Its the global economic paradigm, stupid!

[Image via TRiver.]

As anyone who has been even remotely cognizant of the news can tell you, the US is facing some bad times. We are having credit failures, banking collapses, increased food costs, increased energy costs, a craptacular housing market, and a general retail slump. The last one is worrisome to me, the incessant purchasing of the American middle class has been the economic engine keeping this boat afloat and paddling upstream. With the recent closing of national chains such as Steve and Barry and the downsizing of Starbucks I have to wonder how this is affecting the independent merchant, and then I stop and realize that except for the high-end boutiques and artists and artisans there really are no more mom and pop shops in this country. But that chilling thought aside, the area most visibly harmed in this country has been the housing market. People have lost their houses and many who haven’t are trapped in their homes until the market rises again. This directly affects the architectural community in this country; the majority of architectural services are performed in the residential sector, either as new construction or renovation. With people being upside down in their mortgages, there is little available capital for renovation and additions, and less demand for new homes. Less new homes means less institutional (schools and government) construction and in turn less incentives for commercial construction. The great hope has been that while the credit market is global, the housing market slump would stay local, or at least national. But this article in the Scotsman, Architect firm axes workers – Scotsman.com Business, helps to drive home the point that this economic crisis is no longer a local event.

Now as a community, we architects have two choices, we can either shrug and play ostrich until we too have to join the breadlines or we can try to design a solution. I think that if we can help change the design discourse from luxury and excess to efficiency and thrift we will see a capital return on our efforts. But I have to stress that cutting budgets are not enough. There is no reason why architects are not developers in the US, we are skilled in design and planning in ways that developers aren’t and we can see beyond the bottom line to the total life and health of a project. In addition, I think we need to start thinking locally again and starting small. We as designers should lobby our local governments to construct well designed bus shelters and other utilitarian spaces, and if the mass transit system doesn’t exist we should push for its development.