(12-21-17)
Though billings at US architecture firms have seen healthy gains throughout 2017, AIA’s Architecture Billings Index (ABI) for November indicated that the pace of growth accelerated the score jumped to 55.0 for the month, its strongest reading for the year. New project inquiries, as well as new design contracts coming into architecture firms, also signified healthy growth. As such, indicators broadly point to very solid business conditions at architecture firms as 2017 winds down.
Recent strength in ABI readings has pushed all four major regions and the three major building categories into growth territory. In particular, firms in the West have benefitted from the recent strength in billings, as they are reporting their strongest scores in over four years. Firms in the Northeast and South are also seeing healthy increases in design revenue. Firms in the Midwest report only very modest revenue gains. Even more significant is that all of the major building sectors are participating in the solid gains in billings. Residential firms (preliminary November ABI score of 53.9), commercial/industrial (53.3), and institutional (52.4) all are reporting growth levels above the average pace of the first ten months of the year. Balanced growth across the building spectrum points to a healthy construction sector for 2018.
