Three AIA articles that should be of interest to reprographers

Currently suffering from a serious case of jet-lag on my current trip to Europe, I'm up at 2:30 a.m. in the morning, and, with nothing better to do (until I get tired enough to get back to sleep), I thought I'd spend a few minutes time exploring information posted on various "Architecture Industry" related sites (both in the U.S. and in Europe.) While doing this, I came across three interesting articles on the AIA (US) web-site. So, in the spirit of "know thy customer", here are the "summaries" of those three articles:

CONSENSUS CONSTRUCTION FORECAST 

Steep Downturns in Nonresidential Construction Projected Through 2010 
Greatest downturn in commercial and industrial sector; institutional, more modest
by Kermit Baker, PhD, Hon. AIA
Chief Economist, DATE: JULY 10, 2009
Summary: A weak economy and continued difficulties with construction financing have slowed investment in nonresidential buildings by U.S. businesses, nonprofit institutions, and government agencies. Construction of buildings, which began to slow in the second half of last year, moved into a downward spiral toward the end of the year. This industry will see no relief this year, but the decline will moderate somewhat as we move through 2010. The AIA Consensus Construction Forecast Panel projects a 16 percent decline in nonresidential construction activity this year, and an additional drop of almost 12 percent in 2010.

The full article - and it is a long one - can be found at this Internet address:
http://info.aia.org/aiarchitect/thisweek09/0710/0710b_consensus.cfm



WORK-ON-THE-BOARDS
Architecture Firm Billings Remain Relatively Weak
Project Backlogs at Firms Shrink to 3.9 Months

by Jennifer Riskus
AIA Economics Research Manager, DATE: OCTOBER 23, 2009

Summary: Despite recording the highest inquiries score in two years, the Architecture Billings Index remains mired in the low 40s, with a score of 43.1 reported in September. Architecture firm billings have been in this vicinity for six of the last seven months, and have not yet shown any clear signs of approaching 50, and an increase in billings. Business conditions remain quite poor for many firms, with increasing numbers indicating nonexistent project backlogs and insufficient billable hours for current staff. Inquiries scores are still rising, but this continues to be triggered by the increased competition for projects, rather than actual increases in project activity.

The full article - and it is a long one - can be found at this Internet address:
http://info.aia.org/aiarchitect/thisweek09/1023/1023b_otb.cfm



Overview of the 2009 AIA Firm Survey
Date of post on info.aia.org site was October 9, 2009

Comprehensive data on firm business trends just released
Summary: The AIA published The Business of Architecture: An AIA Survey Report on Firm Characteristics on October 5. Based on an analysis of 2,699 AIA-member firm responses collected between January and March 2009, the report is available on-line from the AIA Bookstore. To provide a comprehensive sense of the information covered in the survey, we offer here a reprint of the survey overview.

The full article can be found at this Internet address:
http://info.aia.org/aiarchitect/thisweek09/1009/1009b_firmsurvey.cfm
You will also notice that you can buy the full survey by accessing the AIA on-line bookstore