Are franchises a good model for architectural practice:
SOM LA
Does anyone wonder how architectural offices start their operation?
I visited SOM LA last week and it made me wonder. How do architectural offices operate in US, why are they so unstable, and can franshising be the answer to a profession that connects the individual's name to their architectural work?
Situated on the 29th floor of a downtown highrise as if to say that they are part of the corporate America looking high up over everyone, SOM LA is a small start-up company. Walking into the office, there are pictures of great SOM projects, none of which were built by LA office. They now have 28 people in the office. The grand corporate entry leads into the back office filled with tables all pushed in the middle. Clearly an imporvisation and a temporary setting, this space is a sad image of what SOM used to represent: power and prosperity of a great nation.
For those who do not know, Skidmore, Ownings, and Merrill, LLP is originally founded in Chicago in 1936. Wikipedia claims that SOM is an American architectural and engineering office, but I have never met one engineer that worked for SOM in any of the ten offices around the world. It is, however, the biggest and the longest lasting American corporate office.
SOM LA was founded only couple of years ago as a start up office and a franchise of the great SOM. Three former employees of AECOM, a giant engineering office with rapidly shrinking architectural department, made an agreement with SOM in San Francisco to open a branch in Los Angeles and try to get projects under the SOM name. These founders worked brefly for SOM in San Francisco in the distant past and have "SOM genes," according to the SOM website. With less than 10 people in the office they won the project for the new LA Federal Courthouse project. Now they claim they have a small housing project in Hollywood, a student housing for UCSB, and a master-plan in Latin America.
Most architectural offices close down after the founders pass away, the new generation opens their own offices or move to other offices, but rarely do architects work under other people's names for generations. Not many people remember who Skidmore, Ownings, and Merrill were, nor what their ideas were, but they still work under the name of SOM.
The newest franchise of SOM, their Los Angeles office, is clearly a start up office, with their poor organization and sad working conditions they are nothing more than a midsize office struggling to survive. But unlike a midsize architectural office, SOM LA already has a international masterplan and a mayor federal building. Maybe franschising in architecture works? Maybe architects in US could sacrifice a bit of individual ego for the sake of better built environment?
SOM LA
Does anyone wonder how architectural offices start their operation?
I visited SOM LA last week and it made me wonder. How do architectural offices operate in US, why are they so unstable, and can franshising be the answer to a profession that connects the individual's name to their architectural work?
Situated on the 29th floor of a downtown highrise as if to say that they are part of the corporate America looking high up over everyone, SOM LA is a small start-up company. Walking into the office, there are pictures of great SOM projects, none of which were built by LA office. They now have 28 people in the office. The grand corporate entry leads into the back office filled with tables all pushed in the middle. Clearly an imporvisation and a temporary setting, this space is a sad image of what SOM used to represent: power and prosperity of a great nation.
For those who do not know, Skidmore, Ownings, and Merrill, LLP is originally founded in Chicago in 1936. Wikipedia claims that SOM is an American architectural and engineering office, but I have never met one engineer that worked for SOM in any of the ten offices around the world. It is, however, the biggest and the longest lasting American corporate office.
SOM LA was founded only couple of years ago as a start up office and a franchise of the great SOM. Three former employees of AECOM, a giant engineering office with rapidly shrinking architectural department, made an agreement with SOM in San Francisco to open a branch in Los Angeles and try to get projects under the SOM name. These founders worked brefly for SOM in San Francisco in the distant past and have "SOM genes," according to the SOM website. With less than 10 people in the office they won the project for the new LA Federal Courthouse project. Now they claim they have a small housing project in Hollywood, a student housing for UCSB, and a master-plan in Latin America.
Most architectural offices close down after the founders pass away, the new generation opens their own offices or move to other offices, but rarely do architects work under other people's names for generations. Not many people remember who Skidmore, Ownings, and Merrill were, nor what their ideas were, but they still work under the name of SOM.
The newest franchise of SOM, their Los Angeles office, is clearly a start up office, with their poor organization and sad working conditions they are nothing more than a midsize office struggling to survive. But unlike a midsize architectural office, SOM LA already has a international masterplan and a mayor federal building. Maybe franschising in architecture works? Maybe architects in US could sacrifice a bit of individual ego for the sake of better built environment?
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