Saturday, July 18, 2009

Perkins+Will Los Angeles, Architecture, and The Economic Depression

July 17, 2009 marks the beginning of the layoff process at Perkins+Will, Los Angeles. Though there have been rumblings, for example, people leaving over the past few months because of a lack of new projects for the firm, as well as four people who were laid off earlier this year, this has been the first wide-spread move. Fifteen of the staff at P+W Los Angeles were laid off on Friday. Evidently, Friday is the traditional day for such moves, presumably because that way, the ongoing staff will not become overly distressed or frightened.

But they should be. P+W, Atlanta just laid off 20 employees--no, they aren't "workers" because that is a convenient dehumanization that allows people in higher positions to forget that the people they laid off are, well, people--right after the completion of a large project they were on.

This is what happened at P+W Los Angeles. And that is just the latest in a long string of layoffs at multi-national architecture firms that a short two years ago appeared impervious to the signs of recession. Gensler, for one, began its layoff process late last year.

Indeed, the architecture field is in such dire straits right now that international firms have begun bidding for small projects that are normally the purview of small and boutique-sized firms. The first thing that disappears during an economic depression, not recession, is people's interest in building new buildings and urban projects. It's the first thing people realize they don't need more of when they can't afford to put food on the table: buildings or urban projects. Suddenly, all this appears to be a luxury rather than a necessity.

park

wing #1