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February 4, 2016 4:03 PM Subscribe
'The Story Behind The Most Creative Job Application We've Ever Seen'
Étienne Duval is a thirty year old architect who wants to work with Bjarke Ingels at B.I.G.
... 'To catch a big fish you need a big hook! I began this application like an architectural project, by finding the key criteria and playing with it. A cover letter is an ego trip, so I thought about this hip hop video clips and told myself "why wouldn't I do the same?"
A short interview with Etienne Duval at ArchDaily
This is great, but it's also a bit ridiculous that this is the kind of bullshit you have to do to get a decent job in architecture.
posted by a halcyon day at 6:33 PM on February 4, 2016 [14 favorites]
posted by a halcyon day at 6:33 PM on February 4, 2016 [14 favorites]
Somehow I doubt that anyone who isn't a white guy using a hip-hop video as a job application would even get looked at, let alone lauded as "the most creative job application we've ever seen".
posted by divabat at 7:07 PM on February 4, 2016 [10 favorites]
posted by divabat at 7:07 PM on February 4, 2016 [10 favorites]
I don't know that working for B.I.G. actually is a decent job. If you went into architecture kind of as an ego trip and your main goal is following the heroic Howard Roark paradigm and winning competitions (which may or may not actually get built - see how many of Liebeskind's buildings from his winning WTC competition entry actually ended up happening), then it's definitely the place to go. But, with market forces being what they are (i.e. they've got a ton of talented people trying to get a job there), it's not like their compensation is going to be stellar, although I'd bet a non-stellar job in Denmark beats the pants off a similar job in the US.
Notably absent from his list of programs: Revit. He wouldn't even get a phone call at most of the places I've worked at in the last 10 years.
posted by LionIndex at 7:18 PM on February 4, 2016 [6 favorites]
Notably absent from his list of programs: Revit. He wouldn't even get a phone call at most of the places I've worked at in the last 10 years.
posted by LionIndex at 7:18 PM on February 4, 2016 [6 favorites]
I hope he doesn't design floorplans the way he raps, because that flow is terrible, son.
posted by FatherDagon at 10:03 PM on February 4, 2016 [5 favorites]
posted by FatherDagon at 10:03 PM on February 4, 2016 [5 favorites]
Impossible is nothing!
posted by miyabo at 10:31 PM on February 4, 2016 [1 favorite]
posted by miyabo at 10:31 PM on February 4, 2016 [1 favorite]
I hear you, LionIndex, but BIG is one of a handful of firms doing both competition work and also actually making stuff right now. I'm sure they suffer from the same talent-grinder problem as REX, OMA, Foster, Morphosis, etc but like you said, being based in Denmark gives them a leg up for potentially not being terrible. Also my bitterness is showing since this dude has EU work papers and the freedom to go work at a strong conceptual firm rather than punching for a paycheck.
Presumably he's never used Revit because he's been a draftsman and modeler at his prior firms, typically working on competitions (except maybe SANAA). BIM isn't really in play there.
posted by a halcyon day at 11:37 PM on February 4, 2016 [1 favorite]
Presumably he's never used Revit because he's been a draftsman and modeler at his prior firms, typically working on competitions (except maybe SANAA). BIM isn't really in play there.
posted by a halcyon day at 11:37 PM on February 4, 2016 [1 favorite]
I know nothing about architecture and I've heard of BIG so I don't think this is really "what you need to do to get a decent job in architecture"
posted by the agents of KAOS at 1:29 AM on February 5, 2016
posted by the agents of KAOS at 1:29 AM on February 5, 2016
Why does this remind me so much of hyper-inflationary "resume" tendency of 1-2 year unpaid internships?
Suckers like Étienne Duval, who believe the propaganda of the job industry, are ruining things for all the reasonable people (like me, of course) who just want to get paid for doing as little as possible, and having enough time for other things.
posted by mary8nne at 2:37 AM on February 5, 2016 [5 favorites]
Suckers like Étienne Duval, who believe the propaganda of the job industry, are ruining things for all the reasonable people (like me, of course) who just want to get paid for doing as little as possible, and having enough time for other things.
posted by mary8nne at 2:37 AM on February 5, 2016 [5 favorites]
mary8nne's got a point: This is just contributing to this ridiculous trend too many companies have of requiring that applicants send in videos. I noped out of a job because they wanted me to make multiple professional-quality videos before even guaranteeing an interview. Blargh, if people want to send in a video, ok, but let me write!
posted by divabat at 4:18 AM on February 5, 2016 [1 favorite]
posted by divabat at 4:18 AM on February 5, 2016 [1 favorite]
Presumably he's never used Revit because he's been a draftsman and modeler at his prior firms, typically working on competitions (except maybe SANAA). BIM isn't really in play there.
Well, I'd clarify that he's probably been a drafter in the design side of the office, which is why he'd use the programs he does and not Revit. Every production drafter in my offices has known Revit, even right out of school. You're right that B.I.G. is successfully making the transition from being mostly paper architects to actually getting stuff built, but that doesn't necessarily mean that they have a production division proportionate in size (for a regular firm) to their design staff - it's been pretty standard practice for firms like them to contract with local firms who serve as Architect of Record and do the bulk of the production work.
I know nothing about architecture and I've heard of BIG so I don't think this is really "what you need to do to get a decent job in architecture"
Right, there's plenty of jobs (well...) at workaday firms that just do offices and restaurants and more utilitarian kinds of things. But your name won't be in the lights and you won't be getting a Pritzker. Getting a job at a place like B.I.G. is kind of like programmers trying to work at Google right now, only maybe a bit more extreme. They and the firms that meinvt mentions are in a different world than ~95% of people working in the profession.
Note for non-architecture folks: in larger firms there's typically a division between the "design" and "production" wings of an office. Design people are kind of the salespeople, but also have the big ideas, and they work on the first stages of a project with the clients and doing renderings (pretty drawings like B.I.G. has all over their unbuilt projects) to sell the project to investors and communities where the building will be located. Production staff figures out how to build the thing and produces drawings instructing contractors how to do it. Production staff in an office that does both will be 5-10 times the size of design staff, and these days will spend their whole lives in Revit.
posted by LionIndex at 4:28 AM on February 5, 2016 [4 favorites]
Well, I'd clarify that he's probably been a drafter in the design side of the office, which is why he'd use the programs he does and not Revit. Every production drafter in my offices has known Revit, even right out of school. You're right that B.I.G. is successfully making the transition from being mostly paper architects to actually getting stuff built, but that doesn't necessarily mean that they have a production division proportionate in size (for a regular firm) to their design staff - it's been pretty standard practice for firms like them to contract with local firms who serve as Architect of Record and do the bulk of the production work.
I know nothing about architecture and I've heard of BIG so I don't think this is really "what you need to do to get a decent job in architecture"
Right, there's plenty of jobs (well...) at workaday firms that just do offices and restaurants and more utilitarian kinds of things. But your name won't be in the lights and you won't be getting a Pritzker. Getting a job at a place like B.I.G. is kind of like programmers trying to work at Google right now, only maybe a bit more extreme. They and the firms that meinvt mentions are in a different world than ~95% of people working in the profession.
Note for non-architecture folks: in larger firms there's typically a division between the "design" and "production" wings of an office. Design people are kind of the salespeople, but also have the big ideas, and they work on the first stages of a project with the clients and doing renderings (pretty drawings like B.I.G. has all over their unbuilt projects) to sell the project to investors and communities where the building will be located. Production staff figures out how to build the thing and produces drawings instructing contractors how to do it. Production staff in an office that does both will be 5-10 times the size of design staff, and these days will spend their whole lives in Revit.
posted by LionIndex at 4:28 AM on February 5, 2016 [4 favorites]
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posted by Joey Michaels at 4:16 PM on February 4, 2016