Architects: News Is Bad, But There's Still Hope

While newspapers, blogs, and TV shows have focused on the stock market’s plunge and the unsuccessful bail-out plan, architects have been facing the bad news for a while, according to an Architectural Record story. As of August, the Architecture Billings Index, which the American Institute of Architects (AIA) compiles partially from firms’ statistics, had dropped below 50 for seven straight months, striking 39.7 in March, the lowest mark in the index’s 13-year history. Next year appears more gloomy, according to a July report from the AIA’s Consensus Construction Forecast Panel.