Seattle – Washington – USA (by Peiyu Liu)
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This article was originally published by The Architect’s Guide as “How To Earn A Six Figure Architecture Salary.”
Architecture salary. Perhaps one of the most talked about and passionately debated topics in the design community. I receive more emails on this subject than almost anything else.
Previously, in 5 Factors Affecting Your Architecture Salary, I covered several variables that contribute to your income. However, for this article I want to highlight the areas that will produce the best return on your investment of time and money.
While earning six figures doesn’t mean what it used to, it is still a very admirable (and achievable) goal. So how do you go about reaching this significant architecture salary milestone? Let’s discuss.
Just a quick note, I will be discussing how you can earn a large salary through an employer. I won’t cover running your own office for this post. However this can be a route to a high income—potentially very high.
If you are just beginning your architecture career it is unlikely you will be able to earn $100,000+ per year today. However, now is the time to focus on developing the points below. By the time you are twenty years into your career and earning half of what you should be it is often too late to make up the difference.
The architecture profession is a relatively slow accumulation of experience and qualifications. The sooner you can master the following points the better positioned you will be in the [near] future to command a higher salary than your less capable peers.
The definition of insanity is doing the same thing over and over again and expecting a different result. The same is true for your architecture career. If you are doing the same thing everyday and expecting a higher salary it is unlikely to happen.
What can you do today that will make you more valuable tomorrow? Increasing your “hard skills” is a relatively easy first step to implement.
Hard skills examples:
However it is just as important to develop your “soft skills.”
Soft skills examples:
These typically take longer to perfect so you need to start now. Focus on one topic per day and try to tweak one aspect of your work day or routine to improve one of these skills. The book The Compound Effect by Darren Hardy explains this process beautifully.
The average salary increase an employee receives when starting a new job is between 10% and 20%. Based on an average “Unlicensed Architecture / Design Staff 1” salary of $58,200, this translates to an annual increase of $5,800 to $11,600!
Often it can be difficult to get substantial raises from your current employer, beyond the standard 3% – 5% cost of living increases. However, making calculated, strategic moves can greatly boost your base salary. If you are looking for a new position, start by checking out the 7 Reasons Why Your Architecture Job Application Is Being Ignored.
In a recent interview with Mark Cuban, he stated one of the keys to success is to “reduce the stress of your co-workers”.
When you are at work, reduce the stress of your colleges and supervisors. If you can reduce other people’s stress, those people will gravitate towards you. You will be seen as the leader and your colleagues will eventually want to work for you.
Here is a link to Mark’s excellent interview, I highly recommend watching.
Without a doubt specialization is key to a high salary in architecture. In other words, “what do you do better than anyone else?” This can be as broad as expertise in a certain building typology or as specific as airport BIM Management (who, by the way, can make substantial incomes).
In a recent U.S. News article on Architect Salaries, “the best-paid 10 percent in the profession made approximately $121,910, while the bottom 10 percent made about $44,940.”
The top 10% makes almost 3x the bottom 10%! It pays to be the best.
Looking at the data from the AIA Salary Calculator:
For example, an Architect III position:
Ten or more years of experience, licensed architect who plans and develops medium- to large-scope projects with many complexities, executes and coordinates projects, and may oversee a large staff of architects and technicians.
In New England (CT, MA, ME, NH, RI, VT) the mean salary is $104,600.
Keep in mind this is the average, so while some made less, others made more. While this does require 10+ years of experience there are ways to reduce this number by working through school to compress the post-graduation years required.
As the saying goes, “don’t ask permission just ask for forgiveness”. Responsibility is not something that is just handed out, you need to take the initiative and go above and beyond what is expected.
You can’t be at the bottom of the pyramid and expect to be well compensated. If you want to climb the pay scale you must challenge yourself by taking on more responsibility, which will ultimately translate to more income. This doesn’t necessarily mean working long hours but you need to be as efficient and productive as possible.
If you are just beginning your career, start small. Take on the task of leading a small portion of a project. By proving to others that you are reliable and dependable you will be rewarded over time.
This is an opportunity for you to discuss with your supervisor(s) what you have contributed to the firm and will provide in the near future. Depending on the size of the office these may be organized by the HR department or you may need to take the initiative to set up a meeting.
Make sure you are well prepared with specific examples. How and where you have been successful? What do you want to provide moving forward?
You can think of this as re-interviewing for your own job. While that may sound scary it is meant to emphasize the importance of your review and why you are asking for a raise. Generally you should have this sit down once a year but if there has been a major change in your role or responsibilities it could be sooner.
Remember, just taking up office space and breathing air for a year does not qualify for an increase. Neither does the cost of living or your personal financial situation.
One of the best places to begin on your journey to a high architecture salary is to become licensed. Yes, it is expensive and takes a lot of time but it is very important to advance in the profession.
If you don’t believe me just look at the senior members of your or other architecture offices. Are they licensed? Odds are most of them are registered architects. There are exceptions, but it is best to follow a proven path.
In the U.S. NCARB is making it easier to complete your license by reducing the number of tests and required hours of internship experience. Tear off the band-aid. Just get it over with. The longer you wait the more difficult it will become to finish the exams.
Depending on your state you can complete the exams BEFORE you complete the Intern Experience Program, and you can record MORE than 40 hours per week.
Both of these techniques can greatly reduce the time it takes to become licensed. The longer you hold a license generally the more you are worth in the marketplace.
This may not be the best solution for everyone but since we are putting all the options on the table, this can be the quickest route to a six figure income. Often by following the cyclical construction booms you can take advantage of a hot market looking for talent.
The big benefit of working for an architecture office in a prominent city is that the salary will almost always be higher than the equivalent job in a rural environment. Of course the reason often cited for this is the higher cost of living.
However, if you are willing to live below your means and skip the penthouse apartment you will be financially better off in the long run. Setting your salary high as early as possible will be a huge advantage throughout your career.
This topic is perhaps outside the scope of what we have been discussing but if we are strictly talking about breaking the $100k annual figure, it is relevant.
I recommend that everyone have multiple income streams. The riskiest position to be in is where one company provides your only source of income. Think about your skill set and what you can do on the side to generate additional income.
There are hundreds of ways to earn additional cash related to the architecture profession. Who knows, that side work may turn out to be even more profitable than your day job.
Pick up freelance architecture work? Provide model building or rendering services? This can not only provide income in the short term but also create long term connections and contacts. Ultimately, this may lead to additional work or even a more lucrative position.
One note on side jobs, depending on the type of work you are performing your employer’s liability insurance can prohibit freelance work, so be sure to do your homework.
I hope this has been helpful for your architecture salary goals. So what are you waiting for?
In some uniquely designed contemporary homes, the signs that you’re in for a visual treat are very subtle from the street. The outside of the home might look deceivingly “normal” at first, leaving you to be surprised when you walk through the door and encounter the modern visual masterpiece that is the interior. EN House is the perfect example of what we mean! EN House is a wonderfully subtle but..
The post Meguro Architecture Laboratory Designs an Experimental Home in Tokyo, Japan appeared first on HomeDSGN.
While blogging is an interesting hobby that can even become your main source of income if you put some effort into it, it still requires a lot of hard work. The real challenge begins not when you start your blog and write a few first posts, but when you actually start building up your loyal audience. Simply being dedicated, monitoring the blogging trends and updating regularly is not enough to run your blog smoothly: you have to build a certain strategy and stick to it.
Lucky for you, there are actually only a few things you need to focus on. These include ocial media, quality of your content, emails, trends and statistics.
Today, I’m going to tell you more about them, allowing you to create your own system of running your blog smoothly.
Even if your posts are amazing, they’re useless if no one can find them. That’s what you need social media for. Social media platforms help people find you, share your articles and ideas, recommend you to friends, and so on.
To create a correct social media strategy, try to imagine your potential audience. What is it like? Maybe it consists of young people who spend most of their time online on Twitter, or maybe it mostly consists of active Facebook users. This is especially important to understand if you don’t have much time to spend on social media. Having this information lets you focus on a single platform and update the others when you have time for it.
However, social media can be used not only for sharing your new posts. If you update your blog once a week, this means that your social media accounts will look quite empty the rest of the week. Try sharing other interesting information, or create other types of content (for example images, videos, etc.). This way, your followers will stick to your social media accounts. After all, they’ll be able to find something there that isn’t posted on your blog.
The content is what brings people to your blog. That’s why it has to be interesting and valuable to the readers. Focus on making your content as high-quality and unique as possible. Don’t forget that this is even more important than regular updates and this has to be a priority. If you have to choose between updating your blog more often and making the content more interesting, choose the latter.
Researching your niche and what your competitors are up to is an extremely important part of the whole blogging process. You have to do your research well and repeat it few times a month in order to see what your competitors can offer and which blogging trends exist on the web. This will allow you to respond to these trends with your content and to avoid unintentional plagiarism.
See Also: How To Find The Best Topic For Your Blog
If you want to run your blog smoothly, you need to understand which of your methods work well and which don’t. This will allow you to optimize them and to adjust your strategy according to the preferences of your audience.
Analytics is the main tool that can help you with that. It allows you to understand where your audience is coming from, how much time they spend on your website, which posts they like the most and so on. Lucky for you, there’s an easy way to go about it. All you need to do is to use the Google Analytics service and to learn how to work with it.
It is important not only to analyze the effectiveness of your blog but also to make it more effective. That’s why you should learn more about the latest SEO trends and try to incorporate them in your blog. However, be sure not to overdo it. If your posts are overloaded with keywords, readers will notice it and this can turn them away.
See Also: 5 Proven Strategies That Can Massively Increase Blog Traffic
Even now, despite the development of social media, emails still remain the most effective marketing tool. Don’t hesitate to use that tool for your blog promotion and remember, those who subscribe to your blog are your most loyal readers.
However, if you don’t have an email list yet and want people to subscribe, you have to offer them something valuable. Yes, many people do subscribe simply because of new posts notifications, but you’ll be surprised how much this number could increase if you offer something more interesting for everyone who’ll subscribe, for example, an eBook.
It’s important to repeat such offers from time to time, changing the content every time, instead of doing this only once. This way you’ll be able to keep the existing subscribers as well as attract new ones.
What is even more important is learning how to integrate all these things mentioned above into your blogging strategy. Learning more about them is one thing but learning how to use them is another.
To do so, you need to spend some time thinking about these things. Which strategies will benefit your blog immediately and which ones will do so only with time? Which ones are the easiest to do and which ones require more time and effort to understand and implement them? Answering these questions will help you set your priorities. You will see what you have to focus on first and what can be done later. Maybe your content is good enough already but you have no idea about how to use Google Analytics. It’s time to figure this out.
After you do so, write down the main things you need to add to your marketing strategy and try to add them to your blogging schedule. For example, if you want to focus on social media, don’t forget to schedule the nearest updates and find some time to learn more about the most popular types of social media content in your niche. And if you need to focus on emails, try finding time to read some guides and to learn how to write emails better.
I hope that this article will help you and inspire you. Good luck with your blog!
The post How to Keep Your Blog Running Smoothly appeared first on Dumb Little Man.
This article is part of our new “Material Focus” series, which asks architects to elaborate on the thought process behind their material choices and sheds light on the steps required to get buildings actually built.
The CKK Jordanki (Jordanki Cultural and Convention Center) by Fernando Menis is located in the historical center of Torun. It respects the shorter height of the surrounding buildings to preserve the views of the river and better fit the natural environment that surrounds it. The building was designed to have a more natural look, like a ‘rock’ that marks the transition from the urban plot to the park that surrounds it. In this interview we spoke with Fernando Menis who explained in depth how the selection of project materials contributed to the design process, helped in the inclusion of universal accessibility, and the project’s construction.
What were the main materials used in the project?
FM: Concrete and “picado.” “Picado,” coming from the Spanish word for chipped, is a new material, certified by both Spain and Poland’s Institute of Construction Research, and consists of mixing concrete with other materials, and breaking it up after assembly, to achieve certain acoustic effects. In the case of CKK Jordanki the “chipped” effect has been achieved by mixing concrete with recycled red bricks or with volcanic stone.
In terms of materials, what were your main sources of inspiration and influence in selecting them?
FM: The greatest source of inspiration has undoubtedly been the historic city center of Torun, the city where CKK Jordanki is located. Torun, a UNESCO heritage city, has a strong Gothic legacy and its façades are almost all red brick.
Can you describe how decisions on materials were considered within the conceptual design?
FM: The essential concern was to obtain an excellent acoustic container since the focus of the project was a Concert Hall. As such we have been concerned about materials that could give good results in terms of reflection, distribution and sound absorption. In this sense, the “picado” made with brick complements the geometry of the Concert Hall and reflects and distributes the sound very well. We also always try to make the most of local companies and resources, so in addition to the concrete, we used waste bricks from a local company (Ceramsus). Finally, in terms of materiality and from a contemporary interpretation of a traditional material, we wanted to reference the Gothic legacy of the city of Torun, whose red brick is omnipresent: in CKK Jordanki the “picado” red brick permeates the interior as well as appearing in the facade, in an expressive contrast with the white concrete that was also used there.
What were the advantages of these materials during construction?
FM: The concrete provided by CEMEX Poland and the bricks provided by Ceramsus are both locally produced materials, so that in addition to helping to boost the local economy, their prices were very affordable. Moreover, the brick we used was waste, we recycled it creatively, giving it a new form and function. The “picado”, acts as a tool within the acoustic system we designed for the building.
Did you face any challenges due to your material selection?
FM: The word challenge is very fitting when discussing this project because everything is pure invention and innovation. We wanted to try new methods for acoustics, to demonstrate that it is possible to create a new type of auditorium without wood, to demystify the baroque. Then all these challenges were conquered when the new concrete was approved in official laboratories and certified in Spain and Poland.
Were there any other possible materials considered for the project? If so, how would the design have changed?
FM: From the outset, when I first visited Torun and discovered that the essence on which that historic city was built was the red brick, I decided to use that material mixed with concrete. In other words, the end path had been chosen from the beginning, although the idea was developed and perfected along the way, with the different tests and trials that we were carrying out.
How did you research and choose the suppliers or contractors for the materials used in the project?
FM: When I arrived in Poland, I looked into how they worked there, what customs they had, what they were best for, what the most competitive prices were, after taking all of this into account, we designed the construction system, always according to the constructive culture of Poland.
*CKK Jordanki recently received the 2016 CEMEX Building Award in the Universal Accessibility category for the international team.
CKK Jordanki / Fernando Menis
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From the architect. With a particular predilection for the modernist style, Massimo Pignanelli found the perfect house for his young family in Hasselt. The single-family house right outside the city centre of Hasselt was built in the early sixties in a structure of concrete beams and columns filled with non-bearing wall elements. This constructive principle grants the house a sleek, sober and balanced look. The balanced architectural concept needed to be refreshed to contemporary standards, though. The characteristic construction was kept during the renovation which transformed both the existing property and the new spaces together into a consistent whole.
Following the program of demands, an extension was created to the building which is fully in function of multipurpose rooms for the young family and the demand for a practice area. The embedding of the house in the surrounding green is emphasised because the extension is immersed in the landscape. The large patio here forms the connecting element towards the garden and ensures that new and old are disconnected. Together with the vide in the entrance hall, an airy house is created with a lot of light and view of the surrounding green. The green character of the environment with a unique view therefore provided the incentive to organise the living area on the upper floor. The versatile character of the practice area in the basement is also done full justice because of the vide as a connection with the garden.
The original and iconic vertical sectioning was respected by designing the extension under the level of the existing concrete framework of the upper floor. Inside the framework an ingenious filling is realised with alternating slanted, deeper and flush planes. Round lines subtly appear in the façade and later also in the various details in-house. The whitewashed brick outer walls combined with black windows and doors create tranquillity and accentuate timelessness. The combination of carrara statuario marble, white concrete floors and white walls continues the calm atmosphere inside throughout the house. The contrasting black marmo nero marquino creates a sober look. The characteristic house got an upgrade, as it were, to modern comfort and this of course with respect for the original concept.
Have you ever seen extended roof home designs where the edge of the roof hangs lower than usual, bringing the top of the house down so that it forms part of the front facade as well. These houses aren’t uncommon but some designers take a much more modern or artistic approach to the angles and the way the roof extends downward. For some designers, this is a great way to..
The post Edouard Brunet and François Martens Design a Private Residence in Flanders, Belgium appeared first on HomeDSGN.
From the architect. Krøyers Plads is a five-story housing project with a significant location in the centre of the Copenhagen harbour area designed by Danish architects Vilhelm Lauritzen Architects and COBE. The award-winning and Nordic Eco-labelled project is now finished. The project is based on a hyper-democratic and contextual approach where folded roofs and architectural heaviness create a dialogue between old and new, and a modern, empathetic interpretation of the architectural uniqueness of the old Copenhagen warehouses.
Krøyers Plads is a significant location in the centre of the Copenhagen harbour area. The site constituted a gap in the continuous rows of old warehouses that sit perpendicular to the harbour and was an architectural and political battle eld in Copenhagen for more than a decade. When the nal building design for this beautiful historical site was developed by Vilhelm Lauritzen Architects and COBE, many architectural proposals had already been rejected by local organizations and politicians for various reasons.
With a prime location in the Copenhagen harbour, opposite the Royal
Playhouse, the historical Nyhavn, and next to the world’s best restaurant, Noma, the project consists of 3 story housing units with 105 apartments ranging from 79 to 250 m2 in size. The ground floor of the three buildings houses restaurants, shops and a supermarket. Krøyers Plads is surrounded by a wooden waterfront promenade, which has become a favorite spot to catch the sun in the Danish summers.
A hyper-democratic approach
Set between 300-year-old industrial warehouses the new development is based on the constraints and demands from the public voices of Copenhageners and is a modern interpretation of the old buildings that are so characteristic for the harbour front in Copenhagen.
”The neighbours were for instance invited to help define the height of the buildings and to help select the materials – both crucial for the way the new Krøyers Plads relates to its surroundings. Instead of inventing a new building typology, Krøyers Plads became a reinvention of the one already found adjacent to the site – the industrial warehouse,” says Dan Stubbergaard, Founder and Creative Director at COBE.
The design is based on a hyper-democratic approach. An architectural storytelling that through a dialogue with the local community strives to create a meaningful and comprehensive in ll. The approach was to translate all signi cant characteristics of the old warehouses, such as the harbour facing gables, the heavy expression, building height and materiality, into modern design parameters that meet both functional and climatic demands.
The design by Vilhelm Lauritzen Architects and COBE was begun in 2011. In 2013, construction started and now the modern housing project is finished and the new owners have moved in.
Sig Nordal 