Landscape Architect Articles

Overall Architectural Billings Up in March05-07-15 | News

Overall Architectural Billings Up in March

Billings at commercial and institutional architecture firms improved month over month but residential firms reported a second straight decline.

The latest billings numbers from U.S. architecture firms showed encouraging signs, especially in the institutional sector, which registered the tenth straight month of growth.

For March, the Architecture Billings Index score rose to 51.7, compared to 50.4 in February. The index score for new design contracts showed even more improvement - 52.3 compared to 50 - and inquiries for new project activity posted strong numbers according to the American Institute of Architects.

However, that organization cautioned that there is one region, the Northeast, that did not share in the good news. Firms in the Northeast "reported relatively steep declines, with the string of weak numbers extending to seven straight months." The AIA was hopeful that the results were due to the harsh weather and that the next few sets of numbers will indicate a return to growth.

In the institutional sector, the ABI was 53.2 last month, the second straight time that institutional firms reported the strongest growth among the different sectors. Commercial firms weren't far behind with a score of 53 for March; the strongest improvement in the past 18 months for that sector. Residential firms, however, have posted billings declines the past two months.