5 Straight Months of Growth for Firms

Courtesy of AIA

Architecture firms with a commercial and industrial specialization posted an Architecture Billings Index (ABI) of 56.3. One monthly score above the 50 level does not ensure that there will not be further slippage in the months ahead, according to Kermit Baker, AIA Chief Economist. However, there were several positive elements in the September report.

This is not only the strongest reading for this specialty since the summer of 2007, but also the fifth straight month that commercial and industrial firms have reported increases in billings. These particular sectors, more than housing, seem to be viable markets for landscape design and installation in the near future.

With the design professions at or near a turning point for this cycle, architecture firms participating in the AIA's Work-on-the-Boards panel were asked to name the measures that they find the most useful in predicting future workloads at their firm.

While inquiries from existing or new clients were generally rated as very useful, as were formal request for proposals (RFPs) or invitations to interview, in this uncertain economic environment many firms were looking for something even more concrete to predict future workloads, like signed design contracts.

When asked to indicate a range of usefulness in predicting future workloads, almost 9 in 10 respondents found signed design contracts to be a very useful measure in predicting future workloads, compared to 82 percent rating inquiries from past or current clients as very useful, 56 percent for inquiries from potential new clients; and 50 percent for formal RFPs or invitations to interview.

When asked to indicate their most useful predictor of future work, over half (57 percent) of respondents rated signed contracts as their top measure, compared to 29 percent for inquiries from previous or current clients, and 6 percent for formal RFPs or invitations to interview. No other measure was selected as the best indicator for predicting future workloads by more than 4 percent of respondents.

- Courtesy of AIA