Tag archives for: architecture
One of my passions in life (besides design) is motorcycle riding. It’s my muse, my creative spark. When I tell people I ride you usually get one of the following replies:
“You must be crazy”
“I know someone who was killed in a motorcycle accident”
They don’t get it; don’t understand how something perceived to be dangerous could be so enjoyable.
When I tell people I’m an architect I usually get one of the following responses:
“You build buildings”
“You must be good at math”
Sometimes someone will say you “design buildings”. But very few non-architects get it, understanding that, at our core, we’re creative forces with the ability to see the invisible, connect dots no one else sees, to “create” something from nothing.
And the creative process that’s fuels our work more often than not sets the tone for the way we live our life. Searching, questioning, dreaming.
How lucky are we?
I received a call a while ago from a prospective client we did some preliminary design work for a concierge assisted living facility years ago.
It did not go well as a lot of these fliers we take in pursuit of work go often do. We have experience in this building type and tried, in vain, to educate our potential client not only about what we do but about the subtleties of the building type. The client would have none of it, coming from a family of contractors and developers imbibed with the “we know more than you about building gene”. Forget about “architecture”, they clearly weren’t interested.
Fast forward four years. The phone rings and it’s the client. “How are you? Do you remember me? For the past four years we’ve gone ’round and ’round with our property. We can’t find a buyer so we’re going to try to resurrect the ALF. We we’re looking at the concepts you did for us and we were shocked. They were very good! We should have listened to you back then!
My interest is piqued, but my radar is up because this is most likely not a good client. And then they drop the hammer.
“We did some sketches over your drawings and we’d like to send them to you to see what you think. Maybe you can give us a price for “doing” the architecture.”
Zombie clients.
Some things should remain forever dead.
Robert Vecchione is an architect/designer and principal of the multidisciplinary firm Cobrooke Ideas-Architecture-Design (www.cobrooke.com)
May I ask why?
Aah architecture. The grand old profession of Wright, Sullivan, Mies and Kahn. The ability to shape cities with one’s own hands, to change lives and alter the course of history. To be Howard Roark of the Fountainhead, dreaming of blowing up your own creation because the client, a necessary evil of the profession, doesn’t share your noble vision.
So very romantic.
And so very wrong.
In the last five years the profession has shed about 60,000 jobs. They’re not coming back. Firms lucky enough to have a backlog of work make up the manpower shortage through technology. Profit margins, traditionally minute in the best of times are non-existent. Consolidation of mid-large size firms is rampant and sole-practitioners are an endangered species. The construction industry is not far away from engulfing architects in the construction process because architects use building information and drawing technologies like CAD, Revit and BIM. We’ve been commoditizing the profession for the last 20 years. That tide is not turning.
Our colleges and universities still eschew teaching the business of architecture, and graduates are ill prepared to deal with the realities of a profession in decline. And don’t dare ask them to draw. A pencil? What’s that?
Then of course there are the clients. The noble benefactors who embrace the architect for his vision, his ability turn their dreams into reality! More likely they’ve shopped around, solicited ten proposals then negotiated two or three firms down to the coveted 3-4% of construction cost fee that fits so well into their bottom line. And the architects fight tooth and nail to see who’ll reach the bottom first. Work is work.
Here’s my advice. Architecture, in its most pure form, is an art that few can understand, enjoy and appreciate. It is exhilarating.
It is not nor should it ever be a job!
It shouldn’t be bought and sold. Be passionate about all design. Architects are inherently creative. Pursue creative collaboration with other design professions. Cross pollinate. Design objects, think creatively at all times and tell everyone you meet that design matters. But practice “architecture” for yourself. Design spaces for yourself. Live in them, work in them, and dream in them. Don’t sell your ideas, your soul, your heart, to anyone. Be selfish because they don’t get it.
If you have to find another way to support yourself.
I’m sure Starbucks is hiring.
Robert Vecchione is an architect/designer and principal of the multidisciplinary firm Cobrooke Ideas-Architecture-Design (www.cobrooke.com)
When it comes to sourcing the right interview candidates, I’ve never been keen to use recruiters. But I recently changed my mind.
My company, Metal Mafia, has an excellent candidate screening process, a super training program, and a very successful team of employees to show for it.
But hiring has always been a difficult task for me because each time I get ready to hire, it takes me forever to find the right type of candidates to even get the screening process started.
Despite the fact that I carefully consider where to advertise for candidates–I try to maximize the search dollars and get a good mix of potential applicants–it always takes me a long time to find people suited well to the company, and therefore, even worth interviewing.
I’ve tried everything from placing ads on large job boards like Monster.com, to smaller specialized job boards that cater to sales hires or fashion jobs, to local university boards where I can post for free (or close to it). Each time, I experience the same slow crawl toward finally finding the right person. It has taken me up to five months to find the right kind of hire in the past. So in November when I decided I needed to think about hiring for the new year, I was not optimistic.
For me, recruiters have traditionally been out of the question because I figured they would be a waste of time and never be as good at sending me the right people for the job as I would be in reviewing resumes myself. They’re also too expensive for my small budget. But as I got ready to place my job ads again, one of my senior staff members came to me and offered me the name of a fashion recruiter she knew and thought could help. I was skeptical, but I called her anyway, figuring listening would cost me nothing.
The recruiter convinced me she would do a thorough job, but I still hesitated because of the price. I do not have large sums of money to devote to the hiring process, and by my calculations, when all was said and done, using the recruiter was going to cost me three times as much as my usual techniques. On the other hand, the recruiter would only charge me if she found someone I decided to hire, which meant I was risking nothing, and could always come back to my original methods. I bit the bullet and signed up, reminding myself “nothing ventured, nothing gained.”
The recruiter sent me the resumes of 10 entry-level candidates. I screened six by phone, met three in person, and found the right hire–all in a month. The cost suddenly became much less, because I saved so much time in the process, and because I got a pool of applicants who were decidedly better to choose from than in the past. Even more interesting, perhaps, was an insight the right candidate shared with me during the interview process. When I asked why she had chosen to work with a recruiter rather than post on job boards, she said “because recruiters make sure your resume gets seen, while submitting via the Internet is like sending your resume into oblivion.”
If most people these days are thinking like my new hire, the recruiters will clearly have the best selection of candidates every time. Looks like I’ve got an essential new hiring strategy.
Vanessa Merit Nornberg: In 2004, Vanessa opened Metal Mafia, a wholesale body and costume jewelry company that sells to more than 5,000 specialty shops and retail chains in 23 countries. Metal Mafia was an Inc. 500 company in 2009. @vanessanornberg
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“It’s not for you”
“For everyone else, though, the ability to say, “It’s not for you,” is the foundation for creating something brave and important. You can’t do your best work if you’re always trying to touch the untouchable, or entertain those that refuse to be entertained.
“It’s not for you.”
This is easy to say and incredibly difficult to do. You don’t have much choice, though, not if you want your work to matter.”
Seth Godin, Seth’s blog
My work does matter, and I agree with Seth, it is hard to do. Hard to say “it’s not for you”. As a young architect I expended a great deal of energy trying to entertain those that refuse to be entertained. Trying to fit square pegs into round holes. The desire to practice architecture creates a tunnel vision; clouds rational thinking and blinds you to clients and projects that are not right for you. Architecture requires conviction. A belief in a core set of principles that guide the creative process.
You can’t be all things to all people.
It has taken me almost 30 years to consistently say “it’s not for you”. To say this is what I believe in; this is my truth and have the conviction that there are clients out there that “it” is for. And it’s hard. Especially in this economy.
But we’re guided by our convictions. And one project created in accordance with those core beliefs is better than 10 projects where you just go through the motions just looking to get paid.
Not everyone hears the music you dance to. Just have conviction that a dance partner isn’t that far away.
Turn the music up and keep dancing.
Robert Vecchione is an architect/designer and principal of the multidisciplinary firm Cobrooke Ideas-Architecture-Design (www.cobrooke.com)
All I can say is did we really need to do this?
New sign design by pentagram
Full article via design boom
architecture critic, Art, built environment, Design, Landscape Architecture, Sculpture, Urban Planning
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In the “old days,” a firm might turn down a project because it didn’t have the necessary staff to handle it properly. Today, firms can maintain a lean staff in lean times and hire freelance consultants when business picks up. In the process they can hire people with the particular skills needed for particular jobs.
Architecture is not the only profession turning more and more to freelance employment. One study finds the number of temporary hires almost doubled in a recent four-year period – over 10 percent of them skilled technicians or professionals.
In fact, a growing number of young architects see freelancing as a fast-track means to getting ahead.
Instead of working on just one type of project or one aspect of design, freelancers acquire varied experience. The goal is to land permanent positions at a higher level more quickly than by remaining on one job for a given period of time.
Assuming that architectural firms will become accustomed to the freelance concept, this type of employment will grow as the demand for new projects returns to pre-recession levels.
architects, architecture jobs, jobs, recession
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A New York City Council committee has approved a modified version of a plan to add four new buildings to New York University in Greenwich Village.
The Land Use Committee voted 19-1 Tuesday in favor of a 1.9-million-square-foot expansion plan.
The proposal was reduced about 20 percent since it was presented to a public hearing on June 29.
NYU Senior Vice President Lynne Brown said the plan will help New York City remain economically vibrant.
Council member Margaret Chin, who represents the district, said NYU made significant concessions in its modified proposal.
But Andrew Berman of the Greenwich Village Preservation Society called the downsizing a drop in the bucket.
The full City Council vote is expected on July 25.
Via NY Post
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Community Board 3 voted in favor of a plan to turn seven city-owned acres just south of the Williamsburg Bridge into a 1.7 million-square-foot mixed-use development.
After more than 40 years, the massive Seward Park Mixed-Use Development Project in the Lower East Side moved one important step closer to becoming a reality Tuesday evening when Community Board 3 unanimously voted in favor of the plan.
The project calls for turning five fallow city-owned lots, totaling seven acres and lie just south of Delancey Street near the Williamsburg Bridge, into a 1.65 million-square-foot mixed-use development made up of 40% commercial and 60% residential. The residential portion of the development will be comprised of roughly 900 apartments, half of which will be affordable. All together this would be one of the biggest redevelopment projects in Manhattan on city-owned land in years.
The community board approved the plan under the condition that the affordable housing be permanent instead of just for 30 to 60 years as had been suggested earlier. The city agreed to the stipulation. Affordable housing has been a major stumbling block for the project in the past. Previously, many in the community insisted that 100% of the apartments be affordable. Most now accept that some market rate apartments are needed to make the project financially feasible.
The vote is just the first step in a complex public approval process, known as the Uniform Land-Use Review Procedure, which is expected to be completed in the fall. The City Council and mayor have the final approval. If the project is given the green light, the next step would be for the city to issue a formal request for proposals to find a developer to take on the project.
“Over the course of the last three years, it has been made abundantly clear that the issue of permanent affordability was one of, if not the, highest priority for this community board and Lower East Side residents,” said City Councilwoman Margaret Chin, who represents the area, in a statement.
Aside from affordable housing, the community was also very concerned about remaining actively involved in the Seward Park development.
“Last week, the city agreed to create a task force to ensure that this community remains involved as this process moves forward,” said Ms. Chin. “This unprecedented move by the city will ensure that your voices continue to be heard in the request for proposals process and beyond. In addition to providing oversight and accountability, this task force will work to ensure that affordable housing is built and that is it built first.”
While the issues over affordability and community involvement have been settled for now, new concerns have emerged. Some residents would like to see a school added to the development and others would like to make sure that the retail space will not go to a big-box store.
The plan will now move to Manhattan Borough President Scott Stringer for his review and recommendations.
Cliff House, Halifax architect Brian MacKay-Lyons’ creation, has won his firm its sixth Governor General’s medal. Since Christmas, the firm has won 14 national and international design awards.
A modest wooden house soaring over a rocky cliff has earned Nova Scotia architect Brian MacKay-Lyons a 2012 Governor General’s Medal in Architecture.
“We’re still the only architects in Atlantic Canada who’ve ever won it since it started in the 1950s so it’s kind of special for sure,” says MacKay-Lyons.
This is the sixth Governor General’s medal that MacKay-Lyons Sweetapple Architects of Halifax and Lunenberg has been awarded by the Canada Council through a peer jury process.
“Your peers are the toughest audience, in that sense it means a lot,” he says, on the phone from Lunenburg.
“If you’re a musician, you want Bruce Springsteen to say you’re good.”
Since Christmas, the firm has won 14 national and international design awards and seen the opening of the Canadian embassy it designed in Bangladesh.
MacKay-Lyons and his family are off to Washington, D.C., this week to pick up the American Institute of Architects Honor Award for the Shobac Campus, a collection of buildings in Upper Kingsburg, Lunenburg County, that serve as a home and satellite office.
Still it frustrates MacKay-Lyons that after 35 years of working in Nova Scotia his company is not designing more public buildings in Atlantic Canada.
“We have this big international reputation and we can’t get any work at home,” says MacKay-Lyons, a Dalhousie University architecture professor for more than 20 years.
“Things are very political here, very parochial. Unless you’re well connected you don’t get a chance.”
The Governor General’s Award was presented for his work on Cliff House. Perched somewhere on the Atlantic coast of Nova Scotia, it is a timber-frame minimalist box that juts out from a cliff on stilts anchored by heavy concrete onto the rock below. Its form is inspired by the fishing shacks in Blue Rocks and Peggys Cove, says MacKay-Lyons.
The house has a row of front windows looking out to sea.
“You get a sense of vertigo when you’re standing in it. When you get to the front you are, ‘Oh, my God, I could go flying.’”
However, it’s very safe. “It’s not going anywhere.”
MacKay-Lyons describes Cliff House as “monumentally modest.”
“The way it is in the landscape, it’s very proud and forceful and yet it’s just a simple building. It’s modest and inexpensive.”
It has a light timber frame construction, the type of two-by-four construction that is typical of the way houses are built in North America.
“Small timber is the only renewable building material other than bamboo. Even concrete uses tremendous energy.”
Cliff House has also won a North American Wood Design Honor Award, which pleases MacKay-Lyons because “it’s hard to get architects to appreciate light timber frame,” he says. They prefer “sexier” wooden buildings with large timbers and beams.
“The idea of touching the land lightly is something we’re becoming more and more interested in, disturbing the land the least.
“The buildings tend to be more hovering above the land, kind of cantilevering.”
In their statement, jurors praised Cliff House saying, “Perfectly judged for its setting, it elevates plain vernacular form and ordinary materials into a potent meditation on the relationship between the manmade and nature.”
Architecture is a team sport, says MacKay-Lyons. For Cliff House, he relied on project architect Kevin Reid, who’s worked for the firm for seven years, builder Gordon MacLean and structural engineer Michel Comeau of Campbell Comeau Engineering Ltd.
MacKay-Lyons has worked for 30 years with both MacLean and Comeau. He and Comeau grew up together in Arcadia near Yarmouth.
MacKay-Lyons and his Newfoundland-born partner Talbot Sweetapple are leading proponents internationally of regionalist architecture.
Wherever they build they look to the local material culture.
In this region, their design language is “influenced by the rural industrial building tradition in the Maritimes.”
“When we build in Bangladesh, we build it all of bricks. That’s using the culture.
“Our work is about that, about the idea of regionalism, about the idea of place and looking at the local material culture wherever we are.”
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