The minute we discovered the propensity for certain and unnamed—speculations, as always welcomed—firms to hire dead ringers to look busy-ish at their desks (and keep the firm’s layoffs secret), we’ve been keeping an unstable eye on the State of Architectural Employment, Today. Fortunately, Amanda Kolson Hurley, senior editor at Washington, D.C.-based Architect, when it launched the glorious new home of late-nineties hit architecture editor Ned Cramer and currently a not-afraid-to-be-servicey-or-explainey (that’s a good thing) publication that covers big buildings and small firms, has less of a problem with, er, reporting.

Her cover story goes beyond ringers and into facts, jumping two-footed into the world of architecture-world layoff. In summation: we are screwed, yo. In more careful summation: we are really, really, really screwed.

What’s scary—and sad—is that Hurley doesn’t talk so much about the big guys—Gehry’s office said “you may not talk to anyone” while the black hole of dysfunction that we’ve heard (and experienced) Thom Mayne’s Morphosis to be offered merely a split-infinitive “We haven’t had to lay anybody off. We’ve been very fortunate and continue to be fortunate.”—as (quick graf reporting on SOM’s Chicago and NYC losses and listing Diller Scofidio + Renfro, Bobby A.M., Frank, and Gensler as casualties aside) about the regular, medium-sized firms that design our hospitals, our schools, our houses. Hurley tracks down the architects who go to work in offices that are named for either their founding partners or some acronym thereof, who show up and design a building, engage in some architecture here and there, and go home to their families.

And now, because of our Global Pigf*ck of Epic Proportions, they can’t. And, so, they’re doing the best they can—sending out resumes (which get returned via “I will no longer be employed by [firm name]” bounce-back) and picking up spec writing work (it’s a trip, let us tell you)—and trying to wait it out.

It’s a concrete jungle out there, and Hurley’s piece is a very necessary reminder that architecture doesn’t thrive on event-ized building launches, on hard hat tours and shiny press kits. While those are the moments that push it forward publicly, that get that attention that’s so necessary for the practice’s continued and growing reputation as a relevant rather than specialized field, those aren’t the moments that show what architecture can really, on a day-to-day and hospital-to-school basis, do.

Still, there’s some semblance of hope. A few laid-off architects are launching their own trimmed-down firms, others are getting licensed in Iceland (great idea! wait….), and still others are looking to start addendum-type careers.

The problem is that we’ll always need buildings. And the real problem now is that we might not get them.

We call bunker.

Available: Immediately [Architect]