Hasta La Ideas

A full two years after then-president Marvin Malecha told his AIA colleagues he expected the industry to bounce back in six or so months, everyone is still fairly gun shy to even utter the word “recovery” anywhere near a conversation about the architecture industry. But who knows, maybe we’ve finally reached that point where it’s safe again. The AIA’s latest Architecture Billings Index has been released and once again things were moving upward, even more so than last month’s nothing of an uptick. It’s currently at a 48.1 rating, meaning it’s just-this-close to sliding over the 50 point mark, meaning there would be an even level of billings and we’d be that much closer to an actual increase. Bloomberg wasn’t holding much back, leading with the headline “Slump in Demand for U.S. Architects May Be Near End,” and even the usually overly-realistic Kermit Baker was sounding as optimistic as Kermit Baker will allow himself to be:

“It appears that the design and construction industry may be nearing an actual recovery phase,” says AIA chief economist Kermit Baker, PhD, Hon. AIA. “The economic landscape is improving, although not across the board, but doing so at a gradual pace. It is quite possible that we will finally see positive business conditions in the foreseeable future.”

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