Lack of work from abroad suffocating UK architects
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Hürriyet Daily News
Oluşturulma Tarihi: Nisan 21, 2009 00:00
ISTANBUL - A severe decline in work coming from overseas is leaving U.K. architects underemployed and could result in a rise in job cuts, reported Propertywire Web site, a global property news service.
According to the latest monthly survey by the Royal Institute of British Architects, or RIBA, some 32 percent of architects are underemployed. Some 31percent of firms are expecting to axe jobs but the rest hope to maintain current staffing levels.
The figures are a slight improvement on the February survey, when 35 percent said they expected to cut staff, and just 62 percent said they could keep staff numbers at current levels.
But a major factor affecting the industry is a decline in work from abroad. Of those questioned, some 32 percent said they were personally underemployed, up from 21 percent in January. In general 44 percent said they expected workloads would continue to decline, compared to just 13 percent who said workloads would increase.
Adrian Dobson, RIBA director of practice, said the Future Trends Survey, also revealed a worrying decline in the proportion of work coming from projects based overseas, falling from 9 percent in January 2009 to 5 percent in March 2009, a decline that could threaten the capability of the U.K. architects' profession to play its part in this vital export sector.
"Since the survey began there has been a steady increase in the number of individual respondents indicating that lack of work has lead to them personally being underemployed," he said.
"Large practices are currently the most pessimistic, indicating that further staffing reductions are regrettably likely to occur in the large practice sector in the coming quarter," he said.
Foster & Partners, one of the biggest firms in the United Kingdom, laid off 300 staff worldwide and has seen a number of its foreign projects put on hold or cancelled. These include the 600-million pound Russia Tower in Moscow, which was cancelled last year, a skyscraper on the site of the World Trade Center in New York, which has been delayed, Dublin's 162-million pound U2 Tower and the 78-million pound River Tower in Vietnam.
Architects protest
In a separate development, some of the world’s leading architects have publicly called on Prince Charles to stop meddling in the planning process for Richard Rogers’ controversial Chelsea Barracks scheme in west London. Norman Foster, Zaha Hadid, Renzo Piano, Frank Gehry, Jean Nouvel, Jacques Herzog and Pierre de Meuron have all put their names to an open letter which appeared in the Sunday Times.
The figures are a slight improvement on the February survey, when 35 percent said they expected to cut staff, and just 62 percent said they could keep staff numbers at current levels.
But a major factor affecting the industry is a decline in work from abroad. Of those questioned, some 32 percent said they were personally underemployed, up from 21 percent in January. In general 44 percent said they expected workloads would continue to decline, compared to just 13 percent who said workloads would increase.
Adrian Dobson, RIBA director of practice, said the Future Trends Survey, also revealed a worrying decline in the proportion of work coming from projects based overseas, falling from 9 percent in January 2009 to 5 percent in March 2009, a decline that could threaten the capability of the U.K. architects' profession to play its part in this vital export sector.
"Since the survey began there has been a steady increase in the number of individual respondents indicating that lack of work has lead to them personally being underemployed," he said.
"Large practices are currently the most pessimistic, indicating that further staffing reductions are regrettably likely to occur in the large practice sector in the coming quarter," he said.
Foster & Partners, one of the biggest firms in the United Kingdom, laid off 300 staff worldwide and has seen a number of its foreign projects put on hold or cancelled. These include the 600-million pound Russia Tower in Moscow, which was cancelled last year, a skyscraper on the site of the World Trade Center in New York, which has been delayed, Dublin's 162-million pound U2 Tower and the 78-million pound River Tower in Vietnam.
Architects protest
In a separate development, some of the world’s leading architects have publicly called on Prince Charles to stop meddling in the planning process for Richard Rogers’ controversial Chelsea Barracks scheme in west London. Norman Foster, Zaha Hadid, Renzo Piano, Frank Gehry, Jean Nouvel, Jacques Herzog and Pierre de Meuron have all put their names to an open letter which appeared in the Sunday Times.