Podcast – Architect Exam Prep – ARE Prep Courses

Podcast – Architect Exam Prep – ARE Prep Courses

By David Doucette & Eric Corey FreedBusinessEntrepreneurshipEducationArtsCoursesDesign
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Podcast – Architect Exam Prep – ARE Prep Courses episodes

  • Episode 37: What We’ve Learned From NCARB 5.0

    5.0 is still a scary exam. or is it?

    Join Eric and I as we discuss what we’ve learned about 5.0 and the new challenges presented byt the new format.

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    57 min
  • Episode 36: Should An Architect Design or Buy Their Own Home?

    We probably all dream of one day of designing our own home. But what is the reality?

    Join Eric and I as we discuss the idea of designing versus buying your own home as well as share our recent experiences with the home buying process.

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    Chat with Eric

    Schedule a FREE 15 minute phone call with Eric, check out the Talk with Eric page for more information!

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    1 hr 1 min
  • Episode 35: How to Use Your Architecture Career to Make the World a Better Place

    Can I really make a difference by becoming an Architect?

    Join Eric and I as we discuss how you can utilize your architecture training, degree, and experience to make the world a better place, one small step at a time.

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    Show Notes:

    5 things you should do in your firm right now:

    1. Schedule a series of Lunch and Learns with Manufacturers of green building products and systems

    2. Order samples of green building materials for the office library
    3. Invite guest consultants and lecturers to present to the firm (or present your own enthusiasm to your colleagues)
    4. Take the initiative to fill out the LEED checklist for your projects to see if that sparks a conversation with the project team or Client
    5. Contact a solar company to get quotes and financing options for putting solar on your projects (with a goal of net zero energy for all).

    TOPICS COVERED:

    * Uncovering hidden needs

    * Changing the course of your projects
    * Find new problems to solve for your Client
    * Scare off the wrong clients (and attract the right ones)
    * Be the first at something (1st LEED Certified, 1st Net Zero, 1st in your State)
    * Finding untapped clients – who is under-represented?
    * Not following the money – sometimes the main beneficiary of the project is not who will pay for your time
    * Collaborations – every project is a potential collaboration
    * Volunteering – be strategic with how you donate your time
    * Mention the Unmentionable – raise the issues no one else is mentioning to spark a discussion

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    1 hr
  • Episode 34: Top 5 Things To Know: Working with Contractors

    Should Contractors simply be treated as hired help or indentured servants? Or do they deserve the same respect as other building professionals?

    Join Eric and I as we discuss the best ways to work with a Contractor to ensure a successful relationship (and project).

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    Show Notes:

    Contractors are oftentimes the last people to become involved in any construction project, and in some cases will end up doing all the heavy lifting.

    The architectural and construction industries both play a critical role in a building project. Contractors are responsible for putting together the physical pieces of the puzzle that bring an architect’s vision to life.

    Contractors come in to take an Architect’s vision and create the physical structure.

    A positive relationship between the architect and contractor is important because it helps the construction project flow smoothly from start to finish. When contractors and architects develop a positive relationship and communicate effectively, disagreements can be minimized (if not avoided altogether) and the project can move efficiently from one phase to the next. It might even make you a better Architect!

    A negative or adversarial relationship could mean:

    delays, poor communication, increased liability or worst of all, legal disputes.

    Top 5:

    1. Contractors are building professionals too. Be part of a Team, not adversaries.

    View the Contractor as a vital part of the design project team (cause they are!)
    Don’t view the Contractor as a hired hand, but as a building professional bringing their expertise to the project like everyone else.

    2. Contractors need information. Communicate, and then over-communicate.

    The key to any successful architect-contractor relationship is open, honest communication and a mutual respect for one another. Contractors should take strides to keep the design team informed on a regular basis throughout the construction process to avoid confusion and minimize mistakes. Likewise, architects should be open to the reality of the situation in the field.

    Drawings aren’t perfect. Sometimes Contractors find conflicts (REMEMBER: drawings and specs are complementary). Sometimes they have questions. Questions are good as they show interest and a desire to make things correctly.

    Communication is key to an effective working relationship between an architect and a contractor. It’s important to hire a contractor who has many years of experience working with architects on building projects ranging from home additions to large commercial construction projects. Without good communication, the project can lose focus and desires of the property owner may be lost.

    At the beginning of the project, the architect and the contractor should have a conversation to understand and agree upon how changes will be tracked. An efficient and centralized tracking system will result in better quality control and field communication and will also eliminate the potential for missed items. – See more at: http://www.sbci.com/contractor-architect-communication/#sthash.zdoTw0t1.dpuf

    Schedule regular site visits and honor the time of those visits. Don’t schedule contractor meetings at 6pm (they like to start early and end early,.)

    3. Contractors have specific responsibilities. Trust your roles.

    Architect has a lot of responsibilities during construction:

    Change Orders
    Application for Payment
    Review Shop Drawings
    Design complies with building code
    Certify date of Substantial Completion
    Approve Notice of Final Completion & Final Application for Payment

    But so does the Contractor:

    means and method of achieving the design in the Contract Documents
    paying their subs / release of liens
    manage inspections
    submit RFIs
    Punch Lists
    Schedule of Values

    The General Contractor is also responsible for selecting Subcontractors (framing company, painting crew, millworkers, plumbers, etc.). The General Contractor ensures that the Subcontractors perform work as described in the Construction Documents the Architect has prepared. The General Contractor also coordinate schedules and deliveries, answer questions onsite, review shop drawings, and alert the Architect when more information is needed.

    The AIA documents are specific in describing documentation provided by the contractor, and the architect is wise to capture that documentation in the record files.

    4. Contractors care about their portfolio too. Let them be enthusiastic about the project.

    Great contractors take pride in their work and want challenges too. If you’re working on a LEED Platinum project, or a project with a tricky facade detail, or something unique, expect and enjoy a contractor that gets excited about working on such cool things.

    Share the costs of the photos. Mention them in the marketing and PR of the project after it’s done. (You hate when articles fail to mention the Architect, don’t you?!)

    Expect to work with them again. Great contractors are invaluable. In San Francisco, I have the same stable of 5 Contractors I used for most jobs (City, East Bay, South Bay, Marin).

    5. Contractors are better business people than you, probably. Remember the cost of running a business.Application for Payment and change orders can often be way off, but sometimes the Contractor is simply trying to get ahead for cash flow to order the next round of materials for the project.

    Architect as initial decision maker, but can’t be biased to your client (the Owner.)

    While you may be willing to spend hours working overtime for free, the Contractor does not (and should not).

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    43 min
  • Episode 33: 5 Key Concepts for Successful Client Relationships

    Are you thinking about striking out on your own? Wondering what it’s like to work with clients?

    Join Eric and I as we discuss how to foster successful relationships with clients.

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    Show Notes:
    Due to the complex nature of architecture projects, a number of factors can make or break an architect-client relationship.
    1: A good client relationship is about Trust
    Trust is the foundation of any relationship between architect and client, and cultivating trust has huge benefits: repeat clients, patience when challenges arise, and referrals to new clients. But a weak or eroded sense of trust can harm your reputation, cost you future business, and even drive clients toward litigation.
    So how do you build trust?
    • a. Be transparent about everything. deadlines, good news and bad,
    • b. Show you are listening to them. Take notes, and highlight how their input shaped the design. Point out the things they asked for and use their needs and requests to talk through the design.
    • c. Offer New and Creative Solutions to their problems and for their needs.
    •  d. It’s about them, not you. Don’t make it about “your vision” but about fulfilling their needs.
    •  e. Underpromise, and overdeliver. Say you’ll give them 2 schemes and provide 4. Don’t Overpromise ever. Hard when they pressure you. Be Honest in Setting Expectations. Show conviction and maintain integrity Trust is built on consistency
    •  f. Trust goes both ways. If you’ve done everything to earn their trust and they still don’t trust you, they have the problem.
      • 2. Even great clients don’t always agree.
      • Couples argue, boards disagree.
      • Sometimes your job will be as a marriage counselor.
        • 3. Your process may not be their process.
        • Be flexible. You may have a certain way of selecting fixtures, or insist on sticking to a certain style of meeting agenda, but clients are all unique. Know when
          •  4. You need to protect them and be a professional too.
          • Tell them when they are wrong.
          • No, they can’t build a 5000 square foot house for $100k.
          • No, you can’t avoid getting a building permit.
          • No, you can’t use an unlicensed contractor (or some guys down at the U-haul parking lot).
            •  5. The relationship shouldn’t end when the project ends.

             

            BONUS:  CLIENT WARNING SIGNS:
            I automatically disqualify any potential clients who:
            1.  Use the word “lawsuit” in our first meeting.
            2.  Want to control the construction process with an impossibly rushed schedule.
            3.  Is verbally abusive to their spouse/children during the first meeting.
            4.  Already had an architect they fired.
            5.  Treats the waiter poorly at our initial lunch meeting.
            6.  Was divorced in the last year and is getting their “life back together”, or hopes this project will “save” their marriage.
            7.  Refers to the architect as a merely someone to “draw up the thing they designed” in 3D Home Architect.
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            53 min
          • Episode 32: Get in the RIGHT Mindset to Pass the ARE!

            What if YOU are the reason you’re not passing the ARE?

            Join Eric and I as we discuss how to find that positive mindset so critical to preparing for and passing the ARE.

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            Show Notes:
            QUOTE:
            Benjamin Barber, an eminent sociologist, once said, “I don’t divide the world into the weak and the strong, or the successes and the failures… I divide the world into the learners and nonlearners.”
            OVERVIEW:
            Today we’re going to talk about MINDSET and how your mindset might be preventing you from passing the ARE.
            what if YOU are the reason you’re not passing the ARE?
            You know the material, have a few years of great experience, but yet you’re still not passing and you don’t know why.
            listening to hundreds of candidates.  I can now tell you which will pass and which won’t.  Not magic, just but their approach to learning, their “Mindset”
            How can you use your mindset to help you pass the ARE?
            Eric read book by Carol S. Dweck, PhD? called Mindset: The New Psychology of Success.
            How can you apply this to your studying for the ARE?
            Examples:
            failed an exam she thought she aced.  Took it again with renewed enthusiasm and passed with all Level 1’s on score report.  She was surprised.
            has taken the same exam 11 times and failed 11 times.  Keeps blaming the “system”
            failed cause they were sick that week, but didn’t reschedule the exam.
            blames the rolling clock, the computers at the testing center, the deadlines at work, the study guides!
            here’s some tough love:  YOURE THE PROBLEM!  Or namely, your mindset is wrong.
            1.  FIXED vs GROWTH MINDSET
            Everyone is born with an intense drive to learn.
            Infants stretch their skills daily. Not just ordinary skills, but the most difficult tasks of a lifetime, like learning to walk and talk. They never decide it’s too hard or not worth the effort.
            Babies don’t worry about making mistakes or humiliating themselves. They walk, they fall, they get up. They just barge forward.
            But as people age, they fall into the “fixed mindset.”  Fixed mindset means you expect yourself to get it right the first time, to be perfect, to do it right away too.  In short, you’re afraid of learning and afraid of making mistakes.
            BUT making mistakes is how we learn.
            Change from a fixed mindset, to a “growth mindset”
            2.  ATTITUDE MINDSET
            example of candidate who hates NCARB, hates the format, hates the testing center.
            3.  CHANGE YOUR MINDSET
            3a.  Focus on Learning Over Achievement
            Accept that these exams are hard and you will struggle
            Instead of depending on luck or “natural” talent, you focus on developing your skills and abilities, and learning from your efforts.
            3b.  Change your Mindset
            Even a fixed mindset is not a fixed thing!  Change it.
            Just by knowing about the two mindsets, you can start thinking and reacting in new ways.
            As you approach a challenge:
            THE FIXED-MINDSET says “Are you sure you can do it? Maybe you don’t have the talent.”
            THE GROWTH-MINDSET answers, “I’m not sure I can do it now, but I think I can learn to with time and effort.”
            FIXED MINDSET: “What if you fail—you’ll be a failure”
            GROWTH MINDSET: “Most successful people had failures along the way.”
            FIXED MINDSET: “If you don’t try, you can protect yourself and keep your dignity.”
            GROWTH MINDSET: “If I don’t try, I automatically fail. Where’s the dignity in that?”
            As you hit a setback:
            FIXED MINDSET: “This would have been a snap if you really had talent.”
            GROWTH MINDSET: “That is so wrong. Basketball wasn’t easy for Michael Jordan and science wasn’t easy for Thomas Edison. They had a passion and put in tons of effort.
            As you face criticism:
            FIXED MINDSET: “It’s not my fault. It was something or someone else’s fault.”
            GROWTH MINDSET: “If I don’t take responsibility, I can’t fix it. Let me listen—however painful it is– and learn whatever I can.”
            Over time, which voice you heed becomes pretty much your choice. Whether you take on the challenge wholeheartedly, learn from your setbacks and try again hear the criticism and act on it is now in your hands.
            4.  APPLYING THIS TO YOUR CAREER
            Is there someone in your office, maybe an older or career person who seems stuck?  At some point they got “good enough” at their work and just stopped?
            You want to avoid that.  Be a lifelong student.  Be willing to try new materials, new systems, new approaches.  Whether in your design projects, or how you manage those projects.
             LINKS:
             BOOK:
            Mindset: The New Psychology of Success
            http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/0345472322/ref=as_li_tl?ie=UTF8&camp=1789&creative=9325&creativeASIN=0345472322&linkCode=as2&tag=rkeytexdesign-20
            WEBSITE:
            https://mindsetonline.com
            TEST YOUR MINDSET:
            https://mindsetonline.com/testyourmindset/step1.php
            FURTHER READING:
            http://sourcesofinsight.com/10-big-ideas-from-mindset-the-new-psychology-of-success/
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            Please rate us on iTunes!

            If you enjoyed the show, please rate it on iTunes and write a review. It would really help us spread the word about the ARE Podcast. Thanks!

            1 hr 2 min

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