From the category archives:

Its about Money Stupid

76% of Architects Practices are fewer than 10 people

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Here is a breakdown of the size of RIBA Chartered architects practices by size (no. of employees). It shows that over three quarters of the 2800 chartered architects practices in the UK have fewer than 10 staff, and more than half have fewer than five.
Why is this important?
Firstly it is interesting to consider why it [...]

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A Different Mind Set

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Guest Blog post by Philippa Bowen

Life is full of coincidences.
Su Butcher and I met for a chat over lunch a couple of weeks ago and one of the conversations we had struck a real chord with me. I had had the same conversation with 2 businesses I work with in the last month; what is [...]

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The Elephant in the Room

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On Tuesday I had a the pleasure to attend the TechCrunch Europe Christmas Crunch, an event for techy people hosted by the portal for news of internet and mobile companies.
I say pleasure because as you know, I’m a secret techie. But what interested me was how some of the same problems that haunt architects also [...]

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Facilities Management – its about the Money, Stupid

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We keep coming back to the same problem.
At the AEC Network meeting on Wednesday one of the great talks was on Sustainability and Facilities Management by Gordon Ludlow, an FM Consultant, non-exec Director of British Institute of Facilities Management and Chair of BIFM’s Sustainability Group.
Facilities managers are in an unenviable position. On one hand everyone [...]

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Architects aren’t paid enough because 1: they don’t make enough money

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There is a common misconception amongst non-architect that architects are extremely well paid professionals, but this isn’t the case. In November 2007 the Office of National Statistics published a snapshot of UK Salaries which showed Architects (then earning on average just £38,559 Gross a year) were 30th in the list, behind amongst others, Fire, Ambulance, [...]

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It Really Is about Money Stupid

“A third of architectural practices made so little profit in the boom times that they could go bust with the onslaught of the credit crunch, an RIBA survey has revealed.

This year’s RIBA Business Benchmarking Survey, released to BD this week, shows that just 67% of firms met the industry safe standard of profits equalling 15% [...]

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What is your Get Out Of Bed Rate?

Running a business is a matter of ins and outs.
‘My other piece of advice, Copperfield,’ said Mr. Micawber, ‘you know. Annual income twenty pounds, annual expenditure nineteen, nineteen and six, result happiness. Annual income twenty pounds, annual expenditure twenty pounds ought and six, result misery. The blossom is blighted, the leaf is withered, the god [...]

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What good architects do: Strategy

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Picture two animals: a fox and a hedgehog. Which are you?

An ancient Greek parable distinguishes between foxes, which know many small things, and hedgehogs, which know one big thing. All good-to-great leaders, it turns out, are hedgehogs. They know how to simplify a complex world into a single, organizing idea—the kind of basic principle that [...]

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A Store full of Repentance and No Customers

Sky Masterson: “You are stuck with a store full of repentance and no customers. Without sinners to repent, repentance doesn’t exist. So you’re stuck with a store full of nothing. Do I give you a fair rundown?”
Captain Sarah Brown: “I wouldn’t know. I’ve never had a rundown.”
Guys ‘n’ Dolls
Two hot topics in the architectural press [...]

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A Design & Build Conversation

What follows is a conversation which took place on twitter between the evening of May 17th and the morning of May 18th 2009.
I’ve reproduced it here because it illustrates some of the massive potential that twitter has as a networking tool. It happens to be about the procurement method of Design & Build.
The Protagonists
Firstly note [...]

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