Practice Management Member Conversations

  • 1.  Commoditization of Architecture

    Posted 12-10-2012 10:20 AM
    Although we keep claiming architectural design to be a service and not a commodity, other forces are conspiring to drag the profession in the other direction. I have recently learned of a company called www.ArcBazar.com that pairs clients to designers around the world in the form of "Paid competitions." A prize of perhaps $1000 is put up for the redesign of an entire house and there will be 8-12 competitors who each upload their solutions within a deadline set by the client. The website takes 20% of the "prize" off the top, the selected winner supposedly gets what's left and the other competitors get the "pleasure and honor" of competing. With the use of BIM many of the completed projects LOOK fairly well developed and have multiple perspective renderings. There is no guarantee of code compliance, safety considerations or even buildability but clearly the competitors are each devoting scores of hours in work, if not more.

    The Advisory Board includes many alleged professors from Harvard and MIT. Does anyone know any of these people?:
    Oliver Bandte
    Tim Curran
    Sarah Goldhagen
    Jon Hirschtick
    William Porter
    Daniel Schadek

    I would say they have a lot to answer for. There is to my mind something HIGHLY unethical about luring desperate people from around the US and around the world to design with little to no prospect of getting paid. There is an even greater unethical quality about collecting a salary fro a university where people are paying $50,000 a year to learn to be architects and the debasing the profession through the use of this near fraudulent offer of compensation. It is like have 20 people rake your yard and offering to pay the one that you judge to have raked the best minimum wage and paying the others nothing. Does this shock others as much as it shocks me?

    Regards,

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    Ross Cann AIA, LEED AP
    Senior Architect
    A4 Architecture + Planning
    Newport RI
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  • 2.  RE:Commoditization of Architecture

    Posted 12-11-2012 12:52 PM
    The response to this will be very interesting. To me it's just one more slippery step on the path to irrelevance. I suspect younger.generations will view it as a wonderful entrepreneurial opportunity. Is the truth somewhere in between? ------------------------------------------- Eugene Ely AIA, LEED AP Architect-in-waiting San Jose, CA -------------------------------------------
    Original Message


  • 3.  RE:Commoditization of Architecture

    Posted 12-12-2012 09:51 AM
    There is nothing to stop the end user from gathering the ideas of all of the designers and picking the components of their work that they would like to implement, even if the designer was a wash out. I have had my design ideas taken during the RFP process, and handed over to the "selected" architect only to see them complete my design work. I don't enter competitions anymore and do not respond to RFPs that require preliminary design of any kind anymore. I guess if you are young and trying to break out it may not matter and the exposure may be good for some.

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    Keith Youngquist AIA
    Manager/Principal
    Dacre & Youngquist, LLC
    Chicago IL
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    Original Message


  • 4.  RE:Commoditization of Architecture

    Posted 12-13-2012 06:53 AM
    ...and if someone wants you to fly out for an interview, do so, but only with a prepaid, round-trip, business class ticket.

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    Karl Hartnack AIA
    Component Past President
    Hartnack Architecture
    Duesseldorf

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    Original Message


  • 5.  RE:Commoditization of Architecture

    Posted 12-13-2012 10:13 AM
    If you're a member of the Practice Management Knowledge Community, be on the lookout for the AIA Practice Management Digest which is being emailed to all members this coming Monday. As the editor, I can tell you that the theme of the issue is trends in the industry and it contains several articles related to the subject of commoditization of architect's services.

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    Raymond Kogan AIA
    President
    Kogan & Company
    Arlington VA
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    Original Message