All those letters you have to pay for - why? We have had numerous discussions in our office about the need to have alphabet soup after your name to prove that you are a capable architect. There isn’t enough room on our business cards for all those letters.
This is particularly offensive to me because of the deplorable economic conditions our profession is experiencing (some say 40% or more unemployment). It costs us to have those letters. Many are unemployed. Many have taken a reduction in salaries. Others have seen no increase in salary for years and those that have graduated in the past several years have been unable to find positions. Yet that does not seem to have any effect on those demanding ever increasing fees for those letters.
By now you may realize that I have an underlying hostility regarding where our profession has gone or, where we have allowed ourselves to be led. The most egregious fee “demander” to me is LEED. (I have now stuck a knife in our firm and killed it. We will never get another client). LEED was once a noble pursuit with all the best our profession had to offer. But it has gone off onto the bureaucracy track.
Green architecture; what is not to embrace? Sustainable design should be part of our fabric and responsibility as architects. If you have your license, you are a qualified architect. Designing environmentally sound projects should not be treated any differently than code compliance or facility accessibility. It should be second nature and it is to all the great architects in our office.
So we have given ourselves at TAG a new letter designation, DGA – Damn Good Architects, and we don’t have to pay for them. We just work hard for them.
