More Great Advance From Those In The Know

Andy
Firm Size: 180

"Hand deliver everything! Research the company and who'll you will be talking to so you can ask intelligent questions."
"When you are putting together your resume of your student work, instead of talking about the projects talk about what you learned, doing a critical analysis."

ALTERNATE PATHS TO BLISS: So You Don’t Want to Practice

Although the diploma will say you graduated with an architectural degree, graduate or undergraduate, you may not want to practice. So what do you do? In Ethics in Architecture, Barry Wasserman lists the following jobs for architects. For each job he has at least one person who chose an alternative to architectural design practice.


ARCHITECTURAL CAREER OPTIONS
ACTUAL OCCUPATIONS OF PEOPLE WITH ARCHITECTURAL
BACKGROUNDS

Architectural Critic
Architectural Photographer
Architectural Programmer
Architectural Renderer
Building Inspector
Building Pathologist
CAD Coordinator
Campus Planner
Carpenter
Cartographer
City Planner
City or State Architect
Civil Engineer
Computer Presentation Designer
Computer-Systems Analyst
Construction Inspector
Contractor
Corporate Consultant
Design/Build Team Manager
Developer
Document Designer
Environmental Planner
Furniture Designer
Graphic Designer
Illustrator
Industrial Designer
Interior Designer
Landscape Architect
Lawyer
Market Researcher
Model Maker
Museum Curator
Printmaker
Professor
Property Assessor
Publisher
Real-Estate Project Manager
Researcher
Set Designer
Structural Engineer
Technical Writer
TV/Film Producer

THINKING WITHOUT THE MAYLINE: Advice From the AIA Convention

Among schools of architecture and the students who attend them, there is a perception that the education received at those institutions will guarantee a design position at the firm of your choosing. Unfortunately, this perception is wrong. While the education does promote creative thinking and problem solving, it does not create a designer out of every student who attends.
What then is a student to do? One place to turn is the AIA Convention. While this not the place to hand out your resume, it is the place to explore alternative career paths. Every year the convention encourages vendors to come to the convention to discuss how their product or service might change the work produced by the architect.

At this year’s convention several companies were interviewed as to how, when and why they interact with architects and architectural firms, and more importantly, if there is a role for someone with an architectural degree (undergraduate or graduate) in their firm. The answers were as varied as their professions, but there was a common thread. “We want people who can think!”

These firms are looking for people whose skills are creative thinking and problem solving. Of the 15 companies that we spoke with at least half were more interested in a graduate who understands architecture, but also is able to transition their skill set into other areas of the company. The companies interviewed included engineering, construction, and material distribution, and were either located in Minnesota or had representatives who were here. Below is a sampling of the advice that these firms gave:

Product Manufacturer:
“Knowing the ins and outs of both the architectural profession and production makes you a valuable asset to our company. If you haven’t decided what you want to do, work as a manufacturing representative. It allows you to get into and get to know lots of local firms.”

Engineering Firm:
“A lot of engineering firms have small design departments that help the firms work more efficiently with architectural firms. This will not give you architectural design experience, but it will get your feet wet.”

Construction Firm:
“Look for a firm that is doing design/build. The larger firms. With them the opportunities are not just in architectural design but also in marketing design.”

Whatever you intent when you leave school, designer, carpenter, or something else, start exploring the possibilities now. There are plenty of opportunities if you are open-minded about it.

Attending the AIA Minnesota Convention as a Student: It’s Not Just Because my Professor Made Me Do It

As students we are generally sheltered from the world of practice. We get little glimpses through the gaps in the proverbial fence that divides the world of the academy from that of professional practice as we are exposed to different professionals within our academic career. Some of us may find ourselves working in firms at the same time we are in school. But even these opportunities don’t let us cross over to the other side of the fence, they only widen the gaps between the slats of the fence.

Considering this, it may seem odd to find yourself as a student adrift in the sea of the Minnesota AIA Convention. But this is exactly where I found myself on the afternoon of Nov. 15th, 2005. After checking in at the booth, getting my nametag and various other slips of paper, I really did feel as though the only reason I was here was because my professor made me attend. As students we are isolated from the world of practice, but its is mostly by our own choosing. At times this is beneficial, because as one professor said to me, “This is school, its not the real world. Why not push it to the limit.” At other times in our academic careers we may long for such mindless tasks as toilet detailing as a welcome relief from the rigor of academic pursuits. In either case, it is up to the individual student to make the best of this dichotomy. We should try our best to straddle that fence, and learn as much as we can from the glimpses we get of both sides.

Attending the convention as a student is valuable for students, if only so they can demystify the world of practice. Doing so is like hopping the fence in the middle of the night just to get a look around. Our task was to attend a lecture, a program, and attend the exhibit hall and discuss our experiences in a paper. It is a pedestrian assignment that I have written fifty times before, but at this moment standing in the hallway of the convention center trying to figure out where room 102C is I am starting to wish that I had skipped the whole thing and just made it all up. But as I found my way and fell into a seat inside the room where the program had just begun I instantly felt comfortable. The reason for this was simply that the people inside the room, professionals, professors, or students, were all there for the same reason as I was; to learn something.

The convention, much like the academic environment, is a place of free exchange of knowledge and ideas. As students we are part of an ongoing discourse on the nature of architectural education. The exact same thing occurs within the professional realm. There is no reason that these two realms should be separated. Both parties would benefit from a stronger connection between the academy and professional practice. This would demystify each party and produce a sense of collaboration that seems oft discussed but rarely actualized.

Intern Questionaire

Will
Size of Firm: 120
Licensed Architects: 40
Services Offered: Interior, Architecture, Construction Administration
Specialization: Health Care, Institutions, Prisons
Firm Organization: Collaborative
Moved desks every month or so, in order to facilitate working near those who are on
the same project.
Interns Role: Construction Administrations, Addendum, Change Orders, Shop Drawings
Role Of IDP: Willing to participate. Provides mentor even without IDP work
Geographic Reach: Midwest and India

Best Advice: "Find someone in the firm who you can latch on to so that you can establish a relationship with them and they can begin to help you achieve more responsibility, so that you aren't just left with the scraps of whatever is left."



Sunhee
Foreign Firm
Size of Firm: 37
Licensed Architects: 30
Services Offered: Architectural Design
Specialization: Federal Buildings, Underground Construction/Buildings, projects large in
scope
Firm Organization: 2 Principals
Intern Role: Undergrad License in Foreign Country, entered as architect
"Started with modeling, then presentation boards and finally worked at DD level
Role of IDP: Same system as here, mentor provided. Similar to NCAARB
Geographic Reach: Vietnam and China

Best Advice: "There are more opportunities with medium sized firms. They have bigger scope. It is easier to learn the office skills and human relationships".




Becky
Size of Firm: 275
Services Offered: Architecture, Structural, Mechanical, Electrical, Civil and Interiors
Specialization: Health Care, Schools, Arts Center and Corporate Office Buildings
Firm Organization: Architect led, multi-office, opportunities of ownership in company
Intern Role: Red lining, drawing details from hand work, door schedules and construction
drawings at DD, CD levels
"I progressed over two summers from red lining to creation of drawings".
Geographic Reach: Minneapolis, Rochester, Milwaukee and LA


Best Advice: "Don't be afraid to ask for help even if you think that you will look stupid. Sometimes you have to approach people for work and it can seem like you are asking alot. But, if you are persistent and patient that's how you will learn.

Finding a Firm that Fits You

Architecture is an art and a business. In school we learn the art, but little about the business world that we are entering as we graduate. It is helpful to understand how a firm functions and how it is organized when we enter the working world. Of course all firms have different philosophies and are organized differently, but there are some general models that firms operate under. The following list is meant to give a general picture of how firms work in the field, and how that model guides the organization of a firm that works in that way.

1. Authoritative Model
2. Subservient Model
3. Collaborative Model
4. "?" Model

Authoritative Model

This model represents the traditional role of the architect as the director of the project. The architecture firm is hired by the client to act as their steward on the project. The architecture firm performs services either through internal departments or through consultants to meet the clients need. Everyone working on the project differs to the architect and the architect holds the responsibility for managing them.

In the architect driven firm layout, the different aspects of the project are managed by the firm which represents the client. The firm acts as a leader and leans on other professionals to provide the services the client desires. This is accomplished through collaborative work with team members that are either inside the office or outside consultants. This work is authoritative in the sense that the architect is the steward of the design, and is thus the advocate for it through the design process. The firm contracts the structural engineer, for example, to help bring that vision into reality. In this case authority is not dictation; it is the act of staying true to a vision and advocating for that vision while working with the people that can help bring it to the client.

Opportunities:

1. Established structure allows an intern to quickly find his or her place
2. Authoritative approach focuses on design vision
3. Allows employees to develop specialties

liabilities:

1. Employees may be pigeon-holed by structure of firm
2. Authoritative firm structure prohibits open collaboration
3. Building a portfolio of work may be difficult if one is always playing the same role

Collaborative Model

This model represents a very common way of working for a firm. The firm relies on the skills of other colleagues in the design field to assist them in the process of completing a project. This could mean that a firm consults with external engineering firms for example. It could also mean that they have in-house engineers. Instead of thinking of the architect as the head of the project as in the authoritative model, the architect here is a team member that works on equal ground with everyone else. Where the authoritative model suggests that the architect has a vision, and it is the engineers' and landscape architects' job to realize that vision, the collaborative model suggests that the architect creates that vision through an open dialogue with members of his or her consultant team.

The internal collaborative structure implies a larger firm that is able to have specialized departments. Essentially the firm has structural, landscape, interiors, planners, etc. On staff so that it can work on the project holistic. There are very few firms large enough to have all of these people on staff, but a collaborative structure would include some.

The external collaborative structure is more common because firms generally aren't large enough to house all of the requisite people under one roof. This allows smaller firms to consult with other design professionals in the process of realizing a shared vision for the project.

Opportunities:

1. Exposure to a wide variety of people and ways of working
2. Possibility of finding a specialty
3. Explore a design process that is collaborative from the start
4. Gain knowledge from other disciplines for future career development
5. Learn communication skills across the disciplinary boundaries

Liabilities:

1. May be hard for an intern to find his or her place in the beginning
2. Lack of structure may be prohibitive to IDP
3. Sometimes collaboration can lead to the muddling of design rather than clarity

Subservient Model

The subservient model of working is meant to represent firms that do a signifigant amount of work at the directive of another entinty. For example, if a "star architect" is doing a project in a state that he or she is not liscensed in, another architectural firm may take on the project as the local agent for that other architect. This is not to say that any firm opperates exclusively in this way, but there are firms that are more willing than others to enter into such a relationship. In general all firms are to some degree subservient to another entity, most often the client. But the subservient model of work is different because the entity that is controling the architect is most likely another architect or design professional.



Opportunites:

1. Working with a "star architect"
2. High profile projects could pad a portfolio
3. Exposure to multiple modes of working if the firm takes on different projects from different architects

Liabilities:

1. The firm is limited by what projects come to them, rather than seeking out own work
2. Design freedom may be limited by outside influence
3. Design is not at the forefront, execution of design is

"?" Model

This model of working represents the misc. Category. The diagram is actually a bit inaccurate as there should be many more possible trajectories represented. An architectural education may lead down a very different path than the other three models that we have illustrated. Architecture is a design profession. It teaches a process for the creation of something. That something may not necessarily be buildings. Many architects have gone on to create furniture or other household objects. Michael Graves is probably better known to the public as a product designer for Target than he is for his work as an architect. An architectural education sometimes can spur a person into to neighborhood or community initiatives. There is also the avenue of writhing about architecture. Both theorists and journalists of architectural publications are not necessarily practicing architects. The same could be said of education. Also keep in mind that one does not need to be licensed to design residential structures. Whatever course you do chose, remember that architectural education is a tool of empowerment, it is a skill that can be applied to a broad range of applications.

Opportunities:

1. Design other objects besides buildings
   
2. Graphic design
3. Arbitration
4. Writing
5. Community involvement
6. etc.

Liabilities:

1. Not necessarily a secure career path
2. Requires a lot of effort and often to start up own business in some cases
3. Dissapointing parents that wanted you to be the next Frank Lloyd Wright
   

One Person's Story on Finding a Job

I started working in my first architecture firm in the summer of 1994. I had just finished my first year of college and I already knew that I would major in architecture. I decided to try my hand at applying to firms, instead of the standard burger joint or gas station. I was ecstatic when I got an offer from a large firm in my hometown that had a number of large local projects under its belt. I worked for that firm for two summers and I am surprised it took me that long to realize that I didn’t like it there. I was hired to organize, categorize and inventory their archives, kept in the basement of building in which no architecture was done. I convinced myself that it was a good move and that I had my foot in the door, but as it turned out, it was the wrong door. At the time, I was doing the only thing they had for someone of my limited skills to do. After two summers I learned one lesson.

I discovered that if I wanted to work amongst architects, I needed the basic skills that architects work with. At that time, the industry standard was no longer drafting tables, but AutoCAD v9. Archaic by today’s standards, I believe it was the first AutoCAD to run on the windows platform instead of DOS. In my third summer of college I applied to firms with a new resume and a new intent. I would no longer be happy getting just my foot in the door, I wanted to work and talk with architects about real projects.

My next two summers, I worked as a drafter. I was hired because of my knowledge of AutoCAD and secondly because I was majoring in architecture. This is when I learned my next lesson about typecasting. I was hired by a firm to be a drafter and that is what they used me to do. They needed a drafter, I filled the void. I learned that getting past the threshold isn’t always enough; you may need to do additional work to get deeper into the room.
By the time I had finished my undergraduate studies, I had worked at three different firms. My experience included menial labor at the large firm my first two summers, drafting amongst architects in a firm of about 40 people my second year, and working and drafting with architects in a firm of 4 people during my last year of undergrad studies. I was like Goldilocks, trying to find the porridge that was just right. I disliked the size of the large firm and found I had to work to know anyone. Knowing everyone was out of the question. I wanted to do bigger things than the small firm could manage and the medium size firm was a nice fit for me, but I found the design work to be overly corporate and unimaginative.

In retrospect, I feel like I got in this situation for two reasons. First, I didn’t know what I wanted to do at a firm, or what I wanted a firm to do for me. And second, I didn’t know to ask the right questions when I interviewed with firms. Slowly, but surely, I was learning what I liked and didn’t like. Since my undergrad years I have worked at a couple of other firms. I got experience doing high-end residential in a small 3 person firm, commercial rubberstamp design in a 30 person firm, and now I am where I would like to be.
I took the long road to find what I liked. Along the way I learned many lessons. The most important one is that if you don’t like the place you are working or the work they are doing, look for a new firm to work for. There are plenty of options to meet everyone’s likes and dislikes.


This is one person's story. The search for the right fit may be difficult, or it may be easy, but it certainly depends on your own wants and desires in a future employer. Like the author, we may not exactly now what those wants and desires might be at first, but over time we learn from the process.

If you have your own story, and wouldn't mind sharing it, let us know.

New Tools

Check out our new tools for finding information on firms in your area and information on job oppertunities:

http://www.lib.berkeley.edu/ENVI/jobs.html

http://www.architectureweek.com/directory.html/

http://www.insidearch.org/home.php/

Eenie, meenie, minie, mo: Done with school, where to go?

Focus:
Through our tenure in school we develop our skills into a personal design process. Then we graduate and attempt to "fit" into a firm. This blog is a typological analysis of the firm, meant to give architecture students a guide to the different types of firms and the way they operate.

Research Methodology:
There are many structures for firms, and many ways of working. We will be exploring them through the following means:
1. First hand interviews with employers and employees
2. Periodical Research

Deliverables:
Per Firm-
1. Organizational Flow Chart
2. Compare / Contrast
3. Size of Firm
4. Types of Service Offered
5. Specialties
6. Philosophies
7. Intern: Development, Roles etc.
8. Role of Licensure
9. Scope of Projects

www.millcitymuseum.org, www.epa.gov, www.architectureweek.com