“I would say they are buttoned up, but I wouldn’t say that pejoratively,” architect Henry Cobb said. “It’s a certain sophistication.” Here is a look at the firm's sophisticated properties built or bought by the firm's New York office over the past 25 years.

mchaban [at] observer.com | @MC_NYC

The index had been declining for the past five months, but it just posted a reading of 51.4 up from a dismal 45.1 in July. (Any reading above 50 means billings, or payments made to architects, are rising, anything below means they are falling.) If this keeps up, it could point to a recovery, albeit a modest one, in about a year for the construction economy, as that is how long it takes for projects to make their way from the drawing board into the ground.

Locally, though, the news is less good, as billings in the Northeastern regional continue to languish, scoring a 46.5, about the same point they have been at for the past three months. Meanwhile, a panel of 100 economists sees the housing market languishing for the next five years, so it looks like the long slog is far from over.

mchaban [at] observer.com | @MC_NYC

Here's some stats, followed by, of course, some concerns regarding where all these designers are going to live and work, and show their wares.

• In 2000, there were an estimated 23,143 designers working in the New York City metropolitan region. By 2009, that number had almost doubled to 40,470—an increase of 75 percent.
• No other city has nearly as many practicing designers as New York. While the New York City metro area had 40,470 designers in 2009, the Los Angeles metro area was next on the list with 23,170 designers, followed by Chicago (19,260) and Boston (10,920).
• In 2009, the five boroughs of New York had 40 percent more architectural firms than the next closest U.S. city (Los Angeles) and two thirds as many as the third closest (Chicago).
• New York has 50 percent more interior design firms than Los Angeles
• New York has nearly twice as many members in the major industry association for graphic design companies (AIGA) as any other city. Fourteen percent, or 3,000 out of 22,000 AIGA members, are based in New York City; Chicago is next among cities with 1,200 members and Los Angeles has 1,100.
• A vast majority of the city’s design firms are located in Manhattan, but, the number of companies in Brooklyn has exploded in recent years. Overall the number of Brooklyn-based firms grew from 257 in 2001 to 433 in 2009, a 70 percent increase. The number of graphic design firms in Brooklyn grew by 62 percent in that time, from 86 to 139, and the number of architectural firms nearly doubled, from 65 to 129.

But!

The report points out that while the Bloomberg administration has admirably launched several new initiatives to support the city’s fashion industry, the city’s economic development agencies have not devoted any meaningful attention to other design industries and the city has also done little to promote the city’s designers. The report shows that other major design centers like London and Milan go to much greater lengths to brand their products at both local and foreign trade shows. Indeed, the vast majority of the designers we interviewed thought New York was far too complacent about its status as a design hub.

tacitelli@observer.com :: Follow me on Twitter

This week, Crain's released its annual report of the top architecture firms in the city, 60 percent of whom added jobs last year, while only four of the firms that made the top 20 list had laid employees off. 

KPF topped the list yet again, with 163 licensed architects up from 154 in 2009. Perkins Eastman, which hired 31 architects last year, for a total of 158, took the second-place spot from Gensler, which slipped to third, followed by HOK and SOM.

"New York started coming out of the recession earlier than the rest of the country, and business is improving, but it's still uneven," Bradford Perkins, chairman and chief executive of Perkins Eastman, told Crain's. He, along with other architects interviewed by the business rag, said that, like developers, investors, and pretty much everyone else in the world, firms have been looking overseas, particularly to Asia, for new work. Stupid sluggish Americans.

Meanwhile, the most important building index you never read, the American Institute of Architect's Architecture Billing Index held steady last month. It was lacking the kind of strong growth needed to dig the architectural industry out of a two-year slump worse than any design professional can recall. 

On the bright side, the index remained in positive territory, albeit barely, falling from 50.6 to 50.5 on a 100-point scale, wherein anything above 50 means billings are rising and anything below that they are falling. It is the fifth month in a row in positive territory, the longest stretch since the industry went off a cliff in early 2008.

New billings in the Northeast, which includes New York, have bounced back after a two-month run in negative territory, hitting 51.4, up from 46.4 in February and 49.1 in January. The region had been soaring, running in the low- to mid-50s from August through December of last year—which helps explain the good news in Crain's. Still, the hiccup this winter suggests the industry, and the rest of development along with it, is still finding its new foundations.

mchaban [at] observer.com | @mc_nyo

In the black bookshelves of architect Costas Kondylis' all-black office sit stacks of sleek, coffee-table tomes. Titles with a larger font on the spine stick out against the rest and offer a random sampling: Gerhard Richter: A Retrospective, Indonesia: Design and Culture, Skyscrapers: Structure and Design, Earth From Above.

Only the top few shelves and their contents are visible. Covering the lower shelves are large prints of architectural studies and renderings. Members of Mr. Kondylis' recently pared firm-there have been layoffs, and his partners recently split from him-mill about the former textile factory on West 27th Street, mostly young men bound by a uniform of well-coiffed hair, dark designer denim and subtly checked shirts tucked into distressed leather belts. The office is immaculately organized and decorated, fusing the boudoir chic of the Hotel Costes-high-backed banquet love seats line the foyer-with the brute charm of stripped industrial finish, like the raw, sanded wood flooring. And while Mr. Kondylis himself moves with a soft, deliberate shuffle, there is no doubt that the 69-year-old has blazed the trails of high-rise residential architecture.

Known for his realistic deadlines and ability to finish within budget, Mr. Kondylis has over the past 20 years stealthily secured a significant swath of the city skyline, with more than 70 buildings to his name.

"I was the experiment," he told The Observer earlier this month. He wore a tweed jacket, a blue dress shirt and an espresso-colored cashmere tie, as well as brown suede loafers without socks, his recently tanned ankles-he had returned the night before from a St. Martin vacation-peeking out from under his European pant break. "I was the architect who went out there and worked with developers, and every architect friend said I was going to go out there and get killed by them."

Mr. Kondylis now worries that other, younger architects will never have such opportunities for pioneering. "I'm very, very sorry for this happening," he said of the recession, "because I think it will destroy the profession. I think most architects are going to find other jobs. They are being laid off now, and I think it will be difficult to find architects later."

He has worked with most of the city's leading developers, including Stephen Ross, Mort Zuckerman and Bruce Ratner. But it's his association with Donald Trump that has secured him the most street cred in his industry-his industry being business, not architecture.

Gazing at a map of Manhattan with red dots marking the locations of Kondylis buildings is similar to viewing the Duane Reade ads showing a pharmacy on every corner. His work's omnipresence in a city of eight million is impressive, but a New Yorker could walk by at least two of his buildings daily and likely never notice. "Costas is a traditional architect for developers who want traditional buildings in New York," Richard Meier once told The New York Times.

Mr. Kondylis, for his part, balks at the cookie-cutter rap. "I think that's totally unfair. I mean, we've done some simple projects, but I'm trying to design every building to stand on its own."

BORN TO GREEK PARENTS in the Belgian Congo, Mr. Kondylis grew up in Jesuit boarding schools. "There was a tradition in Belgium that noble families would send one child to convent to become a nun or a priest and some of these princes or barons went to Africa. They drove nice cars, they used Montblanc pens. They used to tell me at Christmastime, 'Get your parents to buy you a Montblanc pen,' and then I came back to school with my pen and they showed me how to take care of it. I earned an appreciation for quality and craft from the Jesuit priests."

He interrupts himself. "Do I talk too quick? I have so much to tell you and not enough time. I'm always in a hurry, that's the problem; I'm always doing three things at once."

His family returned to Greece when he was a teenager, and Mr. Kondylis trekked to Switzerland to study architecture in college. After earning his master's, he moved to New York, got a second master's in architecture with a focus on urban design at Columbia and was hired by Davis, Brody and Associates on the spot. "I showed [Lewis Davis] some of my models. He made a joke about one of my models, a crooked cardboard building. In fact," he said, smiling slyly, "I was anticipating Frank Gehry."

He started work immediately. "I took off my jacket, rolled up my sleeves and started making clay models for the Osaka Pavilion. We won the competition for it and I was part of the team. I'll always remember what I was wearing that day; I was overdressed: I had on a gray herringbone suit with a white shirt and gray tie."

He worked for Davis, Brody and Associates for 10 years before moving to Philip Birnbaum and Associates. In 1989, he launched his own firm, Costas Kondylis and Partners. It spent the early years designing buildings like 1049 Fifth Avenue and the Monterey on East 96th Street, but it wasn't until Mr. Trump hired him in 1998 that the ball really started rolling. Their collaboration on the Trump International Hotel & Tower off Columbus Circle would be the beginning of a career-launching partnership. The next decade saw the firm's continued growth through over 70 buildings in New York alone.

And then.

"I've been through four recessions, never as deep as this one," he said. "This is not a recession; this is a depression, a major depression. ... I don't know what is going to happen to the profession after this."

The economic crisis has affected the stream of Mr. Kondylis' work, as it has almost every other architect's. He sighed wistfully. "I don't know. It's a good pause, I think, to think about what we have done in the past. That is the silver lining of this catastrophe. We were a little too friendly for a while, a little too out of hand. But then, this recession has gotten out of hand as well."

So far out of hand that Mr. Kondylis split from his longtime partners in August. "My partners and I, we grew in a different direction because I was always the conceptual designer of the firm. And they were more executive architects. They thought I was doing too much abroad, and they were right."

Since the split, three of the partners, Alan Goldstein, David West and Steven Hill, have formed their own firm, Goldstein, Hill and West Architects. Mr. Kondylis was quick to say that, post-split, he left all ongoing projects to them.

"We had a different vision of where to go with the firm," Mr. West said, echoing his ex-partner's explanation for the split. "Costas was interested in international and large-scale work, and we were more focused on New York City residential architecture." Asked whether the two firms were currently working on any projects together, or planning to, Mr. West hesitated. He later called back, reporting methodically, "The two firms are working cooperatively toward successfully concluding ongoing business."

Mr. Kondylis, whose firm has 20 employees, compared to the old one with more than 150, is optimistic regarding his firm's future. He currently has at least 20 projects overseas, though almost all are dormant due to the recession. "We have a small office in Qatar that is run by my friend who is a Lebanese architect.

"And I've been invited to Hanoi in two weeks. I was invited by the government," he said with a subtle flush of pride, "so I am going soon."

Locally, Mr. Kondylis is working on a building in White Plains. "And I have another friend who is giving us a project in Chelsea; any day we should have the go-ahead. So it's coming back slowly."

Meanwhile, the architect will turn 70 in April. "It's my fourth chapter, professionally speaking. I hope it's going to be a 15-year chapter, I hope to work until I'm 85 and maybe longer. I'd like to be like Philip Johnson-he passed away when he was 92-but he still had his wits. In terms of architectural judgment, I think I'm at the top of my-of my time." After a pause, he added, almost to himself, "I see so clearly now."

cmalle@observer.com

Mr. Pasquarelli: We’re 60-something people—a 65-person firm, which is a little smaller than we were a year ago, but we’ve been stable. We were probably 80 at the top.

What’s the breakdown of work? You’re a principal and you have four co-principals?

There are five partners in total: two husbands and wives, and then the identical twin brother of one of the husbands. So it’s a very unusual family tree and a very close-knit group. We all went to school together and have been friends for a very long time.

Do you split up design of projects?

No, it’s a lot more like a think tank where on every project, every partner is involved.

You guys are seen as one of the city’s more avant-garde firms, but at 60 people, you’re not a small boutique. How did you get to the point where you’re attracting the eye of some of these big developers that would normally be attracted to something more conservative?

I think we took a lot of advantage of emerging technologies and invested all of our research into emerging technologies to help us build these avant-garde buildings using techniques in construction that control the cost. … We can both do evocative design, and know how to put it together.

What’s the magic with keeping costs low?

The magic is in using the kind of techniques and methods of production as one of the parameters of design itself. So it’s not just to make a beautiful object and figure out how to build it. It’s have a kind of protoform, figure out how you’re going to build it, and use the constraints of the building technology to drive the form itself.

You’ve been brought into Atlantic Yards to design the Nets arena along with the firm Ellerbe Becket. How did you get involved?

We just got a call from Bruce [Ratner, the project’s developer] one day. I think Bruce said, ‘I’d like to come visit your office. I’ve talked to a lot of people around the city, and they told me you might be the firm that could figure out a great design and figure out something that could be built, and could do it really fast.’ And so he came over, and we had a great conversation, and that’s how it started.

What’s he like to deal with?

I like Bruce. He’s very intense. He’s very smart, and he’s dealing with a lot of things at one time, but I know his heart is really in making a fabulous design.

It’s kind of odd—they used to do these really boring designs, and then suddenly with the Times building—

—Suddenly it’s Renzo, Gehry, and SHoP.

Great company.

We’re honored to be even uttered in the same sentence.

So that was June that he came in?

Yes.

What was the task you were given?

The task was, ‘We need you to get up to speed as quickly as possible in understanding what this building is and all of its constraints, and we need you to collaborate with Ellerbe Becket. And we need you to do what you do best, which is figure out a way to make a beautiful building, and figure out a way to build it.’

Was it mostly the exterior?

I think we started there, but very quickly we had to think about the integration between the two.

Coming late in the game, I assume it constrained your options. You couldn’t completely rethink an arena, right?

Absolutely. Look, EB is known for making some fantastic arenas, so there were certain things about the basic protoform that EB had a lot of experience doing and the client was really excited about, so we saw that as a parameter. So where the steel was set—we didn’t want to start redesigning all the steel, so take the steel where it is, and just make some really precise small changes and see what you can do to push the building into the next realm of architecture.

One of the big distinguishing features of the exterior are these metal steel bands that are wavy. How did you settle on that?

Metal seemed to be the right kind of material, and I think we were trying to avoid a finished type of material, like a painted material. We really wanted a natural material, because we felt over time, that would weather and patina and be more authentic. … So natural materials—there aren’t that many, and when we got to thinking about weathered steel, we thought, that could be really cool. It has a grittiness to it, but also a sort of refinement.

Is it tough being part of a project that is a target of a lot of caustic criticism?

Yeah. We gave serious consideration as to whether we wanted to do it. And I think the thing that convinced us was, after speaking with Bruce, we were convinced he really wanted to make a great building. … We showed Bruce—we didn’t hold back, we said, ‘Here’s what we want to do,’ and it was daring, and, ‘What do you think?’ And he really loved it, and was incredibly supportive and pushed us to make it as good as possible. And even knowing that the project was going to have its critics no matter what we designed, we felt like it’s our role as New Yorkers to try to make it as good as we could.

With the rest of the project, is it awkward designing the arena not knowing what the four buildings that border it are going to look like?

We were always told to design a building that can stand on its own, for the short term, and a design that clearly doesn’t have anything that can obstruct the rest of the plan. … That was another difficult part of it, thinking about both contexts.

Would you want to do some of the buildings around it?

Yes.

Is it awkward to be designing a project that’s making a superblock out of something that was a grid? Urban planning is generally going the other direction.

Over a site that has that much transportation infrastructure, I think it’s the only ethical, rational, sustainable thing to do to put density, and sometimes density requires some superblocks.

What did you think of the Gehry design?

I thought it was a brilliant design. I thought the idea of nestling an arena inside four towers was really, really interesting, and I thought it would have been a really exciting project.

Does the design allow the towers to still do that?

I think there are probably ways to still do it.

Is it still hard to get something cutting edge done here in New York?

It’s very difficult. I think there are a couple reasons. It’s the pressure of the precious commodity of Manhattan real estate. It’s the ever-tightening zoning envelopes since contextualism became a word that people knew, and the sort of tightening of the zoning envelope against the FAR [Floor area ratio—or density] that needs to be built in order to afford the land, leaves you very little room for creativity. It’s a thing I call ‘zoning spread,’ which is the spread between the full FAR and the zoning envelope, and the tighter it gets, which is what contextual zoning tries to do, the less ability you have to make interesting buildings. And that’s been a mistake. 

You designed a new South Street Seaport for General Growth Properties. Not that that’s going anywhere fast right now, but what was your task going in there?

They were a terrific client to work with, because they really said, ‘Push it, let’s see what we can do.’ And there was a place where we broke down the superblock, because I thought that was the right thing to do at that location. And the notion of bringing the street grid under the FDR, and putting that plaza 300 to 400 feet out into the river facing the Brooklyn Bridge almost at mid-span, and then the view of Governors Island and the Statue of Liberty from the south, I really felt could make one of the most iconic places in the city. That would be photographed as much as the ice rink at Rockefeller Center. … I still have hope that that will go forward. I think that General Growth really wants to make that happen.

You think they still want it?

I think they definitely do. I think they’ve got to get through their other issues, but the company is viable, and when they get through their issues—we talk to them all the time, and I think they have a lot of faith that they’re going to do it some day.

You both develop and design some projects.

We have.

How’s that been going?

We’re facing the same difficulties that every other developer has, and we’re trying to work our way through it.

Why did you go down that road? It’s rare for architects to assume risk like that.

We felt that by taking responsibility and taking on risk gave us the opportunity to push design and try new things. … We felt that if we were willing to take on that risk ourselves, that our clients would have more faith in us, that that what we were doing was the right thing.

ebrown@observer.com

In other words, if architects aren't designing it now, it won't get built nine months down the road.