As part of our NYC semester we have had the privilege of visiting offices for our Professional Practice Course. The class is taught by Jim Greenberg and Brad Perkins at Perkins Eastman’s offices near Union Square. Visiting different offices has been useful to our professional development in terms of understanding the different types of practices, opportunities for collaboration between firms, the architect’s role in real estate development, how to build a brand etc.
One of our very first office visits was held at Buro Happold Engineering, a major structural, mechanical, electrical and plumbing consulting engineering firm. The firm mainly discussed their role in projects and their collaboration with architects to design increasingly complex buildings with rigorous environmental and engineering requirements. For instance, they mentioned that an important part of collaborating with a design team is to create a win-win situation in which everyone’s goals are achieved. It is ideal that both engineers and architects collaborate as early as possible such that all stakeholders are on board to make decisions timely and efficiently. Not only that, it is also important to make the owner and client a part of the process and make the process as transparent as possible. They also gave some examples of case study projects that they worked on and highlighted that in today’s rapidly changing climate, environmental considerations have become a huge part of the project’s outcomes.
Our second office visit was to AECOM Tishman, a major construction firm. At the office Ted Musho, Senior Vice President and Project Executive at AECOM Tishman, spoke about scheduling a project, understanding the critical path, cost estimating, sources of cost as well as schedule information etc. More specifically, the lecture gave us an understanding of what would it cost to construct a project, why location matters in the cost of a project, how and why the contingencies vary from each phase of the project as well as what are they factors which affect the trade costs. He also mentioned some of the reasons errors often happen in construction, for instance, due to a late geo-tech report, changing market conditions, wind tunnel reports etc. The lecture helped us understand how we might create our own project estimates in the future.
We also visited Skidmore Owings & Merrill (SOM), one of the largest and most influential architecture, interior design, engineering, and urban planning firm. At SOM, Nicolas Medrano spoke about practicing in a Global market. He introduced us to the challenges of starting an international practice, the opportunities available for working in a global market as well as the range of services provided. The benefits mentioned to working internationally include diversification, ability to solve serious issues, access to talent and innovation as well as partnerships with all cultures amongst others. An important part of working internationally is cross cultural communication as well as building long lasting relationships with locals. International projects also follow a different timeline and trajectory than domestic ones.
In the coming few weeks as we visit three more offices, CookFox, Handel Architects and Ennead Architects, we look forward to more opportunities to grow and learn as well as understand the inner workings of the industry.