Hasta La Ideas

When it’s one bad economic story after another, you look for any ray of sunshine you can, no matter how small the detail or how relatively bleak it still all is in context. Such is the little bit of hope in the American Institute of Architects‘ latest Architecture Billing Index for December, which took a slight increase over the utterly depressing low the month prior (you’ll recall that we discussed that here). Although increasing just barely over a point and still well-below the score of 50 that indicates an increase in billings, maybe this is a sign of what the AIA’s new president, Marvin Malecha, had forecasted, that things will turn around for the industry in ’09. Here’s a bit:

…the December ABI rating was 36.4, up from the 34.7 mark in November (any score above 50 indicates an increase in billings). The inquiries for new projects score was 37.7.

“The inability to get financing for construction projects is a key reason that business conditions continue to be so poor at design firms,” said AIA Chief Economist Kermit Baker, PhD, Hon. AIA. “It will be important to see what the proposed economic stimulus package includes that is geared towards the construction industry, and how quickly developers who have had to put projects on hold can get them moving again.”

Also, only vaguely related but worth talking about here none the less, we found this story interesting, that the College of Architecture at Texas Tech has now decided to require all of its students to study abroad after their senior year to earn their diploma. Their reasoning: to get a well-rounded, worldly view of the industry and, as the college’s dean put it, “At some point in their lives, most will be working abroad anyway.” Curious. We’d like to know how many other colleges and universities are doing this. Seems like a good idea, if not a bit controversial.

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