+1, I find the biggest challenge to be money: how much does your concept cost, we like it, but let's see if the owner wants it. Then the bidding wars start if the owner likes it and after a long chase (my firm didn't see a LOI on Clinton Library until a year after we bid it), the scope of work that you focused on may have been VE'd (value engineered, meaning your shit's too expensive and the project is over budget, so the owner won't go fancy and thank you for your contributions) or your undercut by foreign companies who are in cahootz with the architect to begin with.
Design+Build, Design+Engineering firm. We work either as a consultant to the architect when the project is in schematic or DD stage (sometimes CDs) and/or bid the contract as a sub-contractor to the GC or the glazier depending on how we want to approach the job.
Point-supported glass structures, cable supported glass structures, tensile fabric structures, all glass structures, custom/unique iconic structures. It's a tough business man.
it sounds fun designing and building things....I just sit behind the computer all day and type...
#2, I'm a programmer like you and all my friends always say to me... "your job sounds soo fun and interesting, I wish I had your job". I think it's kinda boring a lot of the time, depending on what I'm working on specifically at any given time. I tell ya what though, CMMI bullshit really gets on my nerves when you're trying to meet a deadline and seriously gets in the way of productivity and adds soo much red tape to what should be a simple task. I guess the grass is always greener on the other side.
For some reason, my friends also think I design bombs and stuff. Crazy kids.
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Gamma - We did that with Austin Commercial on the AMerican Airlines Center here in Dallas. The whole design build thing on a building that size can get pretty ugly, but it worked out great. It was crazy, when they started building the service level we had not even finished designing anything but structure above the first level. They built it in a spiral shape so we were constantly designing right in front of their construction. Works well though if you have compitent people working together. Throw a few idiots in there and look out.
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05 Hayabusa. Black and Silver,M4 exhaust. The G is fast, just not this fast.
#2, I'm a programmer like you and all my friends always say to me... "your job sounds soo fun and interesting, I wish I had your job". I think it's kinda boring a lot of the time, depending on what I'm working on specifically at any given time. I tell ya what though, CMMI bullshit really gets on my nerves when you're trying to meet a deadline and seriously gets in the way of productivity and adds soo much red tape to what should be a simple task. I guess the grass is always greener on the other side.
For some reason, my friends also think I design bombs and stuff. Crazy kids.
bahahah....i work for the DoD, and when people ask what I do, I tell them I defuse bombs....
everything can be done so much easier if we didnt have to follow protocol....
Ahhh HKS, yeah I know it began with an H and HKS is based out of Dallas. I used to talk to Ernest Teng at HKS when discusing the Phoenix Sky Harbor project. They wanted some fancy tensile fabric membrane structures. That scope fell through though. Then we tried to become a consultant with HKS (Fred Roberts and Eddie Abeyta ring a bell?) on the Victory Dallas airport project w/Orne & Associates. It's hard to be a consultant these days, that proposal was close to being closed but in the end, HKS passed and I believe the scope we wanted was eliminated.
I once saw the drawings on Lear Corporate HQ in Southfield, MI and even stopped by HKS office here in Santa Monica and met with Richard Keating before he started his Keating/Khang practice. We gave them budgets and details but in the end, the interior work was so different from what we saw that we did not bid the job.
McClain, you working as an independed architect now? Good for you. It's better to be your own boss than to work in these stuffy architectural firms.
Yeah, I know all those guys. Fred Roberts is one of the coolest guys you'll ever meet. Drives a convertible Vette with the topdown and a doobie hanging from his mouth. Eddie's a tool, but a good designer. Ernest is nuts, you ever talk to him about his bug? You should get him going on that thing. He's got it all tricked out. Three point belts and all and it's still slow of course.
Right now I'm doing a couple of things. I'm actually employeed by GHA. But My best friend and I are in the process of starting a development company. He's got three companys already and we've always wanted to do this so we're taking a shot at it. I've got a couple 5-6 story office buildings in design right now and he's marketing them as we speak. It's a great deal. I could go into detail but would bore almost everone here. If you're interested, PM me and we can talk. Obviously it's young right now, but there is potential to go huge. He's at the Kentucky derby right now with the four executives for Administaff and I'm hoping when he gets back he tells me to walk in to my owner's office and tell him I'm done.
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Formally known as: 05 Brilliant Silver MT Sedan. Premium, Sport and Aero Packages. 18\" Sport wheels.
05 Hayabusa. Black and Silver,M4 exhaust. The G is fast, just not this fast.
Yeah, I know all those guys. Fred Roberts is one of the coolest guys you'll ever meet. Drives a convertible Vette with the topdown and a doobie hanging from his mouth. Eddie's a tool, but a good designer. Ernest is nuts, you ever talk to him about his bug? You should get him going on that thing. He's got it all tricked out. Three point belts and all and it's still slow of course.
Right now I'm doing a couple of things. I'm actually employeed by GHA. But My best friend and I are in the process of starting a development company. He's got three companys already and we've always wanted to do this so we're taking a shot at it. I've got a couple 5-6 story office buildings in design right now and he's marketing them as we speak. It's a great deal. I could go into detail but would bore almost everone here. If you're interested, PM me and we can talk. Obviously it's young right now, but there is potential to go huge. He's at the Kentucky derby right now with the four executives for Administaff and I'm hoping when he gets back he tells me to walk in to my owner's office and tell him I'm done.
If that becomes true, that would be so sweeeeeet. I'd love to do that myself.
No, I've never been that personal with clients, particularly with those I've never met. HKS is in Dallas, I'm in L.A.
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