What a great time to be an architect: the economy, despite occasional bumps, has been strong; billings are solid; net revenues have returned to the same levels as before the Great Recession; firms are busy, and many are expanding.
But underneath that rosy picture are uncertainties and a sense of unease. The rapid evolution of technology continues to threaten the bread-and-butter of traditional practice. Revenues may be stable, but fees have not rebounded to pre-recession times. Competition for jobs is fierce, with firms' undercutting each other on pricing. Clients expect more service but don’t necessarily pay for it. And another kind of competitor looms on the horizon: big start-ups like WeWork and Katerra are encroaching on the business of design practices—and luring young architects with salaries beyond what most firms can pay. WeWork has more than 700 designers on staff and has just brought in Bjarke Ingels, founder of BIG, as chief architect. Katerra, which is revolutionizing the delivery system of buildings, from architecture through finished construction, recently raised almost $1 billion from one investment fund and recently announced the acquisition of a design firm. “Architects have to wake up before architecture is taken away from us,” says Tomas Rossant, a partner at Ennead in New York.
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