About Design Fees

"What?!!! How Much?!!!"
If you haven't worked with an architect, that may be your initial reaction when you look at an architect's proposal for services. What I say to that is yep, it does look pretty high. But to get past the shock you need to look past the proposed price and then the overall cost of building a project. Compared to the cost of construction it's pretty low, about 10-20 percent depending on level of detail and involvement. And if you think an architect's fees are high, they're actually dwarfed by the contractor's fees, which a competent contractor works very hard and takes on tremendous liability to get.
You also need to look at what you're getting. A good architect doesn't charge a big fee and then whip out a couple of drawings to justify it. What your design professional is doing for you is interpreting your needs into a concise, detailed set of documents that ensures your project is done the way YOU want it. What your design professional is doing for you is making sure that your building complies with local codes, ensuring that it is properly engineered, getting permission for you to build your project (ie permits), and much more.
Furthermore, an architect's job is tough - detailing a project for construction is extremely involved.
Take these things into consideration before closing the door. Of course check into your design professional; make sure you learn all you can about the firm, and know that the fee is not necessarily the be all end all price, but the architect's first sentence in a conversation. Enagage in that conversation and open up to the possibility of quality in your investment. I wish you the best of luck whatever you decide.

Credit Where it is Due

I keep a couple of subscriptions to architecture related magazines coming my way: Dwell, Architectural  Record, etc., and I like them,  I do, however, have a hard time actually reading them. It seems that I like to look at the pictures and move on with my life. Partly it's that I'm busy - perhaps also it's some problem with paying attention, I'm sure the factors are numerous (plug my disdain for architectural critics here). BUT, I think I found the big reason why I can't seem to stay interested in these things: and that is that the the people who receive credit for the featured work do not do the work.The fact is, folks who do the work are stashed away somewhere in the building where they are not seen. These people are paid very little and are treated poorly.
Being in the industry, I can say that very few architects actually know how to "draw." And I guess that's where I feel separated from the people posing in the magazines; it's like a fat person looking at a supermodel.

Too Busy Yet Too Poor

Last year was fantastic in the development of my company. I was pulled into a new market that held promise - that was IPD Modeling (IPD stands for Integrated Project Delivery and it is an emerging construction coordination process). Frankly, IPD carried us or most of 2011 while the architectural design/drafting market was dragging itself back to the surface.
The good old design/drafting market is coming back, and is welcome as IPD is taking a break. But the challenge I'm seeing is in the devaluation of my services as an architect. Part of it is the client type; we're seeing more and more developers come through the door, and they want us to tighten up the numbers.
So I'm seeing myself busy, but poor. It's a bit frustrating.
What's more frustrating is that there is other work that has a better client type, but it's all going to the older, better established firms in town. And yet to add to this, I feel that I have more value to offer. A lot of these other architects in practice can't even use the software, but instead hand it down to a draftsperson or "CAD Operator".
I am the owner of my firm and personally develop my plans. Just gonna let this post trail off with that rant...

Spring Joy

The spring rush is here and in my third year of running a business (though it's really running me), I finally see it for what it is. If I could cram a week into a day there still wouldn't be enough time - for me. That's because I'm giving it all to my clients and, you know what, that's what I'm here for. I don't sneeze at work, I take it as it comes.
Thursday, I can count five projects that needed my attention while the fifth one that I got to was the one that needed the most attention. That fifth project was supposed to get its full attention Friday but between all of the phone calls, errands, bills, and meetings, it got a phone call to the client and that's it; the client, a builder, was trying to get out of town so the phone call was a short one.
I'm also trying to get out of town. Next week is the Colorado Chapter International  Building Code Convention in Denver: this is where I get the bulk of my continuing ed credits for my license. My intention was to leave today, ride the snowboard in Breckenridge tomorrow with my friend  Jeff, and arrive at the Denver Tech Center on Monday at 8 am ready to learn. Instead, Jeff is stuck going to Breck Solo because that "fifth" project never got any attention - if there's anything I might be a little bummed about it's that, but still, Front Range skiing can be a hassle anyway. I'm taking my road bike, so I can sneak out for some base miles after class. I also have a
Fiver-Pass to Corepower Yoga so I'm covered there.
But really,  have no idea what will actually transpire. The spring rush is upon me and, like the weather, the workload is a bit volatile. 

Sick of Used Car Salesmen Posing as Contractors

Just sick of the Durango Cowboy contractors. If you live in Durango then you know who I''m talking about: the guy with the dog and the truck who say's "I'm a Contractor." Most of these clowns are guys with trucks and dogs, that is all.
I'm not afraid to lose work, honestly I have much more valuable ways of spending my time than to scrap over a remodel. You can have it you bottom feeder.
Dealing with these greedy pigs is below me. Don't get me wrong, I'm not bigtime by any means; I'm surprised if I make my mortgage payment. But still, these are games reserved for a special breed of idiot. An architect licensed in two states has no business here.

I Wanna Chase Bright Shinys

I just want to do the fun stuff. And I see a lot of fun stuff in what I do. That's a challenge of owning a business, you have to do everything; being selective isn't much of an option.
When I set out it was with daydreams of building models and carefully designing my work. Didn't take much time to think about juggling bank accounts and researching insurance policies. Yuck!
I'm learning. Can't complain but I do anyway. I could say I'm getting used to it but I'm really holding out for the day that I can hire someone for my Department of Lame Activities.

Kids These Days

The funny thing for me is that I never really grew up. I'm childish at heart; a 37 year old with the maturity level of someone who's 17, kind of fun really. But I'm starting to feel my age with the generation gap that widens between me and the real 17 year-olds. I could start with modern pop music and how it makes me feel which is not good but I never really was a popular music fan, unless you count 80's headbanger types. No, I'm thinking more about technology and how it's shaping the new generations. I see a real disconnect here. Oftentimes I see tweens, teenagers, and young adults enter a room while staring at an electronic device, most often a phone or PSP tyoe thing. There's kids texting other kids that are in the same room...I don't get it - but then again maybe I'm not supposed to.
I grew up during the inital emergence of computer technology to the public: back in the day of the Tandy TRS 80, the Commodor, the Atari, get the picture? These things were novel. They didn't have much practical application unless you account for basic word processing and even that was limited. I was an A-student in vocational drafting all through high school, but we did all of our work at a drafting table with pencils, scales, and straight-edges; AutoCAD was just starting but was not to replace hand-drafting for another 10 years or so.
I started college 4 years after finishing high-school. By that time, a basic AutoCAD lesson as required curriculum. 3d modeling was becoming more accessible, photoshop was up-and-coming. I dove in headfirst. I got my first job at an architecture firm during my third-year: during the interview the main question for me was " how's your CAD?" This was the transitional period as I saw it.
I even saw it at my university. Some of the older, tenured professors at my university complained of architecture losing it's soul to computers and cared nothing for articulate 3d models. A classic question from some of these folks was "where's your section?" Others were so blown away by the look of finely photoshopped 3d models that an A wasn't too hard to come by.
When I graduated and went to work the most important criteria was a candidate's computer skills. And so the transition was made. My field was fully digitized. CAD became made mainstream, BIM conquered CAD, the internet retired fax machines.
Long story but it helps increase my understanding of the plugged-in generation, the kids and their devices. If someone from 1988 with a file-o-fax and a pager saw someone today with a smartphone and laptop, their head would probably expode. I don't get it, but then again I don't think I'm supposed to. They'll be fine, I am - I think.