In the boom-bust rollercoaster of construction, it’s clear that this year’s ride is hurtling downhill, with demand for design services (once again) waning. As architects experience the end of a post-pandemic construction boom, we’re reminded once again that “being busy” can have less to do with skill and more with availability. We’re only as good as our last performance in any climate. Chefs say “hunger is the best sauce,” and need in our culture floats all boats in design—but the desire for our services regularly dissipates, and some of us sink. 

Because they’re hired to vet the possibilities of building, architects are the proverbial “canary in the coal mine” for future construction work. If we’re busy, there will be new buildings. If we are less busy, there will be less work. So architects and designers go from cursing the inbox’s daunting requests for attention to cursing the lack of inquiries for new work. 

Our profession’s focus now is pivoting from executing the work we have to getting work to execute. Young architecture firms born in booms go into panic mode when “normal” business is proven to be a bubble. Older firms that have endured any number of construction cycles can read the tea leaves, and those who have survived nimbly adjust to smaller projects almost completely derived from or through former clients. 

We all know the architect or designer who’s from a wealthy family or social group. The cultural gripe is that architects born of wealth get work from their wealthy families and the people they grew up with. But those clients only see value in your work if it has value independent of your relationship to them.

So those born of rich families, like Philip Johnson and Graham Gund (RIP), get projects, while unknowns do not. But, ultimately, good work brings about more good work, regardless of who knows who or why the work happens. Johnson and Gund were good architects with great contacts. We never hear of the failed diletant architects who botched the jobs handed to them. 

Where does that leave the vast majority of architects, who need to earn a living executing fee-for-service in architectural design? In tough times, we struggle to get work. How do we do it? 

In my 45 years, I have never paid for advertising or paid to be published. I’ve been asked and agreed to “sell” my services in about 50 charity auctions over the last three decades. Almost none became a job, but often clients I was already working for use a donation to reduce my fee they pay to me. We’ve paid for pages in programs for not-for-profit events and have generated exactly zero commissions from those sponsorships—which is fine, because that’s not why I put my name in their programs. I belong to no group or club or movement to get work. I am devoted to my church, Habitat, my town and others, and live a full pro bono life for them, not me. So why have I never laid off an employee through six building busts in 45 years?

Spoiler alert: The only way to get work, no matter who you are, is to do good work. From that basis, more work comes into your office. No bust completely halts construction; building happens in every economy. At its worst, the level of construction is halved, not ended. During busts it’s riskier to build, and the risk of hiring an unknown architect adds to the fear, so the demonstrated value of a designer sustains a business through the downturn.

There are a litany of ways to prove worth beyond personal contacts. To be sure, any project can come from any opportunity, but in busts, those who get hired must possess demonstrated value. 

Here are the most typical non-performance based ways architects hope to generate work:

“We love having signs on our jobs.” I tried this for a few years on several projects, and they were both stolen (they looked nice) and destroyed in the chaos of construction, and we received no referrals.

“We have a killer website.” Architects and designers often go nuts making their websites, whose “killer” beauty is the proof of their genius. The buildings presented matter less than the coolness of the composition, the cleverness of the links, the poetry of the words. I imagine a few people dropping into some of these sites are compelled to inquire, but I find them pretentious and often inscrutable. My firm’s site may be 2005 level dumb, but it contains more than 100 projects, many with before and after photos and written descriptions. We do get several cold inquiries a year, and maybe a project. (Or not.) 

“We rely on great ratings from Houzz/Porch/etc.” Our office has 30 ratings (I think) on Houzz, all 5 stars but for one 4. We have received calls through boom and bust, but only a few jobs. Maybe that’s because we never paid for “positioning.”

 “We get published.” Once upon a time, this was the way. A single New York Times article on my firm, published in 1994, generated 700 inquiries and 40 jobs—and then those projects generated yet other work. On the other hand, we never made the cut at Architectural Digest. If you appeared there, work definitely followed. But in today’s splintered media landscape, even that publication’s once mighty reach has diminished. More often, the world has changed to the point where you buy an article in limited-focus publications in pay-for-play advertorials, and at a high cost. I guess it might work if you have the images and money for a compelling piece. 

“We hired a great PR firm.” Some architects spend money on people with substantial media contacts, consultants who pitch stories or write supporting text that describes the work. This is largely a branding exercise, sometimes valuable, sometimes not. But it’s an effort that rarely results in measurable increases in directly commissioned work. No reputable PR person tells a prospective client that they can help them secure design work—and for good reason: it’s not their job.

“I belong to a great country/golf/social/alumni club.” I guess this is not for me: the idea of a social quid pro quo of work-for-socializing wrecks the joy of being with others.

“We try to win competitions.” So do I. I’ve won 60 and never gotten a job directly from those awards; however, winning validates interest from those who vet me after having heard of my work from another source.

“We have a connection with a builder/real estate agent.” Well, when the economy tanks, those referrals tank, too.

 When we gather in groups, architects often brag about projects and bitch about clients. For some, the detached, rarified objects that win awards are the very reason they’re architects. So we mistakenly think the “beautiful project” is where work comes from. But continuing work seldom comes from those projects. Several of the best objects I have ever done—published and awarded—have generated zero work. But the clients for those projects have.

The messy, thoughtful, rigorous work that creates successful buildings is what conveys your value to those in need of an architect. Pretty pictures and florid words may be nice, but they are not the source of ongoing work. 

Featured image courtesy of Duo Dickinson Architects.