ABSTRACT
This chapter explores the primary challenges of practice structure, basic business planning, marketing and managing resources— including staff development. Architectural practice starts with the objective of taking an idea and making it a reality. Architects normally have a personal design agenda or a set of principles that drive them. Architectural practice is the way to apply student's skills and to make things happen: it should be the springboard rather than the dampener of students’s ambitions limited only by their own design skills and resources. The catalyst for starting in practice may have been a single design idea developed by one individual but their success has been due to an ability to work as a creative team. A significant number of architects work as sole practitioners. Sole practitioners may employ other architects but they remain self-employed and the responsibility for the practice remains their own. Traditionally architects have come together to form partnerships.
