Trends in Professional Services: Architects Part 5

Here’s the final part of our interview with Cliff Moser

Chief Innovation Officer: How different do you think the profession will be in ten years time?

Cliff Moser:The practice of architect statistics are as follows:

• 130,000 Licensed Architects in U.S.
• 15,000 Architectural Firms
• $26 Billion in Annual Fees
• 30% Billings for Government
• 60% Billings for Private Business/Institutions
• 75% firms bill less than $500,000/20% of the work
• 2% firms bill over $10 million/25% of the work

Architects are like garage bands; sole practitioners make up 33% of all firms, and are responsible for 4% of the billings. Slightly larger but still-small firms with two to four employees comprise another 33% and bill 6%. Therefore 2/3′s of the industry is comprised of firms with 1 to 4 employees, who bill 10% of all fees.

The remaining 33% are comprised of firms with five to nine employees which account for 13 percent of the billings, firms with 10-19 employees account for 16 percent, 20-49 employees account for 23 percent, and firms with 50-plus employees account for 38 percent of all industry billings. (For example, Frank Gehry’s office (www.foga.com) employs 135 people in one location; RTKL employs 1100 people in 9 international locations.)

California leads the nation in number of firms (3,800) and annual dollar volume of billings ($4 billion) double that of second-place New York in both categories.

-More than 40 percent of architecture firms have been in business at least 20 years, 35 percent were established in the 1980s, and nearly 10 percent were established since 1990. In terms of billings by client type; local, state, and federal governments collectively are responsible for the largest share of architects’ billings-nearly 30 percent. Businesses generate a quarter of architects’ work, with private institutions generating the same amount.

-Distribution of billings by building type shows 40 percent from institutional buildings, 30 percent from commercial buildings, and 15 percent from residential work. Education facilities make up the single largest market sector, followed by office buildings and health-care facilities. http://www.tennant.com/p-architects.php

The future of the profession will probably be the same as its past, as it is for garage bands wanting to the next Panic at the Disco, 60% of the firms will be made up of small or boutique firms changing the built environment in their small way, by designing for small organizations or individuals, and a handful of larger firms building the plethora of specialty work; hospitals, commercial, institution, and science and tech. More firms will establish and partner with their supply chain partners, including engineering consultants, owners, and contractors, sharing the burden of risk, instead of shifting it to builders. More work will be pre-fabricated and plugged into place (see http://www.thedwellhomesbyempyrean.com/), and distributed. Remember Christopher Alexander, an architect at UC Berkeley, accidentally created object-oriented computer code theory by writing the architecture theory book, “A Pattern Language” http://www.users.globalnet.co.uk/~rxv/books/alexander.htm

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