Hasta La Ideas

We, and everyone else in the country, has certainly jinxed it before, but maybe, just maybe, things really are turning around. The American Institute of Architects have released what’s become one of our favorite monthly rituals, the Architecture Billings Index. As you may know, anything above 50 indicates growth within the business of building, anything below and everyone starts getting gloomy and misty-eyed for those halcyon days of the mid-to-late-aughts. For the last three months running, there’s been none of that sadness, with this latest release indicating that things are still in the positive. At 50.9, following a slight dip from an even 51 the month prior, it certainly isn’t champagne and top hats just yet, but after the last couple of years, any slightly-above-water trend like this is welcome relief. However, cautious as usual, the AIA’s resident mathematical soothsayer warns that we’ve seen this sort of thing before…

“Even though we had a similar upturn in design billings in late 2010 and early 2011, this recent showing is encouraging because it is being reflected across most regions of the country and across the major construction sectors,” said AIA Chief Economist, Kermit Baker, PhD, Hon. AIA. “But because we still continue to hear about struggling firms and some continued uncertainty in the market, we expect overall economic improvements in the design and construction sector to be modest in the coming months.”

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