Foster and Partners, the second largest UK architect, has joined the list of practices cutting staff in the wake of the economic downturn.
The company, which cut 15 staff this month, said the move was triggered by the completion of large jobs, and stressed that the downturn was not serious.

Director Ken Shuttleworth said: "We were coming to the end of some projects. We've still got more than 600 people 鈥� it's not a massive downturn."

Other architects hit by the drop in commercial workloads include US-based practices Gensler and Interior Architects, which last month laid off 20 and 10 staff respectively. UK-based practice Broadway Malyan last month introduced a recruitment freeze that resulted in the firm's staff numbers falling by 25.