent enough pay to live on there is room right now to be picking and choosing.

There are many out-of-work architects who are vastly more superior and experienced designers (than you are) who would be happy to take those jobs.

And just so you know I think I'm a pretty decent designer and I spend months polishing up a crappy utility yard for a project. I was more than happy to do it because I learned stuf and it was WORK!

troll?

dude, if you're looking to be a humanitarian, join the peace corps. work for a non-profit organization... if you're looking to make money and pay off your school loans, you get a job and suck it up. that is, if you can even get one.

enter some competitions, submit articles, etc. try to get in with your school, and teach some lower level studios... be creative. isn't that what you learned in school?

this is incredible! why is everyone giving this guy so much shit?!

as designers, our profession has been declining for longer than just this recession, and WE are to blame! by taking shit jobs, contributing to bad design by working for any firm that will take you, not sticking to your guns, not being a critical thinker, not engaging mentally and emotionally in your work, etc. where are we otherwise? poor city planning, massive gentrification, poorly-thought 'green' design, ridiculously low salaries (in decline for 100+ years), horrendous condos taking over every damn city block, etc. the '08 crash is only the cherry on the cake.

if you're a good designer, then you better have some fucking standards! good designers are problem solvers and critical thinkers, both of which we NEED today.

if people are having real financial problems, the OP's frustrations are hardly to blame. the real problem is much bigger and comes from within everyone.

and if you are looking to be a humanitarian BE A GOOD ARCHITECT.

uhhhh! you are so right. i have an interview with a firm that does work on a project type that i am morally opposed to doing. it's a contract to hire, and in the contract period i'd be working on things OTHER than the work i'm morally opposed to doing. so, i have a dilemma, if of course the offer is there...J=O+B?

Seems I've certainly struck a nerve. Excellent! And stone, I really must agree with both the paragraphs you posted.

nothing wrong with being a prostitute.

I submit, uhhhh, that the purpose of internship is to teach young architects how to be better problem solvers and critical thinkers, within the bounds of a far more restrictive practice than does academia.

If, as an intern, you're a lazy thinker, a stint in a firm that does Petcos will make you lazier. If you're a good thinker - a good designer - then you'll learn something that will make you better.



holz, there's nothing wrong with being a prostitute - as long as one enjoys one's work - but there is something very wrong with someone else accusing someone else, as a pejorative, of being one.

There is nothing more disheartening than being a new grad working in a firm with poor work.

Shortly after graduating I worked for a firm with awful work - f*cken cringeworthy work where unfortunately the staff themselves either didnt know it was awful, or had willfully neglected that fact. I lasted 9 months before moving on.

In my experience, there are 2 reasons why architects produce awful work: either they lack the skills or talent to produce it, or for the sake of expedience they forsake design in favour of ease - following the code, minimum requirements, best practice, tried & true, safe aethetics. Most of the time its the latter.

In a firm in that situation, you cant learn a lot - no matter how earnest and willing you are to sacrifice your time in the name of the professon its not worth it.

One could argue that prostitution is also largely about expedience.

i think it's an irony of architecture as a career pursuit that most of us got into it because of a sincere desire to take part in making the world better/more beautiful and that depending on this pursuit for our livelihood often requires that we participate in work that makes the world more polluted/uglier.

if you are in a financial situation that affords you the option to NOT be an accomplice in this dilemma, good for you.

We can always afford to not be prostitutes, on our own time. If you are unhappy with the work you are currently doing at your 9-5 job, then pick a hobby (i.e. enter a competition, design your/your parents' dream home) that you can occupy yourself with during after hours. Your social life might suffer but you will be doing what you love.

It's not the "profession" that creates bad designs. So often, it's the clients. I work from time to time for a small firm and lately we have been doing a lot of strip mall fit outs because that's what's coming in. That's keeping the doors open. But more so, we have clients coming in with big ideas and small wallets. Having $200,000 for a home renovation and wanting $900,000 worth of work. Or asking for some ideas, we put together some really nice stuff and then they want something weak in the end. Things are tough that way as well. Very many times it's not the architects, it's the local market, clients' tastes etc. We can make as many kickass models and renderings as we want, but we can't fund 3498 awesome art museums. Plus, school is fantasy land. After grad school I went to a fairly well known firm in Japan and THAT was frustrating because real buildings aren't generally as fun as magic Rhino buildings. When someone is trying to make a profit off of leasing space, they want the coolest design they can get for the least amount of money. They want $1,000,000 materials for $200,000. I worked on a fairly high profile building in the sky scraper district of Tokyo and they were looking at a 30 year turnover. So they didn't really care about awesome functionality, new technology, anything that you play with in school, just flash and fast. That felt like more of prostitute work than when I detailed vinyl siding on a local housing projektz renovation where people were visibly excited about what was going on.

Like ORomaniuk said, I've been trying to stay creative on my own on the side. Can be hard at times, but I'm "renovating a garage I found on craigslist" and designing a future strip mall (sounds lame, but since moving back to the suburbs, I've realized strip malls are here to stay, how can we make them better), product designs, competitions (often since I'm slowed down, they aren't entered, but I work up some ideas and make drawings, renderings). Keeps the ideas flowing and I hope will be useful to me later on.

Discussions like this bring into sharp relief the profound "salesmanship" weaknesses that exist within our profession. We talk a lot here about the dearth of business training we receive in school. I personally think the bigger problem is the total lack sales and marketing education we receive.

We tend to come out of school thinking we can do great design (which may, or may not, be true) and believing other people will automatically "get it" and give us wonderful opportunities to display our talent. Many of us cling to that perspective for a very long time.

In reality, most of our customers, clients and users don't "get it" and we should not be surprised by that. If we want to do better design, we have to be able to persuade our clients a) why that better design is in their best interests, and b) avoid approaching design solely as a means of our own personal self-expression.

In school, we present mostly to juries composed of other architects -- they're already converted (more or less). People who actually are spending their own money (or putting their own careers on the line) for buildings we're designing have a wholly different perspective. We ignore that perspective at our peril.

If you want opportunities to do better design, first teach yourself how to sell better design.

If you market yourself as a "designer" right out of school, chances are, you'll just become a full-time renderer. (some might say the ultimate form of prostitution, selling fantasies).
Try first to learn some things that schools don't really teach and keep your expectations in check.

I think I hate this word already, because in many student's minds, it's all about aesthetics at best or prettyfying bad things at worst. Nobody likes to pay attention to what the designing process really means - thinking strategies for specific problems, and really I doubt you can even understand some of these problems right out of school.

ckl I know what you're saying. I always think of the projects I worked on in Japan as prime examples. I worked on 3 projects over the course of the year. A ~30 story office/residential/hotel tower in Tokyo, a 14 story office/showroom in Korea, and a 4 story mixed use in Korea. All three were at some level, already designed. In some cases, already under construction when we were brought on. We did wild facades that had no performative qualities. In some cases actually made the interior space worse (odd shaped, small spaces). While they were "snazzy, cool, fancy, designy" whatever you want to say about them, I didn't feel like they were GOOD (the one was pretty OK). If you've seen Tokyo, for example, it isn't a "high city" because of earth quakes. So this 30 story tower was fairly exposed. I had proposed some shading, capitalize on some views, etc. I was told that more or less, the building would pay itself off in 10 years, profit for another 10-20, then be torn down, so they didn't want to spend much money, but make it iconic for now. So It was definitely an interesting lesson in how developers work.

So that job was interesting in a 'D'esign sense. But this temp job that I did which was mostly rehab was very interesting from the perspective of talking to the individual users, tight budgets, and much closer ties with those that would do the ultimate construction. I hate vinyl siding more than you can believe now. And hate that it's kind of the standard measure of "We've made it" in the suburbs. But both jobs had rewards. I felt somewhat better at the end of the day with the temp job knowing that I was making something people were going to feel good about rather than just like for 10 minutes. (The 14 story tower was sold, the client/owner never moved in).

That's pretty standard starchitect experience, Hasselhoff, as bad as it sounds.
On the other hand, you do need to stay creative somehow, like anything else, it's a muscle that gets weak if not used and you can think of ways to to that either on your own or in your office.
That's why I hate specializations and firms that will put you in a category from which you can only get better at what you already know and not grow in other directions.

Regardless of the quality of architecture being produced, I think you can learn in any environment. At worst, you can see how not to do something or at least one way to approach something even if you don't agree with it. You might not always learn about design, but there are other things to learn in an architecture firm (i.e. management, good relationships with clients/consultants, etc.).

Is it just me, or is Philip Johnson's statement one of the most overused/misused quotes regarding architects? It is true in a way, but you can apply to many other professions out there. That quote doesn't justify anything.

it comes down to motivation....if you don't like what your doing, then do something else....

uhhhhh, although I do agree that there has been a steady decline in
our profession in part due to a lost sense of passion, and motivation to challenge what we create on paper up through construction, I think Justin lacks sympathy given the financial peril that surrounds us globally, hence some of the more critical responses. There are also much bigger factors that dictate architectural function, appearance, performance, and allure than a firms lack of desire to create a stellar design project. Seek out the opportunities that do surround you, especially when you have been lucky enough to land an interview with a firm right out of school. If a new opportunity arises, and you feel it will fit you better then move on. Even if an architectural environment lacks charisma toward design you will learn something that will help make you a better architect in the future. The great thing about architecture in my mind is that it is a profession that encourages you to learn something new no matter what level of experience you have. No problem is every the same.

If you want to design than do it, why wait for a firm to
hire you. If you are such a self proclaimed designer than why latch onto someone else’s firm to do what you already know how to do.

If you want to see something built, and understand how to
make a design come to fruition then join a firm willing to give you the
opportunity to learn the applications necessary to work through the challenges of construction.

Working in a firm that lacks design instincts does not mean
you should be forced to loose your own design sense. It just means you need to fight harder to help create architectural integrity that you believe in and so do your clients, colleagues, and contractors.

Hey justin, welcome to the pros.

Of the two jobs i had in NY, one was for a "avant-guarde boutique" and the other was a run-of-the-mill residential interiors/small office/small jobs firm in which i got to layout alot of kitchen and bath elevations.

The run of the mill firm kicked ass, and the boutique was the most fucked up firm i've ever worked for.

one could argue that any job for money is prostitution. in fact a prostitute without a pimp may be the least whorish job there is.

Exactly. Who is more of a loser, the person who takes a job in what you term prostitution, or the person without a job? Believe it or not, our lives are more than just our work, and each person has a different set of responsibilities to uphold. Sure, if you're a trust fund baby you can absolutely hold out until the exact perfect job comes along: the rest of us have to balance how long we look for that perfect situation vs. how long we can hold off creditors for. Some people are actually even responsible for providing for others, and you can be damn sure I would take one of those prostitution jobs if it meant that my children or elderly parents or spouse could have what they need.

I love my work, and I am currently in the position of trying to find that perfect job, but I am seriously sick and tired of the attitude that our work is what we are at all times. A job is like a relationship... sometimes you're with Mr. Right, but sometimes you're just with Mr. Right Now, and that's understandable.

Any job working in a firm is a GOOD job.

BAD jobs would include, working in a warehouse 50 hours a week or donating sperm six times a month.

i think there's probably truth in everything that is being said, but i posit that because we are so used to struggling for work, trying to be relevant, trying to make ends meet, trying to do so many things because we are passionate about what we do, that we are missing the forest for the trees. at the scale of the individual, we face choices and sacrifices that we can be well informed about and hence allow us to choose wisely or at least know the consequences of our actions . . .

BUT, if i step back, to a larger scale, the big question that is screaming at me is that even without a recession, why should it be THIS hard? and by hard, i don't simply mean difficulty in paying rent, but also in being heard? why is it THIS hard to get a city planning board to approve good design for a new lot in the city while bad design abounds (i know we could get into a debate on what good/bad is, but that is for another thread; for an example of 'bad' i refer you to this: http://www.hotels.com/hotels/WAS_GOVH-exter-2.jpg a building 'type' if you will, that abounds in washington dc right now)? or to make a salary that pays for student loans that you took? sure, one can blame the person who wanted to go ivy league, but why should pursuing an academic dream be a punishment in financial guise? i guess what i'm currently looking at is why current social, cultural, and political standards and economies regard architecture as such? something that we know is so critical to the effective functioning of cities, neighborhoods, healthy minds, etc is placed so low on the list?

i'm sure there are many answers to these questions, but i suspect the 'big' answer has something to do with the system in which we all exist/operate in collectively and not individually. i'm sure each of us can all make a difference somehow, but with so many well-intentioned, intelligent, driven architects, why is significant growth and progressive change so illusive to us?

(don't take any of this as a manifesto or even an intent to absolute statements; i am debating myself on this issue as much as i am anyone in this thread.)

as a disclaimer, the recession is slapping my ass around town and i wish i had money to pay my overgrown pile of bills. but even when it picks up again, it is still only a feat for my individual sustenance and personal finances and not one that will necessarily and implicitly evolve the discipline.

LB great advice. You are spot on. I think a lot of students out of college have these huge egos as if they are too good for a lot of architectural firms. These students think "they" can teach them a thing or too about architecture to firms that have been doing it for 15-20 years. I know because I was one of these students, during my time inbetween my grad school.

Of course design matters. But there's more to work than design, having integrity as an architect also means looking out for the best interests of your client... The problem also is when designers misunderstand the work as being primarily about the designer, and not about the real value that good design brings to the project...

Also, I think the Architects I've worked with who I respect the most, are never the ones with large egos or feelings of self importance out of school... The best architects in my opinion are the ones who do and have done the hard work, who aren't afraid to do what it takes to get the job done, do things that might not be the most glamorous aspect of the job, but they are totally dependable and have designed and built good work... The team players, good mentors, hard working colleagues...

There's nothing "selling out" about taking a job that is not design oriented, Keep in mind that there is a lot to learn, and coming out of school, your primary objective should be to accumulate knowledge and experience... Also, there is something more professional and admirable about putting in the work, taking care of business that you probably wouldn't learn coming out of school...

Also projects are about a lot more than what you study in school: there's a management aspect to it, construction coordination, consultants, good detailing and working with code, managing give and take on a project, knowing how to get things done, on a budget, efficiently, and done well, designed well and smartly, material and cost awareness, construction administration, etc... It's a team sport, and no matter how talented a rookie may be, he/she needs to work hard to earn the respect of his team... Which IMHO is the way it should be... Work ethic earns respect...

I love how these kids are always the same. You go to architecture school, you make good grades, a professor or two tells you that you built a nice Laser-cut model, and all of the sudden you are a "good designer" and should be the lead designer in every firm.

I was there once, so I understand.

Once you take your first shitty job at a corporate firm (like I did) you learn that you are in fact a terrible designer!

Learn how to put a quality building together, and you will be a much better designer when the oppurtunities present themselves. Trust me.

Good luck!

I just graduated with a specialized Master's Degree so that I could go forth and do *something* that would make the profession better. Since February I've had 4 interviews, 3 of them with decent firms, but still have not gotten a job. It's deflating and frustrating having the ability and the energy to work and not having the outlet to do so.

That said, I agree with a lot of the discussion going on here so I don't feel the need to rehash everything....suffice it to say that there's just no jobs right now, and unless you have capital to design and build a project, there's very little that any of us can do about this. So I guess we wait then.