Layoffs. Each week the numbers of layoffs grow as architects frantically attempt to curtail the fallout from the current recession, when projects are killed, postponed, or don’t materialize. Few firms want to shed their trusted, well-trained architects, and few firms want to talk about it with the not-so-trusted members of the press. As Andrew Bartle, AIA, puts it (nicely), if the press sticks to its current role as harbingers of doom, won’t it only exacerbate the problem by keeping clients ultra-nervous? In spite of such suspicions, Bartle—whose firm, ABA Studio, is known for private schools and residences—and other architects talked candidly (up to a point) to record. All agree that sharing information is better than avoidance. “In the 1990s recession,” notes David Piscuskas, FAIA, principal in the New York firm 1100 Architect, “no one discussed layoffs or pay freezes as openly. But now with the expansion of work overseas, and the global flow of money, we’re all hit.”

William Fain, FAIA, and Scott Johnson, FAIA of Johnson Fain, Los Angeles