From the Back Cover
Easy access to crucial business information for design professionals
Find the concise, practical business information you need right now in the Architect’s Essentials of Professional Practice Series. These authoritative guides quickly make you an instant expert on the best business practices crucial for success in today’s design and construction professions. Each portable, affordable, user-friendly volume gives you:
- Authoritative advice from leading national figures
- Flip-and-find access to critical business information
- Bulleted lists and callout boxes for quick reference
- Clear, insightful explanations of complex business topics
Architect’s Essentials of Starting a Design Firm presents a thorough, organized approach to building your own design firm or expanding an existing firm. Written by two leading experts in the field, this authoritative resource offers real-world tips and guidance, as well as pitfalls to avoid, to give your practice the best chance for success. Coverage addresses all aspects of getting started, from preliminary analysis of personal skills and resources preceding a startup (including creating a business plan and evaluating initial costs) to business and marketing strategies to keep your firm going. This complete reference also gives the solid, hands-on advice you need to manage such nuts-and-bolts issues as firm organization, personnel requirements, fee setting, contract negotiation, creating a budget, legal considerations, and much more.
Architect’s Essentials of Starting a Design Firm is a peerless, single-source reference for everyone starting or running his or her own design firm.
- Step-by-step guidelines to understanding and evaluating the goals, risks, and rewards of starting a design firm
- Helpful strategies, information, and considerations for building a startup from the ground up
- Real-world knowledge for building or expanding a design firm
About the Author
PETER PIVEN, FAIA, is a principal consultant of The Coxe Group, Inc., in Philadelphia, the oldest and largest multidisciplinary firm providing marketing and management consultation to design professionals. Author of Architect’s Essentials of Ownership Transition (Wiley), he guest lectures at the University of Pennsylvania Graduate School of Fine Arts, the Harvard Graduate School of Design, and Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute.
BRADFORD PERKINS, FAIA, OAA, AICP, is the founding principal of Perkins Eastman Architects, PC, a twenty-year-old architecture, planning, and interior design firm based in New York. He is a frequent lecturer on design and design-firm management topics, as well as the coauthor of Building Type Basics for Elementary and Secondary Schools (Wiley) and many industry articles.
