quality in design - its all about the good client

Recent thoughts and much talk about the quality of design, the quality of architecture, have brought me to the conclusion that the search for an opportunity to exercise my own design abilities has led to a truly noticable reduction in the quality of design. This, it would seem, has led from a reduction in quality of clients. The clients and their projects that are easily visible seem to be mainly developers, local authorities, health and school boards - all clients looking to maximise the project and minimise the expenditure. Comparing the client in this circumstance, a small-scale developer from somewhere outside of NYC, to the client for the last project at my previous practice, the owner of the singapore ritz carlton.

Perhaps the primary question that arises in my mind from this comparison remains whether one is willing to sacrifice experience with quality design for experience designing with less quality...