How bad is it?

There is no disputing that Ireland has had an unprecedented building boom in the last 10 years or more. When I began college in 1996, Professor J Owen Lewis gave an introductory lecture in which he began by saying that architecture is a cyclical business, which follows the vagaries of the economy of a country as a whole. He said that the good news was that we were in a boom time, and the bad was that it would be over by the time we graduated. He was only half right.

This is not a blog about economics, but an attempt to discover how badly the architectural profession has been affected in the last 15 months. The RIAI published figures last January about job losses, but anecdotal evidence suggests that the situation has far exceeded their nightmare situation.

Frank McDonald had an article in the Weekend section of the Irish Times a couple of weeks ago about this, but it was sorely lacking in any figures.

So, how bad is it? If time is short, please vote in the polls on the left hand side or leave a comment in anonymity. Don't forget to click on the "vote" button for each poll!

Or, better still, click to take part in a more indepth (but still brief) survey.