Scary Statistic-40-60% of Architects are Unemployed.

First to suffer, last to recover

BY GREGORY J. SCOTT



Alan D’Souza is one of the lucky ones.

The day he received notice of his layoff from a St. Paul architecture firm back in November 2008, he already had a tentative job offer in hand. It wasn’t a design gig, exactly. But it was pretty close. The Weidt Group, a Minnetonka-based sustainable design consulting company with whom D’Souza had worked closely at his old firm, wanted to bring him on staff. D’Souza had been shifting his focus closer to sustainable design anyway, and he seemed a natural candidate for the Weidt Group, a leader in the field. The job appeared to be a sure thing.

It took six months for the offer to materialize.

“They were interested, but they weren’t hiring immediately,” D’Souza remembers. “They could see that the profession across the board had been hit, and since they work mostly with architects, they were cautious about bringing on new people.”

Still, a six-month stall in employment seems mild in a crisis that has many laid-off architects and designers wondering if they’ll ever return to work.

According to the latest data available from the Department of Labor, employment at American architecture firms, which peaked last July at 224,500, had dropped to 184,600 by November. And many among those counted as “employed” have seen their hours reduced to part-time, their status changed to independent contractor or their salaries replaced by smaller hourly wages. Such measures make it difficult to pin down a precise unemployment percentage, but here in Minnesota, most industry watchers estimate joblessness to be between 40 and 60 percent.

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http://www.downtownjournal.com/index.php?&story=14973&page=65&category=0


We're lucky-my husband only had to take a 39% cut in income from the previous year.

small minor things. Seems that only the most urgent of issues are being fixed.

out there.

out of NYC. My office would probably be closed by now.

after working for firms for ten years, started his own thing about 5 years ago and is doing really well doing sustainable architecture. He works out of his house and has no employees. At this point he has more business than he can handle and just takes those projects he's really into.

That is the kind of life path that inspires me and also makes me jealous. :)

of Patrick's work.

(ashamed to admit I don't know how to post a pic)

I thought I did put the link in. spaced it right out. here it is:

http://prescott.erau.edu/news/haas-interfaith-chapel-wins-architectural-award.html

it's a neat place. the pic doesn't really do it justice. I was there last winter. the inside is really neat.

Very much my style.

I bought a piece of land for my project from a neighbor who has designed and built houses of that minimalist kind of look. It's really cool being around this atmosphere. Especially since our politics are identical.

the other Kane brothers' stuff:

http://www.vulkane.com/

Amazing place with some really cool old machines.

http://tbkadesign.com/projects.php

oh, and their sister:

http://www.perennialpleasures.net/

One could ask just what doesn't fit that description. A stone turned into a spearhead fits. But it's the modern materials and sophisticated social mentality that create works that are absolutely inspiring.

I'm presently finalizing my house design. So far I'm pleased with my first foray into architecture. I'm building a house out of steel. It's really quite a new concept. There have been steel homes, but this is more modular and industrial. It's a bit daunting when faced with the details. I still haven't worked it all out. But I'm very happy that I can take my technical skills as an engineer, and feel pretty much at home as an architect. I used to be so jealous of Philip Johnson. Now I've got a little piece of that world. I'm definitely no artist. I've only taken bits and pieces, and simply cut and pasted ideas. Homes I've owned, or seen.

Interesting work in those links you posted. Landscape design is like a foreign language to this dingbat. :) I'm all square edges.


edit- Tooting my own horn again. I just took these a few minutes ago. It's two years in the making. It's the garage/shop.
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It reminds me a little bit of the Stahl house (famous in many TV shows over the years), which I have always loved:

don't care for the contrast of form or materials. then there's the overall stiffness/stiltedness- not to mention the puzzle pieces.

So who's the architect? Please don't tell me it's Gehry.

It's a children's hospital which has not only won awards for it's design but also for it's sustainability. He recently received a thank you card for a patient's whose child was hospitalized for several months and was so thankful that the design was so beautiful that it made their stay bearable. The design has also made a big difference in employee turnover was is an expensive part of HC. the project was recently featured in a government film because of it's success as a model for future hospitals.

It's an interesting "indirect" stat.

even in this bad economic environment. Many new/newer office and warehouse type complexes are sitting vacant for lease.

Entire newly constructed industrial parks are sitting vacant where I live.

To me it just seems like we've overbuilt and exasperated the mass vacancy problem.

Just my own observation.

CADD has replaced the need for a lot of hands-on type work.

I couldn't afford $120 per hour for work that I would rather do myself. So instead of being a nervous wreck waiting on someone to get their work to me, I decided to do it myself.

Here's my garage, as of a couple of days ago.

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Regarding the last two comments:

I don't really think CAD has reduced the amount of work - someone still has to do the drawing in CAD - now maybe the people doing it are changed. It doesn't just draw or design something without a person inputting the design.

And Gregorian - there is no need to get defensive or insulting to architects. Just because you are able to let your architect go and build your house without help, doesn't mean everyone can, and that the services they offer are not worthwhile.

My general observation, being a landscape architect, is that right now people seem more inclined to make changes to their existing homes, rather than to take the plunge to build a whole new home - and the commercial building construction industry just doesn't seem to be there at all. Most of the work seems to be in residential - and though alot of the landscape architects are laid off - I am lucky in that I work for a landscape contractor who is still busy doing residential design, and also does maintenance - and luckily for us the leaves don't stop falling, and the grass doesn't stop growing.

I was going nuts having someone do my own work. But I was also terrified to take the reins. I should have been clear that my architect took me through a process that I could not have done alone. But once the training wheels came off, I was off and running.

Architects are a valuable and rare breed. I liken them to cardiothoracic surgeons. Specialists who have honed a fine art. They need to know art, materials, design, water proofing, building systems.

I was being somewhat facetious in my tone. My architect asked me why I was using him since I had my house already designed. But it's the details, and error checking, and even the whole process of permits, engineering, standard practices in the trades, like concrete work, that I just did not have.

First the young ones went. Then the ones whose projects were ending. Then the ones they really didn't want to lose but couldn't afford anymore. Then me and then the next week, everyone else. Only the partners whose names were on the letterhead still gather to finish the projects that were in the works and I hear those end this April.

It really sucked in 2002 when no one was building. The owner of the company said this was a thousand times worse than the worst he'd ever seen in the early 90s.