Architect firms are at risk if clients continue to squeeze fees, a leading architecture body has claimed after the closure of one of Scotland's most acclaimed practices.
The multi-award winning Malcolm Fraser Architects, which worked across Scotland but particularly in Edinburgh, has shut down is business.
Its founder Malcolm Fraser said: “The work we did is beautiful and important.
"However we have been unable to make it profitable."
The Royal Incorporation of Architects in Scotland (RIAS) has now warned that clients do not appreciate that architects add to the quality of people's lives and squeezing fees, particularly in the current economy, leads to closures.
In a statement it said: "It is always a cause of great regret when the capacity and capability of a well-established architects practice is lost.
"It also demonstrates that trading conditions remain extremely tough and margins in architecture are very tight indeed.
"It seems odd that when architects can contribute quite so much to the quality of people’s lives that this is not recognised by some clients who see it as their duty to shareholders or the public purse to squeeze fees to a point where architects’ businesses are no long viable.
"As a consequence, jobs are lost and society is also the loser."
Malcolm Fraser Architects designed a series of high profile cultural spaces in Scotland, including Dancebase, the Scottish Poetry Library, and the Scottish Storytelling Centre in Edinburgh, Scottish Ballet's headquarters at the Tramway, Glasgow, and the Royal Conservatoire of Scotland's new premises at Spiers Locks in Glasgow.
The practice, established in 1993, won eight RIBA Awards and has been shortlisted for prestigious architectural prizes such as the Stirling Prize, and won the Doolan Prize for Dancebase and a Royal Academy gold medal for the poetry library.
It won six Edinburgh Architectural Association Building of the Year Awards.
It has recently completed a Civic Hub in Stromness, in Orkney, and a hotel and museum for the Western Isles at Lews Castle, in Stornoway.
Fraser recently led the Scottish Government’s Town Centre Review.
The company employed 15 people.
Fraser added: "I am immensely proud of what we have done over 22 years and the influence it has had.
"I hope my colleagues here, and the clients and ongoing work we had, will continue with other architectural practices.
"I, myself, will continue as an independent Consultant, but will also work with other architects, including on existing, long-gestating projects."
The RIAS added: "There is no question that, in recent years, Malcolm Fraser Architects has made a huge contribution, producing some of the very best housing, cultural, educational and public buildings in Scotland.
"Their many awards and the pleasure people derive from their buildings is testament to a hugely valuable and important contribution to the people of Scotland."
Charlie Hussey of Sutherland Hussey told the Architects Journal: "It goes without saying it's a great loss to the architectural community in Scotland.
"Fraser is not the first or the last to be bowing out.
"Sadly the state of both private and public procurement in this country have left the profession pretty much on its knees."
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