While experience is experience, residential and commerical are different worlds in many ways. While I'd guess you probably have the ability to pick up with the learning curve faster than a fresh grad, you still have a big adjustment ahead.

With that said what are your marketable skills? I think a firm would bite quicker if you know Revit or some other in demand software.

Thanks for your response

I guess that is what i am trying to determine, what is my markebility for the new york market, and if its bad how to improve it?

I am versed in arch desktop and its bim functions, but unfortunately i do not know revit. I know your typical adobe suite, 3d max etc etc, but nothing that really sets me apart.

One of the things i can see as an upside is that I work for a very small firm, and i have been in charge of my own projects from beginning to end. The are just not big projects, they are small residential ones.

Thats why i am having trouble on how to better market myself, specially in this recession.

I worked in NYC for awhile, at a firm of 150 people. We had 4 studios, 2 contemporary architecture/planning, 2 traditional architecture/planning.

I worked in the 2 traditional ones, and there was a guy there with a crap load of experience in project management, because like you, he worked for 8 years right out of college/grad school in residential architecture where it was him and his boss. When we worked together we worked on residential, institutional, religious, mixed use, educational, you name it. He didn't know REVIT, and barely used SketchUp. However, his knowledge about the bidding process, putting together CD's, and dealing with contractors was priceless. When the layoffs occurred, he was being given a promotion(although just in name and not in salary).

Construction is construction, and they don't teach it at most schools. I come from a VERY practical institution and it still takes me awhile to grasp if I don't do it everyday. I can imagine that the rice's , sciarcs, and columbia's provide a great education, but their graduates (especially the ones with little to no work exp) wouldn't be able to put a CD set together.

Market yourself like that. Partners at big firms are too busy hob nobbing with clients and protecting their own asses that they don't have time to train the newbies; they have plenty of time to assert their ego's over them but not train. If you can come in and handle the real world responsibilities, you're pretty much golden. At the end of the day, the renderings do sell the project...but you also want to build it.

wow jakethesnake i really appreciate your response. It actually made me feel better.


I guess the challenge that i have now is to show that markebility in a portfolio. I will try to tackle this on a project by project basis, even though I don't think the projects we have worked on are aesthetically interesting, I could display the challenge between meeting old and new, structurally aesthetically etc etc.

If anybody else has any suggestions i would appreciate them, i will be spending a lot of time looking at this forums. Thanks!

I agree with Jake. My firm does both custom residential and lots of commercial. The residential is by far more difficult, and only the best of the best in our office can work on it. We have had interns who can handle a commercial project just fine fail miserably on residential. You will need to sell this to prospective clients, though. If they do not do residential on a regular basis, they will not know this. So push the following;
-ability to work directly with clients. Residential is MUCH more challenging than commercial. If you can keep the average residential client happy, then you will please ANY corporate client.
- ability to pay attention to details: In commercial, there are lots of "standards", like lay in ceiling tiles, hollow metal doors, etc. In residential, that door detail can and will be anything. You have to deal with existing construction, match existing details, pay attention to all the little things that can make or break a project. You could have 20 different details for one element in residential, matching all kinds of different finishes, etc.
- design ability: again, you need to have a lot of finesse to put an addition on an existing home, or create something out of a vague idea given by a client. It is much more personal in residential, and more difficult.
- working efficiently. It is easier to make money on most commercial jobs. You need to be extremely efficient to work on residential, very good at keeping clients and contractors on track, efficient in dealing with changes, etc.
- ability to work with contractors. This tends to be very hands on in residential, so you develop excellent skills at handling a job during construction.
- small project experience. Lots of firms these days that used to just do big projects are taking on smaller renovation projects because of the economy, and are getting killed in them because they have no idea how to manage them. You do.
the areas where you will be lacking will be familiarity with commercial building codes, and familiarity with commercial building detailing. so get some experience on that on your own: show the prospective employer that you have studied the building code, that you are up to date with LEED practices and LEED AP, etc. and you will be extremely valuable.

I'm curious about how residential work experience really teaches you how to put together a set of CD's for something as complex as a school or community center, etc. From my experience residential plans can get permit with very vauge detailing, literally no code analysis, self created site plans (no civil), and design/build for mech and elec. Granted this may be based on where I've done residential work, and I don't know what it's like in NJ.

That said, I've never done a type E, M, A occ. bldg where I could get permit with the level of detail I would for a residential building. Nor didn't have to have coordination meetings with consulting engineers, civil, etc. That's not to mention the major hurdle of P&Z approval etc. In contrast things like residential variance approvals have seemed simple.

While I agree that handling a residential client is very difficult I also have found major differences dealing with residential vs. commerical contractors. The residential contractors were generally less formal from bids to RFI's to contracts. I can see an argument that it's harder to deal with a residential contractor, but as I said originally, it's a different world.

I don't mean to discourage you, but working in both commerical offices and residential, I found the differences to be wide in day to day dealings. Archie hits the nail on the head that you're biggest challenge will be learning building codes and knowing commerical construction materials and detailing. Just be prepared for things to be different as I wasn't really ready for it myself.

The kind of high end residential we do, the drawing sets are extremely complex and involved. We still have door schedules, specs, elevations, etc. A good "bridge" type of work would be commercial interiors: retail, restaurants, tenant fit outs. These would be very doable transition, verses say doing a big new school or prison.

@ aquapura: The point that I was trying to make is that he's not unique in the situation and that there really is no substitute for experience.

It sounded like It_is_I is afraid of the competition because he's up against younger people who know more technology (3DS max, rhino, maya, etc..). I make the argument that his experience trumps that, because when working in a real office, doing real projects, entry level graduates who have never interned before, who have never drawn elaborate sections or details of any kind before, who have never even worked with an XREF before, will have a much more difficult time to adjust AND many firms don't bother to take the time to train those people.

It_is_I doesn't need that much training OR the learning curve for him is alot smaller than it would be for someone fresh out of school.

jakethesnake, I think we are agreeing here, just with different ways of saying it.

archie, I have worked on middle-income residential up to $1-1.5m. It seemed we did bare min for a permit and bid. A lot of design was handled in the field. The closest thing to a spec was a pile of cut sheets.

All in all, I agree with jake, experience, no matter what it is, always trumps no experience.

I agree with jakethesnake... Sell your experience and knowledge of the construction / permit / documentation side of things. Those skills, even in a 'design focused' office are invaluable.

It's one of the true deficiencies of my current workplace. Our small studio is full of talented young designers with impressive pedigrees (top grades at well respected universities, internships and jobs with the starchitects, published articles, part time teaching gigs etc.), who are well versed in the latest technology, but when it comes to putting together a set of construction documents, we're near useless.

It's a bit frightening actually.

@ IamGray: If I may ask, what "top schools" do your young designers come from? I'm just interested in finding out what teachers are actually teaching in design school. But I don't want to hijack this thread.

Thanks guys this has given me a lot of perspective on what i should be doing. I am lucky to work for a firm who puts out Cd's of about 16 pages per job, meaning we do not rush jobs out, and hopefully that attention to detail is what is going to set me apart from other candidates.

Jake,
Teachers at design schools are simply put, teaching exactly that; design. Without naming names, the schools which I referred to, attract students interested in pushing the boundaries of current architectural discourse, of researching new material or structural systems, and exploring the role of emerging technologies in design and fabrication. At some of these institutions, the study of architecture is firmly rooted in an academic, artistic, or cultural context, rather than a technical. Architecture is broadly viewed as a creative and/or explorative field sometimes existing beyond the confines of conventional practice.

Make no mistake, that type of education is not primarily geared towards preparing people for ‘the profession’, nor is it an education for everyone. That’s why Fachhochschules / unis of applied science exist. Architecture is an increadibly varied profession, so it should only reckon that the educational options are as well.

Lets hope this doesn’t veer things too far off It_is_I’s original topic at hand…