Slacker … once again!

So, nearly two months without any posts… hopeless!! Thanks to the 40 or so people that keep clicking through each day, I will try and get this back on track! I have had a pretty terrible two months actually, life going to s*#t and it all feels too hard, but time to dig myself back out and start getting inspired by Perth Architecture again. (I thought it was just an architectural stereotype to be depressed and take things too seriously!?)

So what’s happening? Development in the city seems a bit slow compared to last year, the big projects the Arena and Fiona Stanley are ploughing ahead, the Awards are coming up … what else? Will see what I can find out, but always happy for hints! Email me at pertharchitecture@live.com.au I’m also on Twitter, but haven’t really figured that all out yet – anyone got any suggestions on interesting people to follow?

Going Solo

I’ve been in my firm for about five or so years now, and been out of uni for about 10. It’s a medium sized firm, not big or very well known but it does ok. The people are good and the architecture ranges between ‘bread and butter’ to innovative large projects. But always around this time of year, when you’re catching up with old friends and networking with new ones, there comes The Proposition Between Friends – should we quit our jobs and start our own company? Ohh it does sound good – the opportunity to do my own designs, and create the kind of company that I want to be working at. Sometimes I feel I am so restricted by the designs of the director that I don’t get a chance to use my skills. But it is of course also a quite confronting idea – what if I don’t get enough clients? How do I even fund a new business in the first place? And do I really want that responsibility?

So, in an effort to get more info about a pipe-dream, I thought I’d put it out to you, readers. If you’ve started your own firm, any tips, hints, recommendations to help me weigh up the options? Can you ‘ease’ yourself in to a new firm or do you really have to ‘cut and run’? Would it be practical to stay back and Admin a project, while starting a new one? And if you don’t have family nearby is there really any chance of getting clients? Is it best to start with residential? And then finally, what happened to your best mate friendship once you’ve decided to start a business together?

Would love to hear any of your thoughts, it’s a tough decision!

What’s going on? … Apologies

Ok, so I know I have been a total slacker in the past few weeks. I have just been having a crappy time at work, and quite honestly when I get home architecture is the last thing I feel like thinking about / looking at. You know those weeks (fortnights…months…!!??) when everything seems to go wrong, in between computer crashes and intra-office politics, the client decides they actually need an additional six rooms when you’ve finally finished their drawings, the structural engineer changes the size of all his beams right when you’ve carefully fitted your lights, a/c and fire service into a teeny ceiling space, and your boss decides that the plan you’ve just spent three weeks on would be great if you just rotated half of it, stretched the other half and still somehow fit it into the very restricted site area. You know, one of those weeks, we all have them, right? Right?

Anyway, there has been some news for the WA construction community of late, but in very lazy fashion I’m going to have to just direct you to the links and you can find out more yourself!

Marcus Collins’ cathedral in Bunbury was on Compass last week, featuring massive printed digital images laminated between glass, in lieu of stained glass, amongst other interesting things. Should be on iview for another week or so.

Venn Gallery, designed by Geyer and Matthews Architecture, was featured on Habitus Living (and in the Sunday Times bar review). Looks pretty good – did anyone go to the Pecha Kucha a few weeks ago? What did you think of the space? And the speakers?!

Construction companies Sizer and Loxam have gone into ‘voluntary receivership’ which doesn’t bode well for our industry. I have also heard unconfirmed rumours that some of the bigger architecture firms in Perth are down-sizing, cutting work hours, and doing a lot more competitions, submissions etc than normal. Quite scary. As suspected, we are still having the downturn that was predicted, the BER just delayed it, not stopped it. Not good when they say architecture is supposed to be one of the ‘canaries’ of Australian industry.

There was a site visit a few weeks ago to Lyons / T & Z’s TAFE building in Northbridge. Was quite interesting, the building is actually quite neat inside, tho I really don’t like the outside. But there is a lot of pieces, colours, finishes etc to the interior – it is actually quite taxing on the eyes. Will be interesting once it’s all occupied, to see how it fares.

This blog was featured in the EmAGN monthly newsletter last month, so a big shout out to any Merge members, students etc. Hope you get something out of all this!

Well that’s probably enough to keep u all occupied for now! Have a good week all. And if you ever hear anything you think I need to know, or even better, want to write a post!, please email me at pertharchitecture@live.com.au

Happy Birthday to Me

So I started this blog one year ago today. In the early days I was very excited to be getting five views a day. This year has been better and I’m now averaging about forty to fifty views a day. Thanks to you all for reading, and especially those who have contributed through comments and emails. I do some times wonder if anyone is listening and whether to keep writing, especially weeks like the past few that have been full on with tenders and work overload, and I  leave so long without posting anything. Although then when I do have some time, there is nothing happening in Perth! But my hope is to get more people interested in the Perth architectural community, and develop more dialogue and discussion on current interests / events.

Thanks for reading and here’s hoping I manage another year!

PA

Slacker!

Sorry for the lack of posts lately, there are actually a few news things to share – there’s a new CBD plan for Stirling, major plans for Midland, a new AIA President, more land being released to enhance our urban sprawl, plus I just got back from the Awards Exhibition opening, where I saw some good new works. So will get round to writing that all up soon I promise!

Its All About Me

This week saw the presentation of many month’s worth of my blood, sweat and tears. A major project finally finished, and was quite successful. This was something I had spent numerous unpaid overtime hours on. I spent hours working on things that I had never worked on before. Sure, I learnt new skills but I have spent months stressed out and pretty much overwhelmed. It has been normal for me in the past few months to get home from work at 8 or 9 o’clock most weeknights. I have spent weekends on video conferences with our collaborators over east and overseas. A few weeks ago, at Mothers Day lunch, I nearly fell asleep at the table. So as you can imagine my family is not really ecstatic with me at the moment. But it was a project I really believed in and I think had the potential to truly create good things. Which it did. This was a project that was really extra special.

But…I then watched my boss get thanked for it.

And, it got me thinking. I was initially devastated. And still am, a bit, days later. I was later thanked by the rest of the team, which I really appreciated.  But this was the biggest, hardest, most difficult project I have ever worked on, with little help while also managing numerous BER projects. I generally don’t go around telling people about the things that I do (hence even this blog is anonymous and only three people know that I do it!) but should I? Do we need to beat our own chests to get attention? Is this the only way to get promoted, to get better clients and projects?

And am I just being precious – is it even relevant what one member of a team does? Should I have expected to get thanked? Maybe the accolades should just go to the boss anyway, as it is their name on the door and their successes (and failures) as a company which matter in the long-term.

On a second note, I get asked A LOT about why I am doing this anonymously. There’s a few reasons. I work for a medium-sized firm, and know quite a few architects in Perth. But I’m really just a junior. I don’t want my comments taken in the context that they might be the opinions of my bosses or my firm. And they would probably get a bit of flak from some of the things that I say. So perhaps when I have my own firm things may be different! Also, I have heard rumours about the Institute not really appreciating criticism. Most of all though, I really want this forum to stay as independent as possible. I don’t want to have to suppress news because it might not look good for my firm, or look like I’m promoting us. I don’t want this blog taken over as the opinions of XYZ Architects. I want to try and be as honest (although obviously personally biased!) as possible when posting here. I also don’t want this to be too much work, and I like having an architecture-related interest that has nothing to do with my office.

But it is something that keeps coming up, so maybe I need to have a bit more of a think about it.

Once again, thanks for reading!

Who’d want to be an Architect?

So I’ve obviously been pretty slack with the posts lately…sometimes being an architect is really really hard! I have been having one of those months… jobs going to tender before they’re ready, clients changing the scope, consultants not checking their drawings, why does it all happen at the same time!!?? They don’t tell you any of this at uni! So will try and get my act back into gear, and do a bit of catch up. Stay tuned!

Chat with me

I’ve added another page (above) with some discussion topics. Just wondering what other architects are liking at the moment, just out of interest. And maybe give me some ideas for architects/buildings to look out for, as I am always looking for some inspiration from our fine architectural community.

If anyone has any other ideas for discussion topics please email me at pertharchitecture@live.com.au

All I Want For Christmas…

is my internet back on! Telstra has very kindly saved me from wasting my holiday on-line by cancelling the wireless on my laptop. Great. So I am giving the iPod a try but really suck at typing on this thing! Anyway hope you all had a good break from work and looking forward to an exciting 2010.

Flu

So I’ve been off for the past few weeks with the flu – gotta love people coming in to work and sharing their germs around!

I’ll try and catch up on some architecture news that’s happened in the past fortnight – anyone out there got anything to add?