Showing posts from category: architecture jobs
Fueled by a growing shortage of apartments and fears that condominiums will lose their value, Chicago’s apartment building boomlet is a welcome shift from the brutal recession years, if only because it will help keep struggling architects off the unemployment rolls. Yet as two new apartment towers reveal, the design consequences of this anticipated construction surge are complex and, in some ways, troubling.
The towers have much in common. Both were designed by the workhorse Chicago firm of Solomon Cordwell Buenz and were financed before the market turmoil of 2008. Both rise just west of the Wells Street elevated train tracks, a placement that makes you wonder whether their residents will ever get a good night’s sleep. And both have names that strive desperately to make them sound hip.
One (left) is called 215 West, which is shorter and snappier than its actual address, 215 W. Washington St. The other, two blocks to the north, is named 200 Squared, reflecting its location in the 200 blocks of North Wells and West Lake Streets but also suggesting (unintentionally, no doubt) that the building is crammed with ex-math majors. Fortunately, the architecture is better than the names, though nothing here is going to turn heads like the boldly undulating balconies of the Aqua hotel and residential tower.
This Lake Wobegon, all-the-buildings-are-above-average quality was predictable. These are apartment buildings, where budgets and architectural ambition tend to be considerably lower than corporate office buildings or condominium towers. If an apartment high-rise turns out not to wreak havoc on the cityscape and to give us some decent design in the bargain, then we have every reason to tolerate it. And that, with some notable exceptions, is what these buildings deliver.
Rising 50 stories and designed by SCB’s Drew Ranieri, 215 West is composed of three distinct parts, each housing a separate function. A ground floor lined with storefronts nicely addresses Washington Street. Above it rises a 600-space parking garage and, above the garage, a thin apartment slab housing 389 apartments. Most skyscrapers save their visual drama for the top. Here, it comes near the bottom.
Due to a difference in the size of their floor plates, the slab’s eastern end cantilevers over the garage by 25 feet. Indeed, the slab would seem to be in danger of falling off the garage were it not for the presence of a big steel truss (above) that reassuringly joins it to the rest of the building. The truss also gestures to the exposed structure of the “L.”‘Lake Wobegon’ in the sky: Apartment high-rises are above average, but nothing special
‘Lake Wobegon’ in the sky: Apartment high-rises are above average, but nothing special
The 42-story 200 Squared (left), designed by SCB’s Jim Curtin, is a more pleasing variation on the three-part theme.
Above its glassy, still-to-be-finished ground floor is a 547-space garage, outfitted on two sides with narrow ribbon windows and handsomely corrugated metal panels. Above the garage rises another thin slab, this one housing 329 apartments. It is noticeably glassier than its counterpart at 215 West because its columns, unlike its barely visible floor slabs, are hidden inside. The slab is divided into four wafer-thin layers, including a hard-edged plane of concrete that confronts the “L.”
Any detailed consideration of these buildings must begin with a glaring contradiction: By virtue of their downtown location, they will encourage people to walk rather than drive. But their parking garages contain far more spaces than their residents will ever need. Their extra, or “non-accessory,” spaces invariably will make it easier for people to drive, limiting or even canceling the buildings’ energy-saving benefits. Memo to City Hall: Stop green-lighting these garages on steroids.
All those extra spaces also make the garages ridiculously tall — 12 stories at 215 West, 10 stories at 200 Squared (left). Thankfully, though, the high-rises don’t give us a repeat of the brute towers plopped atop faceless parking garages that marred River North over the last decade.
Their proportions are pleasingly vertical. Their bottoms and tops subtly interlock. Their slabs, which cover only a portion of their sites, create welcome openings in the Loop’s thicket of high-rises, letting daylight filter down onto the streets below. And their ratio of glass to concrete is high enough, especially at 200 Squared, that the high-rises don’t look like concrete hulks.
Still, these buildings suffer from the blandness bug. The grid patterns of their painted concrete walls, an SCB visual trick that’s become tiresome, lack the rich sense of depth and texture that uplifts the Loop’s office buildings. Even the big move at 215 West, its large steel truss, comes off somewhat feebly, its fire-proofing and light-colored paint making it look indistinguishable from the building’s concrete.
215 West has more serious problems at ground level, notably its failure to strike up a convincing relationship with its richly textured Victorian neighbor to the east, a post-Chicago Fire office building called the Washington Block. The Washington Block, which holds down the corner of Washington and Wells, looks marooned. Its brick side walls are artlessly exposed to the passers-by. It’s as if the architects couldn’t move the building, an official city landmark, so they decided to dwarf it instead.
The worst damage comes along Wells, where an outdoor, curving parking ramp (left) that serves the tower’s garage brings a discordant touch of car-happy Sun Belt cities to the pedestrian precinct of the Loop. The ramp replaces a surface parking lot, meaning that a critical opportunity was lost to flank the Washington Block with a building of complementary scale. The architects have decorated the ramp with perforated metal, but that’s nothing more than perfuming the pig.
The interiors of both buildings are skillfully done and reflect SCB’s decades of experience in this genre. Each has a spacious, tastefully designed two-story lobby. Amenity floors provide indoor exercise areas and access to outdoor decks.
The apartments — $1,350-a-month studios to $5,000 three-bedrooms at 215 West, and $1,450-a-month studios to $2,750 two-bedrooms at 200 Squared — have floor-to-ceiling glass that takes advantage of the surrounding open space. At both buildings, glass is thicker than normal to shush the racket of the “L.”
The architects and the developers — Jupiter Realty Co. and Cornerstone Real Estate Advisers at 215 West, and Midwest Property Group Ltd. at 200 Squared — haven’t produced any masterpieces in these buildings, but they haven’t saddled us with any eyesores either. Let’s hope that they and other design teams learn from the strengths and shortcomings of these apartment buildings and reach higher in the next wave.
Via Chicago Tribune City Scapes
Construction spending fell 2.5% sequentially in December to a seasonally adjusted annual rate of $787.9 billion, 6.4% behind the rate of December, 2009, the Commerce Department reported Tuesday morning.
Residential construction fell 4.1% from November to a rate of $226.4 billion, a drop of 6.3% from the prior December. Total private construction was at a rate of $486.9 billion, 2.2% below the revised November estimate of $498.0 billion and 9.8% below December, 2009.
The value of private construction in 2010 was $507.3 billion, 14.3% behind 2009. Residential construction in 2010 was $241.4 billion, 1.7% below 2009.
For public construction, the seasonally adjusted annual rate was $301.0 billion in December, 2.8% below November and 11.2% below December, 2009.Highway construction was at a rate of $84.9 billion, 1.6% below November but 7.5% ahead of December, 2009.
The value of public construction in 2010 was $306.8 billion, 2.7% below 2009. Educational construction in 2010 was $74.4 billion, down 13.6% from 2009, and highway construction was $83.3 billion, 1.7% above 2009.
Via AIA.org
Mr. LiMandri, 45, is the commissioner of the Department of Buildings, which oversees nearly a million properties in New York City, by enforcing various building codes and laws. He was appointed in 2008, after the resignation of Patricia J. Lancaster, following a series of construction accidents, including a crane collapse in Manhattan that killed seven people.
Robert D. LiMandri
Q The department just released its 2010 annual report. Can you discuss some of the numbers?
A There are 975,000 buildings and properties in New York City and we have 1,109 employees, 337 of whom are inspectors. We performed 335,449 inspections last year; issued 136,294 construction permits and 1,517 new building permits and 67,069 violations.
What many people don’t realize is that we do about 450,000 plan reviews a year. Last year it was 457,375. That rivals some of the largest architectural firms.
Q Do you have more or fewer inspectors now?
A Slightly fewer, through attrition and budget cuts. But we’re doing more with less and using technology to be more efficient.
Q How so?
A We’ve been trying to make it easier for people to get permits, to do plan reviews, online. Electricians can go online as of last year: they put in their ID numbers, pay for the permit online and print it. Construction permits will also go online this year.
The other piece is dealing with plans online. We hope to pilot that by the end of this year. You would submit your plans — the simplest plans, not the big complicated ones. You open an account with us, send it to us electronically. We look at it when we’re available — we might ask questions or note objections — and e-mail it back to you.
Q Could this work with the big developers?
A The number of large buildings that get built every year is like 200 to 300. So if you are a large developer/owner like the Rudins or the Resnicks, you’re doing these kinds of filings on a regular basis. Instead of hiring someone to drop off stuff for us to look at, they can save transaction time.
Q How much time?
A We saw that when they went online for electrical permits, the processing time went from days or weeks to minutes.
Q Getting back to the annual report, what does it tell us about the city’s recovery?
A It’s in pockets. Permits for new buildings and major alterations fell around 19 percent last year, to 13,000 from 16,000. But permits for small-scale alterations — like moving a wall — rose 6 percent, to nearly 103,000. People are still doing smaller work, and that drives the economy as well.
We’re starting to see pockets of demolitions. We just had seven or eight sites in the last couple of weeks. When you see demolitions come back, it’s a leading indicator that development is coming.
Also, in Manhattan there are four or five large sites, where maybe they slowed construction, that are starting to pick up. It’s the heart of the winter so it’s going to be slow anyway, but we’re hoping that the spring will bring a set of new buildings.
Q It’s been over two years since you took office. What are some of your biggest accomplishments?
A We’ve been working on transforming this department — making it more accountable and instilling confidence in our training programs. We put G.P.S. tracking on our 337 inspectors, so we know where our people are. We conducted a facade safety initiative, and we investigated illegally converted apartments. We used Craigslist and posed as tenants.
Q Have you been able to curb construction accidents?
A We had a reduction in 2010 from the year before by about 28 percent. Clearly there’s been less large-scale construction, but also I am very satisfied that the industry has heard us and responded.
Contractors are using cocoon-netting systems to protect the top four floors during the very early stages of construction. These innovative systems prevent people from falling, as well as falling debris. I’m hoping it will become a city standard.
Building a building is complex, and there are a lot of people you depend on to do it well, and it takes just one of them not to do their job for things to go awry. Our job is to make sure that they put safety ahead of profit.
Q Let’s talk about some of the new regulations for this year.
A The big thing that’s coming down the pike is the Greener, Greater Buildings Plan, which will rank buildings by energy efficiency. Owners have to benchmark their buildings — if they’re over 50,000 square feet — and upload information about utility bills into a federal Web site by May 1. The next step is that every 10 years they will have to go through an audit process.
Hat tip to the NYT
Remember last summer when architect Will Alsop announced that he was getting out of the architecture business to concentrate on his painting? As quickly as that was announced, shortly thereafter it came out that, no, he was getting into becoming a professor. Finally, just a month or so later, he decided that he was going to stick with architecture after all and would be joining the international firm RMJM. Unfortunately, it’s looking like it may have been a better move to stick with his original painting and retirement plans as now RMJM is in something of a tumultuous flux, with not just layoffs, but staffers exiting en masse from several offices and at least twenty principals and senior staff have left as well. Specifically worse is that the firm has admitted that, after a year of employment, none of Alsop’s big projects have been picked up yet, something they undoubtedly must not have expected and which certainly isn’t helping the situation at a company “struggling to pay its bills” according to the Independent. Will Alsop stick it through and will RMJM, one of the largest firms in the world, make it through this bump in the road relatively unscathed? That’s a cliffhanger you’ll have to wait it out for.
Via UnBeige
The American Institute of Architects (AIA) reported today that following on the heels of the first positive reading since January 2008, the Architecture Billings Index (ABI) dropped nearly two points in October.
As a leading economic indicator of construction activity, the ABI reflects the approximate nine to twelve month lag time between architecture billings and construction spending.
The October ABI score was 48.7, down from a reading of 50.4 the previous month. This score reflects a decrease in demand for design services (any score above 50 indicates an increase in billings). The new projects inquiry index was 61.7, down slightly from a nearly three-year high mark of 62.3 in September.
“This is disappointing news, but not altogether that surprising,” said AIA Chief Economist Kermit Baker, PhD, Hon. AIA. “We were anticipating a slow recovery period and it is likely that there will be some fits and starts before conditions show consistent improvement. Right now, reluctance from lending institutions to provide credit for construction projects and a sluggish economy are the main impediments to a revival of the design and construction industry.”
Key October ABI highlights:
- Regional averages: Northeast (54.5), Midwest (51.8), South (48.6), West (44.3)
- Sector index breakdown: commercial / industrial (54.5), institutional (50.8), multi-family residential (49.1), mixed practice (43.2)
- Project inquiries index: 61.7
Via Real Estate Channel
The Architectural Billings Index for the nation was positive in September for the first time in two years, but billings in the western region that includes Colorado weren’t, according to the index released Wednesday.
The ABI, compiled by The American Institute of Architects, is a leading economic indicator of construction activity. It reflects the nine- to 12-month lag between when architecture firms bill clients and when funds for construction are spent.
September’s national ABI score was 50.4, up from 48.2 in August — and up for the fourth month in a row. A score of 50 and above represents an increase in billings.
“This is certainly encouraging news, but we will need to see consistent improvement over the next few months in order to feel comfortable about the state of the design and construction industry,” AIA Chief Economist Kermit Baker said in a statement.
The western area had the lowest regional ABI score for last month, at 44.5, a dip from 45.8 in August. But September’s western score was up significantly from 36.0 in September 2009.
The index breaks the country into four regions: Northeast, Midwest, South and West.
Both the northeastern and midwestern parts of the country had positive ABI scores for September, at 56.7 and 51, respectively. The South had a score of 47.
The ABI is based on a “work-on-the-boards” survey of AIA members by organization researchers. Members are asked each month whether their billings have increased, decreased or stayed the same for the month just ended.
The AIA is more than 150 years old, and based in Washington, D.C.
Hat tip to multiple sources including AIA, Denver Business Journal and Sam Armijos.
Optimistically speaking. demand for architects seems understandably uncertain through the year 2011. While filling positions within the architectural field will depend on geographic location of employment, and specialty in the field, among many influences.
Since architect employment is affected more so by the overall trend of commercial building construction and re-development efforts than many construction-related positions, it will no doubt be subject to the downturn of the commercial real estate market that had hit the United States (spring of 2009 onward). But, in the event of a shifting emphasis toward rehabilitating and transforming existing structures, if new construction costs continue to rise across many parts of the country, architects may look more toward employment with firms that are well established.
Overall, a large number of commercial architects may find opportunities slim, depending on their specialty. Although areas such as those involved with healthcare, security, defense and technology; positions may hold or even increase in the coming years depending on the effects and whereabouts of funding brought about by the Obama administration efforts. Architect jobs in the residential sector can probably expect to experience a downgrade given the state of new residential housing starts (early 2009) although this might turn if affected by favorable interest rates and banking procedures. Still, since the service of the residential sector is mainly comprised of the self-employed, trends of employment in this sector is debatable as many architects may transfer from private/contractor employer firms.
The entire architect job market will undergo rising competition. Demanding proven experience and track records and abilities for those well seated in the workplace and while becoming more specialized for those entering the workplace. Computer CAD has long since become a given requirement.
Competition for entry level positions on-up is likely to produce a wealth of labor and choices for employers of architects.
Hat tip to Referworks
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Commercial/industrial sector reports growth for third consecutive month
Summary: Although billings at architecture firms declined for the 30th consecutive month in July, the ABI score increased by nearly two points from the previous month, inching closer to 50. In addition, business conditions continue to improve at firms with a commercial/industrial specialization, despite persistent weakness in the general economy. Survey panelists report that the design phase for nearly half of their projects lasts for less than six months, and that the complexity of the project is the most important influence on the length of that design phase.
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The AIA’s Architecture Billings Index (ABI) score for July inched closer to the 50-point threshold again (a score higher than 50 is an indication of growth), climbing nearly two full points from June to 47.9. While there is growing optimism that billings may grow in the near future, business conditions at many architecture firms remain tenuous, with relief still a long way off.
Inquiries into new work have grown for 16 of the last 17 months, but this month’s score of 53.1 is the lowest since the beginning of the year. However, this may represent a leveling out of the glut of RFPs that firms have been receiving in recent months that have not translated into actual billable work.
Business conditions remain weak at architecture firms in all regions of the country. Firms in the Northeast continue to report the highest scores, but they have been weakening every month since very minimal growth was reported in April. The score increased in the South for the fifth month in a row in July, and is approaching 50 for the first time in more than two years.
Firms with a commercial/industrial specialization reported growth for the third month in a row in July, and while it remained minimal, it is still a positive sign. The highest score in nearly two years for that sector was reported at firms with an institutional specialization, amid reports that building projects funded under the stimulus program are beginning to wrap up.
The most recent issue of the Federal Reserve’s Beige Book reports that, for the most part, the commercial and industrial real estate market remains weak in all regions of the country. However, while vacancy rates in many areas are flat or increasing, office/retail leasing actually has been increasing in New York City. Construction activity continues to weaken in the Atlanta, Minneapolis, Dallas, and Cleveland, but public infrastructure construction is on the rise in Chicago, and most Federal Reserve Board districts anticipate slow growth in commercial/industrial real estate in the near future. And, employment data continues to paint a mixed picture. While overall nonfarm payroll employment declined by 131,000 positions in July, the private sector continued to add jobs, with an additional 71,000 positions. Construction employment remains relatively flat, shedding just 11,000 jobs in July.
This month’s special questions followed up on last month’s questions about the timing of project design phases. Survey respondents reported that the largest share of their projects (42%) have a design phase (defined as lasting from the awarding of the design contract to the completion of the construction documents) that lasts less than six months, while an additional 24% of projects have a design phase typically lasting between six and nine months. Small firms are much more likely to have shorter design phases than large firms, with 59% of projects at firms with less than $250,000 in annual billings having design phases of less than six months, compared to just 23% of projects at firms with annual billings of $5 million or more. Projects at firms with an institutional specialization also tend to have a slightly longer design phase, with nearly half (47%) of projects at those firms having a design phase lasting between six and 12 months.
Our panelists indicated that the complexity of a project is the most important influence on the length of the design phase, followed by project size (construction value), type of client, and scope of design services offered. The project delivery method (e.g., design-build, design-bid-build, integrated project delivery) was not considered to be a very important factor.
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Article via AIA.org
It’s hard to tell if the recession is over, with the high unemployment rate. But there are strong signs of recovery in the online job market. Annual growth rate is up 21% overall since July, 2009, according to Monster’s
Employment Index. Here are eight occupations in which employers are hiring – using online ads – at the fastest rate. (Learn more about the compound annual growth rate, in CAGR: The Good, The Bad And The Ugly.) …
1. Legal
2. Business and Financial Operations
3. Transportation and Material Moving
4. Arts, Design, Entertainment, Sports and Media
5. Architecture and Engineering – Increase: 23%
As our population grows, so does our need for buildings to live, work and shop in, which is why we need more architects. Although outsourcing of basic architectural design overseas hurts employment, American jobs in architecture and engineering are forecasted to grow by 16% over the next eight years. Think green, creative and innovative if this is your industry, and the jobs will follow. (Learn more about outsourcing, in The Globalization Debate.)
6. Production
7. Construction and Extraction
8. Healthcare Support
The Bottom Line
Online job postings have increased in almost every sector according to Monster’s Employment Index, with computer, education and office and administrative jobs also seeing double-digit percentage growth. So what does this mean for our economy? What’s important to note about Monster’s numbers is that mining, manufacturing and transportation and warehousing are the industries showing the largest growth – with mining seeing an impressive 53% gain since 2009. Any economic analyst will tell you this means an increase in production, a possible early indicator of economic recovery. Good news, even if you’re not looking for a job.
View all 8 ocupations via Financial Edge
