I am/was a "senior architect"- (whatever that means), 20 years experience. Been unemployed one year. Most of my career has been on the design side, and with Macs/Archicad, though I am adequate with Autocad.
I took a 3-day Revit training class like 6 months ago, and got the free copy of Revit for a year at home. I am wondering if its worth doing anything more than going through the tutorial, or if I should plunge in and do a small hypothetical project with it. I am trying to fill in the gaps on my resume, but there's a difference between on the job experience with a team and working on it at home, and as a senior architect, it can vary how much I will be doing.
In short, is it worth investing the time with a project, or better to do the tutorial and use that time for other things- competition , web design, bussing tables, learning luge.
chigurh
Jan 18, 17 3:57 pm
Destroy the machines!
jayacluny
Jan 18, 17 4:08 pm
No, keep the machines, but don't give them "life". Keep the machines as "stupid" human tools........like contemporary cars for transportation or computerised pens for architects (AutoCAD).
AI (artificial intelligence) is a competing, synthetic life-form that should not be allowed in human society. Revit is only the first step towards fully automated building design, devoid of Architects and of Engineers. Already Revit is this huge give-away to Contractors!
What will happen when Clients no longer need Architects, because their AI machines (automated robotic computers) can listen to voice commands and create building plans for them? You, Mr. firm owner will "starve" too.....or your Great Grand Children will! All your cost savings from laying everyone off won't save your descendents in a time dominated by AI technology!
Non Sequitur
Jan 18, 17 4:14 pm
^idiot. Probably has never worked a day in an arch office.
I smell a Koz wannabe.
jayacluny
Jan 18, 17 4:27 pm
And you, sir, figuratively, if not literally "sound" like you inherited your firm from "DAD" or "GRAND DAD" without paying enough wealth transfer taxes!
Non Sequitur
Jan 18, 17 4:31 pm
^wrong.
worked my way through university (2 jobs at a time) and earned my licensed and career path by myself. No hand-me-downs or inheritance required.
Josh Mings
Jan 18, 17 4:41 pm
I want to play this game. What do I sound like jayacluny? Your faith in AI is perhaps quite blind.
b3tadine[sutures]
Jan 18, 17 5:08 pm
Sounds like a lucid dream. A world without computers!
tduds
Jan 18, 17 5:27 pm
What will happen when Clients no longer need Architects, because their AI machines (automated robotic computers) can listen to voice commands and create building plans for them?
If that's what you think architects do, then I'm not surprised you're having trouble finding gainful employment.
Non Sequitur
Jan 18, 17 5:28 pm
Then what, archinect via telegraph? Snail mail? Carrier pigeon?
Can you imagine the size of the stack of paper that poor pigeon would need to carry for every Balkins "explanation"?
tduds
Jan 18, 17 5:29 pm
"perhaps 50 – 100,000 Architects in the United States alone."
It would be interesting to get true figures on how many architects actually use their license. I know many ppl that have never used their stamp, or took about 4 years to stamp their first project and another 4 to stamp their second. I would guess that it is close to 50% that have never stamped more than 5 projects.
jayacluny
Jan 18, 17 6:43 pm
According to a 2016 article in architect, NCARB says that
the total number of licensed architects in the USA in 2015 was 110,168, with an annual growth rate of 2%. Using compound growth not simple growth this means that the 2017 number is close to 115,000 licensed architects.
The average large A-E firm (that I have worked in over the years) in the US has an annual layoff of 10 to 20% in the best of times (i.e. in a year like 2016). Smaller firms tend to hire lots of contract workers and they change approximately 40% of their staff each year in the best of times.
In my city, 60% to 80% (4 out of every 5) of all local architects were unemployed between 2009 and 2013. Many if not most of the unemployed were pre-Revit architects.
A good rough estimate of the percentage of architects affected by, i.e. laid off because of REVIT and other AI technologies once during the year is say 30% in an average year. (this is not the same as "unemployed" all year, but with lives and health insurance, and geographic location disrupted, nonetheless)
30% of 115,000 licensed architects is 34,500, which could rise to 50,000 people in a recessionary year. I am really speaking about "chronic" layoffs that disrupt stability and lives, not long-term unemployment. This wonton "disruption" needs to stop, and the law is a good place for architect class-action workers to start! Work in architecture was much more stable before REVIT came along, as well as before the over-supply of Millennial REVIT-toting architect-interns came on stream in circa 2012.
Bench
Jan 18, 17 6:45 pm
You sound like you don't actually know what Revit does, but you've created a straw-man to burn with it to explain away your shoddy career choices?
Non Sequitur
Jan 18, 17 6:49 pm
Stop making excuses as to why you were laid-off.
jayacluny
Jan 18, 17 6:58 pm
To: b3tadine[sutures]
A world with very few computers, i.e. a world in which only geeks who did Fortran in a large building on the edge of campus even remotely bothered with computers......geeks that simply had no relation to our "robust" creative hand-drawn 4,000 year old Classical profession was indeed the "dream" that people of my generation signed on to in the late 1970's and early 1980's when they studied "ARCHITECTURE"!
This was a heady time of unparalleled creativity and intellect that has been sold down the tubes to a bunch of computer programmers whose idea of a great design is a lean-to aluminum roof with solar panels on it! What a complete nightmare this is! Revit does not even have proper functional capabilities in Masonry architecture! What a career let-down this has all been, and then to be expelled by these REVIT computer "Architect" heretics on top of it all...."Just Awful"! Sue, Sue, Sue!
jayacluny
Jan 18, 17 6:59 pm
I am 60% functional in REVIT, but I hate using it!
kjdt
Jan 18, 17 7:00 pm
You're working in the wrong kind of firms if you're seeing 10% to 20% layoffs in the best of times. In the past 30+ years I've worked in 8 firms and owned 2, and have only seen layoffs happen on 4 individual occasions - so that's 26+ years in which the firms I was in had no layoffs at all. It's not normal in "average" firms to lay off anyone in a good year. In these layoffs you've experienced, are they ones where the firms lay off a group of employees in slow periods and then bring back the same people? Or are you repeatedly being laid off and eventually replaced with someone else?
DOL statistics indicate younger/less experienced employees were unemployed during the recession at a rate of nearly 3 times the % of more seasoned architecture firm employees. I don't see how that is Revit-related - it's just the usual issue of less experienced = more easily replaceable - that's pretty typical in any field, it's not limited to architecture.
jayacluny
Jan 18, 17 7:02 pm
Meaning, I have completed CDs on large a high-rise project in REVIT, but it was just disgusting to work with!
jayacluny
Jan 18, 17 7:04 pm
You, meaning those firms who adopted BIM technology will all be remembered as the people who destroyed the Architecture profession.....forever.
Non Sequitur
Jan 18, 17 7:11 pm
Idiot.
b3tadine[sutures]
Jan 18, 17 7:31 pm
You want to make the profession obsolete? Get rid of digital drafting.
tduds
Jan 18, 17 7:47 pm
"This was a heady time of unparalleled creativity and intellect that has been sold down the tube"
Eisenman, is that you?
curtkram
Jan 18, 17 8:03 pm
i have trouble seeing what value you could bring to an architecture firm jayacluny.
sounds like you complain a lot. not that that is particularly unusual in this field. sounds like you think you're capable of hand-drawn masonry details on a large high-rise project, but steel details are probably more useful in that project type.
being slow to learn new things isn't going to be considered a favorable traits in very many professions at all, not even law. best of luck in your future endeavors.
jayacluny
Jan 19, 17 10:52 am
"being slow to learn new things isn't going to be considered a favorable traits in very many professions at all, not even law"
Architects who cannot write a proper sentence using "old" skills such as Standard English won't fare much better either.
Non Sequitur
Jan 19, 17 11:10 am
How's the line at the unemployment centres today jaya? Need someone to help you type up a resume?
jayacluny
Jan 19, 17 11:18 am
Fuck off!
Non Sequitur
Jan 19, 17 11:20 am
Not interested, but thank-you for the offer.
chigurh
Jan 19, 17 11:58 am
hi GRAND DAD! hows life on your warped soapbox?
Kevin Wagner
Jan 19, 17 12:16 pm
The romance of Architecture that Jay clings on to is long gone. I've kept my 56 year old self relevant by knowing Revit, youngsters come and go, but experience + technology= job security, generally.
Start your own firm, put out the shingle and fill your coffee cup with sharpened pencils.
toosaturated
Jan 19, 17 12:57 pm
They said the same thing about hand drafting. Architect's unwillingness for change is what's killing architecture.
DeTwan
Jan 19, 17 1:30 pm
OP, look at it an a positive light. Perhaps easier to say for someone that never really made decent money in the industry. When I couldnt find a better architecture job in late 2013 bc I didnt know Revit in and out, I just saw it as a good sign to leave the industry. I was already burnt out from all the repetitive day in and day out work, low wages, and little social/monetary mobility. Just staring at a computer all day with little to no human interaction, I realized 'architecture' was not for me. Yeah it suck to realized that after vesting so much time, money, and heart into it, but I really couldnt imagine going thur another downturn in the economy, an over saturated market, and all the narcissistic attitudes that pollute the industry, and grow to be happy in the industry as I aged.
It's time to turn your hobbies and what you love into a business.
Josh Mings
Jan 19, 17 1:57 pm
While I think DeTwan is jaded by his/her experiences, the last line of their post is great advice. My hobby is currently giving me extra income and I was never planning for that.
jon ammer
Jan 20, 17 11:13 am
Jayaclunys views should not be dismissed entirely.
He make some interesting points.
Software / Technology is evolving so fast that it is almost pointless for the small Architect practice to invest in anything anymore as the investment is practically obselete before it gets a chance to pay off in profit for the user.
if i recall Rebbit started out at something like 3000-3500$. Once it became apparent how much of the market could be captured, the price per LICENSE went to something like 7000$ +
And even that wasnt enough - once purchased you need to shell out for an annual subscription a few years in
to run it efficiently on larger projects one needs a very good PC machine of 8 GB + costing several thousand dollars. Suddenly the operator needed a Hardware upgrade - if you use a laptop its particularly expensive .
And then theres the training courses. As with any business the Training Providers quickly realised that there was money to made in spinning off the training into little packages. So we have 1 day intros , 3 day intermediate courses, 5 day professional courses, 2 day family creation courses , civils interface training , Energy / Thermal modelling etc etc.
some younger architects who availed of BIM training within Universities are at an advantage
Until they are turfed out at age 30-35 when the next construction crash hits. just when you need to start a family /buy a house you suddenly need to find 20-30k for that Mandatory robotic personal assistant droid / drone / Hologram designing software upgrade whatever
Ive tried all manner of software. at the end of the day once the initial buzz of starting a project wears off its the same process - Tedious work ... semi chained to a screen zooming in and out hundreds of times a day clicking and moving lines and other components drinking too much coffee
I miss the drawing board and the days I didnt get 50 emails . I might wait for the launch of my personal drafting droid in 2025 instead of borrowing 15k to make myself BIMployable
archietechie
Jan 20, 17 11:45 am
^ Brought up some good points but wouldn't you say this point:
- "Software / Technology is evolving so fast that it is almost pointless for the small Architect practice to invest in anything anymore"
...is a solution to this point:
"once purchased you need to shell out for an annual subscription a few years in"?
The markets' saturated with too many drafting/modelling/BIM products. You don't necessarily have to stick to one if you feel the fees are unjustified.
zonker
Jan 20, 17 12:34 pm
archietechie
Am learning Revit Dynamo - many of us will be moving from traditional architecture practice
to programming/parametric type practice - this is the path of most industries - that's why many recent grads also can code - Python, C#
and when the next downturn occurs, we can become full time programmers
x intern
Jan 20, 17 1:36 pm
The outlay on software sits at about 1500$ per year on auto cad and 3500$ per year for revit. The days of buying software has passed. The law that allowed people to sale their licenses shut that down.
I'm suprised firms valie software that can be learned in a couple of months over the 10+ years it takes to really learn how a building is built. If that's the case hire draftsman. If you get hired because you know revit that's all a firm wants anyway.
jayacluny
Jan 20, 17 1:59 pm
Thank you Roark's Revenge!
By signing on to expensive BIM software such as Revit, the Cost Structure of the small architecture practice, which up to ten years ago was the bedrock of the profession in terms of employment, creativity and innovation, no longer works.
Only the top twenty a-e mega-firms seem able to survive, and thats only if they hire mainly interns and a very expensive (non-architect) department of computer scientists! Architects "be damned" seems to be the new motto! You know you have a problem when the typical big firm Computer manager starts calling older non-Revit architects "beginners"......beginners are not good for projects, should not be there, the arrogant non architect Computer Scientist used to say out loud at my last firm! His "dp"s or army of Revit interns with one year of experience would be sent aound daily to talk down to people who had been on the boards and AutoCad for 25 years.....
Non Sequitur
Jan 20, 17 2:07 pm
Not a top 20 A&E firm here and we're doing just fine with Revit.
Jaya, it's probably time for you to retire.
jayacluny
Jan 20, 17 2:07 pm
This is not unique to Architecture. We are in a time of AI machine (new high technology) efficiency resulting in the widespread economic decline of millions of middle class and working people. The brave new inhuman world us upon us!
jayacluny
Jan 20, 17 2:11 pm
There is a "crazy" non-racial, economic class revolution in the streets of NewYork as we speak, maybe those 8 million people should all "just retire too" on air and beans!
tduds
Jan 20, 17 2:11 pm
Okay now you just sound like Grandpa Simpson. Calm down, buddy.
curtkram
Jan 20, 17 2:15 pm
if you aren't hired to produce construction documents on a revit platform jay, what are you hired for? your opinion of which shade of anodized aluminum on a given storefront system is that much better than the next person's?
have you kept abreast of evolutions in building science such that you can sell better building construction to the decision makers in your firm and provide more perceived value to your firm's clients? or are you just parroting the same outdated and useless stuff that was parroted to you 10 years ago?
do you suppose there is a point where younger people who are still learning and trying to keep up with the changing environment are more valuable than stubborn old people who are stuck in the past and can no longer be productive or add value in a changing environment? i suppose if you were the partner and your livlihood depended on the people you hire, you might prefer someone who had both experience and the will to evolve. when forced to choose though, it sounds like your experience suggests the younger person is the preffered choice.
curtkram
Jan 20, 17 2:19 pm
i support a universal living wage. the rest of us should be looking out for the 8 million people in new york you're referring to (though i have no idea who you're talking about).
Everyday Intern
Jan 20, 17 2:30 pm
That's funny Non Sequitur. I see your point but from a different perspective...
I'm at a top 20 A/E firm and I'm wondering where all the interns and non-architect programmers are we have to hire in order to keep us in business with Revit. Sure we have some interns, and yes we have some IT people (I'd hardly consider them programmers) ... but they aren't that large of a portion of the firm's population. If anything, they aren't here because of Revit. They are here because of the size of the firm. I mean I'm technically an intern and I don't even work in Revit, and Revit is all we use for production (and now you know I don't work in production).
jayacluny
Jan 20, 17 2:30 pm
I, and most other citizens prefer universal employment, followed by voluntary retirement whenever the individual decides to retire. The universal living wage is a mistake. We'd all become unsustainable "wards" of the State, and would need to surrender our free liberty and free will to others. No good!...Un American.
Seeking sage advice.
I am/was a "senior architect"- (whatever that means), 20 years experience. Been unemployed one year. Most of my career has been on the design side, and with Macs/Archicad, though I am adequate with Autocad.
I took a 3-day Revit training class like 6 months ago, and got the free copy of Revit for a year at home. I am wondering if its worth doing anything more than going through the tutorial, or if I should plunge in and do a small hypothetical project with it. I am trying to fill in the gaps on my resume, but there's a difference between on the job experience with a team and working on it at home, and as a senior architect, it can vary how much I will be doing.
In short, is it worth investing the time with a project, or better to do the tutorial and use that time for other things- competition , web design, bussing tables, learning luge.
Destroy the machines!
No, keep the machines, but don't give them "life". Keep the machines as "stupid" human tools........like contemporary cars for transportation or computerised pens for architects (AutoCAD).
AI (artificial intelligence) is a competing, synthetic life-form that should not be allowed in human society. Revit is only the first step towards fully automated building design, devoid of Architects and of Engineers. Already Revit is this huge give-away to Contractors!
What will happen when Clients no longer need Architects, because their AI machines (automated robotic computers) can listen to voice commands and create building plans for them? You, Mr. firm owner will "starve" too.....or your Great Grand Children will! All your cost savings from laying everyone off won't save your descendents in a time dominated by AI technology!
^idiot. Probably has never worked a day in an arch office.
I smell a Koz wannabe.
And you, sir, figuratively, if not literally "sound" like you inherited your firm from "DAD" or "GRAND DAD" without paying enough wealth transfer taxes!
^wrong.
worked my way through university (2 jobs at a time) and earned my licensed and career path by myself. No hand-me-downs or inheritance required.
I want to play this game. What do I sound like jayacluny? Your faith in AI is perhaps quite blind.
Sounds like a lucid dream. A world without computers!
What will happen when Clients no longer need Architects, because their AI machines (automated robotic computers) can listen to voice commands and create building plans for them?
If that's what you think architects do, then I'm not surprised you're having trouble finding gainful employment.
Then what, archinect via telegraph? Snail mail? Carrier pigeon?
Can you imagine the size of the stack of paper that poor pigeon would need to carry for every Balkins "explanation"?
"perhaps 50 – 100,000 Architects in the United States alone."
That would represent ~90% of Architects in the United States.
Stop making things up, you sound silly.
It would be interesting to get true figures on how many architects actually use their license. I know many ppl that have never used their stamp, or took about 4 years to stamp their first project and another 4 to stamp their second. I would guess that it is close to 50% that have never stamped more than 5 projects.
According to a 2016 article in architect, NCARB says that
http://www.architectmagazine.com/practice/the-number-of-architects-in-the-us-grew-in-2015_o
the total number of licensed architects in the USA in 2015 was 110,168, with an annual growth rate of 2%. Using compound growth not simple growth this means that the 2017 number is close to 115,000 licensed architects.
The average large A-E firm (that I have worked in over the years) in the US has an annual layoff of 10 to 20% in the best of times (i.e. in a year like 2016). Smaller firms tend to hire lots of contract workers and they change approximately 40% of their staff each year in the best of times.
In my city, 60% to 80% (4 out of every 5) of all local architects were unemployed between 2009 and 2013. Many if not most of the unemployed were pre-Revit architects.
A good rough estimate of the percentage of architects affected by, i.e. laid off because of REVIT and other AI technologies once during the year is say 30% in an average year. (this is not the same as "unemployed" all year, but with lives and health insurance, and geographic location disrupted, nonetheless)
30% of 115,000 licensed architects is 34,500, which could rise to 50,000 people in a recessionary year. I am really speaking about "chronic" layoffs that disrupt stability and lives, not long-term unemployment. This wonton "disruption" needs to stop, and the law is a good place for architect class-action workers to start! Work in architecture was much more stable before REVIT came along, as well as before the over-supply of Millennial REVIT-toting architect-interns came on stream in circa 2012.
You sound like you don't actually know what Revit does, but you've created a straw-man to burn with it to explain away your shoddy career choices?
Stop making excuses as to why you were laid-off.
To: b3tadine[sutures]
A world with very few computers, i.e. a world in which only geeks who did Fortran in a large building on the edge of campus even remotely bothered with computers......geeks that simply had no relation to our "robust" creative hand-drawn 4,000 year old Classical profession was indeed the "dream" that people of my generation signed on to in the late 1970's and early 1980's when they studied "ARCHITECTURE"!
This was a heady time of unparalleled creativity and intellect that has been sold down the tubes to a bunch of computer programmers whose idea of a great design is a lean-to aluminum roof with solar panels on it! What a complete nightmare this is! Revit does not even have proper functional capabilities in Masonry architecture! What a career let-down this has all been, and then to be expelled by these REVIT computer "Architect" heretics on top of it all...."Just Awful"! Sue, Sue, Sue!
I am 60% functional in REVIT, but I hate using it!
You're working in the wrong kind of firms if you're seeing 10% to 20% layoffs in the best of times. In the past 30+ years I've worked in 8 firms and owned 2, and have only seen layoffs happen on 4 individual occasions - so that's 26+ years in which the firms I was in had no layoffs at all. It's not normal in "average" firms to lay off anyone in a good year. In these layoffs you've experienced, are they ones where the firms lay off a group of employees in slow periods and then bring back the same people? Or are you repeatedly being laid off and eventually replaced with someone else?
DOL statistics indicate younger/less experienced employees were unemployed during the recession at a rate of nearly 3 times the % of more seasoned architecture firm employees. I don't see how that is Revit-related - it's just the usual issue of less experienced = more easily replaceable - that's pretty typical in any field, it's not limited to architecture.
Meaning, I have completed CDs on large a high-rise project in REVIT, but it was just disgusting to work with!
You, meaning those firms who adopted BIM technology will all be remembered as the people who destroyed the Architecture profession.....forever.
Idiot.
You want to make the profession obsolete? Get rid of digital drafting.
"This was a heady time of unparalleled creativity and intellect that has been sold down the tube"
Eisenman, is that you?
i have trouble seeing what value you could bring to an architecture firm jayacluny.
sounds like you complain a lot. not that that is particularly unusual in this field. sounds like you think you're capable of hand-drawn masonry details on a large high-rise project, but steel details are probably more useful in that project type.
being slow to learn new things isn't going to be considered a favorable traits in very many professions at all, not even law. best of luck in your future endeavors.
"being slow to learn new things isn't going to be considered a favorable traits in very many professions at all, not even law"
Architects who cannot write a proper sentence using "old" skills such as Standard English won't fare much better either.
How's the line at the unemployment centres today jaya? Need someone to help you type up a resume?
Fuck off!
Not interested, but thank-you for the offer.
hi GRAND DAD! hows life on your warped soapbox?
The romance of Architecture that Jay clings on to is long gone. I've kept my 56 year old self relevant by knowing Revit, youngsters come and go, but experience + technology= job security, generally.
Start your own firm, put out the shingle and fill your coffee cup with sharpened pencils.
They said the same thing about hand drafting. Architect's unwillingness for change is what's killing architecture.
OP, look at it an a positive light. Perhaps easier to say for someone that never really made decent money in the industry. When I couldnt find a better architecture job in late 2013 bc I didnt know Revit in and out, I just saw it as a good sign to leave the industry. I was already burnt out from all the repetitive day in and day out work, low wages, and little social/monetary mobility. Just staring at a computer all day with little to no human interaction, I realized 'architecture' was not for me. Yeah it suck to realized that after vesting so much time, money, and heart into it, but I really couldnt imagine going thur another downturn in the economy, an over saturated market, and all the narcissistic attitudes that pollute the industry, and grow to be happy in the industry as I aged.
It's time to turn your hobbies and what you love into a business.
While I think DeTwan is jaded by his/her experiences, the last line of their post is great advice. My hobby is currently giving me extra income and I was never planning for that.
Jayaclunys views should not be dismissed entirely.
He make some interesting points.
Software / Technology is evolving so fast that it is almost pointless for the small Architect practice to invest in anything anymore as the investment is practically obselete before it gets a chance to pay off in profit for the user.
if i recall Rebbit started out at something like 3000-3500$. Once it became apparent how much of the market could be captured, the price per LICENSE went to something like 7000$ +
And even that wasnt enough - once purchased you need to shell out for an annual subscription a few years in
to run it efficiently on larger projects one needs a very good PC machine of 8 GB + costing several thousand dollars. Suddenly the operator needed a Hardware upgrade - if you use a laptop its particularly expensive .
And then theres the training courses. As with any business the Training Providers quickly realised that there was money to made in spinning off the training into little packages. So we have 1 day intros , 3 day intermediate courses, 5 day professional courses, 2 day family creation courses , civils interface training , Energy / Thermal modelling etc etc.
some younger architects who availed of BIM training within Universities are at an advantage
Until they are turfed out at age 30-35 when the next construction crash hits. just when you need to start a family /buy a house you suddenly need to find 20-30k for that Mandatory robotic personal assistant droid / drone / Hologram designing software upgrade whatever
Ive tried all manner of software. at the end of the day once the initial buzz of starting a project wears off its the same process - Tedious work ... semi chained to a screen zooming in and out hundreds of times a day clicking and moving lines and other components drinking too much coffee
I miss the drawing board and the days I didnt get 50 emails . I might wait for the launch of my personal drafting droid in 2025 instead of borrowing 15k to make myself BIMployable
^ Brought up some good points but wouldn't you say this point:
- "Software / Technology is evolving so fast that it is almost pointless for the small Architect practice to invest in anything anymore"
...is a solution to this point:
"once purchased you need to shell out for an annual subscription a few years in"?
The markets' saturated with too many drafting/modelling/BIM products. You don't necessarily have to stick to one if you feel the fees are unjustified.
archietechie
Am learning Revit Dynamo - many of us will be moving from traditional architecture practice
to programming/parametric type practice - this is the path of most industries - that's why many recent grads also can code - Python, C#
and when the next downturn occurs, we can become full time programmers
The outlay on software sits at about 1500$ per year on auto cad and 3500$ per year for revit. The days of buying software has passed. The law that allowed people to sale their licenses shut that down.
I'm suprised firms valie software that can be learned in a couple of months over the 10+ years it takes to really learn how a building is built. If that's the case hire draftsman. If you get hired because you know revit that's all a firm wants anyway.
Thank you Roark's Revenge! By signing on to expensive BIM software such as Revit, the Cost Structure of the small architecture practice, which up to ten years ago was the bedrock of the profession in terms of employment, creativity and innovation, no longer works. Only the top twenty a-e mega-firms seem able to survive, and thats only if they hire mainly interns and a very expensive (non-architect) department of computer scientists! Architects "be damned" seems to be the new motto! You know you have a problem when the typical big firm Computer manager starts calling older non-Revit architects "beginners"......beginners are not good for projects, should not be there, the arrogant non architect Computer Scientist used to say out loud at my last firm! His "dp"s or army of Revit interns with one year of experience would be sent aound daily to talk down to people who had been on the boards and AutoCad for 25 years.....
Not a top 20 A&E firm here and we're doing just fine with Revit.
Jaya, it's probably time for you to retire.
This is not unique to Architecture. We are in a time of AI machine (new high technology) efficiency resulting in the widespread economic decline of millions of middle class and working people. The brave new inhuman world us upon us!
There is a "crazy" non-racial, economic class revolution in the streets of NewYork as we speak, maybe those 8 million people should all "just retire too" on air and beans!
Okay now you just sound like Grandpa Simpson. Calm down, buddy.
if you aren't hired to produce construction documents on a revit platform jay, what are you hired for? your opinion of which shade of anodized aluminum on a given storefront system is that much better than the next person's?
have you kept abreast of evolutions in building science such that you can sell better building construction to the decision makers in your firm and provide more perceived value to your firm's clients? or are you just parroting the same outdated and useless stuff that was parroted to you 10 years ago?
do you suppose there is a point where younger people who are still learning and trying to keep up with the changing environment are more valuable than stubborn old people who are stuck in the past and can no longer be productive or add value in a changing environment? i suppose if you were the partner and your livlihood depended on the people you hire, you might prefer someone who had both experience and the will to evolve. when forced to choose though, it sounds like your experience suggests the younger person is the preffered choice.
i support a universal living wage. the rest of us should be looking out for the 8 million people in new york you're referring to (though i have no idea who you're talking about).
That's funny Non Sequitur. I see your point but from a different perspective...
I'm at a top 20 A/E firm and I'm wondering where all the interns and non-architect programmers are we have to hire in order to keep us in business with Revit. Sure we have some interns, and yes we have some IT people (I'd hardly consider them programmers) ... but they aren't that large of a portion of the firm's population. If anything, they aren't here because of Revit. They are here because of the size of the firm. I mean I'm technically an intern and I don't even work in Revit, and Revit is all we use for production (and now you know I don't work in production).
I, and most other citizens prefer universal employment, followed by voluntary retirement whenever the individual decides to retire. The universal living wage is a mistake. We'd all become unsustainable "wards" of the State, and would need to surrender our free liberty and free will to others. No good!...Un American.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0YL2wb-g_-w
Jaya, I support the evolution of our profession as it keeps lazy and ignorant fools such as yourself unemployed and out of our way.
Good point EI.
Pretty "Good"!
Non-Sequitur, you have embraced "fool's gold"!
fool's gold?
Not sure I follow, but that's not really surprising since much of what you've written is uneducated gibberish and old-man ramblings.