Print edition: 
Architecture has been hit hard by the recession, with some experts estimating the loss of 40,000 design jobs since 2008. If there's no credit, no one's building. So the firms that survive the downturn will be the ones that succeed in specialty niches, said Tim deNoble, dean of the college of architecture, planning and design at Kansas State University.
That's exactly what PKHLS Architecture is doing, by adopting small communities, adaptive reuse and new communications technologies in a major rebranding effort.
"We're trying to bring a design sensibility to what we do," said Vince Haines, a partner in the firm that includes Juris Krievins, Lester Limon and David Stewart.
PKHLS has offices at 101 S. Star in El Dorado and 110 E. Fourth in Newton.
The firm's goal with the rebranding is to tie itself to small-town sustainability, Haines said.
To do that, PKHLS:
* Works to preserve architectural continuity in a community or area, retaining the character and aesthetic of an original building or district.
"When we do a project, we recognize that it should help the owner but it recognizes the effect on the whole community," Haines said.
"You don't flippantly tear down a building and build a new one anymore. In Wichita, for example, unless you're talking downtown, no one pays any attention to that."
* Works with adaptive reuse of existing buildings, incorporating context and structural history by researching modern methods and materials that can honor a building's original design as closely as possible.
"It's about the growing importance of being good stewards of existing buildings," Haines said. "I see the need in a lot of communities for maintaining, salvaging and reusing.
"Our company has chosen some old buildings in our communities. We're in the old Carnegie Library in El Dorado, a wonderful building, and our Newton building is very near the railroad tracks and train station."
* Land articulation, or working with sites considered unsuitable for development.
"We've got a huge portfolio of projects that have gone in some very challenging sites," Haines said, "whether we're talking within our Frontier refinery in El Dorado or brownfield sites around our community.
"It's about reclaiming land previously undevelopable by partnering with the right individual to understand what it takes to reclaim that land and use it."
One example is El Dorado's industrial park, where Haines said PKHLS is working with BG Products on a new site: It's lined with active and vacated oil pipelines that serve or once served the refinery trade.
"The challenge there is just understanding where the lines are and how to lay out the lots to get the best building area," Haines said.
* Building "responsibly green," or pinpointing green building technologies and methods that are the best long-term solution for the owner in terms of cost-effectiveness and lifestyle costs, Haines said.
* A blog to serve as a "teaching and coaching voice" to the people and communities PKHLS serves.
All are niches worth perfecting in a tight market, said deNoble.
"What you're seeing are firms that can specialize like this in rehabilitation, adaptive reuse, getting stronger," he said. "It's a very important enterprise, a very unselfish one."
Adaptive reuse isn't a new architectural discipline, deNoble said, but client demand has re-energized it.
"There's no better way to be a steward of our environment than reusing what we have," he said. "It's getting past the throwaway mentality on buildings.
"Adaptive reuse is something most firms have been concerned with, but clients weren't interested. Today, it's not an interest, it's a demand that must be filled."
