Professional Practice 101: A Compendium of Business and Management Strategies in Architecture (Wiley, 1997).

Andy Pressman, AIA , NCARB
Assistant Professor

Subjects include;  project management, firm organization, legal issues, marketing, risk management, professional liability insurance, licensing, internship, group dynamics, client and contractor relations, financial management, design and information technology, project delivery, and communication and leadership skills

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Foreword by RICHARD A. ERIBES, PhD, AIA
A simplistic definition of "practice" is, "To carry out, in action." Because architecture is fundamentally an act of making, practice assumes a special role in our profession. It is practice that becomes the ultimate test of any theoretical position we may take in the creative process we call design.

The major thrust of this book is to capture the essence of professional architecture and to suggest what it takes to achieve this lofty goal. It is just not sufficient to be practical and complete projects on time and within budget.

"Supplements" by renowned professionals, firm profiles, case studies (with accompanying analyses), and anecdotes from real situations involving staff, clients, contractors, and engineering consultants illuminate ideas of practice, and provide object lessons from which students can begin to derive a theory of practice. Professor Christopher Bartlett of the Harvard Business School suggests that, "Cases are not just illustrations; they're vehicles for learning. Students make real-life decisions about key management issues, and each decision should lead to a broader set of principles."

Whenever appropriate, practice issues are linked to the process of design to make this text relevant and intriguing. Associating practice and design in the curriculum represents state-of-the-art thinking by a large group of practice and design educators. Students can (and should) immediately apply some of the material in Professional Practice 101 to design studio projects or related part-time or summer job activities.
Practice in the real world is often exciting and fascinating on many dimensions. My hope is to have translated these rewards into a textbook—give life to the subject matter—and demonstrate that practice is central to doing architectural design. Design solutions must become more creative and innovative (in response to real world constraints) to be considered architecture, decisions are less arbitrary, and schemes are enriched (and get built) when guided by principles of architectural practice. Refer to the companion volume, Architecture 101: A Guide to the Design Studio (Wiley, 1993) for a thorough exposition (from the design perspective) on the blurring of the design and practice dichotomy.
Nontraditional careers in allied fields (or in professions not so allied to architecture) are also addressed. Increasingly, the power of an architectural education is supporting endeavors in satisfying and lucrative areas outside the conventional definition of practice, and involve a broad spectrum of social, commercial, and economic problems. And finally, bridging the gap between school and practice, a time-honored and controversial subject, is revisited by a number of the "rank and file" of design studio faculty. This has implications for students on how to focus their own development at the end of formal education.
You will not see standardized forms, checklists, rules of thumb, tables, or formulas in this professional practice text. Paraphrasing Somerset Maugham, there are three rules for successfully running an architectural firm. Unfortunately, no one knows what they are.