Hasta La Ideas

Another month and another Architecture Billings Index release from the American Institute of Architects. Following the surprising nose dive two months ago, then an ever-so-slight bump up last month, this latest reports offers both the good and bad. On the positive, the overall Index score jumped up nearly 2 points, from 46 to 47.9 (anything above 50 indicates growth). On the negative, the new projects inquiry index was hit with a steep decline, dropping from 57.7 to 53.1. The site Finance & Commerce thinks this drop might be because people are doing more comparison shopping before hiring an architect or a firm. Overall, still nothing to indicate that the business of building is out of the recession just yet, which everyone’s favorite architecture economist reiterates for the hundredth time:

“Business conditions at design firms remain quite volatile,” said AIA Chief Economist Kermit Baker, PhD, Hon. AIA. “While this recent uptick is encouraging, this state of the industry is likely to persist for a while as we continue to receive a mixed bag of feedback on the condition of the design market from improving to flat to being paralyzed by uncertainty.”

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