David Lawrence Architect

New residence in Bal Harbour, Florida

2010-11-07T13:40:00.000-05:00

Since we are a small firm, most all of our commissions come from referrals or prospective clients who see our work and contact us. This client came to us after seeing a residence we did in Halendale Beach. He wanted a subtle traditional design so we went to work to create a Mediterranean revival home with clean lines and good proportions. The goal was to create a structure that was simple and elegant.

The house is 6500 square feet under roof. We just obtained architectural review board approval and have commenced with the working drawings.

More recent sketches

2010-08-31T16:45:00.000-04:00

I've been looking at natural forms for inspiration lately. The geometry in nature is far more complex than we usually see in the structures we create. Here were some mid rise studies based on shell morphology.

Another study for mid-rise with a gradual taper much like an auger type shell.

Another sketch of the same structure emphasizing the taper.

I was fascinated starfish recently. The connective components have such a beautiful and rich geometry.

This was a theoretical sketch for a mega-structure based on similar geometry. The idea being that the structure just barely touches the earth.

Gratify Restaurant Grand Opening on March 6th

2010-04-01T22:00:00.000-04:00

March 6th was the grand opening of our most recent restaurant, Gratify Gastropub in West Palm Beach, Florida. http://www.gratifypub.com Owner Gene Playter was busy greeting those invited to the private opening ceremony while Co-owner/Chef Scott Helm and his kitchen staff were busy turning out delicious hors d'oeuvres.

Mayor Louis Frankel was on hand to cut the ribbon (pictured on the left in the photo above). It was an enjoyable event. Looking around, it reminded me why I do what I do: creating beautiful places for people to enjoy is so satisfying. Butler Construction was the general contractor. Brothers Scott, Kevin and Steven Butler did their usual masterful job and executed the project beautifully. Their attention to detail and craftsmanship makes it a pleasure to work with them.

The thing I like about restaurants is that unlike someone's home or office, you can go and enjoy your efforts whenever you want! I eat here often to see my work (but also the food is superb).

The centerpiece of the restaurant is a curvilinear bar with its beautiful red dragon granite. The material was Gene Playter's idea. It offers dynamic impact when you first arrive. The bright bartop is offset by rich wood paneling with stainless steel accents. The track lighting follows and accentuates the curved shape of the bar. The playful chandeliers are good focal points. The kitchen is open to the restaurant and you can sit at the bar and watch your meal being prepared.

This photograph shows the banquet seating set against the new windows that open up the restaurant during the day. It also offers a connection to the outdoor seating on the west side of the restaurant. The pale green crackle paint (Scott Helm's idea) on the walls gives a nice accent. Chef/Partner Scott Helm actually did the crackle work himself. We had a great team on this job and I look forward to doing more restaurants. All the best to Gene and Scott!

Eida Residence

2010-01-08T17:20:00.008-05:00

Eida residence view from the lake side

View from the street

Developer Maxim Eida retained us to replace his 6300 square foot Delray Beach house that was gutted back to the block walls by a major fire. We followed most of the original floor plan by Architect Glenn Harris but made major changes to the massing and roof line. We added a new entry feature to give the house more presence from the road. It is a marked improvement over the original design and few people will even know its the same house when we're finished. The view below is of the rear of the building. It features a dramatic volume living room with 1,500 square feet of rear porch to enjoy the small lake. The house to the east of this is Sunninghill, a major addition and renovation we did for Micheal Crabb and his wife Ariane Parish of A. Design at Sunninghill. Michael and Ariane recommended us to Mr. Eida. The house features a five car garage and a one thousand foot guest cottage. It is presently for sale so please contact our office and we can put you in touch with Mr. Eida. Mr. Eida was so pleased with our work that he has retained us to do two more houses for him. All the block work is complete and the project is awaiting trusses. I'll post some update pictures once the roof is on. The renderings were done by Christopher Johnson.

530 Oleander nears completion.

2010-01-03T16:15:00.004-05:00

Shown below are construction pictures for a 6,500 square foot house in Hallandale Beach, Florida. This house is across the street from another home we did in the same subdivision.

view from the water

front view features double arches with Corinthian columns

Stair for a private residence

2009-12-30T19:16:00.002-05:00

Here is a an addition to a contemporary residence that is just finishing up.

The minimalist courtyard's feature is this aluminum stair. Beyond are the wood entrance doors with metal panels. The deck above is for a jacuzzi and summer kitchen that overlooks the Lake Worth golf course and the intracoastal.

What do architects do?

2009-12-18T15:26:00.007-05:00

Architects create designs for buildings that synthesize functional requirements with building systems to create beauty in their environment.

Functional requirements can be described as

The size of the spaces needed.
The use of the spaces and what will be needed within them to accomplish the intended use.
The relationship, hierarchy and sequence of the spaces.

Building systems are

Structural components and cladding or the parts of the building that hold it up and contain the spaces. They are the components that comprise and support the floors, walls and roof.
The mechanical systems are the heating ventilating and air conditioning systems as well as any equipment needed for the function of the building.
Electrical systems deliver and manage power for illumination and equipment.
Plumbing components distribute fresh water and remove waste water from the building.

Beauty is accomplished when

The architect creates spaces whose size and relationship are a pleasure to experience.

The spaces are thoughtfully articulated both internally and externally. The way we define a space is in many respects as important as the space itself.

The exterior of a building or its image needs to inspire or move us. The image or impression is one of the most important ways a structure is judged though it is not indicative of whether it is a successful building.

Design Sketches- 2000-2001

2009-12-17T13:56:00.004-05:00

I keep sketchbooks where I explore ideas not related to specific commissions.

These are sketches for an ocean city. In the plan sketches above I was trying to explore ideas about power generating turbines. At the time these were done I was looking alot at skeletal structures for formal inspiration. Calatrava has found inspiration there. The shapes found in nature are far more complex and interesting than what man makes.

Seems like every time I go to Miami it leaves me thinking about
high-rise structures.

Its liberating to see what you can come up with when their are no constraints.

This was a sketch for a rain forest hotel. Again no client or program just an image drawing.

Another image sketch

Travel Sketches

2009-12-13T17:06:00.003-05:00

New Orleans

Venice

Taking the time to sketch a place makes you remember it more completely.

Villa Capra, Vicenza Italy

From this overlook you could see all of Vicenza. As I looked at the city, writhing in its medieval skin, my view of time would never be the same.

2006-2007

2009-09-04T15:29:00.001-04:00

By 2006 we had reached the saturation point of the Florida real estate market. We did not see any big projects come in the door that year. We were humming along as we had alot of production work to do for Carriage Townhomes and Flagler Beach Club. The production on Flagler Beach Club was daunting as it was the largest building we'd done at the time.

Laurel Robinson, Executive Director for the West Palm Beach Housing Authority had seen Tuscan Villas and The Promenade and invited us to submit a proposal for the Merryplace townhouses. We beat out two other firms to get the project and we were thrilled to have it. The townhouses are on hold because of the housing market but I think that one day they will be built.

Merryplace Towhnouses

By the end of the year 2007 it was obvious that pipeline for new projects had dried up. The last glimmer of hope was when we were invited to compete on a townhouse project at the Binks Forest Golf Course by the new owner, Aquila Properties. It was an unpaid competition and the folks at Aquila misled me as to who my competition was. If they'd told me I was up against one of the top multi-family firms in South Florida I would have politely passed on the invitation to compete. We didn't have the kind of resources to mount a presentation to compete against a firm like that. Our concept was to create an English village and I think it would've been a nice project.

When we interviewed, it was apparent from talking with the President of the company that he wanted to go with a more experienced firm so I had a feeling we weren't going to get it. The major multi-family firm we were were competing against pulled all the stops and we lost the competition. One thing I learned from this was not to participate in unpaid competitions. If someone isn't willing to pay you anything for your time then they're wasting yours. My father gave me that advice and he was right. I've seen the drawings for what they're selling out there now and we would've done a better job.

2004-2005

2009-09-04T15:28:00.000-04:00

By 2004 the practice was going well. David Keir with Seminole Bay Land Company introduced me to James Paisley, President of Tuscan Homes http://www.tuscaninc.com/ a contractor and developer who was doing 14 townhouse units called Tuscan Villas. David Keir did the site plan and we offered input given we were creating the townhouse units. One of the things I disliked about townhouses was the lack of personal space. On that project we made it a point to create very small yards for each unit. This also helped buffer the eastern units from busy Federal highway. The site plan incorporated an existing art modern structure as the clubhouse which was unfortunate as I don't think the building was a good enough example of the style to merit saving it. The units came off well, and Jim Paisley did a quality job on the project.

Laurel Robinson from the West Palm Beach Housing Authority saw the project and invited us to submit a proposal for the Merryplace townhouses. We beat out two other firms and were awarded the commission. I'll talk more about that later.

Tuscan Villas Lake Worth

David Keir www.seminolebay.com also was planning a mixed use building in the downtown Lake Worth for SNF management called the Promenade. It was David's idea to have the front Colonnade which was the key to the building's attractiveness. He recommended us and we were interviewed for the job. I remember about halfway through I realized it wasn't going very well as the owner got up and left the room, leaving the remainder of his team to finish up my interview. I realized that I'd better pull all the stops and convey my genuine excitement for the project or I was not going to get the job. After a little while, it seemed like I had gotten his team excited about what I was saying and the owner, who had left the room, came back in to find out what I was saying that was holding their interest. We were invited to participate in a paid competition with two other architects and were eventually awarded the project. Though we won the competition with a very modern solution, the city wanted a more traditional building so the final building was fashioned after the western-most block of Worth Avenue. It is currently the location of our corporate offices.

The Promenade built version

This was the winning competition entry

I enjoy going to work every day as its great working in a building of your own design. Butler Construction was the contractor and they did a great job with the project. Here is a link to their website: http://www.butlerconstructionusa.com/ . Scott and Kevin Jr. are both capable contractors. The superintendent, Steve Miller was superb, paying attention to every detail to make sure it came out well. The end result was a quality job.

This was also the year we did our first tilt-up office warehouse project for H&L marine.

H&L Marine

On the whole, I think it turned out well though the upper arched features should have been thicker. The general contractor was Catalfumo. I learned a great deal on this one about tilt-up. Its an interesting construction method and Catalfumo's company are experts on tilt-up. Its very economical for large buildings but it has a lot of limitations. Its probably my least favorite construction method for that reason.

By 2005 we were very busy. Perhaps too busy. I should have seen the warning signs then that we were headed for a big bust. We began working on Carriage Townhomes which was going to redefine eight blocks in the blighted north Broadway corridor in West Palm Beach.

map of the eight blocks planned at the time

As we planned the first blocks on the east side, we encountered significant opposition from the Northwood homeowners association. It took significant time to sort out issues with the alley as it had to go to City Commission to turn the alleys into streets and make them one way. Eric Schneider, Principal Planner for the City of West Palm Beach was invaluable in navigating the complexities of this project. Unfortunately by the time we got through all the red tape the market had already softened to the extent that the project was not feasible any more. It's a shame as the sheer scope of this project would've made revitalization possible as we would have changed the character of multiple blocks at one time. I doubt anyone will do much in this area for a number of years. If they do it will likely be more affordable workforce housing.

We were also retained by David Knight to come up with some preliminary designs for the parcels he has just south of the Palm Beach Lakes Blvd. bridge in West Palm Beach. Christopher Johnson worked with me closely on the design and was responsible for the look of the buildings. He is a talented designer and I'm glad we had him on our team for a while. Christopher Johnson was the only person other than me to do design work in my firm. He currently has his own design build company. Here is the link to his website http://seejaydesign.com/. He does superb renderings. Most all of the renderings on my website and this blog were done by him.

The concept was to create an artist village where the ground floors were artist studios and shops and the upper floors were residences. It was intended to be a built in phases under a master plan so that it was attainable as this parcel covers multiple blocks.

Railroad studios

This view shows the main lawn where there could be concerts, art displays and other events.
The building in the background is massed to buffer the other buildings from the railroad tracks.
This project went onto hold because the zoning had not really caught up with our plans. At this point the zoning is in place but market conditions have indefinitely postponed things. David Knight is a creative developer who wants to do something different. I hope that one day something like this happens there.

St. John's Point

In 2005 we were approached to do a master plan for the largest project we had worked on to date. The project would be known as St. John's point in Jacksonville, Florida. The site was 20.5 acres and we were in charge of the planning for the project. We created a mixed use project with four residential towers and outdoor plazas. Our first charge was to obtain conceptual approval so that investors could get involved and move the project forward. The timing for our first presentation was so tight that when I flew up to make the presentation some of the renderings were still being completed. I remember standing outside the council chamber downloading the last image into my powerpoint presentation just minutes before I was to speak. The largest tower had a keyhole design that allowed for it to be a gateway to the city. It was a tough site as a major highway divided it. Initially we tried to break the site into two parcels but the planning board wanted it to be much more cohesive. Regrettably, the project was shelved due to the cooling off of the economy.
More views of the project are available on our website. www.dlarchitect.com

The gateway "keyhole" tower

At this point we had developed a good working relationship with James Paisley at Tuscan Homes. He

recommended us for a house in Palm Beach Gardens. I was glad to design another waterfront home as we'd not had the opportunity for a few years. The residence is done in classic Mediterranean style. The house was 7800 square feet. Jim Paisley's team did a nice job as the house turned out well.

Single family residence in Palm Beach Gardens

At this point the office had seven employees. I had developed two divisions in the company, one handled the higher end residential projects and the other the Multi-family. At this point I was trying to get my company tuned to run well and we had a good year. It was a new experience managing that many people.

2002-2003

2009-09-04T15:27:00.000-04:00

2002-2003

In 2002 we started work on the renovations for the Palm Beach Airport Hilton.
The hotel was required by corporate to modernize and we proceeded with planning for renovating their lobby, dining room and bar. After some false starts, the client brought in AES interiors and the design went through a major transformation. We enjoyed working with AES as Annette Smith and Carrie Bollella are talented designers. When the project was finished it won a prism award.

Toward the end of the year, we were introduced to Scott Thomson and Gary Goldstein who had a great waterfront site on the end of Flagler drive near 58th street. They wanted to put townhouses on them and we began the design and site planning for the project. “Flagler Beach Club” as it was later called went through several different iterations. Initially it was to be an Italian street scape with three story townhouses. Then it became two story townhouses with detached homes on the water.

When we moved our offices to the Comeau building and had our opening party, Mr. Thomson met my father who mentioned that he thought the Flagler Beach Club site would be a great tower site. Though I wouldn’t say that my father gave him the idea, eventually Mr. Thomson and Mr. Goldstein decided to change the project to a tower. The real estate market was white hot and such a building offered the prospect of fabulous profits. The fifteen-story Flagler Beach Club was our first condominium high rise design.

During the course of working through the site plan process, it was decided that the best approach was to build a smaller footprint building closer to the water.
The only problem was that we needed significant variances to do it. It was tough but eventually we did obtain site plan approval that allowed us to move forward with the tower. The design is five units per floor and each one will have great intracoastal views. Currently the townhouses are finishing up on the street but the current economic conditions have postponed the tower for at least a few years.

During the rest of 2003 we were starting getting great projects. We got our first shopping center in Jupiter. It was a Florida Vernacular style shopping center for Selim Habib. He eventually sold it to another developer who let the approvals expire. By the time we got the approvals reinstated the market was so hot and construction prices were so high that it put the project costs beyond profitability.

At the time, the real estate market was going crazy. There were jokes about contractors doing “drive by bidding” and the escalation of construction prices made it impossible to hold costs in line. There were some contractors that were so busy that they wouldn’t even bid work. They would provide you with a budget and if you thought that was o.k. they’d do it cost plus. I’m sure that those contractors would be glad to bid work today.

This was the year we did our first single family housing subdivision called "Eagle Trace". It really is great to drive through a neighborhood where you designed all the buildings. We were starting to build the momentum for a good practice. At this point I had two employees (both good solid producers) who could get the projects out. As we got busier I began to hire more people. In the process of staffing up, I made some good and bad hires. Some of the people that worked for me were good and some were just awful though sometimes took a while to realize it. After ten years of being a boss, I now know quickly if someone is going to work out.

2003 was also a good year as it was the first time we were on the design team of a published project. That year we were commissioned by Dr. and Mrs Mordes to convert a dental manufacturing facility along Australian Avenue into their residence and private art gallery which they call "Whitespace". For more information about whitespace here is the link.

Elayne Mordes is an interior designer with a unique vision and we had a great time working with her. Together we created some truly beautiful modern interior spaces in that building. We did little to the exterior with exception of the new canopy at the main entrance. The canopy, with its canted galvanized steel frame is pretty interesting.

entrance canopy

The front of the building was left as windowless gallery space and the rear opened out onto the lake for some great views. It was published in Cottages and Gardens. A prospective client saw the publication and retained us to help renovate her apartment at 400 south Ocean Blvd.

2000-2001

2009-09-04T15:26:00.000-04:00

In January of 2000 I formed my own company. A few months later, with only one house commission, I went off on my own. Before I did this, I sold my house and bought a tiny apartment on the Intracoastal Waterway to keep my bills down. At night I taught drafting technology at New England Tech to help pay the bills. Things picked up quickly and I was able to stop teaching after two semesters.

I liked teaching in the past but this time it was a chore. I had taught renaissance and baroque humanities at Valencia community college and Interior design at Southern college. Teaching drafting wasn’t much fun. The students at the college were mostly eighteen year old young men who thought they knew everything. Not only that, I was given the most advanced classes to teach. Given my growing workload it was hard to find the time to properly prepare for the classes.

Starting out I knew a great deal about architecture but not much about how to run a practice from the business end of things. My father hadn’t shared much on how the business ran and I learned little from the other companies I worked for. When you work for a firm they insulate you from the business end of things. I worked all kinds of hours back then. At the time my office was on the northwest corner of Harvey Building and it faced a busy bar. I remember slogging away on a Saturday night hearing people downstairs having a great time and thinking, “what am I doing this for?”

My first big commission was for an Island Caribbean style house on the intracoastal waterway. The clients, Mr and Mrs. Perez were wonderful people and they gave me the opportunity to work with them on the design for most everything in the house. We did scale models of key rooms, and worked together to create the finish details that gave the house a cohesive feel. We had fifty six sheets of drawings on that house. We think it is a far better house when we have the opportunity to work on all of the details. On that job we were fortunate to have worked with Ariane Parrish, president of A. Design at Sunninghill. For a link to her website click link. She is a designer who was sensitive to what the client was trying to do. Using the colorful Caribbean palette can be a challenge. She worked well with Mr and Mrs. Perez and finished things up beautifully. As a team we created a beautiful result. I'm still very proud of that house. They have a small plaque at the front gate that attributes the design of the house to our firm.

After about six months in business, it became obvious that I couldn’t do any more without employees. I had been working out of my apartment doing everything myself and while it had been efficient, I really needed an office. I took a one room office at the Harvey building and hired my first employee. I expanded after a few months when I felt comfortable I’d made the right decision. Learning how to hire, retain and manage employees is where you make or break it: If you can’t grow and manage an organization you can’t have a successful business. Most of my early hires were not very good ones. I didn’t have a great pool of prospects to pull from. The economy was doing well and nobody wanted to work for a small start up company like mine. Eventually I found people that were able to put the work together competently.

A big source of early work was retail tenant build outs at Cityplace. When I created my initial business model, I thought retail architecture would be a big part of the practice. Today it’s a fraction of what we do though we get an occasional store to design. We have not done much work for the big chains as they usually have their own corporate firms that handle all their stores or its cookbook design. I found it was better to work with the smaller mom and pop companies as there is more opportunity to do design work.

After Cityplace opened, the demand for retail tenant build outs subsided and we started moving up to larger projects. In 2001 We got our chance at some larger contracts. One of the professionals I met early in my practice was David Keir of Seminole Bay Land Company. David thinks outside the box and comes up with great designs. For a link to his website click link. He was doing planning for two large projects and introduced me to developer, Alden Mamann. We were retained to do a forty-four unit townhouse project and a 72,000 square foot medical office complex. These were big jobs and we were excited to be awarded the commissions. At this point I had two employees and we ramped up and started work on the Townhouses while I developed the design for the medical office building. Since we didn’t have medical office experience, we teamed up with Howarth “Hap” Lewis. We did the design and his office did the production work. I learned a good deal working with Hap as he is very knowledge about medical office buildings. Sadly once we were done the funding wasn’t available to build so the medical office project so it never happened. It is tough to see so much effort end up in a file cabinet.

In the mean time we had finished up the construction documents for a forty-four unit townhouse project but there were civil problems that hindered it from moving forward. The project was in the C-51 canal basin and South Florida Water Management was enforcing some pretty rigorous constraints. The civil engineer finally found a Hydrologist that was able to do some analysis to make the site work. At this point the project had been sold to another developer who finished it. We did a house for him a few years later in Highland Beach.

The World Trade Center attacks worsened an already faltering construction market. Many projects went onto hold until people could figure out if this attack was part of some larger destabilization of the country. I remember that day well. My mother called me and told me what had happened and I went down to this little greasy spoon restaurant across the street from my office to watch it on T.V. The room was hushed as we all watched in stunned amazement. All airline service stopped. It was strange to not hear any planes in the air. For many nights afterward I think we were all glued to our televisions, trying to make sense of what had happened. Cars everywhere had American flags on them. Everyone was afraid and unsure what was going to happen. Things ground to a halt but we had enough momentum from the work we had that it did not hurt us all that much.

Welcome

2009-09-04T12:00:00.000-04:00

There seem to be very few blogs about the actual practice of architecture. The whole thing, from business to design. So I’ve decided to blog about what really happens. So for those interested in what an architect does, this will be a window into that world. At least how I see it

Background

2009-09-03T10:42:00.000-04:00

I'm a sole proprietor of my business. I started David Lawrence Architecture in January of 2000 so we're coming up on ten years. I got out of college in 1988 so I’ve been working in architecture for more than twenty years. I attended the University of Florida. While in college, I worked one summer for the late Dimeter Stoyanoff in Stuart, Florida. Dimeter was a sculptor and an architect. He was a creative, charming man with a thick Bulgarian accent. He was a good designer and great human being. I spent another summer working for my father, well-known Palm Beach Architect Eugene Lawrence.

I'm a second generation architect. I grew up visiting job sites as a child and was often put in my father's conference room with a roll of tracing paper and pens and told to play. Dad tried to discourage me from going into architecture because its tough but you don’t do this if you don’t have the skills and love it. Despite the challenges of this business, I love what I do.

College Days

2009-09-02T12:10:00.000-04:00

Back in the eighties, Architecture classes were nicknamed “Architorture”. The program was an exercise in sleep deprivation. You spent hours designing your project and making models. Before computer modeling, real models were the only way to understand three dimensionally what you were creating. The theory was that The more time you spent building models and understanding form, the better you would be.

After you spent many sleep deprived days, you would put up your work on the wall to be critiqued by your professors. The critique process was often brutal. If they didn’t like it, you heard about it. It could be pretty disheartening to work round the clock for days and have a professor tell you your solution was rotten. I once heard of a professor taking a student’s model and throwing it out the window. It was important for them to be tough because it gave you a thick skin. Something you need in this business. It also taught you to be a salesman. You were selling your idea to the professors much like you do to a client.

At the University of Florida, they emphasized a rigorous reasoning process for developing your design solution. For everything you did, you needed a reason. The process of how you arrived at a solution was very important. It was good training. I was lucky to have some talented students go through when I did. I learned more from my fellow students than I did from the teachers. When I went to the University of Florida from 1982-88, it was one of the ten best schools in the nation for architecture. I don’t think they’re in the top twenty today.

I was a good student and enjoyed academia. I loved design theory and spent a great deal of time thinking about design and the creation of form. I wanted to be at the leading edge of design theory. In my final year in college I studied urban design for the summer in Vicenza Italy. After that, I spent about a month traveling around Europe. Going to Europe was one of the most important parts of my education. It gave me a different perspective on design and life. It was one of the greatest gifts that my father gave me.

In my final semester when I was supposed to graduate, I was awarded the A.I.A. Certificate of Merit which is given to the number two graduate candidate in each class. I left the university before I turned in my terminal project which was a big mistake. My topic, Deconstruction and its application in Architectural Design proved very difficult and I just couldn’t pull it together before the semester was over. I didn’t finish the darn thing for a year and a half. The biggest problem was that very little was written on the subject and it was difficult. It took me a long time to understand deconstructive philosophy. I sat in on graduate level philosophy classes to help gain insight. Once I understood it, the next huge challenge was to figure out how you apply these ideas to architecture. At the time, I thought that my terminal project would be the basis of my design philosophy. Today I must admit that very little of these ideas directly influence how I design.

Early Career

2009-09-01T20:16:00.000-04:00

After I got out of college in 1988 I went to Philadelphia and looked for work.
I wanted to work in a real city and New York seemed too expensive and overwhelming. The recession had already started in the northeast and there wasn’t much available so I went back to Florida.

Several of the interviewers went out of their way to explain that a graduate was not very useful in an office. It was a little disheartening to hear. Looking at it from the other end today, I would have to agree that you really don’t know a whole lot when you get your degree. What someone is hiring is potential. There is so much investment you and the firm that hires you have to make before you are really productive. Those that get good quick have that fire in the belly and teach themselves as much as they can. You must have a hunger to learn and understand what they’re doing.

My first job out of college was with VOA and associates in Orlando, Florida.
I took the highest job offer at the time which was $18,000 a year ($31,000 in today’s dollars). One thing is for sure, you won’t get rich in this business.

The transition from school to work was difficult. For those of you about to graduate, don’t underestimate the tedium of an entry level job. I was a hard worker in school but it wasn't eight hours straight. The days seemed endless and depressing until I got used to it. I was a theorist and the practice where I worked had very little use or interest in theoretical ideas. The head designer at the time, Calvin Peck , hired me after being impressed with my portfolio. He was a good guy and he occasionally asked my opinion on his designs.

In 1988, The VOA branch in Orlando was run by solid production architects. Their projects were technically very competent though not all that imaginative. They hurried things through design development and into production and that lack of time in the design phase meant that the buildings lacked refinement. I remember one designer who worked there hiding an unresolved part of the building in a rendering with landscaping! Don't get me wrong, they weren't bad buildings but they could have been a whole lot better. There was a young talented architect, Marc Van Steenlandt who I worked for who eventually ran the company. When he ran it the work got a lot better. The Chicago branch has always done impressive work. That was the reason I went to work there. That is another lesson I’d offer up to those starting out: The branches of a big firm are usually very different from each other. Research the work being done by the branch you plan to work for.

Another big realization after I got out of college was that my understanding of architecture was superficial. It was almost like a cartoon of a building. You have to learn the nuts and bolts: all the systems of things and how they integrate. After college, you start a crash course in trying to understand how all the components behind everything you see in the built environment go together. I went to job sites and watched things being built to improve my understanding. To put a building together, you have to understand intuitively the sequence of how the parts are assembled. While I was learning all this I floundered in this large firm. I working on a military project (an electronic training school) and bounced from various other projects. I wasn't exactly the best employee and it was 1988 so we were headed into a very bad downturn. I was let go in the first layoffs when the firm dropped around fifteen people to the curb. I was one of the lucky ones to be let go first as those who were laid off later had real difficulty finding work. I won't lie to you though. I took it very hard. To be laid off from your first real job was tough. It decided that at my next job I would strive to be indispensable.

I knew things were bad at VOA and had already applied to work in another firm. Forum Architecture interviewed and hired me a less than a week after I was laid off from VOA in 1989.

Forum was a multi-family and hospitality firm. There were two partners, James Black and Norman Stoehr. Mr. Stoehr specialized in Hotels and Mr. Black multi-family. I was put to work in the multi-family division.

I rode out a very bad recession at this firm. It went from 89 until around 93 I think. The firm went from around twenty-five to four employees. I remember every Friday it seemed for a while, they would lay someone off. You'd hear the secretary changing the security code and if you didn't get a copy of the code you knew you were going to get the ax that afternoon. So you'd sit there for two hours with a lump in your throat waiting to see if you'd be next. I'm glad in a way that I came out in a recession. It taught me the cyclical nature of the business and how bad it could get. I never forgot it and to this day I'm cautious because of it.

It was very useful starting out learning multi-family wood frame construction. Three story garden rise apartment buildings aren't all that complicated and they move fast so you get to see all the phases of construction at one time. I worked my way up in the company. I tried very hard and learned how to put together construction documents. The problem was that it was pretty basic construction. It didn't take any kind of huge knowledge base to do these projects. I liked the people and seven years went buy quickly. Eventually I realized it was way past time to go and do something else. I updated my portfolio and showed it to my father. He decided it was time for me to come back and work with him.

Working For My Father

2009-08-31T19:27:00.001-04:00

In February of 1996, I went to work for my Father's Firm, The Lawrence Group Architects in Palm Beach, Florida. My father's practice focused more on higher end projects than Forum. My father has a large and diverse body of good work. He is a talented and well respected architect. Not only had he done a great number of good buildings but he is also adept at resolving complicated zoning issues. Most of the eastern part of Worth Avenue has his fingerprints on it. I’m very proud of him.

It was great to work on higher end projects after spending years doing mostly apartment buildings and clubhouses. He always gave me the small, fussy projects. My father was trying to increase my proficiency as quickly as he could. The type of construction was entirely different from central Florida so I had a lot of catching up to do. Many of the projects were very interesting. I enjoyed the interiors work I did in apartments as I’d never worked with high end finishes before. I once figured out how to hang a 20,000 pound bank vault inside the second floor of an existing building. I also did the renderings and models that weren't farmed out

My father and I didn't work well together. There is no other way to say it. I'm sure in our own ways we were both responsible for it not working out. It didn't go very well pretty much from the start. When I started work there, we had an agreement that he would eventually retire and I would take over the practice. I never would have worked with him without that understanding. Any time I brought something in he'd say we were too busy. I lost a very good institutional client that I had cultivated for years because he wouldn't let me take the work on.

There were members of his staff who were not thrilled with my entry into the business so there was friction pretty much from the start. I was given no input into the running of the practice which was frustrating. It was very different than when I worked at Forum where my opinion was sought and valued. It was demoralizing to come back into his practice after looking forward to working with him all those years and have it go so badly. It was one of the biggest disappointments of my life.

About four years into my stint in his practice, my father changed his mind and decided that he didn’t want to retire. I’m not really sure when that was, but he announced his decision to continue to run the firm until he was fed “feet first through the front door” in a staff meeting. Since it was obvious that I had no future at the firm, I resigned a few weeks later. He was noticeably relieved by my decision. What I didn’t understand at the time was that he just couldn’t retire. He wouldn’t know what to do with himself if he did. He is still practicing today. He really likes what he does and he is good at it. There is no reason for him to quit.

In retrospect I’m glad to have gone my own way. I had a lot more struggles and it cost me a great deal of money in start up costs and lost wages but what I have is mine and I’ve done it on my own. I’ve also had the luxury of doing it my way. The kind of control and freedom you have in your own business is great. It makes up for the long hours and other headaches. I’ll blog more about those later.

Getting Licensed

2009-08-30T09:03:00.000-04:00

I didn’t pursue getting licensed for six years after I left college. In retrospect I’m not sure why I waited so long. Probably on some level I just didn’t feel like I knew enough to call myself an architect until then. That title and all that went with it meant a great deal to me. When I did get my license I wanted to feel like I knew what I was doing.

Getting permission to take the test in Florida was an unnecessary hurdle. The State of Florida education coordinator at the time had been passed over for dean of the college of architecture at the University of Florida and had an ax to grind. The hoops that the Tallahassee bureaucrats made me jump through were beyond unreasonable. After a lot of foolishness, I was finally cleared to take the test after dickering around with the state for five months! I wasn’t the only one who had to go through this nonsense. A lot of other U of F grads had similar problems.

Since I wasn’t sure I would even be able to take the test that year, I didn’t bother to study until I knew for sure I could take it. When I finally received notice there was less than a month before the testing date so that was all I studied. I passed six out of nine sections (all in the ninety percentile range). The only sections I failed were the ones I didn’t have time to study for. I remember I took the test the first time on my 30th birthday. Testing lasted from eight in the morning until five with an hour for lunch. It was the first time testing had literally given me a headache.

I remember coming home on the first day of the test and finding my fellow Forum employees had taped a bunch of black balloons and a birthday card to my apartment door. My nose still hurt from a water skiing accident the week before that left me with thirty two stitches two black eyes and a nose broken in three places. But at least I was on my way toward getting my license.

The building design section on the last day lasted all day. You brought in all your drafting equipment and drew for twelve hours straight! Lunch was at your option. It was brutal. One of my friends in LA heard of candidates freaking out in the middle of the test and having to be removed. During the test one proctor snatched my calculator away from me, convinced I had something stashed in the case. Of course I hadn't but it sure threw me off.

At the time, they only offered the entire test once a year in June and Structures, Site Design and Building Design (the most commonly failed sections) were offered again in the winter. Since I was already working on a computer and the test wasn't computerized, I had a heck of a time drawing fast enough to pass the design sections of the test. The last time I took it, they had the design section on the computer and I passed without a problem. I don’t want to sound like a codger but taking it on computer in sections when you want is easier than the old system. I’m glad for those coming along that it’s changed as it was a crummy way to test. It was designed to hold the numbers down.

Getting the license is just a milepost on the long journey to being a good architect. There is so much to know in this business and there is a good reason that they call it an old man’s profession. It seems like every day I learn something new. If you are open to it, almost every project can teach you something new.