November is a month of darkening days, and this year it arrives with an extra chill for the design profession. As the mercury began to dip across most of America, so did the numbers in the Architects Billing Index, down a sudden five points in September, to 46.9. Many of record’s readers don’t need to see that statistic, however, to know how tough this economic climate continues to be for architects, particularly those primarily engaged in residential and commercial design in the United States.
Still, the profession remains alluring: The best architecture schools have their pick of students, and this month we report on DesignIntelligence’s annual ranking of undergraduate and graduate programs around the country. Yet the field those graduates will enter in the years ahead is changing rapidly, not just because of the economy but because many architects are redefining what they do: They are increasingly engaged in areas such as urban design, environmental advocacy, and advancing digital technology. And that’s good news.
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