i know that the aia has a variety of research grants of various sizes... i know, for instance, that kieran timberlake won the biggest one a few years ago... i can't recall its name, but i'm sure a little googling would reveal it... i want to say that it was for $150K...

the graham foundation is also a big source of grants for architecture...

also, as an individual there is always the rome prize in both architecture and landscape architecture... i read recently in "landscape architecture" that they only received something like 12 applications for the LA version of the rome prize last year, so your chances would probably be pretty good

am in same boat as you barry. if at the end of the process you learn things you wish you knew now would love it if you put it on your (future) blog or here, or wherever.

i just sent off a proposal on similar topic (sustainable cities) to group that supports japan/usa based policy-driven research. will hear next january if i get it. not embarrassed to say i felt a bit like fish out of water writing it and am entirely unsure if i made the write decisions when putting the proposal together.

a professor of mine from grad school back in canada was able to get a grant large enough to build his own research building on the archi-campus. i have no idea how he managed that, but suspect it was because his work was so unique and the narrative so compelling.

in the end it seems like with whatever the job it always comes down to the narrative.

i would also imagine that the university would have some sort of pre-review system in place... i know here at penn there is a place where students (and i would assume profs too) can have people look at their grant applications before submitting them... they also have a list of basically every grant/scholarship/whatever under the sun...

jump, is that the guy that does the fabric formed concrete? i somehow came across his stuff a while ago...

yeah thats right architphil. i don't know the details but remember one day hearing that instead of playing with spandex molds in the basement of the architecture school we would be able to do our crazy experiments in a new building out front. I know he had to find matching funds and did a lot of other shmoozing and so on, but a big chunk came from the grant. which is pretty cool. if you are a professor and want to legitimise your research i can think of nothing better than to get a building to conduct your work in on the campus.

Barry,

Some of the best grant-writing advice I ever got:

1) follow the application instructions; and
2) tell them what you'd do on the Monday morning after you received the grant funds.

No. 1 seems self-evident, but I'm told that we'd be amazed at how far afield applications can wander from what is often a very helpful guiding format/ set of questions.

No. 2 is about preparation to undertake the work. This will be supported by descriptions of methodology, schedule and budget, but should also include specifics showing that you are so ready to go, all you're waiting for is their check. The fear of many a granting body is that funding will be wasted on applicants who look good on paper, but are not ready or qualified to do the work.

This sage wisdom was passed on to me, and helped me win a fairly competitive HUD grant.

Good luck to you!

Our IREE pre-proposal is done! Lets hope we get invited to write a full proposal and then win the funding.

Back on the grant writing gerbil wheel - 1 down (LAF CSI research fellowship application), three-and-a-half more in the works, and perhaps another one coming down the pike for June. Some questions have popped up as I'm crafting the budgets:

• How much to include for hiring a copy editor for a book?
• Ditto for a book designer?
• Ditto for an exhibit designer (to assist students creating the exhibit)?

I've been throwing so many ideas out there just to see what sticks - hoping that only one or two of them get funded, otherwise I'll be stretched way too thin!

[If any of my proposal gets funded, I'll share what the project is at that point.]

barry, i should be able to give you some ballpark figures for both copyeditor and book designer... i'll do some digging and get back to you... off the top of my head, i can tell you that a print run of 3000 copies of a +\- 300 page book cost us about $22,000 in printing costs...

i was going to suggest about $1000-1500 for copyediting, but it depends on the length and what level of editing you need done... here's a link to a list of copyediting rates: http://www.the-efa.org/res/rates.php based on this i might estimate more like $2000ish... for design, my colleague suggests about $3000, but again it would depend on the type of book... if it is just typesetting with a 10 page section of images then that number is probably sufficient... but if it will be more graphics heavy or designy, then it will be significantly more...

thanks! I was an order of magnitude above those numbers.

So Dirt was self-published? How are you handling distribution?

DIRT was copublished by Penn and MIT Press. Its complicated. I'll email you.