The day before I left for New York, I was invited to AIA East Bay’s Emeritus meeting, since they were discussing the needs of under-employed emerging professionals and possibly forming a mentor/workshop program to keep us afloat. “What will happen [to the architecture industry] if three to five years of emerging professionals are gone?” Just food for thought.
“Architecture is always heavily impacted by the economy, and I’ve worked through about five recessions. I’m just glad that I’m retired now, because this one’s pretty bad,” said one emeritus member. Well how bad is “pretty bad”? Just yesterday, The New York Times published an article, “Architect, or Whatever” with the popular photo of John Morefield underneath his “architecture 5¢” sign.
The article explains:
A troubled economy and the implosion of the real estate market have thrown thousands of architects and designers out of work in the last year or so, forcing them to find or create jobs. 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.
“It’s hard to find a place to hide when the economy goes down,” said Kermit Baker, the chief economist at the American Institute of Architects. “There aren’t any strong sectors now.”
And it’s not clear when the industry will recover. Architecture firms are still laying off employees, and Mr. Baker doesn’t expect them to rehire until billings recover, which he thinks won’t be until the second half of this year at the earliest.
In the meantime, many of those who have been laid off are discovering new talents often unrelated to architecture.
And by new talents, NYT means crafting culinary creations (named after Gehry and Mies), pottery making, knitting…and truck driving. Awesome!
From the beginning of college until now, various people from my high school, church, design clubs, the internet have emailed me about majoring in architecture and what “studio culture” is like. Perhaps you read The Fountainhead or watched a movie where the protagonist was an architect (the latest and greatest being 500 Days of Summer), or you love to draw and do math, work in shop, sleep in studio…I’ll tell you this: the architecture education is worth it.
You learn to solve complicated problems when you’re given a site (to analyze and utilize) and a program (to fit) with various parameters (building codes, structural integrity, community integration, circulation, etc.). You figure out quickly how to use various programs for 2D line drawing, 3D modeling, rendering and photo-editing (not because someone is there to hold your hand and walk you through AutoCAD, Rhino or Photoshop but because there’s a deadline approaching). You constantly present in front of a panel of professors, grad students, and local architects who dissect your project very critically…but you learn to challenge yourself and always improve. I can’t think of any other major that is this…old-school, hands-on, and actually fun (though you might have a few shop machine accidents during the 72nd hour of nonsleep).
However, your parents will think that the architecture education is completely not worth it, because their poor baby is drinking redbull and crying in studio the day before final review…and then she graduates and can’t find a job. “What a poor investment and a waste of college tuition,” implies my mom. So I never really know what to say. All I know is, architecture isn’t just going to die…no necessary industry completely falls off the planet. Buildings get old, new ones rise up, and the economy is always on some wobbly sine curve–what can you do. (You might starve every once in a while, but hey, there are emeritus, retired architects alive and happy.)
It’s been more than half a year since I’ve graduated, and since then, I’ve traveled all over the place: Taipei, Kaohsiung, Hangzhou, Shanghai, Bangkok, Singapore, Kuala Lumpur, Brunei, Hong Kong, LA, New York, Boston…seen all sorts of architecture, experienced all sorts of heart attacks and thrills, met all sorts of people doing all sorts of things. I’ve also interned at a hi-tech office in Taipei, worked on a few book deals, freelanced a website here and a graphic there, been rejected many times (by both companies and people—don’t make me elaborate), and freaked out every now and then. Life goes on.
I’m still applying to various companies (hoping to find someplace where tech and design intersect), but I’m just wondering…what’s your perspective on the field of architecture?
