Posts made by Ray Brown

Daniel:

We still allocate time internally based on percentages for each phase, but our internal historical data shows that we need to be very careful to adjust those percentages for each project. We rarely use a set percentage for billing because we've discovered that projects can be highly variable, depending on scope, unforseen conditions, and the client. For example, I recently completed a very large home remodeling and addition that took two years (!) of client handholding just to get through the design process. Can't put a fixed percentage on that!

Tom:
I'm not sure that I completely understand what your arrangement is to be, but generally I'd say, "Keep it Simple." You're worth what you're worth, and unless you're in a financial crunch and need immediate income, I'd just set a price you think is commensurate with what you're bringing to the table and with the effort you'll think it'll take, then sit back and let him react to it. It's a lot easier to negotiate downward than it is upward.

Don't be shy about asking for what you're worth. I once did some consulting for which I almost asked for $4000 a week plus expenses, but at the very last minute, what came out of my mouth was $3000. The client agreed so readily that I knew I'd left money on the table.

Modelhead:
Don't know if we'd be interested or not until we saw more details. There are just so many variables...

Tom:
It's always difficult to estimate production time, but generally, I think of it in terms of a complete sheet every two days. That allows for time for me to check and correct the work, and to coordinate between sheets and between the architectural and engineering work, and to make any required adjustments.

In that estimate, I'm also assuming that I've worked out the details before I've started the final sheets, during the DD Phase. I usually do that with pencil and paper, thinking through the construction details, making lots of hand-drawn, to-scale wall section drawings and enlarged details, then adjusting the plans and elevations accordingly. That sequence helps me ensure that I know what I'm drawing before I start, and allows the thing to flow more smoothly.

Don't forget to allow a day or so for some building code and product research before finalizing the drawings, and for writing the specifications. I find the code research particularly helpful because it keeps me from drawing something that can't actually be built legally, especially in the area of accessibility.

Finally, price yourself according to what a firm would bill you at if you were working for a larger firm. That can be two and a half or three times what you pay yourself. After all, you've still got overhead to cover, even if you're a one-man shop.

The biggest problem I had when I was working alone was believing that I was worth what I should have been charging. Because I didn't believe it myself, I had trouble convincing clients that, just because I was practicing alone didn't mean I came cheap! Once I got through my head that I knew what I knew, and that my experience, skill, knowledge, and judgment was worth real money, I was able to demand, and get, the appropriate fees. I also learned that if someone wasn't willing to pay it, I probably didn't want to work for that person anyway, and besides, someone else would.

Once you get a reputation for being cut-rate, it's almost impossible to raise your fees later. So never, ever, ever underprice. That's my advice.

Ray

Tom:
After years of underestimating fees, our office has adopted a policy (with most of our clients, at least) of charging an hourly fee through design development, then setting a fixed fee for contract documents and contract administration. We have found that we cannot predict how much time it will take to produce a project until we have clearly and completely defined the scope, and we can't know the scope until we've finished with DD's--and until the client has finished changing his mind or adding stuff.

We'll sometimes, but not always, set a Not-To-Exceed number on the SD and DD phases, but it has to be negotiable for those clients who keep changing things. When we set an NTE, we do it phase by phase, as each preceeding phase is completed.

We're also getting pretty stringent on making sure that we get the client's written approval after every phase, and that the client clearly understands up front that, having received that approval, we will bill any subsequent changes on an hourly basis as Additional Services.

The point is that we don't mind working on a project for as long as the client wants us to, making whatever changes are desired, but we insist on being compensated for it. This method encourages clients to make decisions and stick to them, although changes for unforseen circumstances can easily be accommodated.

Hope this helps.

@unknownuser said:

Ray, yes and no. I suppose it differs between countries, here in South Africa it pretty much depends on your appointment. See the attached file for a TXT file contained in a ZIP archive.

So if you want to retain copyright / ownership of your product, make sure you're appointed correctly and it is stipulated.

Julian:

Thanks for the information and the good advice.

I was referring to the terms contained in the American Institute of Architects standard Owner/Architect Agreement. Unfortunately, like many Americans, I tend to forget that we're not the only country in the world, and that others do things in other ways.

Ray

@solo said:

I figured that I have been paid for a requested product thus it no longer belongs to me in any way or form.

It's standard practice in architecture to regard all documents as "instruments of service," with all rights to their use in any form retained by the architect. Shouldn't illustrative drawings be should treated the same way?

Tina:

Can't remember exactly when or in which section of the forum, but there was a lengthy discussion of just this topic quite recently. I'm sure you can find it with a search.

Of course, you're quite right to insist on professional credit. You won't always get it, but you certainly won't if you don't insist on it. I always affix a label to the back of my drawings saying "Please provide professional credit to..." I figure that if it's good enough for professional photographers, it's good enough for illustrators as well!

Ray

Daniel:

It is precisely for your reasons that I agree that a free-lance illustrator should sign his/her work, and receive printed credit if the work is published.

Years ago, as a freelancer, I prepared several dozen renderings showing underutilized buildings and sites as if they were developed. The work was often published in the local paper and other media outlets in stories planted by the client (a city department.) In the beginning, my work was uncredited. I asked my client to ensure that it was, and he agreed to do so. Nevertheless, the paper continued to run the work without credit.

After several irate phone calls from me to the editor, they finally began crediting the work. I can't say that I received a lot of follow-up work as a result, but my professional reputation as an architect did increase, and many people commented positively on the images they had seen. So yes, receiving credit for my work is important to me, personally and professionally.

I wonder what policy the big-time renderers such as Schaller and Gorski follow. Anybody know?

@sorgesu said:

Ray only says that because he was on the same cruise we were on at Christmas time and he got to see my kids in action. The whole dern drama above must have been written about them.

No, I say that because I've seen a lot of kids in action, including my own! For good parents, both its joys and its frustrations are pretty universal.

Tom:

Fabulous! Thanks for the laugh.

Ray

Tom:

For what it's worth, I'd encourage you to continue populating your drawings with "real" people doing real things. Part of my personal beef with photorealism is that too often, the buildings appear to be in an unpopulated world. I suppose that for many clients, the fact that such drawings focus exclusively on the building as an object is a plus. And even when people are included in either photoreal or non-photoreal drawings,they end up being abstracted and static.

But buildings, or streets, or squares are environments to support human activity. People in action are interesting to watch; that's why we all do it. So many shapes and sizes, so many movements and expressions. In my drawings, I've always tried to convey that the buildings shown are just background to the life of the city they make up, and to do it as much good humor and wit as I can muster.

Given your warmth and wit as expressed in the forums, I hope you continue to express it through your work.

Perhaps what I need to stress over and over in the class, which I don't believe I have ever done, is to verbalize that the answer to how to approach a modelling problem isn't always obvious or instantanesous. That one needs to stop and consider the capabilities of all the tools, make decisions about which may be the best way to go, and be prepared for some false starts and to consider other more efficient alternatives.
quote]

You know, most of us have done a lot of trial and error, and no small amount of swearing, as we discovered the best, fastest, easiest to manage ways to do things. It's part of the process, and part of the fun of feeling as if there is some small measure of increasing mastery involved.

Maybe the majority of your students just can't see that, but I think you're right: explaining to them up front that it's the next step of the process--really, in anything: cooking, golf, design--might take some of the stress off you. You can give them the fundamentals, and the rest is up to them.

@unknownuser said:

Daniel...spot on.

I remember once at a job I had one of the interns came to me and asked how to divide a line into 13 equal parts in AutoCAD....I ask that person well how would you do it in the real world...no response...

Yes I know there is the divide command and it will do the work for you but there is no excuse not to know how to do it in the real world.

Knowledge is power and what you want to happen is to exert your power (knowledge) into the computer. If you are continually searching for the button to press that does something for you than you are at the mercy of the computer.

I remember the good old days of SU when it was a very basic but powerful 3d modeling software. It still is but I'm afraid the added bells and whistles may blur the simplistic approach to modeling.

So Susan if you can just get your students to remember to use their brain when they model and not to become too reliant on the software.

Phil:
Three thoughts:
Would you agree that because so many users have become so proficient at modeling, we've lost the "sketch" part of what the software was really intended to do?

Would you also agree that unless an individual considers the process of learning itself to be its own form of fun (and thus its own reward), he or she will not find much joy in exploring and discovering what a wonderful toy like SU will allow you to do?

Finally, would you agree that the design process is its own form of play?

Guys:

Makes sense to me--assuming the class is composed completely of architects or urban designers. I'm not sure Susan's classes are so composed.

I'm still wrestling with the phrase "conceptual architecture." It seems to me to have multiple meanings, one of which occurred to me this morning: Architecture that can't be built but only thought about. Stuff that violates the laws of physics, or that is basically unusable, or that requires construction technologies that don't yet exist, but looks really good in renderings!

However, even if that is the definition in question, the solution to using SU to model it remains the same.

Ross:

I would quite agree with what you are saying if the course were being taught to what I take from Susan's original message to be architects even for half a day, by an architect experienced in using SU in the ways you describe, particularly as a tool for design conceptualization and exploration.

However, in my opinion, it takes some fairly intimate familiarity with the architectural design process itself to make full use of what SU has to offer. It is, after all, only another tool in the toolbox, albeit a powerful and versatile one. One still needs to know the processes--i.e. how to THINK like an architect--in order to realize the tool's potential. That takes architectural experience. Not all SU trainers will have that.

Maybe a DVD specific to the use of SU as a tool for architectural design, presented by an architect experienced in both traditional methods and SU that a trainer would have available as part of the course??

@edson said:

susan and ray,

you are both absolutely right. there is no mystery or secret in my example. once i learned what SU could for me i realized the same static diagrams i always did to explain my projects could be made more interesting with translucent boxes and colors. animation was a further improvement.

what those people want cannot be taught in SU training. you are offering to teach them HOW to model with SU while they are asking you to teach them WHAT to model. the content of their models must be provided by them, not you.

You said it so much better than I did, with fewer words. Thanks.

@sorgesu said:

Hi Edson,
I'm going to have to ask you help me to understand what you are getting at here.

I'm not sure what it is that you are showing me that one cannot simply "do" by learning the tools to use to do it?

I think that's the point, isn't it? It's a progression of spatial components built up in a 3D diagram that illustrates relationships between spaces and the forms and surfaces that define them. SU makes easy such explorations of alternatives. And you're right: there's nothing magic about it if one learns the basic tools and how to apply them.

One of the guys here in the office spent the first six months fighting SU because it didn't behave like AutoCAD. Of course, it was much easier, but he wanted to use the same way of thinking that he used with AutoCAD. It took him a long time to give in to the way SU wants you to work; the logic of it, the use of components, and mostly, the sequence of building that makes it so easy to use once you understand how it wants to work.

Perhaps that may be part of the problem with your students. As usual, it's not the tool that matters so much as the mind behind the tool that applies it to solving problems.

Edson:

Cool!!

One of the best uses of SU I've seen in a long time.

@sorgesu said:

jenujacob, that sounds just like using tools too. paint bricks on the surface. No, paint cladding on the surface. Draw a line push-pull out a portion of the wall.
That is exploring "what-if" scenarios using tools. It is still about the tools.

Actually my real opinion on the matter is:
Typically there is a trade-off between the representational power and the inference efficiency. There is no a priori reason for using the same language for both requirements. Thus one can build a system on two levels. The epistemological level supports an expressive language. The heuristic level consists of a lot of special purpose inference engines that gain efficiency on a subclass of problems by using appropriate representations and algorithms.

Geez!! Talk about jargon...

@sorgesu said:

Oh oh- it was our dear friend Juju a couple posts above who suggested that I make sure to cover "volumetric exploration". I'm sure Ray was not referring to our Juju when he was talking about the "idiots".

No, of course not. I was overgeneralizing about people who assume that everyone in the world speaks the same professional language that they do. I meant no offense to present company. My caustic comment resulted from my sincere desire to promote plain speaking whenever possible.

As for the use of programs to quickly explore options, I use SU to do the same thing, much to my chagrin. While I prefer to explore with pencil and pen, I must admit that computers can help speed that process, with some considerable loss of the thoughtfulness, tactile feedback, and happy accidents that are an inevitable and integral part of manual sketching.

@sorgesu said:

What is volumetric exploration? In layman's English?

Geo location: done, Sun studies: done Essentials 1 and again in Advanced 1
Use of compoenents and groups: done: Essentials 2 class
Barcelona Pavillion, the very one as a matter of fact: Advanced 2 and how to use inferencing to build a 3D model from CAD plans.

I can't teach every thing in each of the 4 courses: ummm, that is why there are FOUR.

I was feeling like I was out to lunch somehow. Thank you for being confused right along with me.

Volumetric Exploration??!! Sounds like jargon to me. When I taught architecture back in the Middle Ages, it used to be a game to see how many "ten gallon" words we could use, and how arcane we could sound. Mind you, we sounded veddy intellectual to each other, but it confused the hell out of the students.

Okay, so volumetric exploration could be a way of saying "seeing a view of what the rooms look like when I'm standing in or moving through them," or it could mean, "creating shapes that will give me an idea of what the building masses look like," or it could have something to do with spelunking, I don't know.

Me, I'd ask these idiots to be more specific.