How do we elevate the "average"? As we all know, the most pervasive condition is also the one least engaged. I am talking suburban homes, strip malls, pocket parks, and all the everyday things that actually cover the majority of the landscape...museums and sports stadiums matter to the 99% about as much as the occasional trip to Disneyland.
Lets talk about architect as developer, stock plans, pre-fab, and other non-conventional ways of engaging these things.
curtkram
Dec 30, 15 2:46 pm
probably easier to change yourself and your own expectations, rather than trying to change everyone else. 'everyone else' is a really big number.
JLC-1
Dec 30, 15 2:47 pm
hide the parking in the back
null pointer
Dec 30, 15 2:49 pm
Move to a city. Put your money where your mouth is and don't be part of the problem.
x-jla
Dec 30, 15 2:56 pm
null, that's an extremely unrealistic and hipster-elitist position. The city is economically and geographically out of reach for the majority of Americans. I understand that suburbia is not the ideal way to arrange a civilization, but it is already here so we have to deal with it.
x-jla
Dec 30, 15 3:02 pm
And personally speaking, It wouldn't reduce my own commute at all to live in the urban center of my state...it would increase it...and increase my mortgage from 1400$ per month to roughly 3000$ per month for the same 1800ft.2 space...The public schools are also way better where I live. The simple argument of "just move to the city" in this detached profession is exacerbating the problem...
x-jla
Dec 30, 15 3:04 pm
Architects have failed 99% of the built environment... But nice museums...
instead of idealizing a plan for what we want our communities to be and pretending real life will conform to our over-inflated egos, we should do our best to form our opinions based on judiciously observed fact and allow the solutions we develop to come from that.
x-jla
Dec 30, 15 3:18 pm
curt, I agree with that. I'm not talking about one man redesigning 99% of the nation, I am talking about Empowering designers to infiltrate that realm in a meaningful way...not as a cog for some developer. The consumer consumes what is available to him/her. The consumer does not guide the market unless the option to deviate from the norm is available and feasible. My question is, how do we create such options within the realities of the market?
senjohnblutarsky
Dec 30, 15 3:23 pm
I think city dwellers tend to forget they need people to live outside the city to support them. Then, they seem to also forget that there is anything past suburbia.
null pointer
Dec 30, 15 3:33 pm
jla, I strongly disagree with a lot of what you're saying. That assumed that your income will remain the same in a large city. Every time I hear people say that they are earning 75k with 5 years of experience I look back and remember that I was in the six figure range at that point. That's what nyc can create: a nice paycheck, if you're willing to spend a year or two eating cereal for dinner.
As to your 1,800 SF space: You can't realistically need that much space unless you have 3 kids and a dog. If you do need that much space: You're part of the problem.
Cities are only initially out of reach of the majority of Americans. Once you're in, you'll be more than comfortable.
x-jla
Dec 30, 15 3:35 pm
^ that 40$ burger isn't from manhattan raised cattle?
JLC-1
Dec 30, 15 3:36 pm
I said it half joking, but the impact of the car in the way we live has taken away most of what "the average people" wants in the communities they live. Also, road depts. and design engineers should stop designing for peak hours and 18 wheelers and adjust parking lot sizes and roads widths to real usage. Put the parking lot in the back, make the garages accessible from the alley (I know new urbanists hate alleys, but IMHO, it's the single best invention of american urbanism) Make people interact more, ban drive-through's. Most of this would change the way things get built and elevate "the average".
x-jla
Dec 30, 15 3:38 pm
Not every city is NYC. I am from NYC...and as a working class person NYC fucking sucks.
x-jla
Dec 30, 15 3:43 pm
If you really believe that everyone is a single 20 something with a 100k dollar salary then you are part of the problem.
anonitect
Dec 30, 15 3:45 pm
Its not an architecture problem, its greed. The solution is political.
We need a national moratorium on state and local governments competing with each other by giving tax breaks, building infrastructure, and discounting utilities to encourage development. We're on a race to the bottom, with everybody willing to hand over the keys to the castle to anyone promising a few jobs or a little bump in the tax base.
We need strong, smart local governments that will actually look out for the interests of residents, not the demands of the oligarchy. Our places will only get better when we value community and sustainability more than we do profit.
geezertect
Dec 30, 15 3:46 pm
I know this is blasphemy in the profession, but isn't it just possible that things are the way they are because the vast majority of the unwashed (i.e., non-architects) are actually pretty happy, or at least content, with things that way?
If city life was so unquestionably better, why did a city like Detroit begin turning into a ghost town starting after WWII even as the domestic auto industry was still blasting along at full throttle? Yes, yes, I know white flight was obviously a factor, but if there was such a desire for older urban neighborhoods, the prices would have been bid up so high that the newly arriving minorities would have been priced out. Obviously, they weren't.
Face it, most people living the standard middle class life prefer green grass and privacy to pavement and earthy ethnic restaurants.
x-jla
Dec 30, 15 3:47 pm
NYC is for the top 1%. if you aint part of that chances are your experience of NYC is way different. try being a single mother making 25k with 3 kids and then tell me about how great nyc is...
Lee Robert
Dec 30, 15 3:58 pm
Tall order. What's "better" to one person isn't necessarily "better" to another.
Maybe, create "better" design that's less expensive and more accessible than"bad" design. Ikea, pretty much.
Koww
Dec 30, 15 4:09 pm
Learn to stop worrying and love Bjarke
geezertect
Dec 30, 15 4:38 pm
Make people interact more, ban drive-through's. Most of this would change the way things get built and elevate "the average".
There it is. Make people ............. Compulsory utopianism. "I'm going to give you heaven if I have to ram it down your throat." Dictators everywhere are getting a hard-on.
JLC-1
Dec 30, 15 4:44 pm
Allow people to interact more; there, how you like me now?
geezertect
Dec 30, 15 4:48 pm
I think I'm in love.
null pointer
Dec 30, 15 4:50 pm
“If You Love Nature, Stay Away From It.” -Poppa G.
BR.TN
Dec 30, 15 4:53 pm
I agree with null pointer. Disagree with jla-x.
jla-x, you could use a better example than a single mother with 3 kids making 25k a year in NYC. I'm a little confused with your overall perspective here. "The city is economically and geographically out of reach for the majority of Americans" - anyone with a college degree can move to any city they want and become well off with whatever work they want to do. I was from an area that was less desirable to live in than the glorious city I live in now, so what did I do? Before I graduated, I put together a portfolio that must have been good enough to get me hired at a well-paying firm in a superb city, because that is what happened indeed. Why would I have sympathy for someone who acts like there are invisible forces preventing any college grad from getting any job in any city they want? Must it be my white privilege that gets me hired at desirable offices in desirable cities, when all they're looking at is a series of fictional academic design projects? Can they tell my race and gender because of the phonetics of my name? Did I just get lucky, or did I spend my final year in school making contacts at Top 50 firms I wanted to work for so they would take me seriously when I applied? Anyone I went to school with could have done what I did, but oddly enough no one else put the effort in to make it happen.
Also, making $100k in NYC is a standard across many competitive industries if you have above-average talent, an impressive work ethic, an ability to socialize, and a few or more qualitative years of experience. This description represents the state-of-the-art BEST, and that's exactly what NYC is.
When I graduated college at 22, I accepted a job offer that paid me $42k at a Top 50 firm (ranked in profitability) in downtown Chicago. $42k was more money than my 32 year old brother had ever made in his life and he was blown away, which I thought was alarming because $42k is peanuts. He studied English, and he was complaining around that time about how there's no opportunity and the opportunities that are presented are too dismal. I literally told him that some of his classmates are Editors-In-Chief and make $100-200k, and I asked him what's the difference between them and him - the trick here is that their abilities were the same, but their respective level of tenacities couldn't be more opposed. A lot of my classmates were working in cheaper cities for $32-$36k, but I sought an office in the Top 50, who it turns out paid well (imagine that!), and I successfully overcame the competition in order to secure myself a spot. The classmates who were hitting $32-36k didnt put the same amount of front-end work that I did, and they took offers that were from firms with boring work and boring clients in boring cities. They almost had no competition in their pursuit of these offers; it was as if they were blindly recruited by alumni.
I'm unsure however if you are the same type of person as my classmates. To you it might seem like I'm assuming you are, but I assure you I'm not, however your remarks just remind me of them.
geezertect, SO true: "Face it, most people living the standard middle class life prefer green grass and privacy to pavement and earthy ethnic restaurants."
***this rant only allows me to represent my ill hubris and does not solve the need to address mediocrity in architecture***
senjohnblutarsky
Dec 30, 15 4:55 pm
Nature isn't just going to show up at your door and say, "Eat me". Someone has to be out there gathering and producing.
x-jla
Dec 30, 15 5:08 pm
BRTN ^ If you can't understand why only a minority of americans can move to nyc then all of your education is worthless. My original question was not about the top 1% moving to nyc, it was about improving the built environment of the 99% of people who cannot afford to live above the highline and drink artisanal coffee.
x-jla
Dec 30, 15 5:10 pm
your argument is like "why are people starving in Congo...they should just come to nyc...there are plenty of reastaraunts here"
x-jla
Dec 30, 15 5:24 pm
Im not trying to be a dick...its just frustrating when architects divert attention with the old "just move to cities" line. Its tantamount to the idea that global warming can be solved if everyone just become vegetarians. maybe tecnically true, but highly unrealistic.
curtkram
Dec 30, 15 5:27 pm
new york contains a very small percentage of the habitable land available in america. i assume that's why only a few are able to live there. eventually someone has to fill the rest of the space somehow.
why you think the top 1% is in new york is beyond me. the rich people live in places like omaha and washington and bentonville arkansas. maybe it's 1% of people overall in new york (i didn't do the math), but it certainly isn't the top 1%?
Miles Jaffe
Dec 30, 15 5:29 pm
Aim high simply means upscale.
The idea that we're going to develop our way out of spec-built for-profit culture (in pretty much every aspect) is fanciful at best. The audience is ignorant, the competition corporate, and the government subservient (not to us).
The only thing you can change is yourself. Try not to give up, that is the real challenge.
no_form
Dec 30, 15 5:35 pm
NIMBYs, zoning, planning, investors, and business owners are more responsible for the mediocrity that abounds. Controls over facades, signage, parking, owner's personal taste, construction costs, code approved materials, neighborhood review boards, etc all dictate the shabby state of the American landscape.
An architect who infiltrates these organizations could be effective at changing things.
Regarding town vs country mouse the key is finding people who are willing to take risks and have the money to do so. Also I don't think anyone with only 6 years experience in NYC or LA or CHI is making 100k+. People working at staritects with that experience, and the talent to be hired there, are not making that much. I know for a fact.
null pointer
Dec 30, 15 6:04 pm
no_form, you're way wrong re: pay. I was looking over my tax returns this morning, trying to make sense of this year's trajectory. I was clocking in at the mid 100's with 5 years of experience a few years back. Side job + main gig. Not the only one. When I left consulting to go solo, I was in the upper 100's and I had a few people in the same age range as I.
Did I mention I'm not even white? and BR.TN works for KPF. They aren't even known for paying a lot (compared to a few of the architects of record in the city). They just promote fast with zero regard for time served (which is great, props to them).
null pointer
Dec 30, 15 6:06 pm
jla, you don't move to nyc because you're in the 1%, nyc makes you into the 1% (or like 40% in the case of an architect).
x-jla
Dec 30, 15 6:07 pm
curt, what I mean is that only the top 1% can live well in nyc.
Everyday Intern
Dec 30, 15 6:34 pm
BR.TN, you complain that jla-x's example could be better but then proceed to give one (ie. your own experience as example) equally as specific (if not more specific). Your example proves jla-x's point, rather than argues against it.
"'The city is economically and geographically out of reach for the majority of Americans' - anyone with a college degree can move to any city they want and become well off with whatever work they want to do."
Your main premise, that anyone with a college degree can make it in the city and that somehow makes it feasible for the majority of Americans, is inherently flawed. The majority of Americans do not have a college degree.
The rest of your post is just more of the same. For example, your statement that $100k is common across competitive industries in NYC if you have above-average talent. First, your limiting the sample pool to 'competitive industries' (whatever that means) in NYC. jla-x's point is concerned with the majority of Americans (not living in cities) and not necessarily engaged in a competitive industry wherever they do live. This precludes some of them simply being able to come to NYC and making it in a competitive industry which may not even be related to their expertise in whatever industry they currently work in. Second, if we are looking at the majority of Americans, they do not have above-average talent. If they did, it would simply be average talent.
xian
Dec 30, 15 6:48 pm
Most people like to visit the city for fun, but prefer to live in the suburbs. Their “ugly built environment” is what most people would call practical living.
Nobody listens to architects because of their insistence on spending so much of other people's money to achieve their utopia. If this utopia happened, it would please architects but really inconvenience everybody else.
Jla-x, your way of thinking is very Ivory Tower, you know what is best for people without really understanding how they live and why.
x-jla
Dec 30, 15 7:10 pm
Everyday Intern, well said
xian, what I am saying is not ivory tower. I am talking about engaging the architecture of the 99% in a real way...Let me remind you that most of us are part of that 99%. I am not talking about tabula rasa utopian towns, but rather making homes that are better....even mildly better. by better, I mean more durable, more energy efficient, better economy of space, low-no vocs. If architects cannot do this, then we are pretty useless to most americans. I am not talking about floating cities and flying cars, Im talking about Hyundai's rather than neons. The public can not buy a hyundai unless someone is selling...if the only economy car on the market is the neon then we cant really determine that the public likes neons...they just need cars and neon is the only affordable option.
x-jla
Dec 30, 15 7:21 pm
architects all want to design custom hot rods and high end sports cars...the challenge is bringing good design to the masses...a dream that was alive in the mid-century and then somehow forgotten....what happened in the profession...?
xian
Dec 30, 15 7:25 pm
Hyundai's cost more than Neons, and they are only worth the extra money to a certain percentage of the population. When you convert this analogy to housing, the number of people who want Hyundai's shrinks dramatically since houses cost so much more. I'm saying that architects need to be more aware of people's practical concerns.
Everyday Intern
Dec 30, 15 7:38 pm
The best attempts I've seen to raise the bar of American housing have been from design-build firms. Because the architect and contractor are the same, it simplifies things for the client and gives them one point of contact. This sort of lowers the barrier to entry for the client. The problem is that these types of firms ... at least the ones I'm familiar with ... are usually focused on higher end single family residential with a little commercial and multi-family residential thrown in occasionally. This already makes them out of reach of the majority of Americans. It seems like traditionally the developer still has the largest impact when it comes to housing. Aside from architects getting involved in development, I'm not sure how this can change.
There is also a very large opportunity for raising the architectural bar for the majority of Americans in educational facilities (K-12, not higher ed; see my point earlier that the majority of Americans don't have college degrees). In a lot of small towns and rural areas, schools can have a big impact on people's built environment. Schools could be used as community centers, meeting places, and cultural centers. They receive a lot of public attention and public input when they are designed and built.
Unfortunately, sometimes not enough architects are engaged at a level that the public appreciates with this building type. I'm thinking of the high school that was recently built in my home town. The architect had their vision of what the architecture of education should be, and didn't listen to the concerns of the users they were designing for. Nor had they gone back to look at whether or not their vision had worked on previous projects. They just implemented their vision. In those instances the public is left with a project that doesn't serve them as well as it should and a resentment that they have to pay for it with their higher property taxes. The other down side is that as publicly bid jobs they are stuck with the low bidders as contractors.
no_form
Dec 30, 15 7:38 pm
I think it's what people wanted. With mass production people could purchase what only the wealthy could have before the war-think gilded age opulence. And with new materials it was also convenient such as vinyl siding in place of wood clapboards.
The social aspirations of modernism died when the Euro's fled here during ww2.
Engaging the 99%. There used to be an office in SF that was focused on doing good design for the average family. It's out there but with limited success. I think the small house movement is the hot thing these days in terms of making a better everyday environment.
Miles Jaffe
Dec 30, 15 7:49 pm
An architect who infiltrates these organizations could be effective at changing things.
Nope. Conflict of interest is a problem, as are the rules that bind one in such a position, as well as the propensity of politicos at every level to sell out.
nothing_is_everything
Dec 30, 15 8:36 pm
Reporting side income + main gig pay to equal 100K at 5 years is misleading. Firms in SF, who typically pay more than NYC, do not even offer that for the best 5-year professionals. A quick reference of the AIA salary poll and Archinect's own Brand Spankin New Salary Poll (not so new anymore) will reveal quite the opposite.
Point is....you shouldn't expect everyone to have rich uncle clients on the side. It may be possible for some, but that is def. the minority.
no_form
Dec 30, 15 10:07 pm
Miles, I recall from a previous post you had a bad experience in such a position. Were you trying to raise the bar in your locale?
midlander
Dec 30, 15 11:07 pm
the more you engage with the banal the more you come to like it...
beware!
Peter Normand
Dec 30, 15 11:25 pm
So what to Do about places Like Naperville or Fresno, or White Plains. First I would advocate for higher density transit oriented development around the commuter rail stations. Convincing the towns people that tall buildings will not ruin their sleepy bedroom community will be hard to do.
Second is plan for the population that will be living there. Mostly young couples with or about to have kids and bored teenagers. Being a teenager in the suburbs is hard as there is not a lot to do. Also Suburbs need to get over the false notion that they don't have a drug abuse problem and start building and operating treatment centers. Boredom drives the drug trade, lack of density correlates to lack of vitality in most cases. If the suburbs are to work for everyone they need to have what it takes to keep young people interested in living and spending time in their communities or they need to just be weekend only towns and M-F it is on the train or the road to work and errands and that is it.
The suburbs that roll up the sidewalk in their busyness districts around 8pm are not going to be of much interest to bored teens and young folks looking for their future spouse. The monotony and lack of variety corporate franchise has done to bars and restaurants and the ordeal it can be to get home get changed and go back out to a place is sometimes too much for people to want to chance it on a new or different place.
Then we have the true horror of the office park, the reason people in the suburbs have so much tupper ware is there is rarely any easy to reach yet alone walk-able restaurant near their office or industrial park and they have to pack a lunch out of necessity. This is mostly the fault of strict zoning but it has a detrimental effect on the lease rates of office buildings if there are not decent restaurants close at hand (this is true in the city as well).
The suburbs are a housing and life style choice and it is hard to truly understand someones motives for decamping from a city and moving to the outermost suburbs, maybe it is the same reason someone leaves Chicago for Detroit. The city life has grit and some element of danger and uncertainty, some of us, like myself, find that exciting and hold it up as one of the reasons why we love the city, but just as there is plenty to love there is plenty to hate. Racist cops gunning down kids, homeless and street beggars on your EL train, or the not to distant sound of gunfire will eventually wear thin your enthusiasm for the city. Then you might look for something different.
Over and OUT
Peter N
x-jla
Dec 30, 15 11:51 pm
Peter, from my experience the most dangerous places are suburban ghettos...and even worse...industrial areas like those around airports, warehouses, etc...
no_form
Dec 30, 15 11:56 pm
I think for most people it comes down to where is the safest place with the best school for my kids and isn't too far away from my job. Oh and how much can I get when I sell my house.
Miles Jaffe
Dec 31, 15 12:42 am
no_form, not architecture specific, but an elected position. Also as a non-member of a community advisory committee, which allowed me to speak without the restraint placed on members. What I learned was that while both were futile efforts, not being in an official position gave me far more ability to speak and act.
Wood Guy
Dec 31, 15 9:11 am
Two ways to move the average. Imagine quality, whatever that means to you, as a bell curve. You can either be on the bleeding edge, moving the upper target forward, so everyone else has something to shoot for. Or you can target the center, focusing on those for whom the bleeding edge is inconceivable. There are a lot more people in the center, but the bleeding edge can be more interesting.
I'm involved in two programs in architecture, Passive House and Pretty Good House, both largely focused on energy efficiency. PH is at the upper end; it's a small group and seems unreachable to many, but it's really not that hard, and word is starting to get out that it can be practical. PGH, on the other hand, seems to have broader appeal--it's a quality standard between code minimum and Passive House; in theory it gives people a middle-ground target that's ahead of where they would end up left to their own devices.
How do we elevate the "average"? As we all know, the most pervasive condition is also the one least engaged. I am talking suburban homes, strip malls, pocket parks, and all the everyday things that actually cover the majority of the landscape...museums and sports stadiums matter to the 99% about as much as the occasional trip to Disneyland.
Lets talk about architect as developer, stock plans, pre-fab, and other non-conventional ways of engaging these things.
probably easier to change yourself and your own expectations, rather than trying to change everyone else. 'everyone else' is a really big number.
hide the parking in the back
Move to a city. Put your money where your mouth is and don't be part of the problem.
null, that's an extremely unrealistic and hipster-elitist position. The city is economically and geographically out of reach for the majority of Americans. I understand that suburbia is not the ideal way to arrange a civilization, but it is already here so we have to deal with it.
And personally speaking, It wouldn't reduce my own commute at all to live in the urban center of my state...it would increase it...and increase my mortgage from 1400$ per month to roughly 3000$ per month for the same 1800ft.2 space...The public schools are also way better where I live. The simple argument of "just move to the city" in this detached profession is exacerbating the problem...
Architects have failed 99% of the built environment... But nice museums...
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Reality-based_community
instead of idealizing a plan for what we want our communities to be and pretending real life will conform to our over-inflated egos, we should do our best to form our opinions based on judiciously observed fact and allow the solutions we develop to come from that.
curt, I agree with that. I'm not talking about one man redesigning 99% of the nation, I am talking about Empowering designers to infiltrate that realm in a meaningful way...not as a cog for some developer. The consumer consumes what is available to him/her. The consumer does not guide the market unless the option to deviate from the norm is available and feasible. My question is, how do we create such options within the realities of the market?
I think city dwellers tend to forget they need people to live outside the city to support them. Then, they seem to also forget that there is anything past suburbia.
jla, I strongly disagree with a lot of what you're saying. That assumed that your income will remain the same in a large city. Every time I hear people say that they are earning 75k with 5 years of experience I look back and remember that I was in the six figure range at that point. That's what nyc can create: a nice paycheck, if you're willing to spend a year or two eating cereal for dinner.
As to your 1,800 SF space: You can't realistically need that much space unless you have 3 kids and a dog. If you do need that much space: You're part of the problem.
Cities are only initially out of reach of the majority of Americans. Once you're in, you'll be more than comfortable.
^ that 40$ burger isn't from manhattan raised cattle?
I said it half joking, but the impact of the car in the way we live has taken away most of what "the average people" wants in the communities they live. Also, road depts. and design engineers should stop designing for peak hours and 18 wheelers and adjust parking lot sizes and roads widths to real usage. Put the parking lot in the back, make the garages accessible from the alley (I know new urbanists hate alleys, but IMHO, it's the single best invention of american urbanism) Make people interact more, ban drive-through's. Most of this would change the way things get built and elevate "the average".
Not every city is NYC. I am from NYC...and as a working class person NYC fucking sucks.
If you really believe that everyone is a single 20 something with a 100k dollar salary then you are part of the problem.
Its not an architecture problem, its greed. The solution is political.
We need a national moratorium on state and local governments competing with each other by giving tax breaks, building infrastructure, and discounting utilities to encourage development. We're on a race to the bottom, with everybody willing to hand over the keys to the castle to anyone promising a few jobs or a little bump in the tax base.
We need strong, smart local governments that will actually look out for the interests of residents, not the demands of the oligarchy. Our places will only get better when we value community and sustainability more than we do profit.
I know this is blasphemy in the profession, but isn't it just possible that things are the way they are because the vast majority of the unwashed (i.e., non-architects) are actually pretty happy, or at least content, with things that way?
If city life was so unquestionably better, why did a city like Detroit begin turning into a ghost town starting after WWII even as the domestic auto industry was still blasting along at full throttle? Yes, yes, I know white flight was obviously a factor, but if there was such a desire for older urban neighborhoods, the prices would have been bid up so high that the newly arriving minorities would have been priced out. Obviously, they weren't.
Face it, most people living the standard middle class life prefer green grass and privacy to pavement and earthy ethnic restaurants.
NYC is for the top 1%. if you aint part of that chances are your experience of NYC is way different. try being a single mother making 25k with 3 kids and then tell me about how great nyc is...
Tall order. What's "better" to one person isn't necessarily "better" to another.
Maybe, create "better" design that's less expensive and more accessible than"bad" design. Ikea, pretty much.
Learn to stop worrying and love Bjarke
Make people interact more, ban drive-through's. Most of this would change the way things get built and elevate "the average".
There it is. Make people ............. Compulsory utopianism. "I'm going to give you heaven if I have to ram it down your throat." Dictators everywhere are getting a hard-on.
Allow people to interact more; there, how you like me now?
I think I'm in love.
“If You Love Nature, Stay Away From It.” -Poppa G.
I agree with null pointer. Disagree with jla-x.
jla-x, you could use a better example than a single mother with 3 kids making 25k a year in NYC. I'm a little confused with your overall perspective here. "The city is economically and geographically out of reach for the majority of Americans" - anyone with a college degree can move to any city they want and become well off with whatever work they want to do. I was from an area that was less desirable to live in than the glorious city I live in now, so what did I do? Before I graduated, I put together a portfolio that must have been good enough to get me hired at a well-paying firm in a superb city, because that is what happened indeed. Why would I have sympathy for someone who acts like there are invisible forces preventing any college grad from getting any job in any city they want? Must it be my white privilege that gets me hired at desirable offices in desirable cities, when all they're looking at is a series of fictional academic design projects? Can they tell my race and gender because of the phonetics of my name? Did I just get lucky, or did I spend my final year in school making contacts at Top 50 firms I wanted to work for so they would take me seriously when I applied? Anyone I went to school with could have done what I did, but oddly enough no one else put the effort in to make it happen.
Also, making $100k in NYC is a standard across many competitive industries if you have above-average talent, an impressive work ethic, an ability to socialize, and a few or more qualitative years of experience. This description represents the state-of-the-art BEST, and that's exactly what NYC is.
When I graduated college at 22, I accepted a job offer that paid me $42k at a Top 50 firm (ranked in profitability) in downtown Chicago. $42k was more money than my 32 year old brother had ever made in his life and he was blown away, which I thought was alarming because $42k is peanuts. He studied English, and he was complaining around that time about how there's no opportunity and the opportunities that are presented are too dismal. I literally told him that some of his classmates are Editors-In-Chief and make $100-200k, and I asked him what's the difference between them and him - the trick here is that their abilities were the same, but their respective level of tenacities couldn't be more opposed. A lot of my classmates were working in cheaper cities for $32-$36k, but I sought an office in the Top 50, who it turns out paid well (imagine that!), and I successfully overcame the competition in order to secure myself a spot. The classmates who were hitting $32-36k didnt put the same amount of front-end work that I did, and they took offers that were from firms with boring work and boring clients in boring cities. They almost had no competition in their pursuit of these offers; it was as if they were blindly recruited by alumni.
I'm unsure however if you are the same type of person as my classmates. To you it might seem like I'm assuming you are, but I assure you I'm not, however your remarks just remind me of them.
geezertect, SO true: "Face it, most people living the standard middle class life prefer green grass and privacy to pavement and earthy ethnic restaurants."
***this rant only allows me to represent my ill hubris and does not solve the need to address mediocrity in architecture***
Nature isn't just going to show up at your door and say, "Eat me". Someone has to be out there gathering and producing.
BRTN ^ If you can't understand why only a minority of americans can move to nyc then all of your education is worthless. My original question was not about the top 1% moving to nyc, it was about improving the built environment of the 99% of people who cannot afford to live above the highline and drink artisanal coffee.
your argument is like "why are people starving in Congo...they should just come to nyc...there are plenty of reastaraunts here"
Im not trying to be a dick...its just frustrating when architects divert attention with the old "just move to cities" line. Its tantamount to the idea that global warming can be solved if everyone just become vegetarians. maybe tecnically true, but highly unrealistic.
new york contains a very small percentage of the habitable land available in america. i assume that's why only a few are able to live there. eventually someone has to fill the rest of the space somehow.
why you think the top 1% is in new york is beyond me. the rich people live in places like omaha and washington and bentonville arkansas. maybe it's 1% of people overall in new york (i didn't do the math), but it certainly isn't the top 1%?
Aim high simply means upscale.
The idea that we're going to develop our way out of spec-built for-profit culture (in pretty much every aspect) is fanciful at best. The audience is ignorant, the competition corporate, and the government subservient (not to us).
The only thing you can change is yourself. Try not to give up, that is the real challenge.
NIMBYs, zoning, planning, investors, and business owners are more responsible for the mediocrity that abounds. Controls over facades, signage, parking, owner's personal taste, construction costs, code approved materials, neighborhood review boards, etc all dictate the shabby state of the American landscape.
An architect who infiltrates these organizations could be effective at changing things.
Regarding town vs country mouse the key is finding people who are willing to take risks and have the money to do so. Also I don't think anyone with only 6 years experience in NYC or LA or CHI is making 100k+. People working at staritects with that experience, and the talent to be hired there, are not making that much. I know for a fact.
no_form, you're way wrong re: pay. I was looking over my tax returns this morning, trying to make sense of this year's trajectory. I was clocking in at the mid 100's with 5 years of experience a few years back. Side job + main gig. Not the only one. When I left consulting to go solo, I was in the upper 100's and I had a few people in the same age range as I.
Did I mention I'm not even white? and BR.TN works for KPF. They aren't even known for paying a lot (compared to a few of the architects of record in the city). They just promote fast with zero regard for time served (which is great, props to them).
jla, you don't move to nyc because you're in the 1%, nyc makes you into the 1% (or like 40% in the case of an architect).
curt, what I mean is that only the top 1% can live well in nyc.
BR.TN, you complain that jla-x's example could be better but then proceed to give one (ie. your own experience as example) equally as specific (if not more specific). Your example proves jla-x's point, rather than argues against it.
"'The city is economically and geographically out of reach for the majority of Americans' - anyone with a college degree can move to any city they want and become well off with whatever work they want to do."
Your main premise, that anyone with a college degree can make it in the city and that somehow makes it feasible for the majority of Americans, is inherently flawed. The majority of Americans do not have a college degree.
The rest of your post is just more of the same. For example, your statement that $100k is common across competitive industries in NYC if you have above-average talent. First, your limiting the sample pool to 'competitive industries' (whatever that means) in NYC. jla-x's point is concerned with the majority of Americans (not living in cities) and not necessarily engaged in a competitive industry wherever they do live. This precludes some of them simply being able to come to NYC and making it in a competitive industry which may not even be related to their expertise in whatever industry they currently work in. Second, if we are looking at the majority of Americans, they do not have above-average talent. If they did, it would simply be average talent.
Most people like to visit the city for fun, but prefer to live in the suburbs. Their “ugly built environment” is what most people would call practical living.
Nobody listens to architects because of their insistence on spending so much of other people's money to achieve their utopia. If this utopia happened, it would please architects but really inconvenience everybody else.
Jla-x, your way of thinking is very Ivory Tower, you know what is best for people without really understanding how they live and why.
Everyday Intern, well said
xian, what I am saying is not ivory tower. I am talking about engaging the architecture of the 99% in a real way...Let me remind you that most of us are part of that 99%. I am not talking about tabula rasa utopian towns, but rather making homes that are better....even mildly better. by better, I mean more durable, more energy efficient, better economy of space, low-no vocs. If architects cannot do this, then we are pretty useless to most americans. I am not talking about floating cities and flying cars, Im talking about Hyundai's rather than neons. The public can not buy a hyundai unless someone is selling...if the only economy car on the market is the neon then we cant really determine that the public likes neons...they just need cars and neon is the only affordable option.
architects all want to design custom hot rods and high end sports cars...the challenge is bringing good design to the masses...a dream that was alive in the mid-century and then somehow forgotten....what happened in the profession...?
Hyundai's cost more than Neons, and they are only worth the extra money to a certain percentage of the population. When you convert this analogy to housing, the number of people who want Hyundai's shrinks dramatically since houses cost so much more. I'm saying that architects need to be more aware of people's practical concerns.
The best attempts I've seen to raise the bar of American housing have been from design-build firms. Because the architect and contractor are the same, it simplifies things for the client and gives them one point of contact. This sort of lowers the barrier to entry for the client. The problem is that these types of firms ... at least the ones I'm familiar with ... are usually focused on higher end single family residential with a little commercial and multi-family residential thrown in occasionally. This already makes them out of reach of the majority of Americans. It seems like traditionally the developer still has the largest impact when it comes to housing. Aside from architects getting involved in development, I'm not sure how this can change.
There is also a very large opportunity for raising the architectural bar for the majority of Americans in educational facilities (K-12, not higher ed; see my point earlier that the majority of Americans don't have college degrees). In a lot of small towns and rural areas, schools can have a big impact on people's built environment. Schools could be used as community centers, meeting places, and cultural centers. They receive a lot of public attention and public input when they are designed and built.
Unfortunately, sometimes not enough architects are engaged at a level that the public appreciates with this building type. I'm thinking of the high school that was recently built in my home town. The architect had their vision of what the architecture of education should be, and didn't listen to the concerns of the users they were designing for. Nor had they gone back to look at whether or not their vision had worked on previous projects. They just implemented their vision. In those instances the public is left with a project that doesn't serve them as well as it should and a resentment that they have to pay for it with their higher property taxes. The other down side is that as publicly bid jobs they are stuck with the low bidders as contractors.
I think it's what people wanted. With mass production people could purchase what only the wealthy could have before the war-think gilded age opulence. And with new materials it was also convenient such as vinyl siding in place of wood clapboards.
The social aspirations of modernism died when the Euro's fled here during ww2.
Engaging the 99%. There used to be an office in SF that was focused on doing good design for the average family. It's out there but with limited success. I think the small house movement is the hot thing these days in terms of making a better everyday environment.
An architect who infiltrates these organizations could be effective at changing things.
Nope. Conflict of interest is a problem, as are the rules that bind one in such a position, as well as the propensity of politicos at every level to sell out.
Reporting side income + main gig pay to equal 100K at 5 years is misleading. Firms in SF, who typically pay more than NYC, do not even offer that for the best 5-year professionals. A quick reference of the AIA salary poll and Archinect's own Brand Spankin New Salary Poll (not so new anymore) will reveal quite the opposite.
Point is....you shouldn't expect everyone to have rich uncle clients on the side. It may be possible for some, but that is def. the minority.
Miles, I recall from a previous post you had a bad experience in such a position. Were you trying to raise the bar in your locale?
the more you engage with the banal the more you come to like it...
beware!
So what to Do about places Like Naperville or Fresno, or White Plains. First I would advocate for higher density transit oriented development around the commuter rail stations. Convincing the towns people that tall buildings will not ruin their sleepy bedroom community will be hard to do.
Second is plan for the population that will be living there. Mostly young couples with or about to have kids and bored teenagers. Being a teenager in the suburbs is hard as there is not a lot to do. Also Suburbs need to get over the false notion that they don't have a drug abuse problem and start building and operating treatment centers. Boredom drives the drug trade, lack of density correlates to lack of vitality in most cases. If the suburbs are to work for everyone they need to have what it takes to keep young people interested in living and spending time in their communities or they need to just be weekend only towns and M-F it is on the train or the road to work and errands and that is it.
The suburbs that roll up the sidewalk in their busyness districts around 8pm are not going to be of much interest to bored teens and young folks looking for their future spouse. The monotony and lack of variety corporate franchise has done to bars and restaurants and the ordeal it can be to get home get changed and go back out to a place is sometimes too much for people to want to chance it on a new or different place.
Then we have the true horror of the office park, the reason people in the suburbs have so much tupper ware is there is rarely any easy to reach yet alone walk-able restaurant near their office or industrial park and they have to pack a lunch out of necessity. This is mostly the fault of strict zoning but it has a detrimental effect on the lease rates of office buildings if there are not decent restaurants close at hand (this is true in the city as well).
The suburbs are a housing and life style choice and it is hard to truly understand someones motives for decamping from a city and moving to the outermost suburbs, maybe it is the same reason someone leaves Chicago for Detroit. The city life has grit and some element of danger and uncertainty, some of us, like myself, find that exciting and hold it up as one of the reasons why we love the city, but just as there is plenty to love there is plenty to hate. Racist cops gunning down kids, homeless and street beggars on your EL train, or the not to distant sound of gunfire will eventually wear thin your enthusiasm for the city. Then you might look for something different.
Over and OUT
Peter N
Peter, from my experience the most dangerous places are suburban ghettos...and even worse...industrial areas like those around airports, warehouses, etc...
I think for most people it comes down to where is the safest place with the best school for my kids and isn't too far away from my job. Oh and how much can I get when I sell my house.
no_form, not architecture specific, but an elected position. Also as a non-member of a community advisory committee, which allowed me to speak without the restraint placed on members. What I learned was that while both were futile efforts, not being in an official position gave me far more ability to speak and act.
Two ways to move the average. Imagine quality, whatever that means to you, as a bell curve. You can either be on the bleeding edge, moving the upper target forward, so everyone else has something to shoot for. Or you can target the center, focusing on those for whom the bleeding edge is inconceivable. There are a lot more people in the center, but the bleeding edge can be more interesting.
I'm involved in two programs in architecture, Passive House and Pretty Good House, both largely focused on energy efficiency. PH is at the upper end; it's a small group and seems unreachable to many, but it's really not that hard, and word is starting to get out that it can be practical. PGH, on the other hand, seems to have broader appeal--it's a quality standard between code minimum and Passive House; in theory it gives people a middle-ground target that's ahead of where they would end up left to their own devices.