Just Practising

So Why Use an Architect Then? And why use Me?

A look at who has written officially about what architects do, and a guide to working out how to write an elevator pitch for a particular target client.

Architects: My Client Doesn’t Understand Me

The RIBA Linkedin group has been hosting an interesting discussion thread called ‘Re-Educating Clients’ over the last few months in which I have been participating. You can see it by clicking the link above (but you need to join the group and be a member of Linkedin). It is a fascinating discussion with a great [...]

Looking for Good Examples of Construction Engaging using Social Media

I’ve been asked to speak to the CIMCIG Marketing Conference in November about getting social in your marketing, and so I’m looking for recommendations of companies in the construction industry using social tools well. Things are changing and in the last six months there have definitely been some new players coming on board and plenty [...]

What Architects are saying – your daily fix

Every day hundreds of architects all over the world share dozens of articles and blog posts from all over the internet through their messages on twitter. Now you can see a daily newspaper of what they have shared. I’ve collated the shared links, articles, blogs and comment of over 1000 architects on the twitter league [...]

Architects Low Pay – What to do about it

Low Pay is a subject of some discussion amongst architects, not least in the UK, where Keith Tomlinson has set up a Facebook Page ‘Architects Against Low Pay’ to campaign for change. When I wrote about this in June I made the point that tackling Low Pay in Architecture also means “teaching people who have [...]

Architects who Tweet on a Map – version 2

Click here for a fully functional version of this map Where are all the architects who use twitter based? As you know I’m keen to demonstrate how architects use twitter and who uses it. In the past I’ve found a Yahoo Pipes mashup with twitter and a map which shows up to the last 500 [...]

Community Land Trusts: Lets start Talking to the Enemy

If there’s one thing I know about Community Land Trusts now it is that they are made up of people who have got off their backsides and done something. If you put aside your prejudices, that’s pretty much the model of the entrepreneur property developer, really. Something very interesting is going to happen to the [...]

Architect’s Low Pay – the RIBA responds

On Thursday the RIBA issued a press release, RIBA President Ruth Reed takes action to tackle student hardship and low pay, which set out proposals to deal with financial hardship amongst architecture students, graduates and young practitioners. The proposals include:

UK Architects Practices increase but sizes shift – RIBA

In September of 2009 there were 4.9% more RIBA Chartered Practices than at the same time in 2008, according to RIBA Director of Practice Adrian Dobson. Figures released by the RIBA show a change in distribution of practice size which has penalised one man bands and larger firms in favour of small and ‘micro’ firms [...]

Have a Chat with the American Institute of Architects – #AIAChat

One evening in April whilst cooking dinner, I stumbled upon a conversation going on amongst members of the Architects Twitter League which I just had to join in with. The members of the league were discussing what architects do and how the profession can retain young architects, and they were having the discussion with anyone [...]