Just trying to assess the state of the industry at the moment since the bankers f***** everything up. Keeping busy? Optimistic? Pessimistic? Different type of work?
I’m getting fed up of all the financial negativity. Swine Flu is almost a relief!
For me it’s not as bad, quite the opposite actually.
The government is aggressively funding more public works, schools, etc., to avoid unemployment in construction, as a side effect there is more to render for archviz.
(I did 3 schools this month)
I guess it’s also a good time to render cars, car makers seem to be desparate and throw out commercials like crazy.
All architectual offices I know are very busy right now, but some say the resession will hit the building industry with a few years delay.
We’re always busy with the forensic stuff…and have actually seen an increase in the arch viz as well. The increase in arch viz is a nice breath of fresh air…making vehicles crash into each other gets boring/depressing after awhile!!
Funny that you say that…I often fantasize about making my buildings collapse in spectacular ways, because doing archviz is so boring 
But I understand that it’s depressing to recreate real life tragedies, I wouldn’t want to do that either.
But some Terminator style madness and destruction would be great, every now and then.
Okay over here - with the costs of film shoots being quite high a lot of places are going for graphics / design / animation based ads so we’re still very busy. Only bad thing is budgets are half what they were last year.
our office was 160+ people working overtime…now we are less then 30 working part time and quickly coming to a grinding halt.
mh
hey
i suddenly got super busy, seems like lots of people are bidding and doing proposals left and right to try and get work…
Pardoning the vernacular, but I’m fucked. Completely fucked. Not a bean since I got made redundant three months ago.
Real sorry to hear that Stoo. There is certainly *more* positivity on the news these days with regards to the high street and the housing prices, not to mention the FTSE etc. Lets just hope it filters through to the construction industry soon…we’ll see.
Were you at a practice?
Heh, I as digging around in my subscriptions and found this. Should’ve opted for an update, eh? Um, well, it’s ten months now and I’m still out of work but, hopefully, things will pick up. There’s certainly a bit of movement in the market but it is still very tentative - jobs being put on hold and all that - so hopefully something will happen soon. That or bankruptcy anyway.
In answer to the question, yes I was at a practice. They have had another couple of rounds of redundancies since I left so obviously in dire straits. I’m assuming that the cull is now at an end though.
arch viz has really pooped out for me here. I think all the architects have retreated to producing sketchup renders in house. surviving on some broadcast work here and there.
Had a very slow fall and winter, but lately things have begun to pick up. I think it’s just the normal stirrings I see most springs, but I’m keeping my fingers crossed.
Oh, Arch viz stills almost exclusively. yes, some of my clients have switched to Sk&#$up for the majority of their renderings, but for the ones they want better, they still call.
Still, hope it keeps picking up. My wife’s side of the family is in the construction business and they are slower than ever in over 25 years.
Well - this is the busiest I’ve ever been. Everyone I’ve talked to (at least two people a day - renderers, archs, and developers) have been very busy. I think things are really turning around and picking up. Either that, or the field got thinned in a major way.
Considering it’s my first post I’ll just say hi all 
I’m very fresh into arch viz / 3D so I do not rely on it as main income but lately there’s a big movement on regular logo/branding graphic stuff from what I can see which in my opinion is a good sign.
I try to throw 3D here and there but at this point it’s simply not efficient for me (I suck at it too much to be good and fast 
).
I’ve been keeping afloat with the archaeology stuff that I’ve been doing forever. I am constantly looking for more consistent, higher-paying work though, but I can’t seem to find any in the Boston area. And I’m therefore unable to add different types of work to my portfolio to show that I am capable. :o/
Charles, if you get more business than you can handle, feel free to unload some on me!
I think we talked before Geoff. There’s actually only one person I can recall bringing up archaeological illustrations and he was from around here - at the time was working for a school I think out near Waltham? Sorry if I can’t recall - brain is toast right now. Anyways, drop me a pm.
As for really high-paying jobs in the Boston area - I haven’t seen that since web 1.0 back in 2000. Most of those people living high on the hog back then are at ground zero again. I knew one guy who was a SQL DBM - 250k/year. I talked with him two years ago and he was bagging groceries in a grocery store and parking cars. Better off in NYC imo. Same rent, double the pay.