Making the Cut: 3 Tips for Turning an Internship into a Job

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I came into Sander Architects the summer of 2009 after my fourth year of Architecture school in San Luis Obispo. I built models in the office all summer and up at school for a few months as well. I was called back in to do some part-time modeling around March, 2011, and I’ve stayed on as a draftsperson and project manager ever since. Here are my tips for turning my internship into a full time gig.

1. Be Good

When you come into an office for an internship, you will probably not be doing the most glamorous work, but whatever task comes your way, make sure you knock it out of the park. In my case, I was building models. It’s certainly not everyone’s favorite, but I think it’s kind of fun to see how drawings come to life three dimensionally. I worked my butt off building a myriad of models, and I did a great job. (I built hundreds of tiny seats for the concert hall, just to give you an idea.) My work early on got me called back into the office later. If you show your ability to excel at one thing, it gives people a reason to believe you’ll be great in other areas, as well.

2. Stay In Touch

Even though my internship ended around November, I was always sure to keep in touch. I would come back into the office every time I came home from school. After graduation, I hoped I would have a job waiting for me, but there wasn’t a spot for me in the office. I still maintained contact with Whitney and Cath, checking in every few months, enough to stay on their radar without bugging the hell out of them. When they needed some models built, I was the guy. Then, a spot in the office opened up and I transitioned into full time. It was about 18 months between the end of my first internship and the beginning of my full time job, and if I hadn’t kept myself in the loop at that time, I might not be where I am today.

3. Be Ready

Before I came back into the office I was working part time coaching volleyball and doing odd jobs. I kept my design skills sharp, working on T-shirts and keeping up to date with architecture blogs and competitions. I also learned the office’s drafting software, so I was able to assimilate easily when a job was available.

Adam Licht,

Associate

Sander Architects, LLC

Hybrid Construction: Confessions of an iMac Luddite

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I have a challenge to make. It's time for prefabricated architecture to live up to its potential. The prefabricated building should be measured by three completely reasonable yardsticks:
- Economical cost to build and use
- Sustainably created 
- Superior design/aesthetic quality

Prefab designers and companies should be able to achieve results that satisfy these three requirements at once. Especially given that the designers have, in theory, forever to improve their models. Yet it's arguable that no prefabricated product now available has yet been able to satisfy all three criteria in the same structure. Sadly, most achieve excellence in only one criterion. 

 

- Prefab residences are at or (well) above standard construction costs in every section of the country.

- Factories are not centrally located, for the most part, and require long distances of travel to most construction sites. And the steel required by shipping stresses is often far greater than the house alone would require.

- Aesthetically many prefab residential models are sufficient but hardly superior designs.
Into this unsettled landscape over the last ten years, Sander Architects has introduced our Hybrid Construction process. This process, we believe, achieves excellence in all three criteria above. To wit:

- Our houses regularly cost under $200/SF. One, in rural Oregon, came in at $130/Sf.

- The shells of these houses are created by light-gauge metal building fabricators using recycled steel. SInce this technology is over a hundred years old, fabricators can be found near any likely building site across the country and in most of the developed world.

 

- Our buildings have won the Dedalo MInosse International Prize for Architecture three times, various AIA awards, and the Chicago Athenaeum American Architecture Prize. They have also been extensively published in over thirty design-based books. 
In essence, we have solved the new technology riddle by leveraging the efficiencies of one of the oldest and most mature industries in the world. This circumvents the achilles heel of most prefabricated endeavors: startup and tooling costs. These companies are ready to provide buildings of any size or orientation, provided one knows and understands the nature of these elegant, simple structures. We may draw beautiful structures with our iMACs, but we fully embrace the century-old technology of the prefabricated, light-gauge metal building. Why mess with a good thing?