Architects have been hard-hit by the recession and are being hit harder still by government spending cuts. Phil Griffin talks to three practices of a very different scale and asks where the profession goes next.

The new coalition government was busy shooting at barn doors when Michael Gove, Secretary of State for Education, upstaged cabinet colleagues with his Elmer Fudd impersonation, eagerly blasting both barrels at BSF (Labour’s Building Schools for the Future initiative, intended to replace or renew every secondary school in England). Collateral damage included thousands of teachers, parents and children, and almost as many architects.

Architects have not been in such an unsafe place since the early 1980s, and right now they have the unwelcome luxury of time to reflect. Are they seeking new directions, and purpose, or are they mainly in the hunt for the next illusive client? Circumstances for architects become even trickier when friends from the good times declare ever more loudly that making new buildings is a bad thing, sustainability-wise.

Bodgers are back. There is much talk of make-do and mend. Cobblers may return to the high street and darning be taught in schools. All to the good, some would say, in a world drunk on new product, and building replacement. Bewitchingly, folk music and 1950s print dresses are back in fashion.

In architecture the talk is of modesty and recycling. Rob Wilson, formerly Curator of Exhibitions at the RIBA Trust and now a freelance curator, is editor of Block, a new magazine ‘that aims to present architecture’s reflection across a wider field of contemporary culture, and its place within it’. The theme of the first edition is ‘The Modest’. This is certainly no time for the immodest. Governments, national and local, are no longer in a position to promote the rampant construction economy. What next?

“Architecture is no longer about designing a nice award-winning building you can see out of your window. We need to make the practice more international.”

A new generation of architects, for one thing. Ollier Smurthwaite; if you read the name on a tin, it would surely be on a shelf in Fortnum’s. Matthew Ollier and Alaster Smurthwaite established their two-man practice in Manchester in 2007. Their office is in Albert Mill, a shell development by Urban Splash. Since July 2010 Ollier Smurthwaite has been a purveyor of Fresh Meat, a website and manifesto that aims to be ‘the collective voice of young architects across the region’. No better time to take on the boom generation of architects, many of whom might well be eyeing retirement as a more appealing option than chasing the next job.

Ollier Smurthwaite’s office is all their own work. Lots of glass, brick and limestone and, however much they may speak up their fresh approach, the office chairs are still the ubiquitous black Eames. They have both worked for OMI and Ian Simpson Architects in recent times and, according to their presentation, were largely responsible for some impressive schemes. Interestingly, they took themselves to BDP to work as contract architects on Liverpool One.

“We wanted to find out how a very large practice worked,” says Ollier, as he flicks through images of John Lewis and Debenhams, by architects John McAslan and Groupe-6. Such images already have the aura of times passed, and are surely the counter-point to everything that might be bellowed by ‘the voice of young architects across the region’.

The North West had an especially good run, up to and including Liverpool One. RIBA North West topped the regional award rankings time and again. There have been notable visitors, such as Daniel Libeskind, Santiago Calatrava and Cesar Pelli. The homegrown team kept up the pace with small and medium-sized practices such as Shed KM, Stephen Hodder, OMI, Stephenson-Bell, Ian Simpson and MBLA making the best of every job they won during good times.

Gavin Elliott, chairman of BDP Manchester, tells me his practice needs to be “agile”. He talks about the “suitcase model” and refers to new work that his Manchester studio has recently won in China and Kuwait. “Architecture is no longer about designing a nice award-winning building you can see out of your window. We need to make the practice more international, geographically, and in sectors.”

Private sector work has dried up, and the public sector, especially schools and hospitals, now seems of a different age. It is difficult to get the sense that a new era, or architectural approach, is on the horizon.

BDP is so big it has a finger in every pie. “There is always something going on,” says Elliott, “and we’re always looking for what the next thing is going to be.” His studio is currently transforming Lancashire County Cricket Club into a sort of cricket-themed leisure and conference facility, which feels both agile and homegrown. A 1500 seat banqueting facility in Old Trafford is not the herald of a new era, no matter how brightly it is painted, and how much it upsets the life-members.

No practice, big or small, has not been hit since September 2008. There is chronic unemployment and short-time working in architecture. A lot of people have been badly damaged and the UK construction industry will be a long time in recovery.

BDP has the resources to mount overseas forays; it would be silly of them not to. A small start-up practice such as Ollier Smurthwaite is right to look for allies and to try to formulate a new approach. An exhibition of the work of young practices at Castlefield Gallery in Manchester in 1990 was an important catalyst for self-confidence and growth. It was timely and caught the tide of the construction flood. At this moment, no similar flood is even in the long-term forecast. What architects need to rehearse in the meantime, is changing the ways that buildings are made, and pulling future developers round to new ways of thinking.

Broadway Malyan, a medium-sized practice with, frankly, no great reputation for design innovation, has made a considerable coup out of the debacle of Liverpool’s Fourth Grace competition of 2002. Mann Island is their three-building scheme inland of the Museum of Liverpool Life. Project architect is Matt Brook. He was 29 when he led the design team for the scheme, which is two apartment blocks and an office tower. It is the pair of patent black, flush-glazed apartment buildings that make the scheme. They are uniquely and skilfully sculpted to the site and challenge for attention alongside the Portland stone Mersey Docks and Harbour Board building.

“Nothing of the scale and prestige of Mann Island is going to be coming our way any time soon. Everyone needs to carefully consider options.”

Broadway Malyan and Brook are fortunate that their scheme was underway before the crunch. Brook remains almost psychopathically hands-on. “I know this has been a great opportunity for me, and to be honest, I don’t know where the next one will come from.” Liverpool is lucky to get this outcome out of such a botched process.

Brook knows that his practice has to rise to the challenge of Mann Island. The scheme, which will be occupied next spring, is a bolder, louder statement than Broadway Malyan is used to making. Brook worked closely with the city and made himself more or less indispensable to the scheme.

Whatever happens next in architecture will depend on the economy and clients. Liverpool One, Mann Island and MediaCityUK in Salford are schemes that only happen once in every couple of generations; their like will not come round again for some time to come. BDP may pack its suitcase, but those with fewer air miles need to take stock closer to home.

The problem with new beginnings is that they need traction. It is always good to be riding on the back of a hit, as Broadway Malyan will be with Mann Island, despite the numbers of detractors. Brook ponders his next move. “Nothing of the scale and prestige of Mann Island is going to be coming our way some time soon,” he says. “Everyone needs to carefully consider options.”

The radical change of direction, the new sound, the mould breaker, will come from nowhere. It will not be part of the mainstream, and it will not be a comfortable update on what has gone before. Like the Sex Pistols in ’76, it will be something you probably don’t get for a while. And it is something your parents will know for certain they really don’t like.

My guess is that it is too soon out of boom-time for a new mood in architecture to have many takers just yet. So, if you are working away on a new sound, a new look, a new style, don’t be surprised if you see a lot of shaking heads and raised eyebrows for some time to come.

Images: The Point at Lancashire County Cricket Club, Old Trafford, by David Barbour (© BDP); Mann Island, Liverpool (© Broadway Malyan)