Unspace Reviews

I was never a victim of the verbal abuse because I was there such a short time and I just kept it to myself, but I did see a lot of unprofessionalism by Ji while I was there. I was an intern and there were 3 other interns and 1 designer. 1 designer & 1 intern left shortly after I started. And 2 were starting new. I first chose this firm to intern for because he was Korean. I wanted to learn how Korean American could succeed in NYC, wanted to learn the charisma and the work process of Ji. So I started with a optimism. But just few weeks in, I realized it was all just a show from outside. He is very good at talking so he can lie or cheat or take advantage of other people easily. He does get very moody and lets it out on the workers. All replies from the reviews shows how tedious he is and defensive he gets himself. Just wanted to point out some things he replied to other reviewers. 1) Ofcourse there can be changes in projects because that’s the nature of our industry, but blaming it on the staff is never professional and not a LEADER like action. Progressive change is not always good, when it comes to making decisions and getting things done, there needs to be a certain deadline in finishing work. Architecture/ interior design isn’t an art form, it’s done with a lot of vendors and coordination. So just because you want to change something at certain phase does not make it ok- unprofessional. 1) At least while I was there, you never asked us to leave early- but rather you were rarely in the office. 2) Your “awards” are never by your idea. You slave the interns or designers and it’s their idea. You just take credit for them 100%. 3) Saying “you are the nicest guy” and reading positive feedback is NOT a “constructive criticism” everything else in the review is more constructive than other reviews that you yourself wrote. 4) If you are so self-observed you’re firm will always be the way it is. I don’t need to say what kind of firm you have, you yourself will probably know. You can try to hide and make it seem like your company is this great place, but at the end of the day, if you are the founder of the company and it’s your employees that works for you and will experience and leave.

All that is mentioned in other reviews is accurate but I think not enough. This is not really a legitimate firm. The office is one person who finds project merely on the basis of being Korean and ripping off older property owners in Manhattan and Brooklyn, produces low quality work with minimal legal and professional legitimacy and does not hesitate to screw the employees in the worst imaginable way. The guy, Ji Rook Kim is a just a fraud. Being unqualified for about everything is his smallest problem. He is a mixture of the absolute absence of ethical code and serious personality disorder. His masterpiece of this mixture is what he has been doing for a few years which is to find foreign students or people who want to come to US and promise them a work visa until the last minute that he turns them down and they get screwed as they won't be able to find another job before they have to leave the country. I personally know about at least three cases in 2015. He is often clueless about how to run the projects and practice and ends up abusing the employees on an unbelievably personal level. A common theme is to lecture someone about how fundamentally ignorant they are. The office is a chaos run by poor interns. No project managers or even senior architects. I was the "senior" there and I know why; anyone with an average IQ level and a couple of years of architecture experience would be by far superior to the owner and a threat to his pathetic authoritarian kingdom! For what I know, he makes money from some shady real estate business and is terribly incompetent for running a design studio. There are very few small projects at a time and yet everyday there are ridiculous complications costing the clients money and time. Everyone working there is surprised how this office is still running; it is not. As a note on the legal basis of the office, this issue came up and I know one of this guy’s problems with work visas is that he will have to disclose his tax information to the government; you guess why. I have seen him refusing to put the company's name on projects or using multiple business cards. Also, I didn't see a single legally bought software licenses when I worked there… even Windows! As an employee, your work condition is being paid below minimum in NYC (usually per-day 1099), no benefits/healthcare and being expected to have free evenings and weekends with no overtime. The latter part may unfortunately be a common practice in busy architecture offices but in this case you are to tolerate this system because the owner simply likes to see the workers work - even though he doesn't have projects. He is basically hiring 3-4 cheap interns at a time to make the office look active to clients. At the end, you will leave the office being hesitant to even put UnSpace in your resume and certainly with no recommendation letters (not only because you have just stormed out of the office one day but also because they will be of no value anyway.) If you are someone who has just started working there here is a reason to run away now. In general, there is a simple reoccurring scenario since the time you start until you have to leave the office. It starts with some marketing charm (e.g. being asked for feedback on designs) and ends with oddly unnecessary abuses and humiliation and lastly being screwed. And you will learn nothing at all from Ji Rook unless you are seeking to absorb some old 'surfer' dude's comments on the only book he has read, Fountainhead, and unlimited personal insults.