I hear and have heard similar statements many many times from architects. Are you also guilty of saying some of these lines? Do you really believe they're true? A curious thing about architecture marketing (online) is that architects as a whole invest the least in it when compared to other types of professional service businesses. Why this is curious to me, is that research has shown that businesses that do prioritize and invest in web marketing (websites, social media, blogging, podcasts, webinars, email marketing, SEO, etc) are more profitable and have faster growth than those that don't.

Another thing about those statements at the top? Usually the architect saying them has no (or not enough) projects in the pipeline, has been struggling since the recession (sometimes even before), or has little to no dollars budgeted for marketing of any kind online or off. So when I hear this idea that architects can't benefit from online marketing, its a signifier that the industry hasn't yet realized the profit potential of the web.

Also, it signifies that many firms aren't prepared for the fundamental change that's not only inevitable but happening right now. That change is that clients today are relying on the power and convenience of the internet to find and vet architecture firms. A/E/C Marketing is moving away from traditional referrals and towards the practice of sharing knowledge. Your firm's reputation depends increasingly on its position as a reliable and trusted content provider. 

 If you don't have a web presence, your firm is irrelevant. If your website is simply a fancy electronic brochure, your website is irrelevant. Your website is the foundation of your marketing. Is your foundation weak or nonexistent? Or is it a strong stable support for your firm especially during bleak economic times as these?

So join the conversation with your fellow peers in the A/E/C industry and find your place on the ArchitectMap!

So, I was reading Design Bureau mag and saw a cool little article on Architect Scott Ballard. He has redesigned six homes on his residential block. Its a great case for design speaking for itself. After he redesigned his own home, his neighbors asked for a little redesign magic for their homes. In a period of about 10 years, Scott has tricked out six of his neighbors bungalows into contemporary abodes. I think it helps that his neighbors are creative types. Check out the magazine to see the article.

Happy New Year! Let's make 2012 a great and prosperous year! To usher in the new year let's take a look at what's going on at the Michigan State University campus, shall we? The Zaha Hadid designed Broad Art Museum has almost completed construction! The museum is scheduled to be ready by April 2012. New year, new building!

Check out the arch daily article and see the construction photos and project renderings.

photo credit: John Sullivan Aerial Associates Photography 

"BIG proposes to create a series of buildings that radiate out from a central square and whose ends touch the ground to create four freestanding buildings that each provide access to the roof and allow the skiers to descend from the resort's rooftop downhill in any direction." 

They really sited the complex well and thoughtfully designed with priority given to skiers and pedestrians in mind. In the domus article, the BIG team talks about the connectivity of the whole resort. All areas of the resort (ski roof, rooftop restaurant, courtyard, etc.) are connected by a network of paths. They also wanted to integrate the building(s) and the experience of the resort with the surrounding nature, a "living part of the landscape". Gotta love responsive and adaptive architecture! Let's see if it works as well in reality as it does theoretically. 

Congrats to BIG on the win!

all photos are BIG copyright.

From the article:

Apparently, the Amis got deeply invested in the project and took to calling it “Y lu duqai a luma”: Amis for “mountain home.” ("One in particular deserves mention," Bunge says. "Mayo, an Amis leader, put his heart and soul into it.") What's more, they contributed their own clever technical solutions. "Instead of prefabricating some of the secondary arches as we had specified, once the vault shapes were roughly defined, they inserted bamboo poles onto the steel foundation pipes and bent them towards each other, joining them to create the required arc," Bunge says.

The Amis have since asked if they can adopt the studio's bamboo construction technique for their own architectural creations. So even if the pavilion doesn’t help dissuade the government from erecting a casino -- and, as these things go, it probably won’t -- at least the Amis got some cool new design ideas out of it.

Photo by:  Iwan Baan

http://www.creativefreelancerconference.com/ehome/index.php?eventid=17015&tabid=23121&&r=cfblog

Marketing in today’s economy is definitely an investment. But a solid marketing strategy will very clearly communicate your message to the public. Pretty ads alone will not get the job done. Marketing design is all about clear communication between your business and the public. Clear communication combined with compelling graphics is how you increase your ROI and increase your brand awareness.