I think this thread shows almost everything about how most of architects still think about his profession in an obsolete way.
The story goes like this.
(Person-“A” :Employer or partner)
(Person-“B” :Employee working for person-A)
Person-“B” insists that he is paid not enough to cover his living expenses, and his job cannot support a normal life in a contemporary society. Thus, his professional situation needs to be improved.
However, Person-“A” says to Person-“B”, “No, our profession is good and fantastic because I have no problem and I love it, even if I cannot or will not pay my junior architects enough compensation to support his own financial life because if he has strong patience and passion for the job, you would be OK in 20 years.”
Isn’t it that person-B is in a good condition because he doesn’t pay to Person-A what he has to pay?
Then, isn’t it person-B who causes person-A to get in financial problems?
Then, how Person-B could tell Person-A, “we are in good shape”?
If Person-“A”, to be out of being trouble, couldn’t pay Person-“B” what person-B have to be paid, how person-A could say “we are in good shape”? and not even feel sorry?
Moreover, who guarantee Person-B will be Okay in 20 years? Then, how could Person-“A” underpay Person-“B” saying what he cannot even guarantee?
By the way, one’s having passion for the job and being under-paid have any logical connections???
Every other profession has changed their professional position and philosophy as time goes on, but in this thread architects seem to still have their philosophy that used to be in really long time ago.
Personally, I cannot even believe that those who criticize “star-system” of rich people actually support the very reason of the star-system where only rich young persons can persist on his career living a “normal” life.
"By the way, one’s having passion for the job and being under-paid have any logical connections???"
Exactly. Oh wait I guess a lot of surgeons aren't all that passionate about their jobs because they gross $400k/year...
The average person in this profession under 40 is insane to argue such drivel as "I love my job even though I can't make a profit doing it so I am a winner because I'm a loser and anyone that wants to love their job and make what they enjoy profitable at the same time is a evil." Morons.
Why do bankers get paid a lot of money? Because their principals make a lot more than a lot of money and are able to share their wealth in order to be able to hire and retain talent. Those principals are every bit as greedy as ours and probably a lot more so. But the simple fact is the top 10% of bankers make over a million dollars a year and this creates a lot of flexibility in compensating the lower 90%.
Why do architects and aliied professionals get paid so little money? Because our principals make more money than we do but not really that much more, and so they don't have a whole lot to share to begin with. Maybe the 10 top architects in the whole industry make over a million dollars as a year (as opposed to the top 10%).
If it's money we're concerned about, we don't need kinder and gentler bosses. We need to invent a new business model.
Maybe architects have to work inside the offices of developers and rise to become developers themselves, learning to broaden their skills as their careers advance, to include finance, project management, dealmaking etc. Maybe architectural practices need to be vertically integrated into GCs or large turnkey engineering practices. Maybe we need to run architectural boutiques like ad agencies. Or maybe we just need rigid guild controls on the number of new graduates .. who knows, but the current model - where most architects work for small, independent, creative firms, arguably isn't working.
and I'm not going to turn this into a one on one, so this is it for me except to say if you want to leave architecture, don't let the door hit you in the ass. weee, weee!
Urbanist that is an AMAZING post. Caulk full of insight. "a new business model" would be a great start. Tailor the contemporary profession to contemporary challenges Above all, start proving to society that Architects can still solve problems not just make problems (reference Gehry's leaky buildings) and produce archi-porn and esoteric, useless theories.
Urbanist, Piggy... I'm not sure if you looked at the little chart I made back on page 2 here.
But it seems that architectural firms only really work if they are really small or are really big.
The reasoning for small firms-- if a small firm runs their business like a co-operative then the profit-sharing potential makes being one of the 5 or 6 running the firm lucrative. The only problem with co-operatives is determining leadership. My only recommendation as to how that would work is to employ some sort of arbitrator (could be anyone whose role is directly related to work) mediate between the main keyholders in the shop. You'd need someone to do that as to make sure employees aren't subverting each other.
This middleman could be an accountant, economist, business manager et cetera. Basically, a non-boss boss who doesn't get a performance-based bonus (salary relative to net income).
The reasoning for big firms-- A larger assest pool means more flexibility, more in house services and a greater work diversity which lets employees have many different and varied experiences.
You'd essentially be trading a higher salary for more amenities and a more rigid structured working environment. But there's trade offs in benefits-- a larger office environment means access to travel, education and fringe benefits.
These would offset the cost for a lot of individuals.
My chart only breaks down what people who work are architectural firms are identified as providing architectural services. So, why the figures seem much higher than they are, it suggests that being abble to provide your own administration and support duties... you could eliminate employees non-essential to production.
That would require, however, architects to have superb clerical, financial, accounting, sales and advertising skills that have been somewhat actually learned through education and research rather than by deduction and inference.
Just because you read print, ad busters and the economist does not mean you can actually balance a check book or run an ad campaign.
Piggy, I think I've posted here recently that the vast majority of architects really are doing just what you asked: solving problems. To take off from what Urbanist said, there's maybe 10 star architects in the world, but they're getting ALL the press. The rest of us are working in our local communities, doing decent buildings, pleasing our clients and getting repeat business and word of mouth work. It's not glamorous, it's not highly paid, but it's a reasonable living especially if you place a high value on enjoying what you wake up to do every day.
I've worked in 8 different firms over the years, and I'd say two of them were fantastic, two were hell on a stick, and the rest were just a job.
I do tend to think the profession is going to be vastly different in 20 years, but I think most things will. Doctors already are making far less than the stellar incomes they used to make, lawyers are in the NYTimes complaining that the days of $130k salaries straight out of law school are gone, accountants are losing their bread and butter to websites like file-my-divorce-dot-com.
And, Piggy, just one more thing: even though you're frustrated with it right now, be proud of yourself for getting the damn license. It really is a big deal; it shows you have the stamina and drive to complete something, something that a lot of people can't seem to ever accomplish. It does open a few doors to you, even outside of traditional practice. Try not to feel so poisoned by it. Ten years from now, even if you're not keeping your license active, you will be glad you crossed that threshold.
montagneux can you interpret the chart you posted? I actually digested a little bit of it earlier today but can you help to clarify what you take away from it? (to me it looks like one of those food chain charts from high school, i.e. plankton get eaten by little fish, big fish eat the little fish, etc...is this the main point?)
I would also like to point out that most architectural firms (I've never seen one that wasn't a non-profit) never, ever publish annual reports on the health and well-being of their company.
Most businesses in other sectors do, in fact, publish annual reports of their companies.
It makes it really difficult to even suggest a new business model or to analyze individual businesses without any data.
Surprisingly, HOK is one of the only firms I've seen that publishes their billings figures on an easy-to-find place on their website.
Despite all of this though, firms do not really profit that much off their employees than other businesses do.
Firms make a fraction of what each individual's work output is versus other industries where businesses make a multiple of what their employees put out.
Why go into a business where you can only make 10% when you can go into another business and make 240%?
Well, because it is hard to obtain firm financial data... I had to regress from AIA figures.
In a professional white-collar environment (architectural, marketing, sales, education et cetera), payroll makes up about 55-70% of revenue (we can replace the word revenue with billings).
I took the total number of billings and divided amongst the total number of firms and divided the total number of firms by the number of people providing architectural services.
I set up a table with varying percentages of overhead costs and multiplied them by overhead costs. I divided that figure by the number of architectural-related employees which gives you the rather high figures. (Note: these figures do not include support personnel, interns or contractors). If we're assuming that 100% of revenue is being spent (no profit), then we can assuming that revenue minus payroll equals overhead.
I used the BLS figure (50% median) to find the ratio between total billings amount and salary. That's how I adjusted the figures down from overhead to actual salary.
I assumed a various profit margin percentage that I used to recalculate overhead and payroll (total billings minus profit margin times various perctanges for overhead and payroll). I then used to the BLS-salary-to-billings ratio readjust salaries assuming profitability. (Note: As profitability rises, salaries decrease!).
The last row shows what boses would make if they kept 100% of the profit. For partners I assumed 20% of the office would be keeping 80% of the profits (which is what gives us the adjusted bonuses) and what bonuses would look like if it was run as a cooperative.
I just wanted to see if BLS data matches up to AIA data (which it pretty much does). And while privately-onwed proprietorships do screw some employees out of "fair share," the most unfair schematic shows that at average profitability (3%) the boss man is only making 3 times as much as you.
This is considered extremely fair by modern standards.
It's typical that in most situations bosses make between 60-150 times what their lowest employee makes. At a maximum, a principal would only be making about 6 times as much as a administrative assistant would.
nice piece of work montagneux...very impressive indeed! :) Too bad there aren't more like you in the rank and file...archs would be making a lot more in no time at all.
I guess one question is that, yes, architects and allied design professionals (landscape architects, interior designers/architects, urban designers) solve problems, but do the problems we solve provide the type of tangible value for which the American market system compensates well?
One way to put it is: if people need to be housed (housing being one of our products.. I think we can all agree on that), they can be housed in cinderblock pillboxes, balloon frame/stucco-clad track homes of various shapes, sizes and design merit, or they can be housed in Fallingwater. Sure, Fallingwater solves the problem of housing quite beautifully and elegantly, but as far as our Wal-Mart/Madoff economy goes, does that solution equate to something for which a significant premium per square foot is justified to be paid in compensation to the designer relative to, say, a balloon frame mcmansion of generic neo-shingle mass-production ugliness? In the longterm, Fallingwater may hold its value better than the mcmansion, but this benefit accrues to others (like subsequent owners), and no mechanism exists within our system and current architectural business models to compensate us for producing it.
It seems to me that if we want to be paid for the value of designing Fallingwater as opposed to a generic mcmansion, we need a new business model - one that rewards us for the marginal benefit of heightened valuations going forward, in this case. This is why Rem gets paid top dollar - his business model (borne of his name reputation) means that the developer who hires him to design his building will accrue immediate, quantifiable benefits (in the form of better ticket sales for a Rem-designed museum or X% more rent for a Rem-designed apartment building). They are willing to share this benefit with Rem.. hence, he commands millions a year. Most of us cannot establish such a direct relationship between our services and value-added outcomes for the client. Our society tends to reward people only where this relationship can be clearly and directly established.
Now.. there are other ways (other than fame translating into higher rents) for us to provide such tangible value-added outcomes. Our sustainable design advice can lead to more tax credits or easier entitlements or reduced energy bills. Or just vastly tangible benefits for the environment and the economy. Our clever land-use math and space programming can enable our clients to squeeze in a few more units. Our clever use of modular components and recycled materials can greatly reduce development time and cost. Our use of BIMs can reduce construction costs and optimize the construction supply chain. etc. Those of us who provide such specialized services generally do in fact get premium salaries. I'm decently compensated for what I do relative to many of my industry peers precisely because I am a specialist... even if being a specialist makes any traditional use of the term "architect" pretty dubious in describing my place in profession. I will admit that I've become basically a technical consultant who does design work.. not a designer in the first instance, in the classic sense. But I can translate what I do into quantifiable dollars of benefit for clients and a specific reduction in a project's carbon footprint.
I don't raise these issues to suggest that we're not doing enough to earn ourselves the respect we think we deserve, but just to pose the question of what kind of value we might think we need to add and whether the right business model exists to capture that value to our own benefit.
Instead of sitting on archinect for whatever long time you were doing it and bitching about tough life, hit some web sites with salary checks and you will find out that with 10 years of experience and license you are very underpaid. If it never came to your mind or even worst came and you did nothing about it, you are a failure! If you do not know any software and skills that are required in the recent job offers, learn them. So my answer to you is that it is not architecture that is degrading, it is you who did nothing to improve your situation and instead hangs out at the forum and bitches about his sad sad life and degrading architecture.
syp's post (02/02/10 17:25) sounds like an 'oh yeah' moment, but the A/B thing doesn't really work. you can go from a to b in a couple of years and your perspective doesn't change that much. hell, your salary may not change that much. it's a convenient us vs them allegory, but just not right.
i just became partner last year, luckily missing the year that the partners were the only ones who neither took cost-of-living raises nor bonuses.
this year, instead of the raise we gave to some (tough year), i was given a percentage of the company - something that i get to report as income for my taxes, despite it not actually being liquid. this isn't a complaint, but a perspective that syp may not get. the difference between my compensation and the next guy positioned for partnership - not much.
i mentioned the 'tough year' above, but i'm also proud that we managed our way through 2008-2009 with no layoffs. all of our people have been in the office at least 3yrs, most pre-date me (2005).
montagneux - annual reports are produced by those companies that are publicly owned, no? if a private company were to produce such a thing, to whom would you think it should be distributed? our fourth partner (not an architect but a business manager) distributes monthly reports to the partners, but would it make any sense at all to make these public?!
Steven Ward: Congratulations on making partner. Your comment is too rational and benefits from the years of experience that you bring to this topic. Unfortunately it will be lost on those who are still wondering why life is not fair.
Very Interesting thread,
I joined this site because I still do some contract work and was wondering how contract architects are doing. Then I ran into this thread. I'm 40 and worked in the field (office environment) for 15 years. I left for one simple reason,SALARY. I love the profession but not more than my wife and children. They are my passion and I simply could not give them the life they deserve on a mid 50K salary. Yes, I complained and even firm bounced for a couple of years and ended up at the last firm I worked for. I finally got up to 70K and thought my life was set . Then I came home @ 6:00 pm one evening and my little girl asked me why am I home so early! What? Huh? for three years I didn't even realize that in order to get to the level I desired within the profession, I was working 12 to 13 hour days EVERYDAY!
I still love architecture , thats why I do contract work every now and then, but I no longer make a living at it. I changed that 3 years ago.
Well, there's lots of potential people who may want to be able to get ahold of a dumbed down version of that information. I'm not saying I necessarily want to find out how much you spent on coffee stir sticks in 2008.
But there's other people who want to or should want to see it.
If I'm a prospective new hire, how can I really put on the "wow factor" of trying to impress a firm? It is one thing to study a firms portfolio and cross reference a firm's projects to internet postings about those projects.
But what if I'm trying to prove that I'm great at project management. I mean I can tell you that I've done it for Firm XYV and Firm GHD. But does that really prove anything?
Now, what if we sat down at an interview and I had your numbers for the previous year and a good knowledge of Project E. Then I told you, by my calculations, that Project E was dangerously close to being over budget (given the time frame for when Project E was being done and the corresponding billings in that same time frame).
Then what if I told you the reasoning I had was that I believed that Project E's main problems were the skin system and potentially the plumbing. That, if I was in charge of the Project, I could have reduced those project costs by 25% suggesting that we should subcontract the plumbing schematics for Project E early on and spend more time on that skin system. I could even tell you whether or not if and how long it would take me to do the documentation on that skin system. Like, "Oh, I have done one of these, it only takes me about an hour for ever 25 linear feet of it!"
When a firm advertises they want candidates with strong skills, it makes me want to know what they are deficient in that the could do these things without me. Then again, I wouldn't know how to talk about strengths and weaknesses unless I actually know what they are.
If I'm an interested business party, a government contractor, an investor, a competing firm looking to subcontract, a potential employee or another key stakeholder... I will seek these things out because I need to know how, who, how much, if and your capabilities for doing potential work.
If I see a website with nothing on it other than some pretty pictures, do I really have any clue as to what you do or if people even pay you to do it?
Interesting questions, Mont. What I've observed is that people in our industry can be way too quick to judge. Sometimes they're even way quick to judge their clients, to the detriment of their relationships. The substance of the matter can thus, all too often, get lost in the pretty picture... or they think that they can wow the client with pretty pictures when the client really wants to see the substance and analysis behind the solutions and ideas. Employment candidates are too often dispensed with in the same way: if they lack the pretty pictures and presentation, any substance they might have to bring to the table is lost, but if their pictures are too pretty, the conversation will never get to the substance. I actually think this is a flaw of our proposition - the confusion of some senior people between the wow factor and a genuine value proposition.
"annual reports are produced by those companies that are publicly owned, no?"
Some larger private firms do distribute a basic annual report with a lot of archiporn and just a few topline numbers (often just revenue, sometimes revenue and net income). I think if you dig around on my employer's website you can find something like that, event though we're a private employee-owned firm... ditto for a lot of other big firms. Magazines like ENR and a few others also publish estimates on revenues for large architecture firms (as well as engineering firms).
I'm an Electronics/Product Engineer now. I went back to school @ 35 and got a Masters in Computer Engineering. It was HARD as HELL. I don't know maybe it's my age but The Architectural program was a breeze compared to that ,although I didn't do any all nighters.
I did the computer software systems thing for awhile and found that it wasn't for me either. Then I got hired by Roland. They are a musical instrument company that has most of its revenue in Electronic music equipment. I started out as a tester but now I'm a developer. I love it and yes it's working for me on all fronts. Only negative is that I have to travel a lot because the main office is in LA and I'm not, but I work from home 50 percent of the time, travel the other 50. Pay is a lot better with half the stress.
I've read this whole thread and read your situation, you're young. I was going to advise you to hang in there. Architecture is at its worse for 20 year olds. Then I noticed that you were laid-off. You have NOTHING to loose, why not try something different. If you don't find what you're looking for you can always go back into Architecture.
I told myself that @ 37. I'm licensed so if I didn't make it the Engineering program then I'm still an Architect! I can always get a job.
inspirational jrdrummachine,,,,,,, makes me feel a little better.
my biggest problem is that I still love Architecture to a degree. i guess its a pride thing. i feel stupid that i spent so much money and energy doing something and now I'm changing.
Reading what you did makes me feel a lot better and you did it @ 40.
Uh that came out wong. The fact that you made a change later in your career helps me feel better about doing it @ 24 thats all.
you said, "my biggest problem is that I still love Architecture to a degree. i guess its a pride thing. i feel stupid that i spent so much money and energy doing something and now I'm changing."
me too. you are definitely not as alone as the establishment would like to attempt to protect itself and have you think.
my thoughts:
"Insanity: doing the same thing over and over again and expecting different results."
Albert Einstein
dArch school and the old guard taught/ reinforce the ridiculous notion that banging our heads against the walls erected by the establishment and the contemporary marketplace is actually healthy.
I have a wife and two children whom I love very much. I'm at the point that their futures are worth more to me than my adolescent pipe dreams/ hopes/ fears.
The fact that we are walking in unprecedented professional territory the future of architecture in the marketplace is very much in doubt in my mind because of three factors that are undeniable:
1. demographics
2. technology changing essentially reinventing the practice of arch every couple of years
3. technology making information easily accessible and mass reproducible with little investment of time or money.
These are some of the reasons why I am proposing structural engineering for myself. (another one is to get the H e double hockey sticks away from all the beatnik hippie bohemian lazy artist mental cases that infest the profession of architecture---very unlikely very many of those visiting this forum are capable and willing of becoming expert in structural design sufficient to sign off on documents for permit.)
electrical engineering sounds pretty promising as well.
Here is something clever I read on another forum today which pretty much sums up the past, present, and future professional prospects for those under 50:
Two guys were talking at a bar about what they did for a living.
One said, "I got this job in a circus where I have to clean up the
elephant. You know, hose him down three times a day, clean up his shit
all day long, etc. The smell of that shit--phew! Its so bad, it really
gets me down sometimes."
His companion said, "Well, if you can't stand the smell and the rest
of the work, why don't you quit?"
"What?" said the outraged first man. "And leave show business?"
If I could do it over again, I'd still have gotten graduate profesional architecture and planning degrees, but I would've done environmental engineering as an undergrad instead of architecture. Nobody needs two degrees in arch.
Ok wait, I'm notoriously awful at sleeping through any other class but studio, but I did take this one class with some name like 'Environmental Engineering, or Building Efficiency Engineering,' yada yada. Anyways, we essentially learned how to perform energy efficiency examinations of buildings, then put together information/strategies on how to save money through retrofits, new systems, upgrades, etc. etc. and present it to the client.
So that's like, one tiny tiny aspect of the environmental engineering/consultation field, I'd imagine, right?
If I was interested in pursuing a profession in this field (not necessarily the energy efficiency consult thing) what sort of graduate programs would I look for? What are other env. engineering jobs like? This market is 'booming', right?
, major props for going back to school in your 30's and beginning a successful new career.
I kind of share Piggy/urbanists mindset regarding my education... that I've already invested SO MUCH TIME (3.5 years, yea right) in architecture, and to go to grad school for anything else would set me back. This really isn't true, I guess. Heh.
@StevenWard
Grats Steven on making partner? Err... how does that happen? I mean, is it a position they just 'promote' you to randomly? Since they give you an actual 'piece' of the firm, do they approach you with an offer and you have to buy into it?
Will 'making partner' ever happen in a larger corporate firm, or does this pretty much occurr in small practices?
it happens differently in different companies, jk3hl. in our case, instead of requiring that i 'buy in', which happens in many offices, part of my compensation for the year was a transfer of a % of the company's worth. this, of course, has a known cash value. i could, theoretically, sell it back to the company and no longer be a partner. i could also sell it to someone else, though that would probably be frowned upon....
we went from two partners to four - i received part ownership and the business manager did, as well. the four partners have different %s - the two new ones smallish %s - but we add up to 100%.
oh, and, i had a management role before, but that's just stepped up now. instead of being generally part of personnel, marketing, economic, etc decisions, now i'm always part of them.
How are the tasks of partnerdom split between architecture and management in your case? Also, how big is your firm? And how well does this transition fit with your personal goals?
well, they're not split in any orderly way. management issues constantly pull me from what i still feel i 'should' be doing - directing project development and documentation. i'd say i'm 'managing' about 15% of my time? this also gets all mixed in with general client relations which is not specifically project- or management-related. and then, when it comes time to pull together an rfp reponse - especially if it's got some design proposal work or argument-building involved with completing it - it can derail me for as much as a week sometimes.
it also, however, gives me a lot more discretion. about how to spend my time, how to prioritize, and what judgment calls i need to make (ex: the situation described above where we paid to make a problem go away).
changes that are still happening: i was usually the one writing most of the specs. so far, that's still true, but it's shifting. i simply no longer have the time to hunker down in spec writing - no way to get the long-term focus that i require to get it done. so i'm gradually teaching people to do their own specs. which makes me nervous, because i'm a little bit of a control freak...
does all this fit in with my personal goals? sort of yes, sort of no. i had my own practice and taught for a couple of years, thinking that was my path. but i did NOT like running a business by myself; not something for which i'm suited. and the politics of the teaching environment - at least when i was there - were maddening. when i came here i said, 'i want to be an architect. i want you guys to run the business.' that worked for a few years, but now.... i guess if i want to be moving forward, i have to take my part of the responsibility for the whole pictures. short answer: yes, i think so?
I admit that I'm way late to this discussion and have only skimmed most of the posts. That said, I understand completely what net dude is saying. We're both licensed with similar level of experience, although I'm not a CAD tech by any means ~ thankfully. I've also seen similar cuts in pay and bonuses, etc. I'm not nearly as cynical, but do understand what it's like to be the family "low earner" or feeling angry that I'm supposed to be happy "just because I have a job."
Architecture for sure is a very odd profession. Years ago I read an article in some magaize where the writer, an architect, said, (pharaphrasing) "Architecture is not like what you're friends do, it's not supposed to have reasonable schedules, job security, good pay, good benefits, paid holidays, etc" As a 20-something at the time I was thinking why the f*** not! That's something I still stand by.
A respected college professor of mine and still good friend has always said the problem with Architecture is gross oversupply. His example was comparing the number of accredited colleges of Architecture vs. Pharmacy. One field has a starting salary north of $75,000 and the other was $40,000 (prior to current recession). Both degrees require similar amount of education and professional licensure. This professor said it was a much better comparison than the doctor/lawyer approach. So, what the difference, well there are only about 30 accredited colleges of pharmacy in the country. Supply is the HUGE difference.
Meanwhile professional grad "Architects" are treated as CAD techs because BArch/MArch grads are everywhere. This is no different from the old times when grads were drafting their own work. This profession simply does not need the dumping of 1000's of fresh grads into the field each year, alternative careers included.
Is Architecture degrading or is it just Me?
EM(ili)O alert!
I think this thread shows almost everything about how most of architects still think about his profession in an obsolete way.
The story goes like this.
(Person-“A” :Employer or partner)
(Person-“B” :Employee working for person-A)
Person-“B” insists that he is paid not enough to cover his living expenses, and his job cannot support a normal life in a contemporary society. Thus, his professional situation needs to be improved.
However, Person-“A” says to Person-“B”, “No, our profession is good and fantastic because I have no problem and I love it, even if I cannot or will not pay my junior architects enough compensation to support his own financial life because if he has strong patience and passion for the job, you would be OK in 20 years.”
Isn’t it that person-B is in a good condition because he doesn’t pay to Person-A what he has to pay?
Then, isn’t it person-B who causes person-A to get in financial problems?
Then, how Person-B could tell Person-A, “we are in good shape”?
If Person-“A”, to be out of being trouble, couldn’t pay Person-“B” what person-B have to be paid, how person-A could say “we are in good shape”? and not even feel sorry?
Moreover, who guarantee Person-B will be Okay in 20 years? Then, how could Person-“A” underpay Person-“B” saying what he cannot even guarantee?
By the way, one’s having passion for the job and being under-paid have any logical connections???
Every other profession has changed their professional position and philosophy as time goes on, but in this thread architects seem to still have their philosophy that used to be in really long time ago.
Personally, I cannot even believe that those who criticize “star-system” of rich people actually support the very reason of the star-system where only rich young persons can persist on his career living a “normal” life.
syp said:
"By the way, one’s having passion for the job and being under-paid have any logical connections???"
Exactly. Oh wait I guess a lot of surgeons aren't all that passionate about their jobs because they gross $400k/year...
The average person in this profession under 40 is insane to argue such drivel as "I love my job even though I can't make a profit doing it so I am a winner because I'm a loser and anyone that wants to love their job and make what they enjoy profitable at the same time is a evil." Morons.
piggy, are you reffing summer heights high?
I have no idea what you just said. Do I want to? Probably not. Sounds like a TV show I'm glad I haven't exposed myself to.
it's fucking brilliant!
PI(Grumble)GY alert!
The EM(ili)O song: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1HQIcdGg63I
don't know, but that video sounds more like someone in this thread who won't stop squealing with complaints.
Why do bankers get paid a lot of money? Because their principals make a lot more than a lot of money and are able to share their wealth in order to be able to hire and retain talent. Those principals are every bit as greedy as ours and probably a lot more so. But the simple fact is the top 10% of bankers make over a million dollars a year and this creates a lot of flexibility in compensating the lower 90%.
Why do architects and aliied professionals get paid so little money? Because our principals make more money than we do but not really that much more, and so they don't have a whole lot to share to begin with. Maybe the 10 top architects in the whole industry make over a million dollars as a year (as opposed to the top 10%).
If it's money we're concerned about, we don't need kinder and gentler bosses. We need to invent a new business model.
Maybe architects have to work inside the offices of developers and rise to become developers themselves, learning to broaden their skills as their careers advance, to include finance, project management, dealmaking etc. Maybe architectural practices need to be vertically integrated into GCs or large turnkey engineering practices. Maybe we need to run architectural boutiques like ad agencies. Or maybe we just need rigid guild controls on the number of new graduates .. who knows, but the current model - where most architects work for small, independent, creative firms, arguably isn't working.
and I'm not going to turn this into a one on one, so this is it for me except to say if you want to leave architecture, don't let the door hit you in the ass. weee, weee!
Urbanist that is an AMAZING post. Caulk full of insight. "a new business model" would be a great start. Tailor the contemporary profession to contemporary challenges Above all, start proving to society that Architects can still solve problems not just make problems (reference Gehry's leaky buildings) and produce archi-porn and esoteric, useless theories.
we need to end the apartheid of the playground: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=H5UbKXyYOCw
lame.
Urbanist, Piggy... I'm not sure if you looked at the little chart I made back on page 2 here.
But it seems that architectural firms only really work if they are really small or are really big.
The reasoning for small firms-- if a small firm runs their business like a co-operative then the profit-sharing potential makes being one of the 5 or 6 running the firm lucrative. The only problem with co-operatives is determining leadership. My only recommendation as to how that would work is to employ some sort of arbitrator (could be anyone whose role is directly related to work) mediate between the main keyholders in the shop. You'd need someone to do that as to make sure employees aren't subverting each other.
This middleman could be an accountant, economist, business manager et cetera. Basically, a non-boss boss who doesn't get a performance-based bonus (salary relative to net income).
The reasoning for big firms-- A larger assest pool means more flexibility, more in house services and a greater work diversity which lets employees have many different and varied experiences.
You'd essentially be trading a higher salary for more amenities and a more rigid structured working environment. But there's trade offs in benefits-- a larger office environment means access to travel, education and fringe benefits.
These would offset the cost for a lot of individuals.
My chart only breaks down what people who work are architectural firms are identified as providing architectural services. So, why the figures seem much higher than they are, it suggests that being abble to provide your own administration and support duties... you could eliminate employees non-essential to production.
That would require, however, architects to have superb clerical, financial, accounting, sales and advertising skills that have been somewhat actually learned through education and research rather than by deduction and inference.
Just because you read print, ad busters and the economist does not mean you can actually balance a check book or run an ad campaign.
Piggy, I think I've posted here recently that the vast majority of architects really are doing just what you asked: solving problems. To take off from what Urbanist said, there's maybe 10 star architects in the world, but they're getting ALL the press. The rest of us are working in our local communities, doing decent buildings, pleasing our clients and getting repeat business and word of mouth work. It's not glamorous, it's not highly paid, but it's a reasonable living especially if you place a high value on enjoying what you wake up to do every day.
I've worked in 8 different firms over the years, and I'd say two of them were fantastic, two were hell on a stick, and the rest were just a job.
I do tend to think the profession is going to be vastly different in 20 years, but I think most things will. Doctors already are making far less than the stellar incomes they used to make, lawyers are in the NYTimes complaining that the days of $130k salaries straight out of law school are gone, accountants are losing their bread and butter to websites like file-my-divorce-dot-com.
And, Piggy, just one more thing: even though you're frustrated with it right now, be proud of yourself for getting the damn license. It really is a big deal; it shows you have the stamina and drive to complete something, something that a lot of people can't seem to ever accomplish. It does open a few doors to you, even outside of traditional practice. Try not to feel so poisoned by it. Ten years from now, even if you're not keeping your license active, you will be glad you crossed that threshold.
Edifying post liberty bell, well stated.
montagneux can you interpret the chart you posted? I actually digested a little bit of it earlier today but can you help to clarify what you take away from it? (to me it looks like one of those food chain charts from high school, i.e. plankton get eaten by little fish, big fish eat the little fish, etc...is this the main point?)
I would also like to point out that most architectural firms (I've never seen one that wasn't a non-profit) never, ever publish annual reports on the health and well-being of their company.
Most businesses in other sectors do, in fact, publish annual reports of their companies.
It makes it really difficult to even suggest a new business model or to analyze individual businesses without any data.
Surprisingly, HOK is one of the only firms I've seen that publishes their billings figures on an easy-to-find place on their website.
Despite all of this though, firms do not really profit that much off their employees than other businesses do.
Firms make a fraction of what each individual's work output is versus other industries where businesses make a multiple of what their employees put out.
Why go into a business where you can only make 10% when you can go into another business and make 240%?
so why are any of us architects?
why sit and whine on a messageboard when you can go and make much more profit just about anywhere else?
honestly, why are you here?
each firm is able to set up its own business model
admittedly, most are not that well run
but why just sit and complain about it, why not go do something about it?
architects seem to be a typical bunch at times
They love to complain about everything under the sun, yet dont bother to do anything about it
Well, because it is hard to obtain firm financial data... I had to regress from AIA figures.
In a professional white-collar environment (architectural, marketing, sales, education et cetera), payroll makes up about 55-70% of revenue (we can replace the word revenue with billings).
I took the total number of billings and divided amongst the total number of firms and divided the total number of firms by the number of people providing architectural services.
I set up a table with varying percentages of overhead costs and multiplied them by overhead costs. I divided that figure by the number of architectural-related employees which gives you the rather high figures. (Note: these figures do not include support personnel, interns or contractors). If we're assuming that 100% of revenue is being spent (no profit), then we can assuming that revenue minus payroll equals overhead.
I used the BLS figure (50% median) to find the ratio between total billings amount and salary. That's how I adjusted the figures down from overhead to actual salary.
I assumed a various profit margin percentage that I used to recalculate overhead and payroll (total billings minus profit margin times various perctanges for overhead and payroll). I then used to the BLS-salary-to-billings ratio readjust salaries assuming profitability. (Note: As profitability rises, salaries decrease!).
The last row shows what boses would make if they kept 100% of the profit. For partners I assumed 20% of the office would be keeping 80% of the profits (which is what gives us the adjusted bonuses) and what bonuses would look like if it was run as a cooperative.
and i ask those questions seriously, not as a joke
what drew us to become architects? and what keeps us doing this?
None of this is surprising or new for the industry
So what is it that keeps us doing this?
I just wanted to see if BLS data matches up to AIA data (which it pretty much does). And while privately-onwed proprietorships do screw some employees out of "fair share," the most unfair schematic shows that at average profitability (3%) the boss man is only making 3 times as much as you.
This is considered extremely fair by modern standards.
It's typical that in most situations bosses make between 60-150 times what their lowest employee makes. At a maximum, a principal would only be making about 6 times as much as a administrative assistant would.
nice piece of work montagneux...very impressive indeed! :) Too bad there aren't more like you in the rank and file...archs would be making a lot more in no time at all.
I guess one question is that, yes, architects and allied design professionals (landscape architects, interior designers/architects, urban designers) solve problems, but do the problems we solve provide the type of tangible value for which the American market system compensates well?
One way to put it is: if people need to be housed (housing being one of our products.. I think we can all agree on that), they can be housed in cinderblock pillboxes, balloon frame/stucco-clad track homes of various shapes, sizes and design merit, or they can be housed in Fallingwater. Sure, Fallingwater solves the problem of housing quite beautifully and elegantly, but as far as our Wal-Mart/Madoff economy goes, does that solution equate to something for which a significant premium per square foot is justified to be paid in compensation to the designer relative to, say, a balloon frame mcmansion of generic neo-shingle mass-production ugliness? In the longterm, Fallingwater may hold its value better than the mcmansion, but this benefit accrues to others (like subsequent owners), and no mechanism exists within our system and current architectural business models to compensate us for producing it.
It seems to me that if we want to be paid for the value of designing Fallingwater as opposed to a generic mcmansion, we need a new business model - one that rewards us for the marginal benefit of heightened valuations going forward, in this case. This is why Rem gets paid top dollar - his business model (borne of his name reputation) means that the developer who hires him to design his building will accrue immediate, quantifiable benefits (in the form of better ticket sales for a Rem-designed museum or X% more rent for a Rem-designed apartment building). They are willing to share this benefit with Rem.. hence, he commands millions a year. Most of us cannot establish such a direct relationship between our services and value-added outcomes for the client. Our society tends to reward people only where this relationship can be clearly and directly established.
Now.. there are other ways (other than fame translating into higher rents) for us to provide such tangible value-added outcomes. Our sustainable design advice can lead to more tax credits or easier entitlements or reduced energy bills. Or just vastly tangible benefits for the environment and the economy. Our clever land-use math and space programming can enable our clients to squeeze in a few more units. Our clever use of modular components and recycled materials can greatly reduce development time and cost. Our use of BIMs can reduce construction costs and optimize the construction supply chain. etc. Those of us who provide such specialized services generally do in fact get premium salaries. I'm decently compensated for what I do relative to many of my industry peers precisely because I am a specialist... even if being a specialist makes any traditional use of the term "architect" pretty dubious in describing my place in profession. I will admit that I've become basically a technical consultant who does design work.. not a designer in the first instance, in the classic sense. But I can translate what I do into quantifiable dollars of benefit for clients and a specific reduction in a project's carbon footprint.
I don't raise these issues to suggest that we're not doing enough to earn ourselves the respect we think we deserve, but just to pose the question of what kind of value we might think we need to add and whether the right business model exists to capture that value to our own benefit.
I think montagneux's and Urbanist's last few posts are the most intelligent things I've read in an online arch forum in a long time.
Instead of sitting on archinect for whatever long time you were doing it and bitching about tough life, hit some web sites with salary checks and you will find out that with 10 years of experience and license you are very underpaid. If it never came to your mind or even worst came and you did nothing about it, you are a failure! If you do not know any software and skills that are required in the recent job offers, learn them. So my answer to you is that it is not architecture that is degrading, it is you who did nothing to improve your situation and instead hangs out at the forum and bitches about his sad sad life and degrading architecture.
Emo Alert.
^^^agreed. ironically Piggy seems the most "emo" of everyone here.
^amazing considering he's not even an architect anymore!
syp's post (02/02/10 17:25) sounds like an 'oh yeah' moment, but the A/B thing doesn't really work. you can go from a to b in a couple of years and your perspective doesn't change that much. hell, your salary may not change that much. it's a convenient us vs them allegory, but just not right.
i just became partner last year, luckily missing the year that the partners were the only ones who neither took cost-of-living raises nor bonuses.
this year, instead of the raise we gave to some (tough year), i was given a percentage of the company - something that i get to report as income for my taxes, despite it not actually being liquid. this isn't a complaint, but a perspective that syp may not get. the difference between my compensation and the next guy positioned for partnership - not much.
i mentioned the 'tough year' above, but i'm also proud that we managed our way through 2008-2009 with no layoffs. all of our people have been in the office at least 3yrs, most pre-date me (2005).
montagneux - annual reports are produced by those companies that are publicly owned, no? if a private company were to produce such a thing, to whom would you think it should be distributed? our fourth partner (not an architect but a business manager) distributes monthly reports to the partners, but would it make any sense at all to make these public?!
Steven Ward: Congratulations on making partner. Your comment is too rational and benefits from the years of experience that you bring to this topic. Unfortunately it will be lost on those who are still wondering why life is not fair.
Maestro you make a very valid point. Thanks for sharing your experiences Steven Ward.
Very Interesting thread,
I joined this site because I still do some contract work and was wondering how contract architects are doing. Then I ran into this thread. I'm 40 and worked in the field (office environment) for 15 years. I left for one simple reason,SALARY. I love the profession but not more than my wife and children. They are my passion and I simply could not give them the life they deserve on a mid 50K salary. Yes, I complained and even firm bounced for a couple of years and ended up at the last firm I worked for. I finally got up to 70K and thought my life was set . Then I came home @ 6:00 pm one evening and my little girl asked me why am I home so early! What? Huh? for three years I didn't even realize that in order to get to the level I desired within the profession, I was working 12 to 13 hour days EVERYDAY!
I still love architecture , thats why I do contract work every now and then, but I no longer make a living at it. I changed that 3 years ago.
Well, there's lots of potential people who may want to be able to get ahold of a dumbed down version of that information. I'm not saying I necessarily want to find out how much you spent on coffee stir sticks in 2008.
But there's other people who want to or should want to see it.
If I'm a prospective new hire, how can I really put on the "wow factor" of trying to impress a firm? It is one thing to study a firms portfolio and cross reference a firm's projects to internet postings about those projects.
But what if I'm trying to prove that I'm great at project management. I mean I can tell you that I've done it for Firm XYV and Firm GHD. But does that really prove anything?
Now, what if we sat down at an interview and I had your numbers for the previous year and a good knowledge of Project E. Then I told you, by my calculations, that Project E was dangerously close to being over budget (given the time frame for when Project E was being done and the corresponding billings in that same time frame).
Then what if I told you the reasoning I had was that I believed that Project E's main problems were the skin system and potentially the plumbing. That, if I was in charge of the Project, I could have reduced those project costs by 25% suggesting that we should subcontract the plumbing schematics for Project E early on and spend more time on that skin system. I could even tell you whether or not if and how long it would take me to do the documentation on that skin system. Like, "Oh, I have done one of these, it only takes me about an hour for ever 25 linear feet of it!"
When a firm advertises they want candidates with strong skills, it makes me want to know what they are deficient in that the could do these things without me. Then again, I wouldn't know how to talk about strengths and weaknesses unless I actually know what they are.
If I'm an interested business party, a government contractor, an investor, a competing firm looking to subcontract, a potential employee or another key stakeholder... I will seek these things out because I need to know how, who, how much, if and your capabilities for doing potential work.
If I see a website with nothing on it other than some pretty pictures, do I really have any clue as to what you do or if people even pay you to do it?
Interesting questions, Mont. What I've observed is that people in our industry can be way too quick to judge. Sometimes they're even way quick to judge their clients, to the detriment of their relationships. The substance of the matter can thus, all too often, get lost in the pretty picture... or they think that they can wow the client with pretty pictures when the client really wants to see the substance and analysis behind the solutions and ideas. Employment candidates are too often dispensed with in the same way: if they lack the pretty pictures and presentation, any substance they might have to bring to the table is lost, but if their pictures are too pretty, the conversation will never get to the substance. I actually think this is a flaw of our proposition - the confusion of some senior people between the wow factor and a genuine value proposition.
JRummachine
if you don't mind me asking what career are you in now? and is it better at least for you?
Archiporn.. the enemy of architecture ;-)
Steve:
"annual reports are produced by those companies that are publicly owned, no?"
Some larger private firms do distribute a basic annual report with a lot of archiporn and just a few topline numbers (often just revenue, sometimes revenue and net income). I think if you dig around on my employer's website you can find something like that, event though we're a private employee-owned firm... ditto for a lot of other big firms. Magazines like ENR and a few others also publish estimates on revenues for large architecture firms (as well as engineering firms).
Lanah
I'm an Electronics/Product Engineer now. I went back to school @ 35 and got a Masters in Computer Engineering. It was HARD as HELL. I don't know maybe it's my age but The Architectural program was a breeze compared to that ,although I didn't do any all nighters.
I did the computer software systems thing for awhile and found that it wasn't for me either. Then I got hired by Roland. They are a musical instrument company that has most of its revenue in Electronic music equipment. I started out as a tester but now I'm a developer. I love it and yes it's working for me on all fronts. Only negative is that I have to travel a lot because the main office is in LA and I'm not, but I work from home 50 percent of the time, travel the other 50. Pay is a lot better with half the stress.
I've read this whole thread and read your situation, you're young. I was going to advise you to hang in there. Architecture is at its worse for 20 year olds. Then I noticed that you were laid-off. You have NOTHING to loose, why not try something different. If you don't find what you're looking for you can always go back into Architecture.
I told myself that @ 37. I'm licensed so if I didn't make it the Engineering program then I'm still an Architect! I can always get a job.
inspirational jrdrummachine,,,,,,, makes me feel a little better.
my biggest problem is that I still love Architecture to a degree. i guess its a pride thing. i feel stupid that i spent so much money and energy doing something and now I'm changing.
Reading what you did makes me feel a lot better and you did it @ 40.
Uh that came out wong. The fact that you made a change later in your career helps me feel better about doing it @ 24 thats all.
lanah:
you said, "my biggest problem is that I still love Architecture to a degree. i guess its a pride thing. i feel stupid that i spent so much money and energy doing something and now I'm changing."
me too. you are definitely not as alone as the establishment would like to attempt to protect itself and have you think.
my thoughts:
"Insanity: doing the same thing over and over again and expecting different results."
Albert Einstein
dArch school and the old guard taught/ reinforce the ridiculous notion that banging our heads against the walls erected by the establishment and the contemporary marketplace is actually healthy.
I have a wife and two children whom I love very much. I'm at the point that their futures are worth more to me than my adolescent pipe dreams/ hopes/ fears.
The fact that we are walking in unprecedented professional territory the future of architecture in the marketplace is very much in doubt in my mind because of three factors that are undeniable:
1. demographics
2. technology changing essentially reinventing the practice of arch every couple of years
3. technology making information easily accessible and mass reproducible with little investment of time or money.
These are some of the reasons why I am proposing structural engineering for myself. (another one is to get the H e double hockey sticks away from all the beatnik hippie bohemian lazy artist mental cases that infest the profession of architecture---very unlikely very many of those visiting this forum are capable and willing of becoming expert in structural design sufficient to sign off on documents for permit.)
electrical engineering sounds pretty promising as well.
Here is something clever I read on another forum today which pretty much sums up the past, present, and future professional prospects for those under 50:
Two guys were talking at a bar about what they did for a living.
One said, "I got this job in a circus where I have to clean up the
elephant. You know, hose him down three times a day, clean up his shit
all day long, etc. The smell of that shit--phew! Its so bad, it really
gets me down sometimes."
His companion said, "Well, if you can't stand the smell and the rest
of the work, why don't you quit?"
"What?" said the outraged first man. "And leave show business?"
very germane indeed.
If I could do it over again, I'd still have gotten graduate profesional architecture and planning degrees, but I would've done environmental engineering as an undergrad instead of architecture. Nobody needs two degrees in arch.
Ok wait, I'm notoriously awful at sleeping through any other class but studio, but I did take this one class with some name like 'Environmental Engineering, or Building Efficiency Engineering,' yada yada. Anyways, we essentially learned how to perform energy efficiency examinations of buildings, then put together information/strategies on how to save money through retrofits, new systems, upgrades, etc. etc. and present it to the client.
So that's like, one tiny tiny aspect of the environmental engineering/consultation field, I'd imagine, right?
If I was interested in pursuing a profession in this field (not necessarily the energy efficiency consult thing) what sort of graduate programs would I look for? What are other env. engineering jobs like? This market is 'booming', right?
, major props for going back to school in your 30's and beginning a successful new career.
I kind of share Piggy/urbanists mindset regarding my education... that I've already invested SO MUCH TIME (3.5 years, yea right) in architecture, and to go to grad school for anything else would set me back. This really isn't true, I guess. Heh.
@StevenWard
Grats Steven on making partner? Err... how does that happen? I mean, is it a position they just 'promote' you to randomly? Since they give you an actual 'piece' of the firm, do they approach you with an offer and you have to buy into it?
Will 'making partner' ever happen in a larger corporate firm, or does this pretty much occurr in small practices?
Am I confusing 'partner' with 'principal'?
it happens differently in different companies, jk3hl. in our case, instead of requiring that i 'buy in', which happens in many offices, part of my compensation for the year was a transfer of a % of the company's worth. this, of course, has a known cash value. i could, theoretically, sell it back to the company and no longer be a partner. i could also sell it to someone else, though that would probably be frowned upon....
we went from two partners to four - i received part ownership and the business manager did, as well. the four partners have different %s - the two new ones smallish %s - but we add up to 100%.
oh, and, i had a management role before, but that's just stepped up now. instead of being generally part of personnel, marketing, economic, etc decisions, now i'm always part of them.
Hey Steven,
How are the tasks of partnerdom split between architecture and management in your case? Also, how big is your firm? And how well does this transition fit with your personal goals?
well, they're not split in any orderly way. management issues constantly pull me from what i still feel i 'should' be doing - directing project development and documentation. i'd say i'm 'managing' about 15% of my time? this also gets all mixed in with general client relations which is not specifically project- or management-related. and then, when it comes time to pull together an rfp reponse - especially if it's got some design proposal work or argument-building involved with completing it - it can derail me for as much as a week sometimes.
it also, however, gives me a lot more discretion. about how to spend my time, how to prioritize, and what judgment calls i need to make (ex: the situation described above where we paid to make a problem go away).
changes that are still happening: i was usually the one writing most of the specs. so far, that's still true, but it's shifting. i simply no longer have the time to hunker down in spec writing - no way to get the long-term focus that i require to get it done. so i'm gradually teaching people to do their own specs. which makes me nervous, because i'm a little bit of a control freak...
does all this fit in with my personal goals? sort of yes, sort of no. i had my own practice and taught for a couple of years, thinking that was my path. but i did NOT like running a business by myself; not something for which i'm suited. and the politics of the teaching environment - at least when i was there - were maddening. when i came here i said, 'i want to be an architect. i want you guys to run the business.' that worked for a few years, but now.... i guess if i want to be moving forward, i have to take my part of the responsibility for the whole pictures. short answer: yes, i think so?
oh, and we're now 13 people.
I admit that I'm way late to this discussion and have only skimmed most of the posts. That said, I understand completely what net dude is saying. We're both licensed with similar level of experience, although I'm not a CAD tech by any means ~ thankfully. I've also seen similar cuts in pay and bonuses, etc. I'm not nearly as cynical, but do understand what it's like to be the family "low earner" or feeling angry that I'm supposed to be happy "just because I have a job."
Architecture for sure is a very odd profession. Years ago I read an article in some magaize where the writer, an architect, said, (pharaphrasing) "Architecture is not like what you're friends do, it's not supposed to have reasonable schedules, job security, good pay, good benefits, paid holidays, etc" As a 20-something at the time I was thinking why the f*** not! That's something I still stand by.
A respected college professor of mine and still good friend has always said the problem with Architecture is gross oversupply. His example was comparing the number of accredited colleges of Architecture vs. Pharmacy. One field has a starting salary north of $75,000 and the other was $40,000 (prior to current recession). Both degrees require similar amount of education and professional licensure. This professor said it was a much better comparison than the doctor/lawyer approach. So, what the difference, well there are only about 30 accredited colleges of pharmacy in the country. Supply is the HUGE difference.
Meanwhile professional grad "Architects" are treated as CAD techs because BArch/MArch grads are everywhere. This is no different from the old times when grads were drafting their own work. This profession simply does not need the dumping of 1000's of fresh grads into the field each year, alternative careers included.
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