When I set out to keep this blog (all 4 entries) I thought the focus would be primarily on the work I was doing for Modern Living Spaces. But life takes different turns, and the title of this blog is "How about a career in Architecture:, not how about a career at Modern Living Spaces. Let me say that my departure from Modern Living Spaces, was completely amicable, a good opportunity for my career and my family presented itself and I made the difficult choice of leaving an extremely satisfying position. I have nothing but warm feelings for everyone I had the privilege of working with there, wish them well in their endeavors and sincerely hope our paths will cross again. Modern Living Spaces will always be a fond memory and a highpoint in my development as a designer, the freedom, the canvas, the support of the team and the owner were overwhelming. To Mark Bodon, President of Modern Living Spaces I express a most heartfelt thank you for every opportunity you gave me, Thanks for taking a chance on me, I am very grateful for your patronage and your friendship.
A New Job
For the most part I have worked for myself doing small scale commisions for word of mouth clients, or have had work from smaller developers. People needing plans for speculative projects, some interesting work some not so interesting, but it was largely under my own supervision. My wife and I would work together on these projects. I am fortunate to have a strong enough relationship with her to be able to work along side her, something many people told us they would not have been able to do. In a creative sense this was a a highly succesful venture, and we still collaborate on projects in this manner. The work was dependent on a sometimes fickle construction market, sometimes we have alot on the drawing board sometimes not. My goal has been to one day become a licensed Architect, to do so requires a requisite amount of time employed by a Licensed Architect, although I met this requirement to graduate the flow of work was sufficient post graduate to not neccesitate my finding a job in the traditional apprentice model. With this thought always in the back of my head I kept a look out for the right position that might come along to put me on track for this requirement.
I was contacted by a firm intrigued by my independent experience and by my hand drawing abilities, after several interviews and an examination I was offered a position as a designer in their firm that designs large scale retail developments. I was completely open about my lack of significant computer ability, and to my surprise was informed that they would be willing to teach me. I have always been interested in Department Stores and hoped for the opportunity to design one some day. Resigned to the fact (for some unknown reason) that perhaps my destiny was as a residential designer I assumed I would never have a chance to work on any large commercial projects. So now I have a new job, learning by doing and getting paid for it, a truly happy occurence; CAD classes being very expensive. Plus the principal is a licensed Architect and should things work out will put me back on track to licensure.
It is a completely different environment from that which I am used too, and I am frankly pleased for this change, there is still a lot of design freedom, It is an informal yet corporate environment and the structure is actually not that hard to adjust to as I feared. I am very happy at my new post.
