I was talking to my restaurant manager the other day and in the conversation I mentioned I was an architecture student so she started talking about how her architect friends had such nice jobs, made lots of money and lived an awesome life blah blah..(I'm a busgirl at that restaurant by the way) And this other lady who was renting a room in her house asked me if I was going to move to the city when I graduate in December and "become an architect".I told her it was really expensive in NYC and she asked me why I'd have difficulty renting a place over there since "we" charge "a lot" for our services. I heard the same thing from another couple of people: architects charge a lot money and make a lot of money!
From what I observed not a lot of people know the construction industry is in the toilet. When I tell them it is almost impossible to get a job in the architecture/construction industry I see the surprised look on their faces! It may be a naive question but how do people make these assumptions? And how can it be corrected?
Change the reality? I'm not sure that's possible but that's another topic of discussion. I think public education on architecture is important because I've been asked countless times "what really architects do"!
you get what you pay for - the public wants everything for cheap or 'free'. So the fact that we charge a few % upfront compared to contractors burying the 'design' fees in the bid, we seem expensive.
Compared to a manager at a restaurant or a waitress, architects DO make a lot of money. Comparatively, a manager at an Architecture firm (senior architect) almost certainly pulls in US 80,000 and a partner or associate can make well over 100,000.
Also, architects get paid to draw.
Architects can charge more than 150$ an hour for their services (as far as the client is concerned) and a restaurant manager makes typically, 30/hr.
The living wage for a family of four is $40,000
There are a lot of overpaid people in the US, generally because there is a lot of money floating around, most of this money gets wasted on consumer goods and status symbols.
Architects are paid well but society expects them to be paid VERY well, I think this is why many architects are dissatisfied with their income as they constantly underachieve (driving a toyota instead of a bmw are you?) in the eyes of the Joneses.
That said, there are architects pulling in HUGE amounts of money... you do indeed create your own reality.
Changing *the* reality is possible but requires convincing hundreds of thousands of people that they are worth more than they have been led to believe! That scale of persuasion usually requires a drastic shift to anchor on, like maybe a newsweek story about an architect and his family moving onto the street and working full time to pay their student loans...
What do you mean by this? Do you mean that drawing is easy? And if so, easy compared to what? This statement is too general for a naked assertion, never mind something backed up with observations, facts, examples. One can DRAW a stick figure or one can DRAW a nuclear reactor.
I would say that architects get paid to think, not draw. If you're merely drawing, then you're not an architect, you're a draftsman. And consquently, you should get paid little, because it IS relatively easy to draw something like a WalMart. Drawings are merely how we communicate because, at the moment, they leave the least room for misinterpretation. But that does not mean we 'get paid to draw.'
Also, I think your references to salaries are a little skewed. Actual salaries are by and large contingent on context [where one is based, the kind of architecture one practices, where the projects are coming from] and actual salaries vary widely. I think the notion of putting $80k and $100 on senior architects and associates is so general as to be useless.
Also, and here we're getting back to the point of the thread, $80 -$100 K is STARTING salary for a banker, lawyer or doctor, not when they've been in the profession for 15-20 years. A more accurate assessment would have been to compare the $80 K to the $250k of a mid-senior level lawyer or non-WallStreet businessman.
I think this is the reason for the assumptions by the general public:
Architects have a relatively compatible education with other white collar professionals. [Viz. 5 years of barch 2 years of masters, 3 years worth of internship, 7 exams, etc compared with 4 years bachelors, 2 years master, bar exam etc]
The public has a fairly good idea about what lawyers, doctors, and businessmen make because these professions are more immediate, more people use them more often. Comparately fewer people in the States will ever work in a building designed by an architect, let alone live in one.
Thus, architects are more invisible, therefore, as they are seen as another white collar job, people just assume they make a comparative amount, and as most are never privy to the fee structures, contractual apparatuses, salaries, that assumption isn't likely to change anytime soon.
As far as persuasion goes, architecture is seen as a nice to have, not a necessity, lawyers, doctors, engineers, and businessmen all provide percieved necessities, consequently they can charge a much higher fee. So to change this, the notion of design needs revision, but you cannot change the mind of the general public, if even a lot of architects separate 'design' from necessity.
loremipsum - jp is right, you're way off base. case in point: i don't really draw all that much.
facilitating the construction of a client's project is my job, and the tasks it demands go way beyond drawing. i personally, over the past couple of weeks:
-written specs,
-reviewed and coordinated drawing sets from all consultants on a high school project,
-prepared estimates,
-marketed our firm, both through letter writing and interviews,
-managed staff hours (and staff dramas),
-researched, absorbed, and built an argument based on state law re: how our project conformed to procurement guidelines,
-inspected roofs and roof structure (involving a day spent in a floorless, lightless school attic),
-learned about the workings of veterinary clinics and all of the equipment they require,
-helped clients understand how much money they really had and helped them with documentation to apply for grants and find other sources,
-researched high-performance floor coatings (because technical reps were knowledgeable enough to tell me how they could be expected to perform)
-defended change orders driven by existing conditions in 7pm school board meetings
-etc, etc
i don't think i'm owed greater pay, necessarily, but i do agree with some here that much of the general public has no idea how much we do in shepherding projects into existence. sounds like you don't either.
'Architects get paid to draw' was not meant to be a statement taken literally.
I mean that architecture is something that is a passion for *some* people, similar to the work of an artist, and that it is romanticized in pop culture.
There are few restaurant managers who pull all nighters planning their back of house schedules for the next week.
Steven Ward I am surprised that you accomplish anything let alone 'shepharding projects into existence' considering how much time you spend reading internet forums.
i remember my first day of class in one of my architecture history classes. My professor said, "if you're here to be an architect and make a lot of money, then i suggest you find another field of study." I guess he couldn't be more right. Now i'm just a measley drafter a.k.a (cad monkey) drawing lines all day. Thank god for the ortho command, because my lines would be all screwed up after a few beers.
I don't think neccessarily think that Architects are somehow the most misunderstood of all professions.
There are perceptions of practically all professions, both negative and positive. I know some contractors think that Architects make a lot of money, so its not just people not in our field. Of course, I know architects that think contractors make a lot of money too.
Here is a survey of an existing building I did that is "worth" more than a lot of beautiful paintings I can't afford (worth in terms of Hours spent on surveying the structure multiplied by $ per hour). So its not the act or aesthetics of drawing that is associated with the value, but the information provided in the sketch:
outside of the drawing comment in loremipsum's post (which seems to have been given far more weight than with which it was written), i agree. we charge clients a lot of money for our services; we don't make a huge income proportional to what we charge, but then again to compare ourselves to someone in the financial or health care industries is pointless. i have little doubt that most of us after becoming registered will make quite a bit more money than the restaurant manager that started this thread. it's all relative, and quite frankly, i think if there's one thing we should all learn from this recession is to appreciate what we do have and not envy the guy across the way who seemingly has more. isn't that how we got ourselves into this mess?
Slart - I can set up a laser scanner in that space you are depicting and within the course of a day have a completely accurate 3D CAD as built for about $500. I don't think your sketch is worth anything near that considering the information it gives me.
I was being a bit cheeky. This is just one of the sketches for the building. The survey also includes photos and notes, and resulted in a complete BIM model. This was also a pro-bono job, so the labor is much cheaper than equipment. This happened to be one of the scans I had lying around, but I've done many surveys like this that weren't pro-bono. The POINT is that its about information and intelligence, not the act of drawing itself. Whether that information and intelligence is from High-tech or Low-tech methods is not the point I was making.
I just realized the attorney's on one of my projects made $100,000.00 compared to my meger $10,000 dollar fee for a planning and zoning exercise....so I guess the money isn't in planning and zoning drawings.
generally people assume that those who are educated with professional jobs make a healthy living. While there are architects that make a lot of money, there are 25 architects to that one that make jack shit doing all of the work for the one that makes all the money. architects are generally too ignorant to power structures and money to make it for themselves, and therefore this will never change. the public perception is due to those architects who actually make money, and they are not the type to reject society and only talk to other architects. the architects who dont make money dont interact with people outside of architecture as much and this compounds the problem.
furthermore, architecture schools are mostly run by anti-capitalist, pseudo-communist type professors who dont have a large practice and who have been in academia for their entire lives. as long as the rejection of money attitude is promoted in schools, we are going to continue to see the market of architecture jobs remain the same. it is self inflicted and architects need to wise up.
well, i could talk about this guy i knew..or i could answer the question which is about a general grouping. i know it is hard to accept the reality of this profession but it needs to be addressed and not swept under the rug like has been for so long. i know developers straight out of school who pay more money in taxes each year than the average architects starting salary. this is sad because architects are "generally" more educated and harder workers. like i said, it all starts with the schools. we are currently being taught by a generation of hippies and those who grew up thinking communism might have been a good idea. the architects who make money understand the game.
anti-capitalist, pseudo-communist type professors who dont have a large practice and who have been in academia for their entire lives.
yeah, that's me. So why have I bothered helping my students understand where the career opportunities are these days or how to monetize their education?
Maybe, I was was practicing for too long before climbing into the ivory tower...
Some of those profs are pretty savvy capitalists - have you seen what schools pay some of them? Insane for the time they actually teach. Granted, that is like a rock star odds, but it does happen.
Personally, I can't see how things will change. The people that want to make a better living will simply leave the profession and find something else, then maybe come back at it later in life and do their own thing (my plan in motion). They are doing this more and more.
With this latest depression, I think it'll take even longer as there are so many out there now without work, so many graduating each year, that the market will be saturated, lowering the compensation/pay even further.
Schools need to teach diversity. There is too much of the 'do everything' mentality in architecture that just can't survive. Business is also something painfully absent from the education.
Kill theory, replace it with business knowledge! Basic theory is more than enough, but no business knowledge is ridiculous.
But that won't happen, then many of the profs will be out of life long jobs.
teaching is only 1/3rd of the typical 'workload' for a professor - research and outreach are the less visible things that we 'do'. Many of the babyboomer profs will be retiring in the next 6-8 years. Then who will teach the millennials?
and i cant believe someone just posted "communism is a good idea and someday it will be"
i am not right wing, but to say that makes you a total idiot. grow up out of you world of utopian books..has it occurred to you WHY it has never worked? the system we have is failing because of the neo-liberal ideology worshiped by the financial world..this will change, but if you think it will change to communism, or want that, you deserve not to make any money and work 80 hours and week and not enjoy your life...you simply deserve that shit if you want it.
@ loremipsum "The living wage for a family of four is $40,000"
You really do not know what you are talking about, do you? Lets do some bare-minimum monthly calcs:
40k a year = 26k after taxes = $2166
1. Minimum Monthly rent for a 3-bedroom house (im not talking NY or LA or SF here) = $1500
2. Gas Expense and Insurance, for say, 2 cars = $600 (or public transport)
3. Utilities - Gas, Electricity, Internet = $300
4. Food for 4 = $400
The total for these bare-minimum necessities, in a smaller US town, then is $2800.
I believe in most other larger towns, where there are more architectural jobs this amount would easily go upto $4500 per month. Which is easily about 85K a year
come to detroit where you can buy a house for $1500. (although if you have two kids you probably don't want to send them to the detroit public schools.) even if you buy something decent for $100,000, you are paying about $450/month in mortgage. all of you paying $1500/month in rent are loco. and two cars? are you kidding me? why? there is another way. live below your means.
I don't know of a place that has a 40% tax rate as the average tax rate of the united states is 34.5%-- 0.5% different than the average tax rate of the UK.
(Kind of odd that we had a whole revolution and ended up in almost similar conditions... except the fact that the UK has a much higher standard of living.)
By your description, the only places I can imagine is some place like Modesto, California. The living wage for Modesto is $58,000 yearly with approximately $864 a month spent on housing.
That's $58k yearly before taxes. The tax calculation should be about $5,000 with a post-tax income of 53,000 dollars.
San Fransisco is $68k pre-tax, $62k post-tax. Housing is suppose to run about $1500 a month.
The big difference was the cost of transportation. The calculator showed a $300 difference between Modesto and San Fransisco. But that's a lie.
If you could find a good location in San Fransisco, You could nearly eliminate your transportation costs. And the 800 a month you'd be saving would more than make up the difference in rent costs.
Overall though, jobs in San Fransisco pay more.
But again, I thoroughly stress the point of car dependence. In a place like Modesto, it may not even be possible to have a single-car family.
Essentially, the "living wage" concept is the amount of money it takes to live comfortably-- that is, the amount of money to be able to afford shelter, food, childcare, medical expenses and then to be able to actually have money for some fun and a social life.
You can live below your means and that's a noble argument... but a service-based economy relies on people having "fun" even if fun is getting hamburgers or drinking PBR at a biker bar.
The phrase "the neo-liberal ideology worshiped by the financial world" is making my head spin. Please bring your awesome powers of conceptual clarity to bear on these words. Thanks in advance.
jafidler, if you could give me a little bit of your time and explain how a family of four could live within a $40k paycheck, I would really appreciate it.
I am ready to live below my means if its possible to support a family of four with 40k, in the US.
orochi is right. it's purely based on the location of where you live. sameolddoctor, i think you're estimate of $2166 per month is a little low. remember that with a family of four you are going to have four tax exemptions, and you would be deducting all of the interest off your mortgage payments as well. my guess is you would be paying zero federal income tax (but you would still be paying ss, medcare/caid, etc.). i think you could safely say $2400 per month.
after that you have to find a house within walking distance to your work or public transit for between $100,000-150,000 (put 10-20% down). that will put your 30-year fixed mortgage at $450-700 per month. because you are walking to work, you have only one car. buy that car out right (do not buy on credit and definitely do not lease). i'm a fan of the $2,000-3,000 used car, but if you are worried about safety or maintenance spend around $5,000. outside of the initial cost, you will pay about $200 per month in insurance, gas, and maintenance, so let's call it $300 per month factoring in the initial investment. your utilities estimate is about right - $300 per month. i would actually spend more on food for a family of four - say $500 per month. then you will need to buy clothes and other miscellaneous purchases - $200 per month. even taking my high estimates the total comes to about $2,000 per month - well below the $2400 month estimate (put the rest in some sort of savings).
i see so many young people moving off to new york, l.a., san francisco, etc. after graduation and throwing ridiculous sums of money away on rent. i actually see this a much larger societal problem; it creates a major limitation on creativity and innovation where many of this country's best essentially become wage slaves to maintain an unsustainable lifestyle. imagine if these people could live on $40,000 per year how many new offices you would see spring up and not simply the offices that do bread and butter work to pay the bills, but firms that are contributing real ideas and innovation.
We sort-of* managed to survive for almost a year on $40K in Mpls with my family of 3 (we rent). The only new debt we accumulated was some unexpected car repairs. Finally years of living like/as grad students is ending.
*no health coverage for the wife, all student loans on forbearance, one cheap car being paid off, not replacing stolen car for 6 months, not eating out, no babysitters, no coffee from a cafe, brownbag lunches, 3-buck chuck, no vet care for my sick cat, no new clothes...
One other societal side-effect of everybody graduating with high student loan debt is not having the option to go work for a non-profit or other low paying/high social reward job.
"i see so many young people moving off to new york, l.a., san francisco, etc. after graduation and throwing ridiculous sums of money away on rent. i actually see this a much larger societal problem; it creates a major limitation on creativity and innovation where many of this country's best essentially become wage slaves to maintain an unsustainable lifestyle."
Societal problem, yes.
Where does it create a major limitation on creativity and innovation? Is it because it is killing the demand for typical American past times?
There's two problems with urban real estate-- Cost And availability.
This can and sometimes is an issue with real estate development (and by extension, architects) that the general public laments.
Pushing aesthetics aside, new development jacks up property values which in turns jacks up rent. But here is the most clever and often deceptively hidden part-- new development can also lower real estate values of comparable properties.
How is a 100-year old apartment building going to compete with a brand new high-rise that has a pool, a gym and a library?
The big reason a lot of young people are moving to "big" cities is because of a few simple things...
the car has been rendered a boon to life-- it is no longer fun to drive, safety has become so restrictive, it is far more expensive than accounting estimations lead you to believe, most younger people realize that the car is a major threat (both environmentally and also to your health) and the cost-benefit analysis of it is really starting to wear thin.
From the moment I started typing this til this sentence, 3 people have died and another 3 to 5 people have been seriously injured or permanently disabled by cars.
Cash economies make more sense when you're poor and or creditless.
The current buy a home, invest your money and credit concept does not work for younger people overburdened with debts-- past (college), present (must have monthly expenses that aren't a part of general home economics even 20 years ago) and future (all the things we have to pay for through taxes, rate hikes and botched government interference).
Credit has essentially shackled an entire generation to the floor.
This is what big cities generally promise and have the social and economic capital to support is that you never need to make an investment, save money or apply for credit. Cash is king.
Access to social and economic capital-- if you can't grasp any concept as to why suburban America sucks in this regard, well... I can't help you.
Cities have a pretty fair access to social capital (tradition, nightlife, mobility) and economic capital (factories, specialized services, bulk goods) that enables younger people to have more chances and to do things unavailable to them in the suburbs.
If anything, high-density urbanism has proven to be a pretty good option for Young America. And I believe it provides a lot of sustainability (in different ways) and stability.
But I apologize if that goes counter your generations worldviews and their failure to participate drives your investments into the ground and bankrupts your way of life.
But I apologize if that goes counter your generations worldviews and their failure to participate drives your investments into the ground and bankrupts your way of life.
i'm not sure if you are addressing this at me or not. "my generation?" i'm 32.
my criticism is not targeted at urban density, but rather at debt and needless expense limiting creativity by making young people averse to the financial risk of entrepreneurship. i love new york, l.a., san francisco, but there is no way in hell i would go to those cities to start a business. most of my friends living in those places pay 50-75% of their income in rent. think of it this way, if you are spending $18,000 per year in rent (your concept of a cash economy), you could very easily buy a house in other parts of the country in a few short years and never have to think about "rent" again. sure, these cities are exciting and the places where our architectural heroes have their practices, but who would you rather work for? them or you? the more you can do to unburden yourself of debt and economic excess the closer you get to creative freedom.
It seems the discussion is losing the direction...
Anyway,
here is my observation about "The assumptions of the general public about the architecture profession".
General public think architecture is superficial, because most of "smart" architects keep insisting architecture is a depthless image.
If architects themselves are insisting architecture is superficial, how architects can complain that other people believe what architects say and treat architects as such?
Wait!
does they, in fact, mean "architecture is profound" when they say "architecture is depthless(not profound)"?
Then, when they say "we know architecture", does they mean "we don't know architecture"?
By the way, about the wage of architecture professors, I think, my professors worked more than what they get paid, and they didn't say "architecture is depthless" even though one of my most favorite professors told me some of architects are depthless.
fku2 -- neoliberal economic ideology is based in the idea that markets, not governments, are the most efficient managers of markets. This point of view has dominated financial management in the US since Reagan took power. Taking a poke at it is mental's way of claiming to be moderate.
Ok then, to the original topic: The general public doesn't have a very good idea of what architecture is about, because the general public doesn't consume the work of architects. That's a bold claim, but let me try to substantiate it.
I like this claim: "I get paid to draw." (I also facetiously made one like it in another thread). Steven gave us a great list above of the work he actually does. EIther way, what part of the public actually consumes these works? How many people can read architectural drawings? How many of us could read a set of CDs when we had just finished school?
Let me try it this way: If you see the work that architects do as the buildings high-school friends live and work in, then you come from a very particular socioeconomic background. The rest of us have to work for a living.
This is the reason why we are bickering about the relationship between income and cost of living like a bunch of sociology undergrads. Our expectations about lifestyle are set by our peers, not by statistical indices, however marginally adjusted to our particulars. So the quips about developers and construction managers are really the most appropriate -- these are the people we are developing power relationships with, and they measure those relationships in financial terms.
The public still thinks architects do 'a lot of math', that they make a lot of money (and hence must live in the homes that they design). I've yet to meet anyone that thought otherwise (that wasn't already exposed to the truth).
I agree the general public doesn't consume 'architecture', they inhabit 'buildings', which is what 99% of this industry creates.
And yes, the association between architects and their clients, particularly wealthy developers, helps to promote this fallacy.
Referencing the Friend and Foe thread...I think interior designers can/do break out of this mold and actually make the money relative to their clientele (no proof).
...and another pointless post....I need to get another cup of coffee
I drew up some house addition plans for a family member so they could get some bids. Here's what I'm at for working hours for an approx 1,000 sf addition (plans/elev only).
Survey of existing house - 2 hours
Interview client/outline program - 2 hours
Schematic sketches - 2-3 hours
Review of sketches w/client - 2 hours
Make revisisions - 2 hours
Client approval mtg - 1 hours
CAD Setup - 0.5 hours
Enter sketches into CAD - 1-2 hours
Client changes mind/new review meeting - 1 hours
Edit DD CAD drawings - 1 hour
This is a conservative esitmate of time worked and I'm already at 15+ hours. This also does not include the undocumented hours that I just "thought" about the project coming up with design ideas in my head, later transfered to sketches.
What's your time worth? One family member that I'm doing this for works in sales, is paid $90k/year + company car. Not including the car that income is over $43/hr for std. 40 hour week, not including taxes, benefits, etc.
Now if I said my 15 hours of work was worth $650 ($43.33/hr) I'm sure this same family member client would think that's an outrageous sum for 3 measly drawings, yet he knows I bill out at over $100 for my day job....and I don't make $90k/year.
The reason you bill out higher than you salary at your day job is because the firm factors in things like insurance and overhead into your billing per hour.
When you're working for yourself, you don't have to pay out for office space, lighting, insurance etc, therefore the fee can be lower and most of it still goes directly into your pocket. If your client is in 'sales' then he/she probably realizes this.
I'd encourage you to have a discussion with your boss about how the firm reaches the $X per hour, but only $X amount goes to you. Most firms should be fairly transparent about this with their employees, if not their clients. The day may come when you're asked to do some resource allocation and you would need to know this.
jplourde - I understand how the multiplier on hourly wages work to cover all the overhead expenses. Unfortunately most people do not. I would wager a majority of people don't realize that for every cent of tax witholdings on their paycheck their employer pays an equal amount as well.
Working in self employment also requires a much higher billable wage as suddenly you have to pay 100% of those taxes and cover all your own overhead and benefits. Sure, the overhead for things like office rent is less or zero if working from home, but I sure wouldn't work for my current hourly wage if working in self employment.
The point remains the same. The general public looks at what they get, i.e. a set of drawings, and places a perceived value on it. They don't take into account the amount of hours taken to come up with those plans or all the myriad of other unrelated expenses.
While most professionals out there think their time is worth $30, $40, $50/hour or more they don't look at Architect's the same way. Our "product" is worth X in their minds regardless of hours worked.
Although we like to think we are selling a service, most laymen think we sell a product. Not sure people perceive Doctors and Lawyers the same way.
Ah, sorry, you're post seemed to imply naivete, but I see you meant naivete on the part of the client, not yourself.
In terms of paying for a finite product [dare I say 'object'] versus paying for a process, even the typical architecture contract is designed to be finite and object based.
In very crude terms:
FEE = goal [whether thats a building, scheme design, feasibility study etc.] x hours worked to accomplish said goal x multipliers
However, the 'goal' is always measured in quantifible information, IE a set of construction docs and specifications. I'll wager that almost no clients are willing to sign a contract that is process based, as it's much harder to define and they aren't exactly sure what they will get out of it.
Thus, designs are almost always thought of as static objects, rather than non-linear processes, even by ourselves. So the question really is, how do we convince the client to pay for a non-linear process when the very essence of a non-linear process dictates that you don't know the outcome right at the very beginning. It entails an enormous amount of trust on both ends.
It's analogous to the difference between fossil fuel energy and sustainable energy. How does the electric utility measure solar power before it's hit the earth? It's much easier to project returns on petrol-fuels that have been in catalytic cracking for a year.
You're right, jplourde, about clients not wanting/understanding that they are paying for a process. It's important for clients to understand that the process involves a lot more rejection than creation: we may plow through six schemes before we get to the seventh one that really works, but the client never sees the stuff we throw away. And because we make it look easy, they don't understand why it costs so much.
The assumptions of the general public about the architecture profession..
I was talking to my restaurant manager the other day and in the conversation I mentioned I was an architecture student so she started talking about how her architect friends had such nice jobs, made lots of money and lived an awesome life blah blah..(I'm a busgirl at that restaurant by the way) And this other lady who was renting a room in her house asked me if I was going to move to the city when I graduate in December and "become an architect".I told her it was really expensive in NYC and she asked me why I'd have difficulty renting a place over there since "we" charge "a lot" for our services. I heard the same thing from another couple of people: architects charge a lot money and make a lot of money!
From what I observed not a lot of people know the construction industry is in the toilet. When I tell them it is almost impossible to get a job in the architecture/construction industry I see the surprised look on their faces! It may be a naive question but how do people make these assumptions? And how can it be corrected?
Why do you want to change the "assumption" ... isn't it more important to change the "reality"?
Change the reality? I'm not sure that's possible but that's another topic of discussion. I think public education on architecture is important because I've been asked countless times "what really architects do"!
you get what you pay for - the public wants everything for cheap or 'free'. So the fact that we charge a few % upfront compared to contractors burying the 'design' fees in the bid, we seem expensive.
Alright...
Compared to a manager at a restaurant or a waitress, architects DO make a lot of money. Comparatively, a manager at an Architecture firm (senior architect) almost certainly pulls in US 80,000 and a partner or associate can make well over 100,000.
Also, architects get paid to draw.
Architects can charge more than 150$ an hour for their services (as far as the client is concerned) and a restaurant manager makes typically, 30/hr.
The living wage for a family of four is $40,000
There are a lot of overpaid people in the US, generally because there is a lot of money floating around, most of this money gets wasted on consumer goods and status symbols.
Architects are paid well but society expects them to be paid VERY well, I think this is why many architects are dissatisfied with their income as they constantly underachieve (driving a toyota instead of a bmw are you?) in the eyes of the Joneses.
That said, there are architects pulling in HUGE amounts of money... you do indeed create your own reality.
Changing *the* reality is possible but requires convincing hundreds of thousands of people that they are worth more than they have been led to believe! That scale of persuasion usually requires a drastic shift to anchor on, like maybe a newsweek story about an architect and his family moving onto the street and working full time to pay their student loans...
''Also, architects get paid to draw.''
What do you mean by this? Do you mean that drawing is easy? And if so, easy compared to what? This statement is too general for a naked assertion, never mind something backed up with observations, facts, examples. One can DRAW a stick figure or one can DRAW a nuclear reactor.
I would say that architects get paid to think, not draw. If you're merely drawing, then you're not an architect, you're a draftsman. And consquently, you should get paid little, because it IS relatively easy to draw something like a WalMart. Drawings are merely how we communicate because, at the moment, they leave the least room for misinterpretation. But that does not mean we 'get paid to draw.'
Also, I think your references to salaries are a little skewed. Actual salaries are by and large contingent on context [where one is based, the kind of architecture one practices, where the projects are coming from] and actual salaries vary widely. I think the notion of putting $80k and $100 on senior architects and associates is so general as to be useless.
Also, and here we're getting back to the point of the thread, $80 -$100 K is STARTING salary for a banker, lawyer or doctor, not when they've been in the profession for 15-20 years. A more accurate assessment would have been to compare the $80 K to the $250k of a mid-senior level lawyer or non-WallStreet businessman.
I think this is the reason for the assumptions by the general public:
Architects have a relatively compatible education with other white collar professionals. [Viz. 5 years of barch 2 years of masters, 3 years worth of internship, 7 exams, etc compared with 4 years bachelors, 2 years master, bar exam etc]
The public has a fairly good idea about what lawyers, doctors, and businessmen make because these professions are more immediate, more people use them more often. Comparately fewer people in the States will ever work in a building designed by an architect, let alone live in one.
Thus, architects are more invisible, therefore, as they are seen as another white collar job, people just assume they make a comparative amount, and as most are never privy to the fee structures, contractual apparatuses, salaries, that assumption isn't likely to change anytime soon.
As far as persuasion goes, architecture is seen as a nice to have, not a necessity, lawyers, doctors, engineers, and businessmen all provide percieved necessities, consequently they can charge a much higher fee. So to change this, the notion of design needs revision, but you cannot change the mind of the general public, if even a lot of architects separate 'design' from necessity.
loremipsum - jp is right, you're way off base. case in point: i don't really draw all that much.
facilitating the construction of a client's project is my job, and the tasks it demands go way beyond drawing. i personally, over the past couple of weeks:
-written specs,
-reviewed and coordinated drawing sets from all consultants on a high school project,
-prepared estimates,
-marketed our firm, both through letter writing and interviews,
-managed staff hours (and staff dramas),
-researched, absorbed, and built an argument based on state law re: how our project conformed to procurement guidelines,
-inspected roofs and roof structure (involving a day spent in a floorless, lightless school attic),
-learned about the workings of veterinary clinics and all of the equipment they require,
-helped clients understand how much money they really had and helped them with documentation to apply for grants and find other sources,
-researched high-performance floor coatings (because technical reps were knowledgeable enough to tell me how they could be expected to perform)
-defended change orders driven by existing conditions in 7pm school board meetings
-etc, etc
i don't think i'm owed greater pay, necessarily, but i do agree with some here that much of the general public has no idea how much we do in shepherding projects into existence. sounds like you don't either.
Case :
'Architects get paid to draw' was not meant to be a statement taken literally.
I mean that architecture is something that is a passion for *some* people, similar to the work of an artist, and that it is romanticized in pop culture.
There are few restaurant managers who pull all nighters planning their back of house schedules for the next week.
Steven Ward I am surprised that you accomplish anything let alone 'shepharding projects into existence' considering how much time you spend reading internet forums.
BAM!
That shit was easy.
forum, singular, loremipsum. just this one.
all i can say to that is: i'm good. (...and it's a waiting-on-the-phone kind of day.)
i remember my first day of class in one of my architecture history classes. My professor said, "if you're here to be an architect and make a lot of money, then i suggest you find another field of study." I guess he couldn't be more right. Now i'm just a measley drafter a.k.a (cad monkey) drawing lines all day. Thank god for the ortho command, because my lines would be all screwed up after a few beers.
fku2 - that shit is a masterpiece!
I don't think neccessarily think that Architects are somehow the most misunderstood of all professions.
There are perceptions of practically all professions, both negative and positive. I know some contractors think that Architects make a lot of money, so its not just people not in our field. Of course, I know architects that think contractors make a lot of money too.
Here is a survey of an existing building I did that is "worth" more than a lot of beautiful paintings I can't afford (worth in terms of Hours spent on surveying the structure multiplied by $ per hour). So its not the act or aesthetics of drawing that is associated with the value, but the information provided in the sketch:
outside of the drawing comment in loremipsum's post (which seems to have been given far more weight than with which it was written), i agree. we charge clients a lot of money for our services; we don't make a huge income proportional to what we charge, but then again to compare ourselves to someone in the financial or health care industries is pointless. i have little doubt that most of us after becoming registered will make quite a bit more money than the restaurant manager that started this thread. it's all relative, and quite frankly, i think if there's one thing we should all learn from this recession is to appreciate what we do have and not envy the guy across the way who seemingly has more. isn't that how we got ourselves into this mess?
Slart - I can set up a laser scanner in that space you are depicting and within the course of a day have a completely accurate 3D CAD as built for about $500. I don't think your sketch is worth anything near that considering the information it gives me.
I was being a bit cheeky. This is just one of the sketches for the building. The survey also includes photos and notes, and resulted in a complete BIM model. This was also a pro-bono job, so the labor is much cheaper than equipment. This happened to be one of the scans I had lying around, but I've done many surveys like this that weren't pro-bono. The POINT is that its about information and intelligence, not the act of drawing itself. Whether that information and intelligence is from High-tech or Low-tech methods is not the point I was making.
I just realized the attorney's on one of my projects made $100,000.00 compared to my meger $10,000 dollar fee for a planning and zoning exercise....so I guess the money isn't in planning and zoning drawings.
oh ya and the project is now in the judical loop.. go figure...
generally people assume that those who are educated with professional jobs make a healthy living. While there are architects that make a lot of money, there are 25 architects to that one that make jack shit doing all of the work for the one that makes all the money. architects are generally too ignorant to power structures and money to make it for themselves, and therefore this will never change. the public perception is due to those architects who actually make money, and they are not the type to reject society and only talk to other architects. the architects who dont make money dont interact with people outside of architecture as much and this compounds the problem.
furthermore, architecture schools are mostly run by anti-capitalist, pseudo-communist type professors who dont have a large practice and who have been in academia for their entire lives. as long as the rejection of money attitude is promoted in schools, we are going to continue to see the market of architecture jobs remain the same. it is self inflicted and architects need to wise up.
let the generalizations fly!
well, i could talk about this guy i knew..or i could answer the question which is about a general grouping. i know it is hard to accept the reality of this profession but it needs to be addressed and not swept under the rug like has been for so long. i know developers straight out of school who pay more money in taxes each year than the average architects starting salary. this is sad because architects are "generally" more educated and harder workers. like i said, it all starts with the schools. we are currently being taught by a generation of hippies and those who grew up thinking communism might have been a good idea. the architects who make money understand the game.
hippies?: http://www.uky.edu/Design/newfaculty.html
Two things;
1. It is so stupid to accuse somebody for spending time in a public forum with yet another post.
2. Communism is a good idea and someday it will be put in action the way it was intended.
the only assumption I know is correct is that architects are sexy as hell.
yeah, that's me. So why have I bothered helping my students understand where the career opportunities are these days or how to monetize their education?
Maybe, I was was practicing for too long before climbing into the ivory tower...
oh yes, hippies:
don't let that suit fool you, it's 100% hemp.
Some of those profs are pretty savvy capitalists - have you seen what schools pay some of them? Insane for the time they actually teach. Granted, that is like a rock star odds, but it does happen.
Personally, I can't see how things will change. The people that want to make a better living will simply leave the profession and find something else, then maybe come back at it later in life and do their own thing (my plan in motion). They are doing this more and more.
With this latest depression, I think it'll take even longer as there are so many out there now without work, so many graduating each year, that the market will be saturated, lowering the compensation/pay even further.
Schools need to teach diversity. There is too much of the 'do everything' mentality in architecture that just can't survive. Business is also something painfully absent from the education.
Kill theory, replace it with business knowledge! Basic theory is more than enough, but no business knowledge is ridiculous.
But that won't happen, then many of the profs will be out of life long jobs.
teaching is only 1/3rd of the typical 'workload' for a professor - research and outreach are the less visible things that we 'do'. Many of the babyboomer profs will be retiring in the next 6-8 years. Then who will teach the millennials?
for those responding to my post, notice how you guys respond with one example. my point was about a majority, not all.
and i cant believe someone just posted "communism is a good idea and someday it will be"
i am not right wing, but to say that makes you a total idiot. grow up out of you world of utopian books..has it occurred to you WHY it has never worked? the system we have is failing because of the neo-liberal ideology worshiped by the financial world..this will change, but if you think it will change to communism, or want that, you deserve not to make any money and work 80 hours and week and not enjoy your life...you simply deserve that shit if you want it.
my example was of several active teaching faculty, not one.
steven, it looks like michael speaks is starting to do some good things at UK...
@ loremipsum "The living wage for a family of four is $40,000"
You really do not know what you are talking about, do you? Lets do some bare-minimum monthly calcs:
40k a year = 26k after taxes = $2166
1. Minimum Monthly rent for a 3-bedroom house (im not talking NY or LA or SF here) = $1500
2. Gas Expense and Insurance, for say, 2 cars = $600 (or public transport)
3. Utilities - Gas, Electricity, Internet = $300
4. Food for 4 = $400
The total for these bare-minimum necessities, in a smaller US town, then is $2800.
I believe in most other larger towns, where there are more architectural jobs this amount would easily go upto $4500 per month. Which is easily about 85K a year
A de facto stupid not right wing mental case waiting for godot and a communist hippy total idiot!
that's what the public think of us architects!!!
come to detroit where you can buy a house for $1500. (although if you have two kids you probably don't want to send them to the detroit public schools.) even if you buy something decent for $100,000, you are paying about $450/month in mortgage. all of you paying $1500/month in rent are loco. and two cars? are you kidding me? why? there is another way. live below your means.
technically, the living wage depends on location.
I don't know of a place that has a 40% tax rate as the average tax rate of the united states is 34.5%-- 0.5% different than the average tax rate of the UK.
(Kind of odd that we had a whole revolution and ended up in almost similar conditions... except the fact that the UK has a much higher standard of living.)
By your description, the only places I can imagine is some place like Modesto, California. The living wage for Modesto is $58,000 yearly with approximately $864 a month spent on housing.
That's $58k yearly before taxes. The tax calculation should be about $5,000 with a post-tax income of 53,000 dollars.
San Fransisco is $68k pre-tax, $62k post-tax. Housing is suppose to run about $1500 a month.
The big difference was the cost of transportation. The calculator showed a $300 difference between Modesto and San Fransisco. But that's a lie.
If you could find a good location in San Fransisco, You could nearly eliminate your transportation costs. And the 800 a month you'd be saving would more than make up the difference in rent costs.
Overall though, jobs in San Fransisco pay more.
But again, I thoroughly stress the point of car dependence. In a place like Modesto, it may not even be possible to have a single-car family.
Essentially, the "living wage" concept is the amount of money it takes to live comfortably-- that is, the amount of money to be able to afford shelter, food, childcare, medical expenses and then to be able to actually have money for some fun and a social life.
You can live below your means and that's a noble argument... but a service-based economy relies on people having "fun" even if fun is getting hamburgers or drinking PBR at a biker bar.
Dear Intelectual Architect,
The phrase "the neo-liberal ideology worshiped by the financial world" is making my head spin. Please bring your awesome powers of conceptual clarity to bear on these words. Thanks in advance.
jafidler, if you could give me a little bit of your time and explain how a family of four could live within a $40k paycheck, I would really appreciate it.
I am ready to live below my means if its possible to support a family of four with 40k, in the US.
Where in the US though?
Becuase 40 grand will get you very far in New Mexico or Wyoming.
orochi is right. it's purely based on the location of where you live. sameolddoctor, i think you're estimate of $2166 per month is a little low. remember that with a family of four you are going to have four tax exemptions, and you would be deducting all of the interest off your mortgage payments as well. my guess is you would be paying zero federal income tax (but you would still be paying ss, medcare/caid, etc.). i think you could safely say $2400 per month.
after that you have to find a house within walking distance to your work or public transit for between $100,000-150,000 (put 10-20% down). that will put your 30-year fixed mortgage at $450-700 per month. because you are walking to work, you have only one car. buy that car out right (do not buy on credit and definitely do not lease). i'm a fan of the $2,000-3,000 used car, but if you are worried about safety or maintenance spend around $5,000. outside of the initial cost, you will pay about $200 per month in insurance, gas, and maintenance, so let's call it $300 per month factoring in the initial investment. your utilities estimate is about right - $300 per month. i would actually spend more on food for a family of four - say $500 per month. then you will need to buy clothes and other miscellaneous purchases - $200 per month. even taking my high estimates the total comes to about $2,000 per month - well below the $2400 month estimate (put the rest in some sort of savings).
i see so many young people moving off to new york, l.a., san francisco, etc. after graduation and throwing ridiculous sums of money away on rent. i actually see this a much larger societal problem; it creates a major limitation on creativity and innovation where many of this country's best essentially become wage slaves to maintain an unsustainable lifestyle. imagine if these people could live on $40,000 per year how many new offices you would see spring up and not simply the offices that do bread and butter work to pay the bills, but firms that are contributing real ideas and innovation.
We sort-of* managed to survive for almost a year on $40K in Mpls with my family of 3 (we rent). The only new debt we accumulated was some unexpected car repairs. Finally years of living like/as grad students is ending.
*no health coverage for the wife, all student loans on forbearance, one cheap car being paid off, not replacing stolen car for 6 months, not eating out, no babysitters, no coffee from a cafe, brownbag lunches, 3-buck chuck, no vet care for my sick cat, no new clothes...
One other societal side-effect of everybody graduating with high student loan debt is not having the option to go work for a non-profit or other low paying/high social reward job.
"i see so many young people moving off to new york, l.a., san francisco, etc. after graduation and throwing ridiculous sums of money away on rent. i actually see this a much larger societal problem; it creates a major limitation on creativity and innovation where many of this country's best essentially become wage slaves to maintain an unsustainable lifestyle."
Societal problem, yes.
Where does it create a major limitation on creativity and innovation? Is it because it is killing the demand for typical American past times?
There's two problems with urban real estate-- Cost And availability.
This can and sometimes is an issue with real estate development (and by extension, architects) that the general public laments.
Pushing aesthetics aside, new development jacks up property values which in turns jacks up rent. But here is the most clever and often deceptively hidden part-- new development can also lower real estate values of comparable properties.
How is a 100-year old apartment building going to compete with a brand new high-rise that has a pool, a gym and a library?
The big reason a lot of young people are moving to "big" cities is because of a few simple things...
the car has been rendered a boon to life-- it is no longer fun to drive, safety has become so restrictive, it is far more expensive than accounting estimations lead you to believe, most younger people realize that the car is a major threat (both environmentally and also to your health) and the cost-benefit analysis of it is really starting to wear thin.
From the moment I started typing this til this sentence, 3 people have died and another 3 to 5 people have been seriously injured or permanently disabled by cars.
Cash economies make more sense when you're poor and or creditless.
The current buy a home, invest your money and credit concept does not work for younger people overburdened with debts-- past (college), present (must have monthly expenses that aren't a part of general home economics even 20 years ago) and future (all the things we have to pay for through taxes, rate hikes and botched government interference).
Credit has essentially shackled an entire generation to the floor.
This is what big cities generally promise and have the social and economic capital to support is that you never need to make an investment, save money or apply for credit. Cash is king.
Access to social and economic capital-- if you can't grasp any concept as to why suburban America sucks in this regard, well... I can't help you.
Cities have a pretty fair access to social capital (tradition, nightlife, mobility) and economic capital (factories, specialized services, bulk goods) that enables younger people to have more chances and to do things unavailable to them in the suburbs.
If anything, high-density urbanism has proven to be a pretty good option for Young America. And I believe it provides a lot of sustainability (in different ways) and stability.
But I apologize if that goes counter your generations worldviews and their failure to participate drives your investments into the ground and bankrupts your way of life.
i'm not sure if you are addressing this at me or not. "my generation?" i'm 32.
my criticism is not targeted at urban density, but rather at debt and needless expense limiting creativity by making young people averse to the financial risk of entrepreneurship. i love new york, l.a., san francisco, but there is no way in hell i would go to those cities to start a business. most of my friends living in those places pay 50-75% of their income in rent. think of it this way, if you are spending $18,000 per year in rent (your concept of a cash economy), you could very easily buy a house in other parts of the country in a few short years and never have to think about "rent" again. sure, these cities are exciting and the places where our architectural heroes have their practices, but who would you rather work for? them or you? the more you can do to unburden yourself of debt and economic excess the closer you get to creative freedom.
^^^^^^^^^^^
"the more you can do to unburden yourself of debt and economic excess the closer you get to creative freedom."
I definitely second that.
Financial freedom= +++Assets ---Liabilities
http://www.amazon.com/Rich-Dad-Poor-Money-That-Middle/dp/0762434279/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&s=books&qid=1258932916&sr=8-1-spell
It seems the discussion is losing the direction...
Anyway,
here is my observation about "The assumptions of the general public about the architecture profession".
General public think architecture is superficial, because most of "smart" architects keep insisting architecture is a depthless image.
If architects themselves are insisting architecture is superficial, how architects can complain that other people believe what architects say and treat architects as such?
Wait!
does they, in fact, mean "architecture is profound" when they say "architecture is depthless(not profound)"?
Then, when they say "we know architecture", does they mean "we don't know architecture"?
By the way, about the wage of architecture professors, I think, my professors worked more than what they get paid, and they didn't say "architecture is depthless" even though one of my most favorite professors told me some of architects are depthless.
fku2 -- neoliberal economic ideology is based in the idea that markets, not governments, are the most efficient managers of markets. This point of view has dominated financial management in the US since Reagan took power. Taking a poke at it is mental's way of claiming to be moderate.
Ok then, to the original topic: The general public doesn't have a very good idea of what architecture is about, because the general public doesn't consume the work of architects. That's a bold claim, but let me try to substantiate it.
I like this claim: "I get paid to draw." (I also facetiously made one like it in another thread). Steven gave us a great list above of the work he actually does. EIther way, what part of the public actually consumes these works? How many people can read architectural drawings? How many of us could read a set of CDs when we had just finished school?
Let me try it this way: If you see the work that architects do as the buildings high-school friends live and work in, then you come from a very particular socioeconomic background. The rest of us have to work for a living.
This is the reason why we are bickering about the relationship between income and cost of living like a bunch of sociology undergrads. Our expectations about lifestyle are set by our peers, not by statistical indices, however marginally adjusted to our particulars. So the quips about developers and construction managers are really the most appropriate -- these are the people we are developing power relationships with, and they measure those relationships in financial terms.
The public still thinks architects do 'a lot of math', that they make a lot of money (and hence must live in the homes that they design). I've yet to meet anyone that thought otherwise (that wasn't already exposed to the truth).
I agree the general public doesn't consume 'architecture', they inhabit 'buildings', which is what 99% of this industry creates.
And yes, the association between architects and their clients, particularly wealthy developers, helps to promote this fallacy.
Referencing the Friend and Foe thread...I think interior designers can/do break out of this mold and actually make the money relative to their clientele (no proof).
...and another pointless post....I need to get another cup of coffee
Back to the original question -
I drew up some house addition plans for a family member so they could get some bids. Here's what I'm at for working hours for an approx 1,000 sf addition (plans/elev only).
Survey of existing house - 2 hours
Interview client/outline program - 2 hours
Schematic sketches - 2-3 hours
Review of sketches w/client - 2 hours
Make revisisions - 2 hours
Client approval mtg - 1 hours
CAD Setup - 0.5 hours
Enter sketches into CAD - 1-2 hours
Client changes mind/new review meeting - 1 hours
Edit DD CAD drawings - 1 hour
This is a conservative esitmate of time worked and I'm already at 15+ hours. This also does not include the undocumented hours that I just "thought" about the project coming up with design ideas in my head, later transfered to sketches.
What's your time worth? One family member that I'm doing this for works in sales, is paid $90k/year + company car. Not including the car that income is over $43/hr for std. 40 hour week, not including taxes, benefits, etc.
Now if I said my 15 hours of work was worth $650 ($43.33/hr) I'm sure this same family member client would think that's an outrageous sum for 3 measly drawings, yet he knows I bill out at over $100 for my day job....and I don't make $90k/year.
Good luck fixing that misconception.
aquapura,
The reason you bill out higher than you salary at your day job is because the firm factors in things like insurance and overhead into your billing per hour.
When you're working for yourself, you don't have to pay out for office space, lighting, insurance etc, therefore the fee can be lower and most of it still goes directly into your pocket. If your client is in 'sales' then he/she probably realizes this.
I'd encourage you to have a discussion with your boss about how the firm reaches the $X per hour, but only $X amount goes to you. Most firms should be fairly transparent about this with their employees, if not their clients. The day may come when you're asked to do some resource allocation and you would need to know this.
jplourde - I understand how the multiplier on hourly wages work to cover all the overhead expenses. Unfortunately most people do not. I would wager a majority of people don't realize that for every cent of tax witholdings on their paycheck their employer pays an equal amount as well.
Working in self employment also requires a much higher billable wage as suddenly you have to pay 100% of those taxes and cover all your own overhead and benefits. Sure, the overhead for things like office rent is less or zero if working from home, but I sure wouldn't work for my current hourly wage if working in self employment.
The point remains the same. The general public looks at what they get, i.e. a set of drawings, and places a perceived value on it. They don't take into account the amount of hours taken to come up with those plans or all the myriad of other unrelated expenses.
While most professionals out there think their time is worth $30, $40, $50/hour or more they don't look at Architect's the same way. Our "product" is worth X in their minds regardless of hours worked.
Although we like to think we are selling a service, most laymen think we sell a product. Not sure people perceive Doctors and Lawyers the same way.
Ah, sorry, you're post seemed to imply naivete, but I see you meant naivete on the part of the client, not yourself.
In terms of paying for a finite product [dare I say 'object'] versus paying for a process, even the typical architecture contract is designed to be finite and object based.
In very crude terms:
FEE = goal [whether thats a building, scheme design, feasibility study etc.] x hours worked to accomplish said goal x multipliers
However, the 'goal' is always measured in quantifible information, IE a set of construction docs and specifications. I'll wager that almost no clients are willing to sign a contract that is process based, as it's much harder to define and they aren't exactly sure what they will get out of it.
Thus, designs are almost always thought of as static objects, rather than non-linear processes, even by ourselves. So the question really is, how do we convince the client to pay for a non-linear process when the very essence of a non-linear process dictates that you don't know the outcome right at the very beginning. It entails an enormous amount of trust on both ends.
It's analogous to the difference between fossil fuel energy and sustainable energy. How does the electric utility measure solar power before it's hit the earth? It's much easier to project returns on petrol-fuels that have been in catalytic cracking for a year.
You're right, jplourde, about clients not wanting/understanding that they are paying for a process. It's important for clients to understand that the process involves a lot more rejection than creation: we may plow through six schemes before we get to the seventh one that really works, but the client never sees the stuff we throw away. And because we make it look easy, they don't understand why it costs so much.
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