The American Institute of Architects (AIA) and the American Institute of Architecture Students (AIAS) today committed to timely passage of the National Design Services Act (NDSA), which will give architecture students the same relief from crushing student loan debt, which is already granted young lawyers, doctors and others – in return for community service. — aias.org
"Indeed, enthusiasm for such legislation knows no bounds on the campuses of architecture schools and elsewhere among the emerging professionals community. One young architect, Evan Litvin of Philadelphia, has launched an online petition that enlists the support of architects nationwide for speedy passage of the NDSA. The link to that petition can be found here."
19 Comments
This is what the AIA has been doing with our money?
Maybe the AIA should get the Education Department to recognize an architectural internship as a legitimate step to becoming a professional, qualifying architectural interns for forbearance.
Does the lack of professional recognition by the government indicate the illegitimate nature of the architectural internship?
Just what we need, a bunch of no-experience, fresh-out-of-school architecture interns designing public works.
Methinks the AIA hasn't thought this one through, unless of course the fine print is somehow directed towards reducing firm's labor costs at public expense.
the long hours in studio should be recognized as a legitimate step to being professionals. how many times did you pass up a good frat party to finish a project?
Miles, what makes you think the community service projects the bill would apply to have lower standards for design? Wouldn't these projects still need to go through the same approval process as anything else? In other words, wouldn't these projects require the stamps of qualified architects, engineers, etc., and not be solely designed by interns, as your comment implies?
Also, I might be reading between the lines too much, but your comment seems to have a derogatory tone.
"The National Design Services Act will help promote sustainable economic development and jobs by ensuring aspiring architects are able to gain valuable experience while giving back to their communities designing public projects such as schools, health clinics, housing facilities and libraries,” said Rep. Perlmutter. “In return, the bill will alleviate some of the barriers new students face as they pursue their dreams in architecture."
Here we go again....another layer of Government. School Projects are typically one of the biggest budget items American Small Citys and Towns encounter. The hiring of Architects is usually thru a closed network. They are one of the most expensive building types out there, and of course a major review source for a small number of firms. This also goes along with Health Clinics, Libraries. I doubt it will be anytime soon, "The Treasure Chest will be opened."
If you don't believe me just check out how much money your community has invested in New Schools in the Past Ten Years. Locate the Architect who did the project and check out all of the other school work they have done in your State in the past ten years.
Levi, think about what you said. Unlicensed interns would still have to work for architects. With their salaries subsidized.
And if you are talking about student debt relief, shouldn't it be for ALL students?
"...give architecture students the same relief from crushing student loan debt, which is already granted young lawyers, doctors and others – in return for community service"
Why are we so quick to bash a program similar to successful similar programs in other fields?
Miles, I was mainly reacting to your exclamation, "Just what we need, a bunch of no-experience, fresh-out-of-school architecture interns designing public works."
I totally agree with you that this shouldn't be applied as a subsidy to reduce firms' labor costs, and I hope that's not the way it turns out.
two thumbs up from me on this one. let's help get this approved!
Copied verbatim from the article.
"The National Design Services Act will help promote sustainable economic development and jobs by ensuring aspiring architects are able to gain valuable experience while giving back to their communities designing public projects such as schools, health clinics, housing facilities and libraries,
Aside from the fact that it's not legal ... you'd have a bunch of no-experience, fresh-out-of-school architecture interns designing public works.
Seems like someone is making a mockery of our profession, thinking a bunch of aspiring Archictects and Community Design Centers are the sustainable economic solutions to our public work projects. Guess the politicians don't have a clue about how a projects are carried out. Think about pulling all the public work projects and funneling them thru a Community Design Center. Seems they would become over burdened with a fraction of the public work. Seems better to me to pay Architects and Engineers higher fees, so they in turn can pay their employees higher salaries so they in turn can pay down their Student Loans. Pay higher fees and maybe someone will see the incentive to bring on new employees to move thru a project at a faster pace.
clients are only going to pay what they get charged. when was the last time a client told you that you were under-charging? sounds to me like we need to be smarter of how we charge for our services.
you dont pay your employees higher rates because you dont want to. dont pass the buck
Miles, I'm not sure what you're thinking is illegal, unless you're thinking that the bill will create unpaid internships (which I am opposed to). When I read the article, I get the impression that this could create programs akin to Teach for America, or other "Public Service Loan Forgiveness" programs. In these, recent graduates are compensated, and some of their student debt is forgiven for participating in public service jobs.
when was the last time a client told you that you were under-charging
about a month ago. not even joking.
the bill aims to create "Community design centers," which are non-profit organizations started by veteran architects. interns get to work at these centers, under the architect, for free. in turn for working for free, they get a certain amount of loans repaid. i suppose that's better than working for free without loan repayment. i don't know how this works with IDP, or if the veteran architect that forms the community design center is actually expected to be involved with their nonprofit, or if it's something they can just form and the let the aspiring architects direct themselves.
surely they can't really be designing schools. it's more like they're designing parks, or creating a think tank for community development.
from the congressman's website
http://perlmutter.house.gov/index.php?option=com_content&view=article&id=1335:perlmutter-introduces-student-loan-debt-assistance-legislation&catid=33:press-releases&Itemid=102
· Developing long-range community development plans in business districts and other economic redevelopment areas;
· Providing design and architectural plans for rehabilitation of blighted or deteriorating neighborhoods;
· Designing plans for preserving or rehabilitating historic sites;
· Developing construction documents for building retrofits for energy and water efficiency and conservation improvements;
· Assessing the safety of structures in need of repair due to natural disasters;
· Creating architectural plans to remove barriers restricting the mobility of elderly and disabled individuals.
the 'assessing the safety' one is a bit off. removing accessibility barriers could actually be useful. the rest is just think-tank type stuff, which could be developed and proposed to the community's planning department, or city council, or whoever likes to listen to proposals.
all in all, this might not be too bad if intern architects are really in a hopeless situation. on the other hand, the government is stepping in and essentially establishing the value of an intern architect at 0.
if the "community design center" is actually created as entity to be hired to design real public projects like a school, then regular architecture firms currently involved in public works projects can just restructure as a non-profit (or create a sister company to handle the non-profit work). the tea partiers would love that. they don't have to pay taxes, and can collect big bonuses.
I think maybe you're jumping to one conclusion, curt, which is that the intern would work for the community design center for free, and that it would be full time. I don't think this is clear from the congressman's website. it seems to me this could be after-hours community service type work, so one could have a full-time job to pay bills and simultaneously be doing volunteer work that helps with loans.
But I may have misread.
Donna,
I think you are correct in reading it as after-hours community service. However, this is my biggest problem with the NDSA; the architecture profession is notorious for having long hours, when are interns going to have after-hour time?
I think it would be more beneficial if the AIA found a solution which helped interns receive relevant experience faster, thereby becoming licensed faster, thereby having a salary to pay back loans. The IDP process (aside from not being recognized as a legitimate step to becoming a professional through lack of recognition for loan forbearance) is too long, enslaving most architectural interns in a situation where it is harder to advance their architecture career.
curt, thats a good client! do everything you can to maintain that relationship thriving.
my assumption that the interns would not be paid is from the congressmen's use of the the term 'donating.' "donating their skills to public projects"
they could be an after-hours sort of thing, but if they expect a school to actually be designed in one of them, it's probably going to require a fairly significant time investment. i think it would be hard to design a school in 2-3 hour increments, after hours so consultants and whoever else would be difficult to get a hold of. also, if part of the goal is to provide experience for aspiring architects who are otherwise unable to get that experience from a traditional office, then it's possible they see this as a replacement for that experience rather than a supplement.
perhaps the new community design centers could be established to either operate full time or part time, so they could scale to whatever the community needs. if they tie repayment of student loans to a year's service, i wonder if that's something that scales with the number of hours worked, or if it's assumed they work the equivalent of 40 hour work weeks. either way, i'm guessing it's not a full repayment of loans.
he says this is a bi-partisan bill. perhaps these organizations can be set up as either a way to genuinely help the community (get democrat support) or as a tax shelter (get republican support), or maybe even both. either way, there are probably a number of recent grads who are currently unable to get ahead of their loan payments.
i did not realize an architecture internship was not eligible for forbearance. that sucks.
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