Ok, so. My friend's mom is a landscape architect, and she was recently showing me a residential project she's collaborating on in Montecito (the client is an absurdly wealthy and popular individual in the movie business).
Anyways, she was going over some of the drawings and work the architects had submitted, and I was pretty struck with how basic and rudimentary their representation was... all across the board. The CD's looked so-so, but christ... the sketches and 3d models/renderings they submitted were absolutely awful.
Anyways, I realize there's years and years of experience and knowledge behind the actual design, but still... I could blow these guys out of the water in terms of representation, just as an undergraduate student. I'm guessing this condition is pretty prevalent in most high-end residential practices - the firms consist of older guys with lots of experience and contacts/clients, but really outdated representation/digital skills.
With those thoughts aside, residential work seems great - especially when your clients have a sky-high budget. Plus, the projects are something that, as an individual, you could tackle alone or with an extremely small amount of staff. Seems like the easiest place/area with which to begin a firm or strike out as a young designer (not considering the question of actually obtaining clients).
So my question is, these days, how does a young architect break into this area and begin gaining clients?
And how do these sorts of practices find clients, anyways? It's not like your average client will ever need an architect to design them more than one home, so you won't be getting any repeat business. Is it just a word of mouth thing? Or do people typically just look for local offices when building their home?
Also, a question for the younger architects - how are you developing your sense of what clients actually like in terms of (home) design? I mean, the average client wants something familiar and well, homey looking. It's not like we ever practice designing that crap in studio. So how will you grab clients if all we can come up with are contemporary concrete or glass pads?
you know what a lot of wealthy clients like? drawings that look old-fashioned. i know an architect that still has staff members preparing drawings with pencil on vellum. the clients eat this up. i'm not sure this architect even has email today...but he charges a hefty premium for his work, has numerous fancy autos/vacation homes and even manages to pay his staff above-average wages (although this is somewhat mitigated by poor benefits package).
most clients simply don't care about representation at all. the money you spend on fancy rendering software means nothing to them. some of them do, however, like objects that play to their own ego. the hand-drawn pencil on vellum appeals because its an artifact that can be displayed as if the homeowner is "old money".
given all the complaining about money within this profession, i'm surprised more architects don't take the (rather lucrative) approach of my friend as described above. if i were into high-end residential design, it would certainly be my strategy.
I'm too tired to address the drawing question, but I'll tell you how we get jobs: Word of mouth, and this is the part most people don't like to hear: you might have to live in the the town you grew up in. Word of mouth spreads through a network, and the biggest network you already have is from your childhood: your parents have friends, they have friends, you probably have some classmates who went on toe medical and law school, you have a childhood doctor/dentist/orthodontist, you went to church...
It takes years to build a network, a reputation, and a catalogue of work to show people. Residential work is very rewarding and direct, which I enjoy after years of working with institutional building committees. But you also have to like people and be willing to empathize with how personal a project someone's home is - they are very emotionally invested in it, and rightly. Also, if you don't want to be a least a bit of a marriage counselor, don't do it!
I think having an old, gnarled, "been in the trenches" look about you helps. I mean honestly, what older client would hire some "kid" to design their house... what does a "kid" know?
Plus, keep in mind that at early stages in the design process, starting off with a set of drawings that begin rough, edgey and a little messy even can be a good thing. From the clients perspective, they need to see a design process that evolves over time with their input.
If after a couple meetings you've got a finished rendering that looks *perfect* then in their eyes the design is "finished"
our clients prefer my hand sketches more than the renderings. we haven't asked them this but every time we meet inevitably they ask if i have a drawing for them. so now i do. always. it is something they can show to their friends. it looks architectural. very important. a rendering looks like nothing at all, even if you are great and fantastic. but a hand drawing...that shows you have the cash to hire an artist and a craftsman. an important thing to the kind of folks who are hiring an architect to make a home for them.
as to the original post, like LB says, its all about word of mouth and networks. whether you are better in undergrad than someone with 20 years experience i will not comment on except to say that i doubt it. but maybe you are. the kicker is that the client you don't have doesn't care. which is where the actual art of architecture lays truth be told - bringing in work is the first job and the most important. everything else is just for fun. if you are lucky bringing in work is fun too.
Word of Mouth is how we obtain a large portion of our work. The word of mouth coming from clients, contractors, and people in government, and also people in the community who know your tied to the community by giving back to the community along with people in the real estate field.
Just last week I had a prospective client call and ask to meet them on Thurday afternoon to discuss and addition onto their second home. I ask them who recommended me and they said it was an electrical contractor, whom I have never met. It turns out he has seen our works and has reviewed our construction documents for other projects we have produced. It looks like we have the job.
Giving back to the community is also important. People see this.
I volunteer for an local organization of developmently challenged people. I sit on the board and help with things architectural as well as building related. We have four group homes, an administrative building, and a day program. So there is always something that needs tending in one way or another. I'm mostly a sounding board,
but I do get in the trenches. Anyhow another non profit is looking at doing a major remodel and addition to their property, and well the director of the program I'm involved with told me he had a meeting with the other potential client, and let them know we are their Architects and we are most professional and yet great people to work with.
I'm often contacted by people who contact the Building Official who for one reason need and Architect. These jobs I seldom turn down, unless it is a project from Hell. I find that working thru these kind of projects which usually involve Building and Fire Code issues, it a grand way to interact with the govenment officials in a positive way.
Contactor for obvious reasons are good guys to have on your side.
I do work on design development projects with a contractor in the area. We have built a good relationship over the past ten years and I can say this is part of the reason I'm not feeling the pinch as bad as many.
Clients are also great for passing you along to other clients. If you have a happy client there are two things which can happen. They give your name to someone else or they have you come back and do additional work for them. I have been fortunate to have had my share of this kind of interaction. I once had a older client who told me, " The only thing I don't have is time, lets get this project done."
I have since worked on three projects for her daughter and now I'm
working for the new owners of the property.
We don't put on a presence, we know it is a pretty level playing field when it comes to design, cause that is what we all learned either at University or in the School of Hard Knocks. What makes a difference is how you interact with the client, and those who are working on their project.
Why does everyone always think residential is easier?! In actual fact it is quite often much more difficult to do residential right than it is to do commercial, and not always for the reasons you'd expect.
I recommend picking a small boutique residential firm to work with for about 3 years and be an absolute SPONGE to learn everything you possibly can from them. This includes how to design -- because what you learn in school is quite different from the field, as well all know, but I've found that disparity is felt keenly in residential design. It's amazing how much thought needs to go into something that people will actually live in, almost 100% of their time. You can't get away with any mistakes in design, in finish selection, or in construction quality. (Not that you should in commercial or institutional work either, but in those areas (particularly commercial) the margins for error tend to be quite a bit higher.)
I've found that, in general, residential work is more fun during the design process but hellish during CA (although not without its fun moments of course); commercial / institutional work in my experience has been much more difficult / frustrating during the design phase but a much smoother and more simplistic CA experience. Of the two, the residential is in the long run both more frustrating (tear-your-hair-out frustrating) but more rewarding. It is, however, harder to do right.
I guess my point is, don't assume you can do better than these guys just starting out of the gate, and try to get your own clients right away. I think you would find that you would have a hellish experience dealing with many aspects of design you never anticipated, and that unfortunately means your clients might have a hellish experience too; thus you run the risk of setting yourself up with a horrible reputation from the get-go, before you even get a chance to do a good project -- and it can take lifetimes to repair reputations in this field.
So rather than just try to set up shop straight out of school, I would absolutely work for a few years for a small jack-of-all-trades type company whose design sense you respect and learn the biz from them. During that time you'll start building up your network, so that it's in place -- and the clients are waiting for you -- by the time you actually know what you're doing and are ready to start.
after 5 years in a large international firm I've just started in a small residential practice, doing reasonably 'high-end' projects in Sydney, and I've found that in spite of what i thought was a reasonable level of experience with design and construction, i've found that i know....nearly nothing about delivering a project, managing clients on a personal level and even detailing in a real sense.
its been a humbling few weeks
having said that i'm having the time of my life, i've probably learnt more about architecture in the last month than i did in the last year and i'm finding the design process incredibly stimulating and way more fun.
jk3hl - I'm a young architect, designing my first home right now. My background is in large scale hospitality projects -including some residential buildings, so its not too far off, but ive never worked on a single-residence where the client is "Joe and Jane Smith" until now.
Its been a challenge but very fun. I am used to designing more contemporary. but as you said..these clients often want "homey". Even thought i usually have a stubborn taste of design....i think the last place to be selfish in terms of "style" preference is when it comes to designing someones DREAM home. I mean, design the house as functional, sustainable, etc... but if they are not comfortable with a modern style, I am not about to be the snob to push it on them.
Its hard to get my clients to grasp the idea that their custom home is being designed for them- they just keep nodding their head and smiling. They are very exicited.. but i had to literally end up giving them a little lecture on how to be the client. I said "look guys, if you want to have a slide from the upstairs into the living room below- you just tell me.." I was obivously exaggerating, but it helped them understand and open up.
I could blow these guys out of the water in terms of representation, just as an undergraduate student. I'm guessing this condition is pretty prevalent in most high-end residential practices - the firms consist of older guys with lots of experience and contacts/clients, but really outdated representation/digital skills.---
1. many times an out of date presentation skill like a hand rendering is much more effective for a residential client.
2. you may have mad representation skills but, can you design a kitchen that works? do you know how wide a walk in closet is? can you even draw a brick veneer/ tick built wall section?
3. the high residential clients i have worked with are not head nodding sheep. they are successful, smart, detailed oriented people and if you cop some sort of black turtleneck attitude with them you won't last long.
i've found high-end res to be difficult to break out of. my secret: going to work for a firm that designs high-end residential homes. and...if you get to know the contractors, and they like you, it isn't that difficult to let them know that you can draw some plans for them once and a while, and get work that way. it's my experience that most of this sort of work comes from word of mouth contractor referrals.
as for the representation thing, i would say high-end res generally doesn't call for flashy representation. chances are, if the client is in your office, you already got the job. when someone hires you to design a home for them, they want to know that you are competent, not that you are good at making pretty pictures. and since they probably aren't advertising their personal home as some sort of thing the public will need or use, they don't need to spend money on a rendering for that purpose either. that was something i had to get over quickly. i would even go so far as to say most architects who focus on high-end res would rather you be really, really good at sketch up than rhino or viz. one firm i worked for actually got rid of rhino and went to all sketch up.
oh I've got a question for anyone who designs alot of residences...
Does it not freak you out a little that the owners will end up furnishing/decorating the place with a lack of taste? We are doing alot of the furnishing ourselves on my project...but its hard for me to accept that something i design with somewhat of a vision in mind could some day get cluttered full of crap.
i would also add that most of our clients generated repeat business. most absurdly wealthy people either have more than one home, or else there is no end to the amount of modifications they will make to their own home. and keep something else in mind: that type-a, absurdly weathly people can be pretty obnoxious to work with. like in a "hey, why are you talking to the engineers? i'd like them to just consult with me from now on, it will be more efficient that way thank you very much" kind of way. be prepared to get really good at drawing details, and making lots and lots and lots of changes. be prepared to be yelled at, and often, over things that were probably of the client's doing in the first place. it's not the type of racket to be in if you're easily pushed around, or don't like to watch couples argue over insanely idiotic things.
actually, i worked on one project once where the whole job was just to select 200,000 dollars worth of insanely expensive, modern furniture to fit in their insanely expensive modern home.
I agree 100% with how le bossman described the high-end res design process. I have had clients say exactly the same words he put in their mouths! It's so common it's absurd... I wonder if any of these clients realize how not-unique they are?
Anyway -- it sounds like a horrible process to deal with but like we say, the upside is much greater design and detail control than you get in other program types, and much greater reward when you finally get the contractor to come back and install that last hinge pin he left out and you're all done... and the clients love it. High-end res work represents by far the highest highs I've had so far in the profession... if you're willing to put up with incredible interpersonal stress to deal with it.
I think you have to be 50% psychologist, 50% architect to get yourself and your clients sanely through a high-end res project!
Only thing I can't agree with le bossman on :
I have had some clients with great "house" taste, and HORRIBLE furniture taste.
As the finish work nears completion, in the days prior to client move-in date, I take COPIOUS pictures cataloguing EVERYTHING I want in the portfolio from the project. I do my best to crop all blue tape out of the frames or run around unsticking-it and resticking-it just to get as clean pics as I can of the empty house. You never know what they'll put up on the walls, what rug they'll move in, etcetera and unless you can get them to donate a full two days to your professional shoot later on, chances are you won't have enough time to move all that unwanted furniture etc. and set up each frame the way you want it.
we had clients put in furniture that didn't suit the design (and was definitely not of the same quality) more than once. we learned to take pictures quickly now too, but took us a few tries to figure it out. our early work is largely un-photographed except for construction pictures for just that reason.
however, just to be clear, that is totally fine with my partners and me. it is not our business to dictate taste to anyone, and our idea is to approach design so that no matter what happens the architecture will still be good. not an easy task. but you know, loos had a point - too much design is not a good thing.
the description of clients above is very familiar. not all of them mind you. we have been lucky to have clients who did not fight over tile samples and really had ideas about how to design. these were the ones for whom our project was their 4th architect-designed house and similar. on the other end of the scale are folks who are new to the task - they are often very excited. which doesn't seem to make up for the fact they are also in many ways rather bizarre-ly misinformed about our job, the contractor's job, and their role in the process.
It is easy to look down the nose a bit at clients as a result, but i don't think it is productive really. On other hand it is totally annoying when a client dismisses about 60 years of combined experience and tells us how things should be...we are still working out how to walk that line truth be told.
People building a million or 2 million dollar house are not going to trust a 28 year old to design their home. It's like needing brain surgery. Do you want the doctor out of residency or the older doctor who has performed hundreds of these types of operations.
Sorry but in order to do this work you need to work at an established firm and move upwards as much as possible and when you are 40 start your own firm.
most of the advice here is of the "this is how i did it" variety which is valid and comes with the weight of a lot of experience, i am sure, but i don't think represents the only way of undertaking your practice. sure, there are many clients who are looking for that classic architect's sketch of their new dream home to hang on the stainless steel refrigerator, but there are other clients who will think that your kick ass computer rendering blows the old school sketch away. personally, i'm more interested in the innovative solution than the tried-and-true and would encourage you to start a practice that takes innovation seriously, marketing innovation to your clients. it will appeal to some and not to others, but that is true of any design direction you ultimately choose to pursue. quite honestly, if your goal is to attract the guy who wants the the neoclassical behemoth (who would probably love to see a hand sketch of his new house), you market in one medium; if you are pursuing a client with more progressive tastes, you market in a different form. it's going to be up to you to figure out who you want and how to attract that client.
an aside--that may or may not be a trend/future predictor....
an old friend of mine was in town and we went out for dinner and drinks. he works for the food network. we were talking about his industry. he told me that the food network was doing great and that the parent company was creating more foodie and diy shows while cutting shows having to do with high style living. ie super expensive cribs etc...i see this as a pretty good indicator that breaking into the hi-end resi or hi end anything may be much harder than it once was.
good point jafidler. i guess the question is what you think the edge is.
myself i am a modernist. or rather i am a contemporary-ist. our last half decent house was finished with pink asphalt and had a double curved roof, angles and cetera. but none of that is actually about what we do as architects. or at least it isn't what motivates us. so now that we are getting ready to do fairly large new house in middle of tokyo it is not a problem at all that this one is going to be a loosian white box because that is what the clients like.
so when i do hand drawings they are more like frank gehry than palladio. clients who like new things still like the hand drawn stuff.
as long as we can get the details right i think the building will have the flavor we want. more importantly the spaces are already set and that is what we spend most of our time on. 3d spatial effects/planning are definitely more interesting than pink furniture...
i would love to tackle something that really needed a computer to build like iwamotoscott or ammar eloueini. but you will notice that they don't actually build very much and possibly support themselves mostly as educators for the time being. which is totally cool. just that we don't have that luxury just yet. it is too much a niche market to be a real goal for most...
anyway, clients would get a paid vacation during photoshoots, and movers would pack up and move owner's furniture and lay in the select modern stuff to make the pics more... appealing.
Insofar as TV shows like "Cribs" have made residential customers want moremoremore instead of better, Orhan is absolutely right. In the design world, lots of money almost never translates to an equal amount of taste.
We have, until recently, been able to say no to clients we thought would be wealthy jerks instead of wealthy friendly people. I've been able to proudly say I've never taken on a client I wouldn't also be able to enjoy spending time over dinner with. Unless things change soon, I'm not going to have the luxury to say no in the future.
As I've described in a previous thread, I took a job, at 23, from a couple who wanted a two million dollar house renovation (ocean front property). I had the idea of breaking into the 'high end residential genre', so we took the job for minimum wage. I had some experience on high end houses at a previous firm, such as detailing a 12000 sq. ft. New England mansion, and have worked on residential construction jobs.
I was given some good advice in this previous thread, a lot of red lights there including the fact that the couple were willing to work with a 23 year old to design their incredibly expensive house. The client requested a incredibly expensive operable wall that would definitely have had tremendous leak problems, the client (a lawyer) hand sketched a 'detail' of the wall latch with items including 'spigots' and 'gizmos'.
Seriously.
It soon became apparent when they informed us that they were not able to pay the minimum wage that we had agreed upon in the contract that they were full of shit, and that nothing that we worked on would ever in fact become reality.
Now I'm reading books about high end houses and working on a neighborhood redevelopment project for my office, re-imagining kit houses from the early 20th century. The six months that I had spent working on the house was a great experience for my partner and I, even if it was enough to get an idea that the comments above can fall into place.
High end residential architects have designed someones house. Rich people have rich friends, who need houses. If you don't know any rich people you will not get into the high end housing market.
Accurate representational skill is becoming more important but in my experience, most of the time it is better to give the client a sketchy idea of what is going to happen. The crystallization that is provided by a 3d studio rendering is off putting to many. A great majority of the high end clients that I have dealt with are more interested in function and most importantly, value, in the final product.
Occasionally you will find a lucky doofus who has stumbled upon millions of dollars, falls for your (or my) flashy renderings and illustrator diagrams and gears up to build their dream-house. Beware, your project can only be as good as your client will let it be, and re-educating a client is a huge time cost that requires a great investment from both parties.
As many have suggested, the best way to get into any niche market is to become established in it. I don't think that it is necessary to live in the town that you grew up in (though it would surely help), but you should have worked for someone who has a reputation, and you, should be something of a public figure. Rich people love a local starchitect.
I guess I stumbled...cause I'm not Rich...nor do I have Rich Friends...my break came years ago when the Partner of a Firm didn't give a rats ass about a client, so he went on vacation. The client is a pain in the arshe....he actually stiffed me on a project but hey...my rewards have been fruitful and I will never do another project personally for him.
Orhans comment is interesting. We are not doing super high end work ourselves. Just kind of high-ish. Not sure if all wealthy people are moronically interested in wallet furniture. Some can be well educated artsy types too. The trick I would like to figure out is how to attract them. Some architects seem to do it with regularity. Pure luck?
how to attract wealthy clients? maybe this is too up in the air, but i recommend sitting in first class. i was on a job recently where i was flying often, and thus getting upgraded to first class. the whole atmosphere is different "in the front of the plane." people will talk to each other for the whole flight. you share a meal with a complete stranger, have a few drinks, and most of the people up there are either well connected or have good money. it's yet to generate any real work for me, but i've made some good contacts.
That's a good point, jafidler. My first ever real interview - as a third year arch student - came as a result of my father sitting next to a firm owner in first class.
Breaking into the high-end residential genre?
Ok, so. My friend's mom is a landscape architect, and she was recently showing me a residential project she's collaborating on in Montecito (the client is an absurdly wealthy and popular individual in the movie business).
Anyways, she was going over some of the drawings and work the architects had submitted, and I was pretty struck with how basic and rudimentary their representation was... all across the board. The CD's looked so-so, but christ... the sketches and 3d models/renderings they submitted were absolutely awful.
Anyways, I realize there's years and years of experience and knowledge behind the actual design, but still... I could blow these guys out of the water in terms of representation, just as an undergraduate student. I'm guessing this condition is pretty prevalent in most high-end residential practices - the firms consist of older guys with lots of experience and contacts/clients, but really outdated representation/digital skills.
With those thoughts aside, residential work seems great - especially when your clients have a sky-high budget. Plus, the projects are something that, as an individual, you could tackle alone or with an extremely small amount of staff. Seems like the easiest place/area with which to begin a firm or strike out as a young designer (not considering the question of actually obtaining clients).
So my question is, these days, how does a young architect break into this area and begin gaining clients?
And how do these sorts of practices find clients, anyways? It's not like your average client will ever need an architect to design them more than one home, so you won't be getting any repeat business. Is it just a word of mouth thing? Or do people typically just look for local offices when building their home?
Also, a question for the younger architects - how are you developing your sense of what clients actually like in terms of (home) design? I mean, the average client wants something familiar and well, homey looking. It's not like we ever practice designing that crap in studio. So how will you grab clients if all we can come up with are contemporary concrete or glass pads?
you know what a lot of wealthy clients like? drawings that look old-fashioned. i know an architect that still has staff members preparing drawings with pencil on vellum. the clients eat this up. i'm not sure this architect even has email today...but he charges a hefty premium for his work, has numerous fancy autos/vacation homes and even manages to pay his staff above-average wages (although this is somewhat mitigated by poor benefits package).
most clients simply don't care about representation at all. the money you spend on fancy rendering software means nothing to them. some of them do, however, like objects that play to their own ego. the hand-drawn pencil on vellum appeals because its an artifact that can be displayed as if the homeowner is "old money".
given all the complaining about money within this profession, i'm surprised more architects don't take the (rather lucrative) approach of my friend as described above. if i were into high-end residential design, it would certainly be my strategy.
I'm too tired to address the drawing question, but I'll tell you how we get jobs: Word of mouth, and this is the part most people don't like to hear: you might have to live in the the town you grew up in. Word of mouth spreads through a network, and the biggest network you already have is from your childhood: your parents have friends, they have friends, you probably have some classmates who went on toe medical and law school, you have a childhood doctor/dentist/orthodontist, you went to church...
It takes years to build a network, a reputation, and a catalogue of work to show people. Residential work is very rewarding and direct, which I enjoy after years of working with institutional building committees. But you also have to like people and be willing to empathize with how personal a project someone's home is - they are very emotionally invested in it, and rightly. Also, if you don't want to be a least a bit of a marriage counselor, don't do it!
I think having an old, gnarled, "been in the trenches" look about you helps. I mean honestly, what older client would hire some "kid" to design their house... what does a "kid" know?
+1 on the hand-sketches....
Not everyone digs saucy 3Dstudio renderings...
Plus, keep in mind that at early stages in the design process, starting off with a set of drawings that begin rough, edgey and a little messy even can be a good thing. From the clients perspective, they need to see a design process that evolves over time with their input.
If after a couple meetings you've got a finished rendering that looks *perfect* then in their eyes the design is "finished"
our clients prefer my hand sketches more than the renderings. we haven't asked them this but every time we meet inevitably they ask if i have a drawing for them. so now i do. always. it is something they can show to their friends. it looks architectural. very important. a rendering looks like nothing at all, even if you are great and fantastic. but a hand drawing...that shows you have the cash to hire an artist and a craftsman. an important thing to the kind of folks who are hiring an architect to make a home for them.
as to the original post, like LB says, its all about word of mouth and networks. whether you are better in undergrad than someone with 20 years experience i will not comment on except to say that i doubt it. but maybe you are. the kicker is that the client you don't have doesn't care. which is where the actual art of architecture lays truth be told - bringing in work is the first job and the most important. everything else is just for fun. if you are lucky bringing in work is fun too.
Word of Mouth is how we obtain a large portion of our work. The word of mouth coming from clients, contractors, and people in government, and also people in the community who know your tied to the community by giving back to the community along with people in the real estate field.
Just last week I had a prospective client call and ask to meet them on Thurday afternoon to discuss and addition onto their second home. I ask them who recommended me and they said it was an electrical contractor, whom I have never met. It turns out he has seen our works and has reviewed our construction documents for other projects we have produced. It looks like we have the job.
Giving back to the community is also important. People see this.
I volunteer for an local organization of developmently challenged people. I sit on the board and help with things architectural as well as building related. We have four group homes, an administrative building, and a day program. So there is always something that needs tending in one way or another. I'm mostly a sounding board,
but I do get in the trenches. Anyhow another non profit is looking at doing a major remodel and addition to their property, and well the director of the program I'm involved with told me he had a meeting with the other potential client, and let them know we are their Architects and we are most professional and yet great people to work with.
I'm often contacted by people who contact the Building Official who for one reason need and Architect. These jobs I seldom turn down, unless it is a project from Hell. I find that working thru these kind of projects which usually involve Building and Fire Code issues, it a grand way to interact with the govenment officials in a positive way.
Contactor for obvious reasons are good guys to have on your side.
I do work on design development projects with a contractor in the area. We have built a good relationship over the past ten years and I can say this is part of the reason I'm not feeling the pinch as bad as many.
Clients are also great for passing you along to other clients. If you have a happy client there are two things which can happen. They give your name to someone else or they have you come back and do additional work for them. I have been fortunate to have had my share of this kind of interaction. I once had a older client who told me, " The only thing I don't have is time, lets get this project done."
I have since worked on three projects for her daughter and now I'm
working for the new owners of the property.
We don't put on a presence, we know it is a pretty level playing field when it comes to design, cause that is what we all learned either at University or in the School of Hard Knocks. What makes a difference is how you interact with the client, and those who are working on their project.
best of luck young one!
Why does everyone always think residential is easier?! In actual fact it is quite often much more difficult to do residential right than it is to do commercial, and not always for the reasons you'd expect.
I recommend picking a small boutique residential firm to work with for about 3 years and be an absolute SPONGE to learn everything you possibly can from them. This includes how to design -- because what you learn in school is quite different from the field, as well all know, but I've found that disparity is felt keenly in residential design. It's amazing how much thought needs to go into something that people will actually live in, almost 100% of their time. You can't get away with any mistakes in design, in finish selection, or in construction quality. (Not that you should in commercial or institutional work either, but in those areas (particularly commercial) the margins for error tend to be quite a bit higher.)
I've found that, in general, residential work is more fun during the design process but hellish during CA (although not without its fun moments of course); commercial / institutional work in my experience has been much more difficult / frustrating during the design phase but a much smoother and more simplistic CA experience. Of the two, the residential is in the long run both more frustrating (tear-your-hair-out frustrating) but more rewarding. It is, however, harder to do right.
I guess my point is, don't assume you can do better than these guys just starting out of the gate, and try to get your own clients right away. I think you would find that you would have a hellish experience dealing with many aspects of design you never anticipated, and that unfortunately means your clients might have a hellish experience too; thus you run the risk of setting yourself up with a horrible reputation from the get-go, before you even get a chance to do a good project -- and it can take lifetimes to repair reputations in this field.
So rather than just try to set up shop straight out of school, I would absolutely work for a few years for a small jack-of-all-trades type company whose design sense you respect and learn the biz from them. During that time you'll start building up your network, so that it's in place -- and the clients are waiting for you -- by the time you actually know what you're doing and are ready to start.
completely agree manta,
after 5 years in a large international firm I've just started in a small residential practice, doing reasonably 'high-end' projects in Sydney, and I've found that in spite of what i thought was a reasonable level of experience with design and construction, i've found that i know....nearly nothing about delivering a project, managing clients on a personal level and even detailing in a real sense.
its been a humbling few weeks
having said that i'm having the time of my life, i've probably learnt more about architecture in the last month than i did in the last year and i'm finding the design process incredibly stimulating and way more fun.
@manta/a mouse
yea, I feel - thanks!
jk3hl - I'm a young architect, designing my first home right now. My background is in large scale hospitality projects -including some residential buildings, so its not too far off, but ive never worked on a single-residence where the client is "Joe and Jane Smith" until now.
Its been a challenge but very fun. I am used to designing more contemporary. but as you said..these clients often want "homey". Even thought i usually have a stubborn taste of design....i think the last place to be selfish in terms of "style" preference is when it comes to designing someones DREAM home. I mean, design the house as functional, sustainable, etc... but if they are not comfortable with a modern style, I am not about to be the snob to push it on them.
Its hard to get my clients to grasp the idea that their custom home is being designed for them- they just keep nodding their head and smiling. They are very exicited.. but i had to literally end up giving them a little lecture on how to be the client. I said "look guys, if you want to have a slide from the upstairs into the living room below- you just tell me.." I was obivously exaggerating, but it helped them understand and open up.
HILARIOUS dane cook bit this just reminded me of:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=CB3-GxI2D3s
I could blow these guys out of the water in terms of representation, just as an undergraduate student. I'm guessing this condition is pretty prevalent in most high-end residential practices - the firms consist of older guys with lots of experience and contacts/clients, but really outdated representation/digital skills.---
1. many times an out of date presentation skill like a hand rendering is much more effective for a residential client.
2. you may have mad representation skills but, can you design a kitchen that works? do you know how wide a walk in closet is? can you even draw a brick veneer/ tick built wall section?
3. the high residential clients i have worked with are not head nodding sheep. they are successful, smart, detailed oriented people and if you cop some sort of black turtleneck attitude with them you won't last long.
i've found high-end res to be difficult to break out of. my secret: going to work for a firm that designs high-end residential homes. and...if you get to know the contractors, and they like you, it isn't that difficult to let them know that you can draw some plans for them once and a while, and get work that way. it's my experience that most of this sort of work comes from word of mouth contractor referrals.
as for the representation thing, i would say high-end res generally doesn't call for flashy representation. chances are, if the client is in your office, you already got the job. when someone hires you to design a home for them, they want to know that you are competent, not that you are good at making pretty pictures. and since they probably aren't advertising their personal home as some sort of thing the public will need or use, they don't need to spend money on a rendering for that purpose either. that was something i had to get over quickly. i would even go so far as to say most architects who focus on high-end res would rather you be really, really good at sketch up than rhino or viz. one firm i worked for actually got rid of rhino and went to all sketch up.
oh I've got a question for anyone who designs alot of residences...
Does it not freak you out a little that the owners will end up furnishing/decorating the place with a lack of taste? We are doing alot of the furnishing ourselves on my project...but its hard for me to accept that something i design with somewhat of a vision in mind could some day get cluttered full of crap.
oh well what can you do...
i would also add that most of our clients generated repeat business. most absurdly wealthy people either have more than one home, or else there is no end to the amount of modifications they will make to their own home. and keep something else in mind: that type-a, absurdly weathly people can be pretty obnoxious to work with. like in a "hey, why are you talking to the engineers? i'd like them to just consult with me from now on, it will be more efficient that way thank you very much" kind of way. be prepared to get really good at drawing details, and making lots and lots and lots of changes. be prepared to be yelled at, and often, over things that were probably of the client's doing in the first place. it's not the type of racket to be in if you're easily pushed around, or don't like to watch couples argue over insanely idiotic things.
imho if an owner has good enough taste to call an architect, they almost always have good enough taste to buy some decent furniture.
actually, i worked on one project once where the whole job was just to select 200,000 dollars worth of insanely expensive, modern furniture to fit in their insanely expensive modern home.
I am taking this as a challenge.
wow- too fun. basically they hand you their credit card and say "go shopping!". I'de love that.
I agree 100% with how le bossman described the high-end res design process. I have had clients say exactly the same words he put in their mouths! It's so common it's absurd... I wonder if any of these clients realize how not-unique they are?
Anyway -- it sounds like a horrible process to deal with but like we say, the upside is much greater design and detail control than you get in other program types, and much greater reward when you finally get the contractor to come back and install that last hinge pin he left out and you're all done... and the clients love it. High-end res work represents by far the highest highs I've had so far in the profession... if you're willing to put up with incredible interpersonal stress to deal with it.
I think you have to be 50% psychologist, 50% architect to get yourself and your clients sanely through a high-end res project!
Only thing I can't agree with le bossman on :
I have had some clients with great "house" taste, and HORRIBLE furniture taste.
As the finish work nears completion, in the days prior to client move-in date, I take COPIOUS pictures cataloguing EVERYTHING I want in the portfolio from the project. I do my best to crop all blue tape out of the frames or run around unsticking-it and resticking-it just to get as clean pics as I can of the empty house. You never know what they'll put up on the walls, what rug they'll move in, etcetera and unless you can get them to donate a full two days to your professional shoot later on, chances are you won't have enough time to move all that unwanted furniture etc. and set up each frame the way you want it.
Oh, the things you learn the hard way...
absolutely manta.
we had clients put in furniture that didn't suit the design (and was definitely not of the same quality) more than once. we learned to take pictures quickly now too, but took us a few tries to figure it out. our early work is largely un-photographed except for construction pictures for just that reason.
however, just to be clear, that is totally fine with my partners and me. it is not our business to dictate taste to anyone, and our idea is to approach design so that no matter what happens the architecture will still be good. not an easy task. but you know, loos had a point - too much design is not a good thing.
the description of clients above is very familiar. not all of them mind you. we have been lucky to have clients who did not fight over tile samples and really had ideas about how to design. these were the ones for whom our project was their 4th architect-designed house and similar. on the other end of the scale are folks who are new to the task - they are often very excited. which doesn't seem to make up for the fact they are also in many ways rather bizarre-ly misinformed about our job, the contractor's job, and their role in the process.
It is easy to look down the nose a bit at clients as a result, but i don't think it is productive really. On other hand it is totally annoying when a client dismisses about 60 years of combined experience and tells us how things should be...we are still working out how to walk that line truth be told.
People building a million or 2 million dollar house are not going to trust a 28 year old to design their home. It's like needing brain surgery. Do you want the doctor out of residency or the older doctor who has performed hundreds of these types of operations.
Sorry but in order to do this work you need to work at an established firm and move upwards as much as possible and when you are 40 start your own firm.
most of the advice here is of the "this is how i did it" variety which is valid and comes with the weight of a lot of experience, i am sure, but i don't think represents the only way of undertaking your practice. sure, there are many clients who are looking for that classic architect's sketch of their new dream home to hang on the stainless steel refrigerator, but there are other clients who will think that your kick ass computer rendering blows the old school sketch away. personally, i'm more interested in the innovative solution than the tried-and-true and would encourage you to start a practice that takes innovation seriously, marketing innovation to your clients. it will appeal to some and not to others, but that is true of any design direction you ultimately choose to pursue. quite honestly, if your goal is to attract the guy who wants the the neoclassical behemoth (who would probably love to see a hand sketch of his new house), you market in one medium; if you are pursuing a client with more progressive tastes, you market in a different form. it's going to be up to you to figure out who you want and how to attract that client.
good point, jafidler
an aside--that may or may not be a trend/future predictor....
an old friend of mine was in town and we went out for dinner and drinks. he works for the food network. we were talking about his industry. he told me that the food network was doing great and that the parent company was creating more foodie and diy shows while cutting shows having to do with high style living. ie super expensive cribs etc...i see this as a pretty good indicator that breaking into the hi-end resi or hi end anything may be much harder than it once was.
I just have to submit this photo...of what can happen with a run away home decorator:
lol.
good point jafidler. i guess the question is what you think the edge is.
myself i am a modernist. or rather i am a contemporary-ist. our last half decent house was finished with pink asphalt and had a double curved roof, angles and cetera. but none of that is actually about what we do as architects. or at least it isn't what motivates us. so now that we are getting ready to do fairly large new house in middle of tokyo it is not a problem at all that this one is going to be a loosian white box because that is what the clients like.
so when i do hand drawings they are more like frank gehry than palladio. clients who like new things still like the hand drawn stuff.
as long as we can get the details right i think the building will have the flavor we want. more importantly the spaces are already set and that is what we spend most of our time on. 3d spatial effects/planning are definitely more interesting than pink furniture...
i would love to tackle something that really needed a computer to build like iwamotoscott or ammar eloueini. but you will notice that they don't actually build very much and possibly support themselves mostly as educators for the time being. which is totally cool. just that we don't have that luxury just yet. it is too much a niche market to be a real goal for most...
manta,
i think it was... gwathmey?
anyway, clients would get a paid vacation during photoshoots, and movers would pack up and move owner's furniture and lay in the select modern stuff to make the pics more... appealing.
^ jealous architect comment ^
Insofar as TV shows like "Cribs" have made residential customers want moremoremore instead of better, Orhan is absolutely right. In the design world, lots of money almost never translates to an equal amount of taste.
We have, until recently, been able to say no to clients we thought would be wealthy jerks instead of wealthy friendly people. I've been able to proudly say I've never taken on a client I wouldn't also be able to enjoy spending time over dinner with. Unless things change soon, I'm not going to have the luxury to say no in the future.
As I've described in a previous thread, I took a job, at 23, from a couple who wanted a two million dollar house renovation (ocean front property). I had the idea of breaking into the 'high end residential genre', so we took the job for minimum wage. I had some experience on high end houses at a previous firm, such as detailing a 12000 sq. ft. New England mansion, and have worked on residential construction jobs.
I was given some good advice in this previous thread, a lot of red lights there including the fact that the couple were willing to work with a 23 year old to design their incredibly expensive house. The client requested a incredibly expensive operable wall that would definitely have had tremendous leak problems, the client (a lawyer) hand sketched a 'detail' of the wall latch with items including 'spigots' and 'gizmos'.
Seriously.
It soon became apparent when they informed us that they were not able to pay the minimum wage that we had agreed upon in the contract that they were full of shit, and that nothing that we worked on would ever in fact become reality.
Now I'm reading books about high end houses and working on a neighborhood redevelopment project for my office, re-imagining kit houses from the early 20th century. The six months that I had spent working on the house was a great experience for my partner and I, even if it was enough to get an idea that the comments above can fall into place.
High end residential architects have designed someones house. Rich people have rich friends, who need houses. If you don't know any rich people you will not get into the high end housing market.
Accurate representational skill is becoming more important but in my experience, most of the time it is better to give the client a sketchy idea of what is going to happen. The crystallization that is provided by a 3d studio rendering is off putting to many. A great majority of the high end clients that I have dealt with are more interested in function and most importantly, value, in the final product.
Occasionally you will find a lucky doofus who has stumbled upon millions of dollars, falls for your (or my) flashy renderings and illustrator diagrams and gears up to build their dream-house. Beware, your project can only be as good as your client will let it be, and re-educating a client is a huge time cost that requires a great investment from both parties.
As many have suggested, the best way to get into any niche market is to become established in it. I don't think that it is necessary to live in the town that you grew up in (though it would surely help), but you should have worked for someone who has a reputation, and you, should be something of a public figure. Rich people love a local starchitect.
I guess I stumbled...cause I'm not Rich...nor do I have Rich Friends...my break came years ago when the Partner of a Firm didn't give a rats ass about a client, so he went on vacation. The client is a pain in the arshe....he actually stiffed me on a project but hey...my rewards have been fruitful and I will never do another project personally for him.
Poor clients seldom make hi end architecture.
Orhans comment is interesting. We are not doing super high end work ourselves. Just kind of high-ish. Not sure if all wealthy people are moronically interested in wallet furniture. Some can be well educated artsy types too. The trick I would like to figure out is how to attract them. Some architects seem to do it with regularity. Pure luck?
how to attract wealthy clients? maybe this is too up in the air, but i recommend sitting in first class. i was on a job recently where i was flying often, and thus getting upgraded to first class. the whole atmosphere is different "in the front of the plane." people will talk to each other for the whole flight. you share a meal with a complete stranger, have a few drinks, and most of the people up there are either well connected or have good money. it's yet to generate any real work for me, but i've made some good contacts.
That's a good point, jafidler. My first ever real interview - as a third year arch student - came as a result of my father sitting next to a firm owner in first class.
going to a wealthy, small town is a way that seems to work for some people.
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