Being so new to architecture, I'm trying to still expand my horizons and my understanding of firms. I have only been working in a very small firm for a year now (three people plus me) and we do all existing buildings and all commercial work. We also do all the MEP, and therefore there is not a whole lot of actual design work (that I get to see or partake in really). Therefore I am extremely curious when I think about firms like Gensler or SOM where basically all of the work that we do at my current firm is shipped out to consultants or engineers. If you have any experience about maybe a typical day or typical work that is done at a larger firm, I'd love to hear about it.
Thank you very much and I greatly appreciate your time
archanonymous
Jan 16, 19 5:41 pm
The things about large firms is that different people will have drastically different workflows and working relationships with their directors.
Peter Normand
Jan 17, 19 1:47 pm
First off I disagree that you are not engaged in design at all, even in construction documents phase there are a lot of little design challenges that need to be resolved to pull off the overall design intent.
Some differences in the way smaller and larger firms work, that I have seen in my career:
1. In Larger Firms a set design team will almost exclusively work with one or two clients for many projects spanning (hopefully) many years. For example you might get assigned to the Gap Inc team or studio, and then be tasked with primarily Gap stores but once in a while work on Banana Republic, Athleta, Old Navy and others but 80% of the time you will be working on Gap stores, remodels new stores and other things. In smaller firms you might not have a repeat client with 200-300 individual projects to do in the next three years. You might be in a firm or a studio that specializes in retail design but your clients and project types will have a lot of variety.
2. In larger firms a lot of time money and effort has already been spent establishing office standards, this can be the basics of how a drawing set is laid out with a template project file to how you answer your phone. You often hear the mantra "we need to speak with one voice" it is like the Borg resistance is futile if you are in a medium to large firm don't fight the standards, especially the drafting standards. Smaller firms probably don't have standards and this can also be frustrating.
3 In larger firms you have more people and thus more little sub groups and clicks, there will always be someone to go and do things with and have drinks after finishing a hard deadline but it can also result in clicks and people feeling excluded. In a bigger firm a personality conflict is easier to avoid and is not as huge of a deal if they are not your boss or on your project. In a smaller firm there is no place to hide from a jerk but hopefully the small firms you work in are jerk free and you have the added benefit of camaraderie.
4 Smaller firms often end up working their staff crazy hours sometimes because of avoidable problems, sometime unavoidable problems and when you have a small office there are fewer people to jump in and help with a project if you are up against a deadline. In a larger office they simply reassign team members and instantly your team is doubled for the day. But bring on new team members on-board quickly is very much dependent on how well you are able to follow the office drafting standards and the filing standards for project information that is kept on the server. The ability to be flexible with staffing depends on some degree of uniform standards so a person not familiar with the project can quickly find the information they need to help out.
5 In larger firms they have dedicated staff to deal with technical issues and they typically get resolved fairly quickly, in smaller offices this is not available and you are either on your own to figure it out or outside help has to be contracted and scheduled. A lot of folks look down on large firms but having an IT help desk that knows Revit and can fix your problems in minutes is quite nice.
There are a lot of other operational differences but these are the top 5 that come to mind.
Hello,
Being so new to architecture, I'm trying to still expand my horizons and my understanding of firms. I have only been working in a very small firm for a year now (three people plus me) and we do all existing buildings and all commercial work. We also do all the MEP, and therefore there is not a whole lot of actual design work (that I get to see or partake in really). Therefore I am extremely curious when I think about firms like Gensler or SOM where basically all of the work that we do at my current firm is shipped out to consultants or engineers. If you have any experience about maybe a typical day or typical work that is done at a larger firm, I'd love to hear about it.
Thank you very much and I greatly appreciate your time
The things about large firms is that different people will have drastically different workflows and working relationships with their directors.
First off I disagree that you are not engaged in design at all, even in construction documents phase there are a lot of little design challenges that need to be resolved to pull off the overall design intent.
Some differences in the way smaller and larger firms work, that I have seen in my career:
1. In Larger Firms a set design team will almost exclusively work with one or two clients for many projects spanning (hopefully) many years. For example you might get assigned to the Gap Inc team or studio, and then be tasked with primarily Gap stores but once in a while work on Banana Republic, Athleta, Old Navy and others but 80% of the time you will be working on Gap stores, remodels new stores and other things. In smaller firms you might not have a repeat client with 200-300 individual projects to do in the next three years. You might be in a firm or a studio that specializes in retail design but your clients and project types will have a lot of variety.
2. In larger firms a lot of time money and effort has already been spent establishing office standards, this can be the basics of how a drawing set is laid out with a template project file to how you answer your phone. You often hear the mantra "we need to speak with one voice" it is like the Borg resistance is futile if you are in a medium to large firm don't fight the standards, especially the drafting standards. Smaller firms probably don't have standards and this can also be frustrating.
3 In larger firms you have more people and thus more little sub groups and clicks, there will always be someone to go and do things with and have drinks after finishing a hard deadline but it can also result in clicks and people feeling excluded. In a bigger firm a personality conflict is easier to avoid and is not as huge of a deal if they are not your boss or on your project. In a smaller firm there is no place to hide from a jerk but hopefully the small firms you work in are jerk free and you have the added benefit of camaraderie.
4 Smaller firms often end up working their staff crazy hours sometimes because of avoidable problems, sometime unavoidable problems and when you have a small office there are fewer people to jump in and help with a project if you are up against a deadline. In a larger office they simply reassign team members and instantly your team is doubled for the day. But bring on new team members on-board quickly is very much dependent on how well you are able to follow the office drafting standards and the filing standards for project information that is kept on the server. The ability to be flexible with staffing depends on some degree of uniform standards so a person not familiar with the project can quickly find the information they need to help out.
5 In larger firms they have dedicated staff to deal with technical issues and they typically get resolved fairly quickly, in smaller offices this is not available and you are either on your own to figure it out or outside help has to be contracted and scheduled. A lot of folks look down on large firms but having an IT help desk that knows Revit and can fix your problems in minutes is quite nice.
There are a lot of other operational differences but these are the top 5 that come to mind.
Over and OUT
Peter N