Architecture Update: Happier outlook

ARCHITECTS are more optimistic about their future workload than at any time in the past five years, according to a survey by the Royal Institute of British Architects. Forty per cent of architects questioned expected work to increase over the next six months, with only 18 per cent predicting a fall. New commissions in the last quarter of 1993 were up 5 per cent on the previous quarter, and up 30 per cent for the year compared with 1992. The good news follows unprecedented levels of 'underemployment' among architects, particularly those in private practice, during the past three years.