Charles Linn, FAIA

Charles Linn is a Kansas City–based writer and architect and a former deputy editor of Architectural Record.

Articles

ARTICLES

Commentary: One-Hit Wonders

Charles Linn, FAIA
January 16, 2011
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If a client asks you to imitate yourself, is that the sincerest form of flattery? If you ever think that the architecture business has gotten too tough, you can always lay down your mouse, pick up a guitar, and go into pop music. Architects are problem solvers, right? The best make their livings predicting what people need and what will appeal to them. They produce materials lists and instruction sheets, then contractors follow them, a ribbon is cut, and euphoria ensues. illustration © Norman Hathaway So it shouldn’t be too hard for us to figure out which noises will inoculate
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W.PA/Works Partnership Architecture

An Oregon practice thrives by devising design-driven schemes that meet the needs of its developer clients.
Charles Linn, FAIA
December 16, 2010
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William Neburka describes the founding of W.PA/Works Partnership Architecture, the firm he and Carrie Strickland started five years ago, as “kind of a shotgun marriage. Carrie and I didn’t really know each other when we started the office.”

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Back by Popular Demand: AutoCAD for the Mac

Charles Linn, FAIA
September 3, 2010
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Autodesk announced on August 31 that it has released AutoCAD 2011 for Macintosh, along with AutoCAD WS, a mobile app that will allow users to share their AutoCAD designs in the field using iPhones, iPads, and iTouches. Image courtesy Autodesk “What this does,” says Autodesk spokesman Noah Cole, “is give anyone with an iOS device or a modern Web browser the ability to view, edit, and collaborate on an AutoCAD DWG file. We imagine that people on the construction site can carry around an iPad as opposed to carrying around a roll of blueprints.” AutoCAD WS joins two other Autodesk
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More Profitable Than Ever

Charles Linn, FAIA
August 16, 2010
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Two architects talk candidly about how they turned their business around even before the recession. In 2007, Marvin Meltzer, AIA (far right), a partner in an extremely successful New York City multifamily housing practice, began going through the sort of business transition that no one should ever face. David Mandl, his business partner and principal of their firm, Meltzer/Mandl Architects, for over a decade, was diagnosed with terminal cancer. When an engineering firm interested in buying the business began going over the books, Meltzer and David Carpenter, AIA (near right), who had been helping to run the business in Mandl’s
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