Economic Outlook for Non-Residential Construction

AIA released their Architectural Billing Index (ABI) from February last week. It did not paint an optimistic view of the months to come. The release came as I was writing about AIA’s Construction Forecast for 2008 and ASLA’s Market Survey. AIA’s CF projects a relatively flat year in non-residential construction while ASLA’s MS is more optimistic. At the time they were done, they obviously did not have the benefit of knowing the future. Each provides a differing outlook, with AIA’s being more on target. The release of the AIA’s ABI was a surprise to many as it was significantly lower than most expected. AIA’s press release indicates studies that say it is a good predictor of construction activity over a 9 to 12 month period. It is down nearly 25% from December’s numbers.

I always hate to be pessimistic, but the fundamentals of the economy have been out of whack for some time and are beginning to correct themselves. With the continued credit crunch and the problems in the financing sector, money is not as easy to come by. In addition, inflation, higher energy cost, devalued dollar, and the loss of value in people’s largest asset, their home, one is to expect to see a downturn in consumer spending. With that will come a continued cutback in retail, office, and industrial expansion. The refunds coming this year from Washington won’t offer much relief from these issues. This cycle will take time and I wouldn’t be surprised if this last beyond 2010.

AIA’s Construction Forecast predicts the state of non-residential construction will only get worse in 2009 and predicts a drop of growth (-0.9%). AIA’s Construction Forecast is comprised of various organizations that make their own forecast and on AIA’s website, you can isolate each member’s projection. The most optimistic is Reed Construction Data who sees an increase of 8% in 2008 and 4.9% in 2009. McGraw-Hill Construction is most pessimistic projecting -4.6% in 2008 and -2% in 2009, though Global Insight suggests a worse 2009 at -5.4%. These are the averages combining each industry followed. The bright spots include institutional, education, and health care. As would be expected retail is projected to fair the worst.

Despite the bad news, it is important to keep in mind the population will continue to grow and while the demand for future facilities may not be at its incredible pace of the last few years, there will still be demand. Investment will still continue. There just may be less of it.

Trying to make sense of ASLA’s optimism when it comes to landscape architecture, maybe the discrepancy in the outlooks has more to do with the fact that there are fewer landscape architects than architects and the increased move in the marketplace toward sustainable building practices may favor landscape architects. This trend has resulted in greater collaboration between architects and landscape architects. Architectural Record recently wrote a piece on discussing this trend with an example illustrating the collaboration between SWA and Renzo Piano on the California Academy of Sciences.

"As the environmental details of sites become more integrated into architectural design, be it to store water or to absorb the impact of a large building, landscape design is becoming a major part of the architecture. And as green roofs are growing up in our own backyards, the relationship between architect and landscape architect is sure to blossom."

While I whole heartily believe in the benefits landscape architects bring to a design team, I caution this optimism as architects seek to protect their practices from the economic downturn. You could see more architects keeping their services in-house as opposed to bringing a landscape architect onto the team. I hope this does not happen because our built environment would suffer, but it is not out of the realm of possibilities.