When the architect John Morefield found himself out of a job in 2008 he set up a booth at the Ballard Farmers' Market in Seattle and offered to...
When the architect John Morefield found himself out of a job in 2008 he set up a booth at the Ballard Farmers' Market in Seattle and offered to answer any architectural questions for 5 cents. He ended up meeting people face-to-face, found a few sizable commissions, and made $50,000 over the course of the year.[vimeo][/vimeo]As The New York Times reports, lots of architects have found themselves having to use those creative problem-solving skills to design themselves new careers these days:
A troubled economy and the implosion of the real estate market have thrown thousands of architects and designers out of work in the last year or so, forcing them to find or create jobs. According to the latest data available from the Department of Labor, employment at American architecture firms, which peaked last July at 224,500, had dropped to 184,600 by November.I would think doing the kind of hyper-local, hands-on work that Morefield found, or starting an architecture-themed ice cream sandwich truck like Natasha Case and Freya Estreller did, would actually be much more personally satisfying than doing endless 3-D renderings on some Zaha Hadid project that will probably never actually be built anyway.
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