After last month's heartbreaking fall following a few months of dull stability and occasional upticks, we won't even begin to say that this month's Architectural Billings Index minor rebound is a larger indication of anything. The AIA's most recent release of their monthly look at how the industry is fairing has seen a bump of five points, bringing it back to where it was two months ago, before that dip in July. What's more, because the Index remains below the 50% mark, it shows there's still no growth yet. So even if this happened to be a good positive-momentum sign for architecture, it's a bittersweet one, as all upward movement has been since a year and a half ago when the numbers first began to plunge. Here's the regular quote from the AIA's top money man warning everyone not to be optimistic about anything:

Credit remains tight and government stimulus funds have had little visible impact on project activity, AIA Chief Economist Kermit Baker said.

"There has been too much contraction in recent months to get overly optimistic about business conditions," Baker said.