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Hi Alex,
My advice is to set a reasonable flat fee for the plan based on the size of the project, and then forget the hours.  Seeing your work get built is invaluable experience, and you have the luxury of zero overhead costs. 
You may also want to keep in mind that what takes you 10 hours to accomplish now will probably only take 3 or 4 with a fe…[Read more]

And remember that there is more to doing a job then drawing plans.
Time meeting with clients, time spent going back to them for review,time spent emailing or on the phone,  time spent making sure the plants are available, etc.etc all should be figured into your costs and therefore your fee.Your 10 hour job is really 15-20 hours

actualy i really wondering where i can get the photoshop entourage for free? :p
it would be great if we can share 😀
 
oh.. i’ve download al product from vyonyx. but there’s no plan tree… 🙁
have any other link?

Well, your first step to a positive attitude, if you choose to adopt one, is that you can see that no matter how miserable that you think you are, there are plenty who would gladly take your place. People are jealous of your position. Not to take happiness from other people’s misery, but I can tell you that there are not too many times in my life…[Read more]

I have to say i am somewhere in the middle between mauibob and thomas. I have lived in both worlds and see the benefits of both. I actually did live in Hawaii for 2 summers, in a tiny ass apartment not much bigger than my current bathroom now, working at the old $8 an hour job with no benefits…and i can’t remember a happier time in my life.…[Read more]

Jessi,
 
I would totally agree with a beware of  a MLA if you have done a BLA ( just so many repetition). Architecure and Urban design is good at UCLA as far I have heard. I went to USC, MLA program after a BArch from India. But do your home work well before choosing you school and major. Ask yourself how the studio focus are, faculty, what c…[Read more]

Great reference. Thanks, RFox!  any more options for 2d plan view symbols other than realworldimagery?

That’s great… and you haven’t walked in my shoes either. Wanna share sob stories?
In my experience, being flat f*ing broke sucks no matter where you are or who you are with. 8 hours is 8 hours. Man up and do the job until you can afford to make a change. Not everything you dislike can be classified as “life passing you by”.
If you have a trust…[Read more]

If you already have a BLA, then the MArch and UD @ UCLA would be fine. You are changing subjects. You want to stay away from an MLA that claims to be a “second professional degree” that lumps you in with “first professional” candidates.

Huh…What are you even talking about? Did you read my previous comments on page 4? Yeah I know there are people who look at the glass half empty. If money is the first reason on why you accept a job, then you won’t be there for long. Obviously, you haven’t walked in my shoes or know the circumstances of my life, so you shouldn’t make such…[Read more]

Chris – Really?

http://www.vyonyx.com/index.php
 
excellent cutouts of trees and people – the the righthand side click on downloads

That’s why it’s small… Like, maybe just me and a partner or two who have a vested interest. I don’t want to have to deal with people / employees. At a certain point it becomes baby sitting instead of designing. When I need something done, I’d rather hire a local individual on a contract basis.

There is a connection. It is based on familiarity of a fairly constant diagramming of the space around us in plan view through our entire lives whether you are an average Joe on the street or a landscape architect. While some people are more in tune than others in interpretting a plan view into a space, all of us in the modern world understand i…[Read more]

Wow Fusco… You’ve come a long way from the ‘How much money would it take for you to…’ series that you’d throw out to us in studio at UMass…
Let me marinate on this one for the night…

I would work for/with Tom.  He could deal with the sh-tuff like running the business… 

We used to call that a “visual swindle” in college.  Beautiful 2D, didn’t work in 3. 

I would agree, no relationship.  There is a design-build firm in my area that uses a graphic artist with a great rendering hand to put the final pass on site plans.  The result is a pretty picture but no substance as far as I can tell. Unfortunately sales is sales and this firm is probably doing just fine.

hhhhmmmm… that’s fun to think about…
My head is all over the place so my ideal set-up would be a mad-scientist type workshop. Part art studio, part wood-shop, part metal fabrication, part design/drafting, part patent office. Sometimes I’d design landscapes, sometimes tools, other times truck bumpers…sculpture, furniture… I find inspiration…[Read more]

“Is it possible to have a plan view that is striking as a composition but a poor scheme?”  Yes–any new urbanist project on hilly ground
“is it possible to have an unattractive layout in plan view yet have it be a wonderful space on foot?”  Yes– historic Greece, Italy, London, my back yard.