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WHEN RONNETTE Riley left Johnson/Burgee Architects in 1987 to start her own firm, New York was rolling in $16 billion worth of capital construction; jobs seemed to be hers for the taking.
Then the stock market crashed. In the years that followed, larger firms--Kohn Pedersen Fox Associates, Skidmore Owings & Merrill, Pei Cobb Freed & Partners, to name a few--dumped about 3,000 architects out on the street as work dried up. Most became disillusioned and left the profession.
But a core of them established more than 100 small companies that have, so far, survived the slump on the strength of their determination and resourcefulness. Together, these new entrepreneurs--in their 30s and early 40s--are redefining architecture by the work they take on to stay alive.
They use words like "flexible," "versatile" and "diversified" to describe the level of service they provide. Some even question whether what they do can be...