Will architects' Christmas parties be more jolly affairs this year after news that workloads have recorded their first annual increase since 2009? The RIBA's Future Trends survey, which tracks architects' confidence, has been slowly swinging upwards but finally, it says, the bad times are over. While it would be churlish to deny that things are certainly a lot rosier than they were two years ago, this kind of talk seems dangerous on a number of levels. First, the RIBA doesn't talk about fees. How can it when they are shrouded in secrecy and no one knows what ludicrous lengths practices are prepared to go to win work? But fees, as any architect will tell you, are down and will never return to pre-2007 levels.
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