Naturally it is easy and obvious to start trading your time for money and to accept the classical project assignment.
Many architects think that trading their design time for money is the only way to make money, because the subject of entrepreneurship is not broached at all during the architectural studies.īut of course, you can utilize your skills as an architect in a hundred different ways. So, architects have given up a lot of competences and the role today is more of a design specialist.” Over the years, other players in the AEC industry have taken over specific tasks like project management, cost control or special engineering services. In the past, the role of the architect was the generalist – as the “Master Builder”. Design is only one aspect in the whole process. Building buildings involves legal, economical and project management problems. Which is fine of course, but it won’t prepare you for starting an office or the business side of architecture. We mainly focus on the design aspect of architecture during our studies. “The problem is that business knowledge is not implemented in the architectural education. In the previous years, Tobias has interviewed many architects and looked for examples of architects (/entrepreneurs) who consciously went about it in a different way. And I actually found many architects who used their skill set in a creative and entrepreneurial way to create additional streams of income.” So I started researching additional ways of generating income as an architect. Overall I felt that it is tough to start out as an architect. Without a project, you cannot practice architecture and without a decent portfolio of projects, clients won’t hire you. If you don’t win the competition, you are not compensated for your work. So, you have to put in a huge amount of work for a design proposal upfront (and for free!). Furthermore, the process of acquiring projects is very competitive and is sometimes done by taking part in architectural competitions with lots of other offices. I see many architects who get frustrated because the client is changing the design, not valuing the architects work or exhibits bad payment behavior. The Architect gets a fee for his service that he or she provides to the client. The traditional business model of architects is a service-based model. At Archipreneur we focus on the intersection between architecture and entrepreneurship – and new ways of doing practice in the 21st century.
“Archi-preneur’ is a compound word of ‘architect’ and ‘entrepreneur’. In and of itself there is nothing wrong with it if you just want to be occupied with the architecture itself and you consciously don’t care about the enterprising part.Īs long as that is your goal and nothing else.īut many underestimate the importance of “entrepreneurship”, or keep it as far away from them as possible, as if it is a four-letter-word, attainable only for greedy business sharks and not compatible with art and architecture. You can be an excellent architect, but if you don’t put any energy and attention into your business, it doesn’t take long before you are overtaken by architects who are half as good as you are, but who do work on their business. They often work exclusively in their businesses, instead of on their businesses. So much so that they forget to be an entrepreneur too. Many independent architects are obsessed by architecture and the design side of their profession. And this is exactly what this story is all about. He is an architect himself, but also active in entrepreneurship. Tobias Maescher from is very familiar with that. Why is that: how can you make more money as an architect? Long hours, a lot of stress, strict deadlines, demanding clients, lots of responsibilities and working during the weekend all of that for a moderate compensation in a highly competitive market. We see that many architects actually earn very little, considering the work that they do and the responsibilities they carry.
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