Almost every architect has, at one time or another, contemplated starting a firm. There are an almost unlimited number of reasons why one might do so. But why would anyone start a new practice when the economy is bad? With the marketplace more competitive than usual, it would seem that a new firm wouldn’t stand a chance.

Contrary to this conventional wisdom, many people start firms during periods of economic recession. Charles Dickens’s A Tale of Two Cities famously begins, “It was the best of times; it was the worst of times.” In a way, recessions are like that. They often create conditions that allow new practices to emerge out of circumstances that at the outset seem more like crises than opportunities.