Product Description

This book offers architecture students and professionals a hands-on guide to the practical side of operating an architectural practice. It includes contributions from well-known architects and designers such as Charles Gwathmey, Mario Salvadori, Gene Kohn and others. It covers project management, firm organization, legal issues, marketing, risk management licensing, client and contractor relations and more. Actual situations are analyzed and interpreted in the form of helpful case studies throughout the book.

Product Details

• Amazon Sales Rank: #1007429 in Books
• Published on: 1997-05
• Original language: English
• Number of items: 1
• Binding: Paperback
• 343 pages

From the Publisher
This book offers architecture students and professionals a hands-on guide to the practical side of operating an architectural practice. It includes contributions from well-known architects and designers such as Charles Gwathmey, Mario Salvadori, Gene Kohn and others. It covers project management, firm organization, legal issues, marketing, risk management licensing, client and contractor relations and more. Actual situations are analyzed and interpreted in the form of helpful case studies throughout the book.

From the Back Cover
"Andy Pressman has effectively bridged the artificial gap that has developed between art, science, and professional practice in architecture. . . . This book is a crucial beginning in your search for excellence in professional practice."—From the Foreword by Richard A. Eribes, PhD, AIA

Professional practice courses often suffer from a boring reputation, but there's nothing dull about Andy Pressman's Professional Practice 101. With its unique focus on the important links between practice and the design process, this book brings a fresh perspective to the many issues involved in the operation of an architectural practice, from how a firm is structured to how it manages projects and secures new business.

Filled with insightful contributions from Charles Gwathmey, Gene Kohn, Mario Salvadori, and dozens of other leading architects and designers, this book offers an inspiring and truly relevant examination of architectural practice today. It will be welcomed by students and young architects as a vital part of their training.

Professional Practice 101 contains a wealth of material on:

• Firm organization
• Group dynamics and teamwork
• Communication and leadership skills
• Marketing
• Financial management
• Client and contractor relations
• Project management
• Project delivery
• Design and information technology
• Legal and licensing issues
• Risk management and professional liability insurance

Plus:

• Firm profiles, case studies And analyses, and real-life anecdotes
• Valuable reference information for architects who are preparing for the licensing exam

About the Author
ANDY PRESSMAN, AIA, NCARB, is an assistant professor of architecture and planning at the University of New Mexico, and leads his own award-winning architectural firm based in Albuquerque. His work has been featured in over twenty professional and popular publications, including Architectural Record, Architecture, and the Washington Post. He is the author of The Fountainheadache and Architecture 101, both published by Wiley, and holds a master's degree from the Harvard University Graduate School of Design."

Customer Reviews

A great resource for setting up shop
Andy Pressman is an expert on professional practice. As a former student, (I hope this doesn't taint anyone else's opinion,) I have had the opportunity of learning from a man that is part of the spearhead to change the education of architects and bring integrity back to an area that seems, in some circles, to have been forgotten: client relations. Written more towards the student, this book brings to light what it is to be a design professional. Also checkout Architecture 101, a more general approach to becoming a designer in the professional world.

And yes that is my real name!

Dry and boring
As a senior architecture student, I find this book very uninteresting. There are chapters that have 55 pages, then the next would have 12 pages. Most of all, they are boring case studies.
I am doing well in class but not because of this 'required' book.

If I could get $5 for this book when I resell it eventually, I'd be happy.

uninteresting
As a new sole proprietor, I found this book to be essentially worthless. It is weighty, condescending, and lacks practical knowledge. I was looking for concise advise that could be applied to running a successful business in the new service economy, what I found was a "compendium" of old world ideas.

Read the book "Blur" instead.