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You explain so well why I came back to the UK to have a decent job as an architect....most of the work in the US was desperately bad and poorly paid to boot.
Sorry to say that the job, both in terms of the quality of work and the quality of the pay package are better here than there.
We manage a fair amount of residential stuff here. A few private homes and a growing sector of developer projects. Its hard getting commercial building fee rates for residential, let alone the actual fee needed. But we manage quite well. A few burnt fingers along the way.....
I tend to agree that the 'middle-class' single family unit faces an uncertain future in terms of architectural desirability. But the real reason behind that is not the money.....its mainly down to us. For too long we have ignored the basic necessity of providing good quality service to the middle class in an accessible manner.
After all how many of our friends would actually approach an architect to do work on their home?
How often to you hear horror stories about architects making basic mistakes and not being professional...as often as you hear about bad mechanics....
Certainly here there is little demand for this type of work for architects other than sole practitioners etc who by and large are those least able to deliver smoothly because they are alone....in an area where you need the bakc up of a staffed office.
As for working for friends or family...both friends and family are too precious to put at risk, contracts or not. Also in order to do the job crrectly you have to know more about their lives than they do and its usually more than I want to know about my friends....
A few of us manage to run 911, all pre 964 cars, whilst working here, but truth be told its not exaclty every one's cup of tea.
Judging by the umber of SUVs, new Audis and BMWs its not the money that deters them.
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