Shawn Basler, a New York-based architect, founded his firm Basler Mosa Design Group in 2000; seven years later he merged with Perkins Eastman, one of the world’s biggest and most dynamically growing architectural practices. He is now co-CEO/Executive Director—with Nick Leahy and Andrew J. Adelhardt III—of this 1,100-strong global force headquartered in New York City and operating a total of 24 offices, seven of which are outside of the U.S., namely in Shanghai, Mumbai, Dubai, Singapore, Vancouver, Toronto, and Guayaquil in Ecuador. In addition to designing many international projects, Basler shares the responsibility for fostering the firm’s growth around the world.
Koolhaas' journalism work won him fame in architecture before he completed a single building. The switch from storyteller to architect was more a change in the script than a professional shift. He pointed out that "[architecture] is a form of scriptwriting that implicitly describes human and spatial relationships." Restating the role of architecture in defining daily life beyond buildings and cities' construction, architecture is also a written and spoken tool capable of explaining daily worldwide events, giving voices to unspoken projects, and actively shaping the future of the architect's role.
Most architects can relate to the feeling of being plunged into a deep devotion toward architecture. What starts out as a dream career becomes a nightmare for many. After a rigorous education, the experience of a tumultuous career journey can dishearten professionals. Twitter threads and LinkedIn posts have widely debated topics of long work hours and disparate pay, with not many solutions. Architects are constantly at war between profession and passion, a juxtaposition of love and despair. Perhaps, at the root of these problems is the colloquial definition of the noun ‘architect’.
What if hiring an international architect with great skills, qualifications, and unique insights was as easy as hiring someone from upstate New York or Indiana? Architects worldwide dream of an opportunity to enter the competitive American market and it is common for young professionals to travel internationally for study or work. At the same time, many top US firms are searching for diverse new talent, yet the cost, paperwork, and bureaucracy of hiring international candidates can be discouraging. Architect-US was created to fill that gap.
What do a lot of recent architecture college grads have in common besides their degree? Student loans and disillusionment (see point 1 in Megan Fowler’s 11 Things You Learn at Your First “Real” Architecture Job to understand what we mean by "disillusionment"). But with the emergence of the digital age and “side-hustle economy,” millennials are learning how to monetize their passions, and now 1 in 4 Americans are making money digitally. Side-hustling has become so popular that there is even a school for it. The difference between a side-hustle and a second job is that side-hustles aren’t just about giving yourself a raise. Your side-hustle is something you truly love to do, and would probably do anyway, but now you get to share it with the world and make a little extra cash in the process. So what side-hustle is right for you? Here is a list of side-hustles which suit the skillset of architects and designers.
A new short film, made by Jeremy Riggall for Alain de Botton's School of Life, gives insight into the working day of Tamiraa – a Civil Engineer working in Mongolia's burgeoning capital city of Ulaanbaatar. Aside from following Tamiraa's daily responsibilities, the film also touches upon issues related to working in a rapidly growing city with an urgent demand for better educational and healthcare provision, alongside new housing and its supporting infrastructure.
The architecture world is a very different place compared to what it was ten years ago - a fact that is all too obvious for today's young architects, who bore the brunt of the financial crisis. But how can recent graduates harness such rapid change to make a positive impact? This article written by ArchDaily en Español's Nicolás Valencia explores the impact of the financial crisis on architecture in the Global South and in particular in the Spanish-speaking world, finding that it may be the inalienable right of the architect "to give yourself room to fail or to quit."
For some years now, three figures have been floating around that are worrisome to Chilean architects and architectural students: every year 48 architectural schools enroll 3,500 students and give degrees to another 1,400 in a completely saturated market. The future appears bleak, the professional internships are depressing, and among those who already have degrees, we're all too familiar with the exploitative offices that not only offer their employees zero contracts (or health insurance of any kind, all the while praying that nobody gets injured) but also make them work much more than they agreed to with paltry salaries and labor unions that have seen better days. Meanwhile at the universities, talking about money in studios, or about flesh and blood clients, has become a taboo subject. “Students, don't let money tarnish the beauty of the discipline” they tell you. Of course, not only does it not get tarnished, but we've gotten to the point where many don't even know how much to charge for a plan drawing, let alone for an actual project.
