What's the driver?

摘要

Dickens' opening lines from 'A Tale of Two Cities' spring to mind for no reason, hearing the throaty rev of the client's classic Porsche as it pulls into St Andrews' West Burn Lane. Before that, Sutherland Hussey Harris' Colin Harris had been telling me how Edinburgh's smaller practices struggle to secure new work: this coming from the director of a firm that's just won the UK's most lucrative architecture prize - the £25,000 Doolan Award for the housing that we're standing outside. Yes, its got the accolade, but it turns out that didn't stop the firm shrinking to a core team of six from the pre-recession glory days of 18, only turning a profit on West Burn Lane once the prize money offset its final outlay.