plus at Burger King, you are like, working for the King. The Burger f'ing King, dude. That comes with some serious benefits when the surfs all decide to siege the castle and what not. King B will totally have your back. And you get to hang out with royalty. That's pretty awesome too. I hear Maid Marian is a totally babe. You gotta tap that.
"quarterly raises? what fantasy land did you work at Unicorn? can i go work there? even 31k a year is way too low, and it shows the degenerate attitude within the profession. "
It actually happens in many other fields. Maybe not quarterly but many companies do have 6-month reviews for entry-level employees. The idea is that you constantly have to grow in your entry-level position and generate value for the company through experience, training and being dependable.
So, it's not a relatively uncommon practice for many entry-level employees to get 1%-15% raises for given time period for the first few years worth of work. It also makes it slightly cheaper for a company to hire you initially.
Almost the entire fast food industry gives 4-6 month raises of approximately 5% for the first few years you work there.
Goldman Sachs has average twice-yearly pay raises in the 20-30% range for entry level Analysts plus yearly bonuses of similar percentages-- at least that's the rumor.
Cheeses said this: s/he can get by on $27K. It's not luxury, but s/he can get by. Liking the office, liking the work, and getting good experience are frosting.
I think almost everyone has suggested Cheeses ask for more - it can't hurt to ask, right? And someone upthread even suggested a typical percentage above offer to ask without risking looking like an ass. As well as offering suggestions how to make the experience worth as much as possible for that small pay. I don't think anyone is saying all is pink fluffy roses in this offer, but it's a starting point.
elinor you sounds like you gave up and want everyone else to also. If you decided it wasn't worth it for you, fine. That decision isn't right for everyone else. And yeah, when offices start paying less word DOES get around and other offices may follow trend, but the exact same thing happens in the opposite direction when the economy is good and offices start paying more.
But hey, you know, what do I know about any of this, since I've only been practicing for 20 years in 8 different offices?
you know, elinor, i'm kind of curious reading your posts. what should a freshly minted graduate make (let's keep it to nyc just to be simple)? what should a principal in a 10 person firm there make? what should the hourly rate an architect in nyc charge to a client (min.)? how should this be enforced?
i keep my degrees in my closet. actually i scanned my degrees and license and use them that way more than the orginals in any case. world has moved on....
7K is enough if the person is happy with it. doesn't mean elinor needs to be happy with it. i know a few people who worked for free (or close to it) and were ecstatic for the opportunity, and then went on to do amazing things (ok i know that isn't normal but it happens). so you know, whatever.
it's not a great wage, but cheezus doesn't seem to care all that much. he was just checking in to confirm if it is a low number or just his imagination, as far as i can tell.
"what should a freshly minted graduate make (let's keep it to nyc just to be simple)?"
Let's take the 1/3 rule on net income spent on housing and utilities. Now let's ignore it and say 40% is the new 33. $1K for NYC is not a very generous budget for housing. You will have to have roommates, many many roommates, but that's not the end of the world. Let's pick $800 for an extreme challenge. Definitively doable in East New York, Washington Heights, or Bronx. Based on these numbers, the net income would work out to be $24k, for a total of $33k gross pay. This # does not include the health care deduction. Or any student loans owned.
Seems silly to bicker over $6k difference, but when you are in the lower class in a city chock-full of millionaires every dollar counts, and my numbers were quite conservative to begin with.
"what should a principal in a 10 person firm there make?"
Noone knows, not even the principal. His creative accountant has made it look like he lost money in the 5 of the last 15 years. Everything gets written off, and even the family dog ends up on the payroll. Once you get into bigger companies, you start seeing fiscal clarity (but not necessarily). That small shop guy has convinced himself, ages ago, that he makes less than welfare recipients. You gotta believe your own lies.
"what should the hourly rate an architect in nyc charge to a client (min.)?"
Fixed fees vary depending on size and complexity of the project. I've seen hourly rates billed anywhere between $90 and $250, once again depending on scope. Keep in mind, actual hours worked < actual hours billed (TYP.).
jump:"but cheezus doesn't seem to care all that much. he was just checking in to confirm"
Cheezus:"I can't go below 31k without requiring the partial support of my parents"
Even our happy-go-lucky friend openly admits he's financially fucked. It's nice to have your parents step in and help, but fuck. Has it really come to that?
Architecture is not alone in seeing salaries regress. What hurts the most is seeing really intelligent people (I'm pointing up at some of the comments here) convince themselves that this is how things should be. Sad.
Your solution for health care coverage includes declining it and piggybacking on your parent's policy until you turn 26 (part of healthcare reform that kicks in next year).
Do understand that you will not be eligible for this extension since your company did offer you health care.
If you ever end up in need of health care services, the health insurer will drop you like a hot potato after they make a single phone call to your current employer.
You (or your parents) will be on hook for any medical bills. Think about this one carefully.
I took my own and advise and am still gainfully making money and doing what I want when I want and not dancing on the street for pennies...and to second jump take the risk now, you can afford it and I mean more than money
For all you naysayers and the I could make more at burger king...of course you can make more money at burger king, who the hell wants to spend their life at burger king...I knew a guy who by default was required to take over the many many fast food chains his family owend...the 4 years of college was his dream break. Investment bankers work on making money so of course they make more money than anyone who is concerned with something else, duh.
To put this in perspective...most likely cheese works at your typical boutique cutting edge nyc firm and does really exciting design stuff ...if this is the case getting paid is a benefit, you paid Frank Lloyd Wright to learn from the best.
More pespective - I have done all shit jobs and even had a CDL truck driving license (I'd do that before I opted for more money and getting coffee) and one day while working in a pretty popular firm in a non US country I told a coworker " you know how ridiculous this is, spending 10 hrs on presentation of trees for a competition entry? People break their backs working factory jobs for less money (I was an intern)...but I will take it, doing tree presentation, what a joke."
What hurts the most is seeing really intelligent people (I'm pointing up at some of the comments here) convince themselves that this is how things should be. Sad.
Go ahead, rusty, tell us mistakenly-thinking-we're-smart people how things "should" be? And how do we go about making sure we get what we "deserve"?
In all seriousness, I know you've got experience, you're no fresh-faced idealistic recent grad, right? How do we go about making sure young architects don't have to depend on their parents* to get by on beginning wages (not that architecture grads are the only ones depending on their parents, because we sure as hell aren't)?
Yes, it is sad. It's a sad, sad state of being right now for everyone who's not actively fleecing other people (I put investment bankers, for the most part, in this lot) when compared to how my parents spent their first 10 years out of college. I have no idea how to change that, do you?
*I had forgotten this bit from Cheeses considerations, my mistake in thinking he could actually get by on the offered salary.
And Olaf I like your comment very much EXCEPT for the "getting paid is a benefit" crack. Working for free is never acceptable. There are no hard and fast rules for how valuable a person's time is - thus wildly different salaries in any field - but an "employer" benefitting from labor that isn't paid for at all is illegal - so is payment below minimum hourly wage, for an employee, that is, not a contract worker.
I know you'll jump on me rusty for saying free isn't acceptable while $27k is, but it's a hard bright line between legal and not.
Sure, outed...what I'd consider reasonable in NYC is this:
BArch or master's grad-48-50k
4-yr arch grad from good program-42-45k
after 10 yrs. -75-85k
same, but licensed-add 5-10k.
lots of people do make this, you know...
and donna, i haven't given up on architecture, just on the self-defeating corporate office culture. i went out and got some clients. so far, they are a dream...(fingers crossed).
lest i sound like a jerk, i appreciate the poster's dilemma and don't blame him one bit...it's the employer's audacity to offer something below a living wage that i take issue with. does no one consider the possibility that they may be able to pay more, and just try not to?
In NYC anything below 40k is pretty much impossible without a second means of income to suplement the poor pay Especially if you have student loans and stuff like that.
I had an appartment once in DC paying around $1300+ utilities (and that was actually kind of cheap for a 1 bedroom). All-in-all I was dropping around 18k a year for just rent and bills. That did not include loan repayment, other bills, and obviously eating.
I had an old beat-up SUV that I did not have to make payments for either. Was not in a relationship and lived a pretty low-key life-style.
I was making around 43k (old job) and I still found it to be quite struggling in DC which is a tad cheaper than New York.
trace - THAT is the problem. who is this "joe architect" who ruins everything?!!? i seriously want to talk to him. oh right, it's cheeses christ....like cherith said, people like this are undermining the profession. i understand where he is coming from, i really do....but this is the sort of thing that has slowly undermined the profession. it is like outsourcing....someone who outsouces basically breaks the minimum wage laws, yet since it is in the name of "profit," america tolerates it. now, architecture firms are collecting some LUCKY skilled labor at the top (to actually run things), and keeping the cheap, naive underlings at slave wages. isn't this also known as indentured servitude?
the fact that there seems to be no hierarchy within this profession is the screwy part. if you don't have a professional degree, you probably shouldn't have work at an architectural firm right now. yet firms have gone the way of productivity and cut the skilled labor to save the profit margins. architecture is somewhere in between an apprenticeship and a profession. the result is that both trained and apprenticed LABORERS get hurt.
do engineering firms hire kids with a B.A.? do law firms hire poly sci majors? not so much. waiting for architecture to right itself will let your life slowly slip through your fingers.
Donna: "How do we go about making sure young architects don't have to depend on their parents to get by on beginning wages?"
Most likely, the only "sure" way this can be addressed is to bring back some degree of balance between supply and demand ... i.e. keeping the number of new graduates each year in reasonable synch with the ability of the profession to absorb new talent. That alone would keep starting wages reasonable, if not high.
Sadly, based on the economic model driving the academy and the academy's view of its own mission, I don't see how this can happen.
We live in a changing world. Unfortunately it's not the world we want it to change into. Perhaps some of us are lucky who do not live to see such a future. It's the world we created. We neglected too many small things and reached for too many things outside of our grasp.
Now we must live in it whether or not we made the problems. We can make solutions but those solutions will be short-lived in their purity and intention.
Many of us now live in a country where you can get arrested for walking down the street. we live in a place that no longer allows wandering. We live in a place the intentionally creates homelessness, poverty, hunger and mental anguish. We live in a place where one cannot even collect firewood or camp in the woods.
We live in a place where children can't walk to school. We live in a place where there's so little to do that it is literally killing people. We live in a place where the TV stations can barely afford to stay on despite making up most of waking lives.
We live in a place where we will pay larges sums of money for substandard infrastructure, public buildings and programs all in the name of privatization. We live in a place where sidewalks start and stop with no logic. We live in a place where roads literally go no where.
we live in a place where we spend thousands and thousands of dollars to drive an automobile only to later find out we can't afford healthcare, school supplies or food.
And we live in a place where most people are actually proud of the accomplishments listed above.
we go around and around this topic but the fact is, everyone has to make his or her own personal cost/benefit decision.
for those who want to stay in the profession and work for little or nothing, i say fine - just don't be a victim. know why you are doing something, carve out a niche for yourself and make the most out of it.
for those who want to leave, we shouldn't begrudge them either. if you can keep or land a job, the pay, hours, and/or quality of work are probably terrible. getting out doesn't mean you've failed. let's lose this idea that there's something noble about practicing architecture. it's a job.
getting paid is not a benefit, and that attitude is why architects and artists are either not paid or paid too little. the way we make sure young architects don't have to depend on their parents is by paying them and killing the intern model. I jsut got done working at a "cutting edge" firm only to find out i was one of three people who got paid, out of about 15 people (other than the partners). That means that entire firm is surviving on the backs of rich kids' parents. it makes me sick. and what's worse, is the partners are all really nice, good people, young dudes. it's heartbreaking to see good people surviving off of bad business ethics.
sarmath you still don't get it...and most of you comparing architecture to a business don't either...
yes on one hand Architecture is a necessary business in the construction industry (although this is debateable at certain scales)...but nobody that spends time on this website or attended a typical American architecture school gets into archtitecture to do the technical know how that clients will pay lots for...how many of you read ENR or some industry construction standard? spend time doing track homes or waterproofing details, etc...
all of us here can pretty much agree we like designing and architecture. we like the cutting edge stuff, pushing the envelope...
i don't make my money having random thoughts, i do technical things necessary for the execution of a designed project, extremely boring and necessary.
design is like art, priceless...literally most the time, occasionally hangning on a wall in the museum.
one thing I agree with Peter Eisenman on, was his comparison of architecture to film, every intern starts out with nothing and pays their dues...if you are going to be a Design Architect it's a whole other ball game.
there is art.
there is business.
and if you're a genius you make art your business or business an art (FLW or Steve JobS)
"nobody that spends time on this website or attended a typical American architecture school gets into architecture to do the technical know how that clients will pay lots for..."
... and yet, we're continually stupefied (and angry) that we're paid so poorly.
I, for one, embrace the theory that "there's a reason they call it 'show business', not 'show art' " If we're not willing to do what the customer finds a fair value and wants to pay for, we can't expect high wages.
"all of us here can pretty much agree we like designing and architecture. we like the cutting edge stuff, pushing the envelope..."
I think you are generalizing the profession quite a bit with your statement(s). I'm not discounting that I like design as much as the next guy, but just playing picture pages all day isn't exactly rewarding on it's own. Do I cozy up in bed with the latest edition of the building code? No, however I do enjoy the challenge of figuring out a clever detail, spending time on the jobsite, etc.
I don't have any interest in being Frank Gehry. I appreciate what he has done for the profession and I respect the people who want to work for him and follow in his footsteps. There is a place and time for "cutting edge work" and I am glad we have the offices to do it. Personally, I prefer to work on projects that are a bit more accessible to the average consumer- finding the design potential that any project can have and helping the client see that low-budget doesn't have to mean bad design.
Architecture is a profession of gradients. It's not just stararchitects and specification writers.
Maybe this goes in the business model thread but... If architects didn't have to outbid each other to get work, maybe we wouldn't still be living with mom and dad. Think about it, if we were all essentially the same price then we could all earn a living commiserate with our education and training and in turn the market would be able to reward good architects (they would get jobs) and sloughing out the bad architects (they shouldn't be able to get much work at the same price as a good architect). But instead, we bid for jobs and you have to be cheap/bad to get this work. To be cheap you have to be independently wealthy or cut corners by paying low wages to your staff, etc. If the AIA had never been sued for price-fixing, which resulted in pitting every architect against each other through this competitive bid environment, we might have good architects working in the profession earning good wages. If business, ethics, and finance were taught to architects alongside blobs, shards and spaces we might have a collective voice on the matter.
By the way, it took me being out of the profession, and working in another service profession to realize this. Any thoughts?
Some places/clients do fix the bid. The local school board where I live has fixed the percentage rate of the budget that the Architect will make off the job at 6%. The bid process for work is entirely based on past performance and capability. This could be a rare case overall though. Things get done backwards in New Mexico.
Donna:"In all seriousness, I know you've got experience, you're no fresh-faced idealistic recent grad, right? How do we go about making sure young architects don't have to depend on their parents* to get by on beginning wages (not that architecture grads are the only ones depending on their parents, because we sure as hell aren't)?"
I only have 10 years of professional experience, so I do look up to weathered crafts(wo)men such as you Donna :) Most of the time you are spot on, but I don't think you appreciate the immediacy of the issues that the youngins face (issues your and my generation didn't have to deal with).
What to do about it? I prefer lots of finger wagging. Like you would to a misbehaving puppy. Turns out there is nothing intrinsically moral about being an architect. There's just as many dicks in architecture as there are in any other pool of people.
Is it possible to shame people into behaving ethically? Or are we in the post-shame stage of civilized life? In any event, things will self-correct as they do in most free-markets; it will just be a very painful process.
Those parents that can pay for their children's education out of their pocket (and then support them after graduation) is a dying breed in America. The pool of kids willing to work for nothing will dry out. Either that, or architecture will exclusively become rich man's game, like it was a century ago.
i don't believe it is possible to diagnose the problems in our industry so easily.
For myself I am actually (oddly?) comfortable with the competition. i prefer it to having my life dictated to me. Which makes me a bad guy i suppose. uncertainty is ok with me as long as it means there is opportunity to go along with it.
which in the end is probably where the real problem is, no? There is not much opportunity just now and it makes us all worry. it begins to feel more and more like there is no trade off, only risk. not a good place to be when looking up from the bottom of a well and wondering how to get out.
somewhere i think there is a balance that could and should be struck between living wages and opportunity and security. it is much harder to do all that in hard economic times, for the employers as well as the employees, so given my biases i still would opt for the slightly risky choices.
i guess the answer (or at least A answer) will emerge over the years and we will understand this better in hindsight.
not sure that fewer graduates would lead to better times for us. it would not surprise me if instead of more work going to a smaller pool of architects the extra stuff would simply be picked up by engineers and builders...
Straw - unfortunately though we have the examples of contractors, sub-contractors, and other professional services (engineers, even surveyors etc.) - all of whom also bid on work and all of whom generally make a much more comfortable living than architects. I have been on more than one job site where the electrician openly mocked me for the wage I make. The engineers that you hire as consultants for your own projects typically make more than you do - on the same exact construction project. All of these are bidded services.
Electricians in my city (and the city I lived in before this one) generally make about 150k/year. Now with the recession I'm sure that's dropped - but still - I only know a handful of firm owners who have even come close to that, even in the boom times. And we're not talking electrician supers, or company owners - we're talking Joe Electrician here.
small threadjack warning - I don't usually do this but I am tired of it:
but nobody that spends time on this website or attended a typical American architecture school gets into archtitecture to do the technical know how that clients will pay lots for...how many of you read ENR or some industry construction standard? spend time doing track homes or waterproofing details, etc...
I am so tired of hearing this kind of thing. There are some people on this forum who like to paint the field of architecture as this binary world where there are poncy designers who like to make fancy art and don't give a shit about building detailing, and then the "true" architects who supposedly sweat all the details and are the "real" designers who make buildings stand up. This is bullshit. The truth is that most of us land somewhere in the middle - both by choice AND by practice. I dreamed of doing both. I went to an architecture school that taught both. I have juried and lectured in places that do both. And I practice doing both - and so do the vast majority of architects.
Finally, it's *tract* homes, not track homes - and most architects don't want to work on them because they're a blight on our environment, our economy, our culture, and even our social structure - NOT because we don't like to detail. (Besides, what kind of crap boring construction details are found in tract homes? Not the interesting kind, that's for damn sure.)
You can be an envelope-pushing, poncy artiste architect and design the hell out of some construction detailing - and the best architects are masters of both. So quit whining that nobody else except you is worthy of calling herself an architect and the profession is not what it used to be.
If I may, I would like to continue on my idea that bidding jobs has a lot to do with the degradation of the profession: Had lunch with a family member over the holiday, who happens to be a lawyer. He was disappointed that I "gave up" my career in architecture. I told him I could make a better living in a different field, that architecture was long, rewardless hours for little pay. He offered up a story, told me that in law school he told me about an ethics course where the professor emphasized that lowering your fees was unethical because it degrades the entire profession's status and pay. Makes total sense. Do you know any lawyers that are willing to work for less than the usual $250ish/hr? No, because they got it figured out that it would be pretty dumb to do that and no client convinces them that the job is worth taking because it is FUN or REWARDING. Buck off, there's another client around the corner, go find someone else to do your dumb project on the cheap. Unfortunately, in architecture, there is another architect around the corner willing to work for half price. For crying out loud, we even have a monopoly on the jobs architects do, more so than even lawyers, and we still can't figure out how to make money doing it! Not that I think it can be fixed easily, as I said, i understand the lawsuit against the AIA for price-fixing was a monumental milestone in the dismantling and degradation of the profession of the architect. This is why I can't stand the AIA. We often ask what has the AIA done? I know two things they did - 1) They lost a big lawsuit that degraded our integrity as a profession resulting in pitting us against each other (not on talent, jump, but on price) and 2) they supress the fact that it happened. Maybe they lost because they made the attorneys that represented them bid for the job and they lost because the law team was not very good and had to cut corners...
"For crying out loud, we even have a monopoly on the jobs architects do, more so than even lawyers, and we still can't figure out how to make money doing it!"
I am a licensed architect. I can see the trajectory.
I will state categorically: You are a fool if you've been immersed in the profession for 5-10+ years and do not realize AND ADMIT it as well.
Every man for himself.
I made the decision to jump ship 1 year ago.
Best thing I ever did. I am well on my way to making 250/ hour. Was it a difficult conclusion to come to...of course perhaps the hardest thing I have ever done.
However, the profession I will be a member of in a few more years is not filled to the brim with dimwits like the contemporary architecture profession.
I do not say this lightly.
Best thing I ever did. If I can make more money in a decade in architecture than I can in this new profession in a decade, maybe I will come back.
For now, the chances are so slim anyone with a shoe size IQ can perceive that the profession is totally NOT viable for the average practicioner who desires to be rewarded commensurate with experience, ability, intelligence, and work ethic.
I am aware that many of the archinect regulars here have not wanted to talk about it, much less face up to the reality:
Architecture, as a profession, is the titanic, and she is going down into the cold, cold depths.
You all here (for a myraid of your own reasons, no doubt) can continue to stand on the deck cluelessly whistling to the beat the band is playing...placating yourselves by denying the facts.
The wise ones are either already in one of the few lifeboats or is headed towards the few that are left.
"...like the captain said, nice and cheery so there is no panic":
I left the profession, ain't looking back! My quality of life is soaring thru the roof. I work part time and make more at a job that I trained for 6 weeks to do.
Exactly. When I started practicing construction management as an architect 3 years ago, I was sooo nervous that the grass wouldn't be greener on the other side. All I had known my entire career was slaving in an architecture cubicle farm as a cad monkey. Licensed and all I had to look forward to was being used a a tool behind some CAD program for an additional decade or two.
Gadzooks it was even better than I imagined! Having the taste of freedom and some degree of socioeconomic quality in my life again actually made me feel...alive.
I am conviced through my own experience that, if the person is intelligent, felons serving life terms have a higher quality of life than the average contemporary practicioner of architecture. NOTE: I said average, not the exception who has a rich developer uncle or father in the bus-y-ness of architecture.
That is all the profession can really offer these days...perpetual meaningless bus-y-ness staring at a computer all day getting paid 5 cents.
as architects we are all beggars now, like the clown in the article above (sanctioned by the AIA to have "architecture" associated with his name even though he is not licensed).
marxist: You seem to be very happy with your career choices, and that's great. Why do you then come across as one of the most miserable commenters on these forums?
Have you really managed to convince yourself that you are surrounded by Marxists, or is that a code name for people you politically disagree with? If later, you are about 6 decades late for McCartyism. The current flock of regressive movement is quite happy with the term 'socialist' as the boogieman. Calling people marxists is as relevant as me calling you a bourbon democrat .
Architecture, as a profession, is the titanic, and she is going down into the cold, cold depths.
That seems a little extreme (which seems like a trend lately on this discussion thread). I would say that the profession is changing- a product of the recession, but also a product of exterior factors (BIM, shifts in stylistic motives, etc.) and no one really knows what the outcome will be.
I feel like the majority of offices are moving towards a more streamlined model- ditching the formal hierarchy in favor of a more streamlined and studio based model. BIM has also helped offices shed unneeded time and staff. The idea of the "master architect" or "star architect" will hopefully become a memory as the profession moves towards a more collaborative system of working. I'm already seeing hints of this happening and starting to see the offices holding onto the old ways get left behind. Sure, we will always have the large corporates, but they are exempt (to some degree) from the profession as I feel like they operate in a different realm.
This isn't exactly uncommon. Architecture as a profession has gone through the ebb and flow of esteem and notoriety. Just look at the transformation that happened between the so-called dark ages and the renaissance- we went from craftsmen to celebrated icons. We were on a high for a while pre-recession, evident in the mass hysteria of Dubai. That has all come to a stop, but I don't think that spells the end of the profession, it just means a change, a new way of thinking, designing, building. Any change results in the loss of something from the previous model, in this case it might mean the loss of some of out peers as they seek out what they sense as more lucrative careers paths. Meanwhile the rest of us will dust off our jackets and start adapting as needed. Each person must choose for themselves which path to follow and no one answer on here is correct.
This of course is only one archinectors viewpoint and should no means be taken as the last and final word. Talk amongst yourselves.
"why do people who have 'moved on' and claim fulfillment still haunt these forums?"
Why not?
It is for purely selfish reasons.
Just when I thought I was tired of studying for biochemistry finals, I come to forums like this to remind me the hell I am escaping, among other (selfish) reasons.
"That has all come to a stop, but I don't think that spells the end of the profession, it just means a change, a new way of thinking, designing, building..."
Well said. But if you were seeking a relatively high quality of life in which you were to have some (if minor) degree of socioeconomic freedom and respect, then
you are dead wrong, the profession is at a dead end for the typical practioner who seeks the pay and respect of society on a level commensurate with intelligence, education, and experience.
The DIY/ equality mentality (everyone is born an expert), overexhuberant faith in technology, and the incompetence of the collective profession in monopolizing the use of the architect's stamp killed it.
Now, for those who use "I love it" as their excuse for miserable pay and the lifestyle of an indentured servant, of course you won't mind seeing what it morphs into.
"But if you were seeking a relatively high quality of life in which you were to have some (if minor) degree of socioeconomic freedom and respect..."
That's pretty subjective. What defines a "high quality of life" for you might be way different than me, and may not purely be established by money, which is what your statement (and previous comments) seem to suggest. I think there are plenty of people on this forum, and in the profession as a whole, that are pretty satisfied with their quality of life.
Oh mantaray I adore you so much for your correction of "track home" let alone your fabulous application of "poncy"!
rusty, evidently we live in a post-shame world, witness google generating high hits for not just negative reviews, but brutally negative reviews of sociopathic retailers. It's just business, hey?
This is, honestly, a really interesting albeit depressing discussion.
That was a fun story Donna. To be fair, Brooklyn 'businesses' have been running online scams on photography gear, sunglasses, and watches since the days of AOL. Nice to see them expand into designer eye-wear. Can't wait for them to expand into knockoff building supplies. Oh wait. That has been happening for over a decade as well.
jk - some of us that left still love architecture. It was my calling in life, so to speak, and I knew I was going to pursue it at about 13-14.
BUT I also learned, halfway through grad school, that the vision I had was not the reality (both the political bs for the stararchitects and the fact that 60k is not a good living)
Sooo, I love architecture, just not the professional side. I chose an alternative path early on and have been grateful to have made that choice early on.
Back to point, I'll still suggest that pay be based on talent/skills. This eliminates any 'standard' fee and awards those that are better. This is how my business world works and I enjoy it - offer great quality and reasonable pricing and you don't have to compete for a bottom line.
oh children, papa just got home from a long day of work, more billable hours than usual, things are looking up...according to ENR yes they are...but then again who knows.
manta ray deep down i hate myself...
to summarize the above posts:
bidding wars are bad. we need unions to protect ourselves from ourselves and the AIA sucks and CM's...who let other people manage construction projects, who's idea was that damnit? who gave away the part of the job that brings physically tangiable value to the table!
CC is pretty much on point and if you can't handle bidding and then streamlining your process, maybe a free market economy isn't for you.
transitions are a bitch.
trace, getting the job and making money on it is a skill.
standard streamlining process of an architect:
higher unpaid interns, outsource drawings to India, and after enough fees have been collected avoid client.
"to summarize the above posts: bidding wars are bad. we need unions to protect ourselves from ourselves and the AIA sucks and CM's...who let other people manage construction projects, who's idea was that damnit?"
I like the general gist of your posts (not just this thread), but please be aware that your comments come across just as jaded as everyone else's.
Welcome to the club. Enjoy the shrimp, and do take advantage of our time-out corner in which you are welcomed to cry as loud as you want.
"27k would be a decent starting salary in a smaller city."
I live in an outlying area of Denver. Cost of living is dirt cheap.
I graduated in May with an M.Arch, went jobless through August, then got tired of looking and took a job that barely required an interview working as a recruiter for a local school. I make 35k plus bonuses working 35-40 hours a week. Job is at least as stimulating and rewarding as the few summer I have spent drafting in CAD at firms.
Ya... I think you can do better than 27k. There are things in life worth being a martyr for, make sure for you architecture is that thing before you accept an offer like that.
Is 27k/yr way too low?
plus at Burger King, you are like, working for the King. The Burger f'ing King, dude. That comes with some serious benefits when the surfs all decide to siege the castle and what not. King B will totally have your back. And you get to hang out with royalty. That's pretty awesome too. I hear Maid Marian is a totally babe. You gotta tap that.
"quarterly raises? what fantasy land did you work at Unicorn? can i go work there? even 31k a year is way too low, and it shows the degenerate attitude within the profession. "
It actually happens in many other fields. Maybe not quarterly but many companies do have 6-month reviews for entry-level employees. The idea is that you constantly have to grow in your entry-level position and generate value for the company through experience, training and being dependable.
So, it's not a relatively uncommon practice for many entry-level employees to get 1%-15% raises for given time period for the first few years worth of work. It also makes it slightly cheaper for a company to hire you initially.
Almost the entire fast food industry gives 4-6 month raises of approximately 5% for the first few years you work there.
Goldman Sachs has average twice-yearly pay raises in the 20-30% range for entry level Analysts plus yearly bonuses of similar percentages-- at least that's the rumor.
rusty, we're not talking about $7k.
Cheeses said this: s/he can get by on $27K. It's not luxury, but s/he can get by. Liking the office, liking the work, and getting good experience are frosting.
I think almost everyone has suggested Cheeses ask for more - it can't hurt to ask, right? And someone upthread even suggested a typical percentage above offer to ask without risking looking like an ass. As well as offering suggestions how to make the experience worth as much as possible for that small pay. I don't think anyone is saying all is pink fluffy roses in this offer, but it's a starting point.
elinor you sounds like you gave up and want everyone else to also. If you decided it wasn't worth it for you, fine. That decision isn't right for everyone else. And yeah, when offices start paying less word DOES get around and other offices may follow trend, but the exact same thing happens in the opposite direction when the economy is good and offices start paying more.
But hey, you know, what do I know about any of this, since I've only been practicing for 20 years in 8 different offices?
you know, elinor, i'm kind of curious reading your posts. what should a freshly minted graduate make (let's keep it to nyc just to be simple)? what should a principal in a 10 person firm there make? what should the hourly rate an architect in nyc charge to a client (min.)? how should this be enforced?
real numbers would rock...
lol, trace.
i keep my degrees in my closet. actually i scanned my degrees and license and use them that way more than the orginals in any case. world has moved on....
7K is enough if the person is happy with it. doesn't mean elinor needs to be happy with it. i know a few people who worked for free (or close to it) and were ecstatic for the opportunity, and then went on to do amazing things (ok i know that isn't normal but it happens). so you know, whatever.
it's not a great wage, but cheezus doesn't seem to care all that much. he was just checking in to confirm if it is a low number or just his imagination, as far as i can tell.
outed:"real numbers would rock..."
I'll bite!
"what should a freshly minted graduate make (let's keep it to nyc just to be simple)?"
Let's take the 1/3 rule on net income spent on housing and utilities. Now let's ignore it and say 40% is the new 33. $1K for NYC is not a very generous budget for housing. You will have to have roommates, many many roommates, but that's not the end of the world. Let's pick $800 for an extreme challenge. Definitively doable in East New York, Washington Heights, or Bronx. Based on these numbers, the net income would work out to be $24k, for a total of $33k gross pay. This # does not include the health care deduction. Or any student loans owned.
Seems silly to bicker over $6k difference, but when you are in the lower class in a city chock-full of millionaires every dollar counts, and my numbers were quite conservative to begin with.
"what should a principal in a 10 person firm there make?"
Noone knows, not even the principal. His creative accountant has made it look like he lost money in the 5 of the last 15 years. Everything gets written off, and even the family dog ends up on the payroll. Once you get into bigger companies, you start seeing fiscal clarity (but not necessarily). That small shop guy has convinced himself, ages ago, that he makes less than welfare recipients. You gotta believe your own lies.
"what should the hourly rate an architect in nyc charge to a client (min.)?"
Fixed fees vary depending on size and complexity of the project. I've seen hourly rates billed anywhere between $90 and $250, once again depending on scope. Keep in mind, actual hours worked < actual hours billed (TYP.).
jump:"but cheezus doesn't seem to care all that much. he was just checking in to confirm"
Cheezus:"I can't go below 31k without requiring the partial support of my parents"
Even our happy-go-lucky friend openly admits he's financially fucked. It's nice to have your parents step in and help, but fuck. Has it really come to that?
Architecture is not alone in seeing salaries regress. What hurts the most is seeing really intelligent people (I'm pointing up at some of the comments here) convince themselves that this is how things should be. Sad.
Cheezus: Something you said earlier worries me.
Your solution for health care coverage includes declining it and piggybacking on your parent's policy until you turn 26 (part of healthcare reform that kicks in next year).
Do understand that you will not be eligible for this extension since your company did offer you health care.
If you ever end up in need of health care services, the health insurer will drop you like a hot potato after they make a single phone call to your current employer.
You (or your parents) will be on hook for any medical bills. Think about this one carefully.
I took my own and advise and am still gainfully making money and doing what I want when I want and not dancing on the street for pennies...and to second jump take the risk now, you can afford it and I mean more than money
For all you naysayers and the I could make more at burger king...of course you can make more money at burger king, who the hell wants to spend their life at burger king...I knew a guy who by default was required to take over the many many fast food chains his family owend...the 4 years of college was his dream break. Investment bankers work on making money so of course they make more money than anyone who is concerned with something else, duh.
To put this in perspective...most likely cheese works at your typical boutique cutting edge nyc firm and does really exciting design stuff ...if this is the case getting paid is a benefit, you paid Frank Lloyd Wright to learn from the best.
More pespective - I have done all shit jobs and even had a CDL truck driving license (I'd do that before I opted for more money and getting coffee) and one day while working in a pretty popular firm in a non US country I told a coworker " you know how ridiculous this is, spending 10 hrs on presentation of trees for a competition entry? People break their backs working factory jobs for less money (I was an intern)...but I will take it, doing tree presentation, what a joke."
27K is ridiculous
Go ahead, rusty, tell us mistakenly-thinking-we're-smart people how things "should" be? And how do we go about making sure we get what we "deserve"?
In all seriousness, I know you've got experience, you're no fresh-faced idealistic recent grad, right? How do we go about making sure young architects don't have to depend on their parents* to get by on beginning wages (not that architecture grads are the only ones depending on their parents, because we sure as hell aren't)?
Yes, it is sad. It's a sad, sad state of being right now for everyone who's not actively fleecing other people (I put investment bankers, for the most part, in this lot) when compared to how my parents spent their first 10 years out of college. I have no idea how to change that, do you?
*I had forgotten this bit from Cheeses considerations, my mistake in thinking he could actually get by on the offered salary.
And Olaf I like your comment very much EXCEPT for the "getting paid is a benefit" crack. Working for free is never acceptable. There are no hard and fast rules for how valuable a person's time is - thus wildly different salaries in any field - but an "employer" benefitting from labor that isn't paid for at all is illegal - so is payment below minimum hourly wage, for an employee, that is, not a contract worker.
I know you'll jump on me rusty for saying free isn't acceptable while $27k is, but it's a hard bright line between legal and not.
Sure, outed...what I'd consider reasonable in NYC is this:
BArch or master's grad-48-50k
4-yr arch grad from good program-42-45k
after 10 yrs. -75-85k
same, but licensed-add 5-10k.
lots of people do make this, you know...
and donna, i haven't given up on architecture, just on the self-defeating corporate office culture. i went out and got some clients. so far, they are a dream...(fingers crossed).
lest i sound like a jerk, i appreciate the poster's dilemma and don't blame him one bit...it's the employer's audacity to offer something below a living wage that i take issue with. does no one consider the possibility that they may be able to pay more, and just try not to?
i take that back--master's grad should be more like 55-60.
In NYC anything below 40k is pretty much impossible without a second means of income to suplement the poor pay Especially if you have student loans and stuff like that.
I had an appartment once in DC paying around $1300+ utilities (and that was actually kind of cheap for a 1 bedroom). All-in-all I was dropping around 18k a year for just rent and bills. That did not include loan repayment, other bills, and obviously eating.
I had an old beat-up SUV that I did not have to make payments for either. Was not in a relationship and lived a pretty low-key life-style.
I was making around 43k (old job) and I still found it to be quite struggling in DC which is a tad cheaper than New York.
trace - THAT is the problem. who is this "joe architect" who ruins everything?!!? i seriously want to talk to him. oh right, it's cheeses christ....like cherith said, people like this are undermining the profession. i understand where he is coming from, i really do....but this is the sort of thing that has slowly undermined the profession. it is like outsourcing....someone who outsouces basically breaks the minimum wage laws, yet since it is in the name of "profit," america tolerates it. now, architecture firms are collecting some LUCKY skilled labor at the top (to actually run things), and keeping the cheap, naive underlings at slave wages. isn't this also known as indentured servitude?
the fact that there seems to be no hierarchy within this profession is the screwy part. if you don't have a professional degree, you probably shouldn't have work at an architectural firm right now. yet firms have gone the way of productivity and cut the skilled labor to save the profit margins. architecture is somewhere in between an apprenticeship and a profession. the result is that both trained and apprenticed LABORERS get hurt.
do engineering firms hire kids with a B.A.? do law firms hire poly sci majors? not so much. waiting for architecture to right itself will let your life slowly slip through your fingers.
Donna: "How do we go about making sure young architects don't have to depend on their parents to get by on beginning wages?"
Most likely, the only "sure" way this can be addressed is to bring back some degree of balance between supply and demand ... i.e. keeping the number of new graduates each year in reasonable synch with the ability of the profession to absorb new talent. That alone would keep starting wages reasonable, if not high.
Sadly, based on the economic model driving the academy and the academy's view of its own mission, I don't see how this can happen.
We live in a changing world. Unfortunately it's not the world we want it to change into. Perhaps some of us are lucky who do not live to see such a future. It's the world we created. We neglected too many small things and reached for too many things outside of our grasp.
Now we must live in it whether or not we made the problems. We can make solutions but those solutions will be short-lived in their purity and intention.
Many of us now live in a country where you can get arrested for walking down the street. we live in a place that no longer allows wandering. We live in a place the intentionally creates homelessness, poverty, hunger and mental anguish. We live in a place where one cannot even collect firewood or camp in the woods.
We live in a place where children can't walk to school. We live in a place where there's so little to do that it is literally killing people. We live in a place where the TV stations can barely afford to stay on despite making up most of waking lives.
We live in a place where we will pay larges sums of money for substandard infrastructure, public buildings and programs all in the name of privatization. We live in a place where sidewalks start and stop with no logic. We live in a place where roads literally go no where.
we live in a place where we spend thousands and thousands of dollars to drive an automobile only to later find out we can't afford healthcare, school supplies or food.
And we live in a place where most people are actually proud of the accomplishments listed above.
we go around and around this topic but the fact is, everyone has to make his or her own personal cost/benefit decision.
for those who want to stay in the profession and work for little or nothing, i say fine - just don't be a victim. know why you are doing something, carve out a niche for yourself and make the most out of it.
for those who want to leave, we shouldn't begrudge them either. if you can keep or land a job, the pay, hours, and/or quality of work are probably terrible. getting out doesn't mean you've failed. let's lose this idea that there's something noble about practicing architecture. it's a job.
getting paid is not a benefit, and that attitude is why architects and artists are either not paid or paid too little. the way we make sure young architects don't have to depend on their parents is by paying them and killing the intern model. I jsut got done working at a "cutting edge" firm only to find out i was one of three people who got paid, out of about 15 people (other than the partners). That means that entire firm is surviving on the backs of rich kids' parents. it makes me sick. and what's worse, is the partners are all really nice, good people, young dudes. it's heartbreaking to see good people surviving off of bad business ethics.
sarmath you still don't get it...and most of you comparing architecture to a business don't either...
yes on one hand Architecture is a necessary business in the construction industry (although this is debateable at certain scales)...but nobody that spends time on this website or attended a typical American architecture school gets into archtitecture to do the technical know how that clients will pay lots for...how many of you read ENR or some industry construction standard? spend time doing track homes or waterproofing details, etc...
all of us here can pretty much agree we like designing and architecture. we like the cutting edge stuff, pushing the envelope...
i don't make my money having random thoughts, i do technical things necessary for the execution of a designed project, extremely boring and necessary.
design is like art, priceless...literally most the time, occasionally hangning on a wall in the museum.
one thing I agree with Peter Eisenman on, was his comparison of architecture to film, every intern starts out with nothing and pays their dues...if you are going to be a Design Architect it's a whole other ball game.
there is art.
there is business.
and if you're a genius you make art your business or business an art (FLW or Steve JobS)
we like the cutting edge stuff, pushing the envelope...
Hey now... I'd perfectly be okay with spec'ing corinthian columns, gargoyles and gold leaf all day long if it meant being employed.
... and yet, we're continually stupefied (and angry) that we're paid so poorly.
I, for one, embrace the theory that "there's a reason they call it 'show business', not 'show art' " If we're not willing to do what the customer finds a fair value and wants to pay for, we can't expect high wages.
"all of us here can pretty much agree we like designing and architecture. we like the cutting edge stuff, pushing the envelope..."
I think you are generalizing the profession quite a bit with your statement(s). I'm not discounting that I like design as much as the next guy, but just playing picture pages all day isn't exactly rewarding on it's own. Do I cozy up in bed with the latest edition of the building code? No, however I do enjoy the challenge of figuring out a clever detail, spending time on the jobsite, etc.
I don't have any interest in being Frank Gehry. I appreciate what he has done for the profession and I respect the people who want to work for him and follow in his footsteps. There is a place and time for "cutting edge work" and I am glad we have the offices to do it. Personally, I prefer to work on projects that are a bit more accessible to the average consumer- finding the design potential that any project can have and helping the client see that low-budget doesn't have to mean bad design.
Architecture is a profession of gradients. It's not just stararchitects and specification writers.
Maybe this goes in the business model thread but... If architects didn't have to outbid each other to get work, maybe we wouldn't still be living with mom and dad. Think about it, if we were all essentially the same price then we could all earn a living commiserate with our education and training and in turn the market would be able to reward good architects (they would get jobs) and sloughing out the bad architects (they shouldn't be able to get much work at the same price as a good architect). But instead, we bid for jobs and you have to be cheap/bad to get this work. To be cheap you have to be independently wealthy or cut corners by paying low wages to your staff, etc. If the AIA had never been sued for price-fixing, which resulted in pitting every architect against each other through this competitive bid environment, we might have good architects working in the profession earning good wages. If business, ethics, and finance were taught to architects alongside blobs, shards and spaces we might have a collective voice on the matter.
By the way, it took me being out of the profession, and working in another service profession to realize this. Any thoughts?
Some places/clients do fix the bid. The local school board where I live has fixed the percentage rate of the budget that the Architect will make off the job at 6%. The bid process for work is entirely based on past performance and capability. This could be a rare case overall though. Things get done backwards in New Mexico.
Donna:"In all seriousness, I know you've got experience, you're no fresh-faced idealistic recent grad, right? How do we go about making sure young architects don't have to depend on their parents* to get by on beginning wages (not that architecture grads are the only ones depending on their parents, because we sure as hell aren't)?"
I only have 10 years of professional experience, so I do look up to weathered crafts(wo)men such as you Donna :) Most of the time you are spot on, but I don't think you appreciate the immediacy of the issues that the youngins face (issues your and my generation didn't have to deal with).
What to do about it? I prefer lots of finger wagging. Like you would to a misbehaving puppy. Turns out there is nothing intrinsically moral about being an architect. There's just as many dicks in architecture as there are in any other pool of people.
Is it possible to shame people into behaving ethically? Or are we in the post-shame stage of civilized life? In any event, things will self-correct as they do in most free-markets; it will just be a very painful process.
Those parents that can pay for their children's education out of their pocket (and then support them after graduation) is a dying breed in America. The pool of kids willing to work for nothing will dry out. Either that, or architecture will exclusively become rich man's game, like it was a century ago.
thanks for clarifying elinor...
interesting discussion.
i don't believe it is possible to diagnose the problems in our industry so easily.
For myself I am actually (oddly?) comfortable with the competition. i prefer it to having my life dictated to me. Which makes me a bad guy i suppose. uncertainty is ok with me as long as it means there is opportunity to go along with it.
which in the end is probably where the real problem is, no? There is not much opportunity just now and it makes us all worry. it begins to feel more and more like there is no trade off, only risk. not a good place to be when looking up from the bottom of a well and wondering how to get out.
somewhere i think there is a balance that could and should be struck between living wages and opportunity and security. it is much harder to do all that in hard economic times, for the employers as well as the employees, so given my biases i still would opt for the slightly risky choices.
i guess the answer (or at least A answer) will emerge over the years and we will understand this better in hindsight.
not sure that fewer graduates would lead to better times for us. it would not surprise me if instead of more work going to a smaller pool of architects the extra stuff would simply be picked up by engineers and builders...
maybe supply and demand NEVER works for us? ;-)
wouldn't that be a kick in the head.
Straw - unfortunately though we have the examples of contractors, sub-contractors, and other professional services (engineers, even surveyors etc.) - all of whom also bid on work and all of whom generally make a much more comfortable living than architects. I have been on more than one job site where the electrician openly mocked me for the wage I make. The engineers that you hire as consultants for your own projects typically make more than you do - on the same exact construction project. All of these are bidded services.
Electricians in my city (and the city I lived in before this one) generally make about 150k/year. Now with the recession I'm sure that's dropped - but still - I only know a handful of firm owners who have even come close to that, even in the boom times. And we're not talking electrician supers, or company owners - we're talking Joe Electrician here.
small threadjack warning - I don't usually do this but I am tired of it:
but nobody that spends time on this website or attended a typical American architecture school gets into archtitecture to do the technical know how that clients will pay lots for...how many of you read ENR or some industry construction standard? spend time doing track homes or waterproofing details, etc...
I am so tired of hearing this kind of thing. There are some people on this forum who like to paint the field of architecture as this binary world where there are poncy designers who like to make fancy art and don't give a shit about building detailing, and then the "true" architects who supposedly sweat all the details and are the "real" designers who make buildings stand up. This is bullshit. The truth is that most of us land somewhere in the middle - both by choice AND by practice. I dreamed of doing both. I went to an architecture school that taught both. I have juried and lectured in places that do both. And I practice doing both - and so do the vast majority of architects.
Finally, it's *tract* homes, not track homes - and most architects don't want to work on them because they're a blight on our environment, our economy, our culture, and even our social structure - NOT because we don't like to detail. (Besides, what kind of crap boring construction details are found in tract homes? Not the interesting kind, that's for damn sure.)
You can be an envelope-pushing, poncy artiste architect and design the hell out of some construction detailing - and the best architects are masters of both. So quit whining that nobody else except you is worthy of calling herself an architect and the profession is not what it used to be.
If I may, I would like to continue on my idea that bidding jobs has a lot to do with the degradation of the profession: Had lunch with a family member over the holiday, who happens to be a lawyer. He was disappointed that I "gave up" my career in architecture. I told him I could make a better living in a different field, that architecture was long, rewardless hours for little pay. He offered up a story, told me that in law school he told me about an ethics course where the professor emphasized that lowering your fees was unethical because it degrades the entire profession's status and pay. Makes total sense. Do you know any lawyers that are willing to work for less than the usual $250ish/hr? No, because they got it figured out that it would be pretty dumb to do that and no client convinces them that the job is worth taking because it is FUN or REWARDING. Buck off, there's another client around the corner, go find someone else to do your dumb project on the cheap. Unfortunately, in architecture, there is another architect around the corner willing to work for half price. For crying out loud, we even have a monopoly on the jobs architects do, more so than even lawyers, and we still can't figure out how to make money doing it! Not that I think it can be fixed easily, as I said, i understand the lawsuit against the AIA for price-fixing was a monumental milestone in the dismantling and degradation of the profession of the architect. This is why I can't stand the AIA. We often ask what has the AIA done? I know two things they did - 1) They lost a big lawsuit that degraded our integrity as a profession resulting in pitting us against each other (not on talent, jump, but on price) and 2) they supress the fact that it happened. Maybe they lost because they made the attorneys that represented them bid for the job and they lost because the law team was not very good and had to cut corners...
ciao!
"For crying out loud, we even have a monopoly on the jobs architects do, more so than even lawyers, and we still can't figure out how to make money doing it!"
I am a licensed architect. I can see the trajectory.
I will state categorically: You are a fool if you've been immersed in the profession for 5-10+ years and do not realize AND ADMIT it as well.
Every man for himself.
I made the decision to jump ship 1 year ago.
Best thing I ever did. I am well on my way to making 250/ hour. Was it a difficult conclusion to come to...of course perhaps the hardest thing I have ever done.
However, the profession I will be a member of in a few more years is not filled to the brim with dimwits like the contemporary architecture profession.
I do not say this lightly.
Best thing I ever did. If I can make more money in a decade in architecture than I can in this new profession in a decade, maybe I will come back.
For now, the chances are so slim anyone with a shoe size IQ can perceive that the profession is totally NOT viable for the average practicioner who desires to be rewarded commensurate with experience, ability, intelligence, and work ethic.
I am aware that many of the archinect regulars here have not wanted to talk about it, much less face up to the reality:
Architecture, as a profession, is the titanic, and she is going down into the cold, cold depths.
You all here (for a myraid of your own reasons, no doubt) can continue to stand on the deck cluelessly whistling to the beat the band is playing...placating yourselves by denying the facts.
The wise ones are either already in one of the few lifeboats or is headed towards the few that are left.
"...like the captain said, nice and cheery so there is no panic":
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-qRDg9WS7fk
I left the profession, ain't looking back! My quality of life is soaring thru the roof. I work part time and make more at a job that I trained for 6 weeks to do.
"My quality of life is soaring thru the roof..."
Exactly. When I started practicing construction management as an architect 3 years ago, I was sooo nervous that the grass wouldn't be greener on the other side. All I had known my entire career was slaving in an architecture cubicle farm as a cad monkey. Licensed and all I had to look forward to was being used a a tool behind some CAD program for an additional decade or two.
Gadzooks it was even better than I imagined! Having the taste of freedom and some degree of socioeconomic quality in my life again actually made me feel...alive.
I am conviced through my own experience that, if the person is intelligent, felons serving life terms have a higher quality of life than the average contemporary practicioner of architecture. NOTE: I said average, not the exception who has a rich developer uncle or father in the bus-y-ness of architecture.
That is all the profession can really offer these days...perpetual meaningless bus-y-ness staring at a computer all day getting paid 5 cents.
http://info.aia.org/aiarchitect/thisweek09/0220/0220n_navecon.cfm
as architects we are all beggars now, like the clown in the article above (sanctioned by the AIA to have "architecture" associated with his name even though he is not licensed).
why do people who have 'moved on' and claim fulfillment still haunt these forums?
marxist: You seem to be very happy with your career choices, and that's great. Why do you then come across as one of the most miserable commenters on these forums?
Have you really managed to convince yourself that you are surrounded by Marxists, or is that a code name for people you politically disagree with? If later, you are about 6 decades late for McCartyism. The current flock of regressive movement is quite happy with the term 'socialist' as the boogieman. Calling people marxists is as relevant as me calling you a bourbon democrat .
Slow down. Chill out. Deep breaths.
I think a more modern term would be "dixiecrat."
That seems a little extreme (which seems like a trend lately on this discussion thread). I would say that the profession is changing- a product of the recession, but also a product of exterior factors (BIM, shifts in stylistic motives, etc.) and no one really knows what the outcome will be.
I feel like the majority of offices are moving towards a more streamlined model- ditching the formal hierarchy in favor of a more streamlined and studio based model. BIM has also helped offices shed unneeded time and staff. The idea of the "master architect" or "star architect" will hopefully become a memory as the profession moves towards a more collaborative system of working. I'm already seeing hints of this happening and starting to see the offices holding onto the old ways get left behind. Sure, we will always have the large corporates, but they are exempt (to some degree) from the profession as I feel like they operate in a different realm.
This isn't exactly uncommon. Architecture as a profession has gone through the ebb and flow of esteem and notoriety. Just look at the transformation that happened between the so-called dark ages and the renaissance- we went from craftsmen to celebrated icons. We were on a high for a while pre-recession, evident in the mass hysteria of Dubai. That has all come to a stop, but I don't think that spells the end of the profession, it just means a change, a new way of thinking, designing, building. Any change results in the loss of something from the previous model, in this case it might mean the loss of some of out peers as they seek out what they sense as more lucrative careers paths. Meanwhile the rest of us will dust off our jackets and start adapting as needed. Each person must choose for themselves which path to follow and no one answer on here is correct.
This of course is only one archinectors viewpoint and should no means be taken as the last and final word. Talk amongst yourselves.
"why do people who have 'moved on' and claim fulfillment still haunt these forums?"
Why not?
It is for purely selfish reasons.
Just when I thought I was tired of studying for biochemistry finals, I come to forums like this to remind me the hell I am escaping, among other (selfish) reasons.
"That has all come to a stop, but I don't think that spells the end of the profession, it just means a change, a new way of thinking, designing, building..."
Well said. But if you were seeking a relatively high quality of life in which you were to have some (if minor) degree of socioeconomic freedom and respect, then
you are dead wrong, the profession is at a dead end for the typical practioner who seeks the pay and respect of society on a level commensurate with intelligence, education, and experience.
The DIY/ equality mentality (everyone is born an expert), overexhuberant faith in technology, and the incompetence of the collective profession in monopolizing the use of the architect's stamp killed it.
Now, for those who use "I love it" as their excuse for miserable pay and the lifestyle of an indentured servant, of course you won't mind seeing what it morphs into.
"But if you were seeking a relatively high quality of life in which you were to have some (if minor) degree of socioeconomic freedom and respect..."
That's pretty subjective. What defines a "high quality of life" for you might be way different than me, and may not purely be established by money, which is what your statement (and previous comments) seem to suggest. I think there are plenty of people on this forum, and in the profession as a whole, that are pretty satisfied with their quality of life.
Oh mantaray I adore you so much for your correction of "track home" let alone your fabulous application of "poncy"!
rusty, evidently we live in a post-shame world, witness google generating high hits for not just negative reviews, but brutally negative reviews of sociopathic retailers. It's just business, hey?
This is, honestly, a really interesting albeit depressing discussion.
That was a fun story Donna. To be fair, Brooklyn 'businesses' have been running online scams on photography gear, sunglasses, and watches since the days of AOL. Nice to see them expand into designer eye-wear. Can't wait for them to expand into knockoff building supplies. Oh wait. That has been happening for over a decade as well.
jk - some of us that left still love architecture. It was my calling in life, so to speak, and I knew I was going to pursue it at about 13-14.
BUT I also learned, halfway through grad school, that the vision I had was not the reality (both the political bs for the stararchitects and the fact that 60k is not a good living)
Sooo, I love architecture, just not the professional side. I chose an alternative path early on and have been grateful to have made that choice early on.
Back to point, I'll still suggest that pay be based on talent/skills. This eliminates any 'standard' fee and awards those that are better. This is how my business world works and I enjoy it - offer great quality and reasonable pricing and you don't have to compete for a bottom line.
oh children, papa just got home from a long day of work, more billable hours than usual, things are looking up...according to ENR yes they are...but then again who knows.
manta ray deep down i hate myself...
to summarize the above posts:
bidding wars are bad. we need unions to protect ourselves from ourselves and the AIA sucks and CM's...who let other people manage construction projects, who's idea was that damnit? who gave away the part of the job that brings physically tangiable value to the table!
CC is pretty much on point and if you can't handle bidding and then streamlining your process, maybe a free market economy isn't for you.
transitions are a bitch.
trace, getting the job and making money on it is a skill.
standard streamlining process of an architect:
higher unpaid interns, outsource drawings to India, and after enough fees have been collected avoid client.
Brilliant.
ninjaman:
"to summarize the above posts: bidding wars are bad. we need unions to protect ourselves from ourselves and the AIA sucks and CM's...who let other people manage construction projects, who's idea was that damnit?"
I like the general gist of your posts (not just this thread), but please be aware that your comments come across just as jaded as everyone else's.
Welcome to the club. Enjoy the shrimp, and do take advantage of our time-out corner in which you are welcomed to cry as loud as you want.
"27k would be a decent starting salary in a smaller city."
I live in an outlying area of Denver. Cost of living is dirt cheap.
I graduated in May with an M.Arch, went jobless through August, then got tired of looking and took a job that barely required an interview working as a recruiter for a local school. I make 35k plus bonuses working 35-40 hours a week. Job is at least as stimulating and rewarding as the few summer I have spent drafting in CAD at firms.
Ya... I think you can do better than 27k. There are things in life worth being a martyr for, make sure for you architecture is that thing before you accept an offer like that.
P.S. I continue to look for jobs in arch while working here.
27k.....that might be good if you are working 25-30 hours a week
Block this user
Are you sure you want to block this user and hide all related comments throughout the site?
Archinect
This is your first comment on Archinect. Your comment will be visible once approved.