Build Boston, held last week at Boston’s World Trade Center, attracted more than 13,500 industry professionals, the largest turnout in the trade show’s nearly 20-year history.

More than 13,500 architects, engineers and builders gathered in Boston’s World Trade Center last week for what turned out to be Build Boston’s biggest conference since it began in 1985.

To some, the strong attendance may be a signal that the economic malaise gripping the commercial real estate and building trades may be slowly coming to an end.

“It’s clear this week, at this conference, that the industry feels that the economic slow-down is over,” said Richard Fitzgerald, executive director of the Boston Society of Architects, the conference sponsor. “People are recruiting; we also have a lot of visitors from out of state and out of the country.”

Theodore C. Landsmark, president of the Boston Architectural Center on Newbury Street, said that an increasing amount of students are entering the architectural profession, not only in Boston but also at schools in Maine and Vermont. The Boston Architectural Center itself has experienced an increase in requests for the architecture and interior design services of its students.

“I met some of our graduates at a reception last night who are as busy as they’ve ever been,” he said. “Then there are others who may not have marketed themselves as successfully or nurtured a relationship with their clients – we’re finding that they’re not generating the type of client response they had hoped for.”

The conference spread across two main floors of the World Trade Center. More than 350 exhibitors filled the tradeshow floor and more than 200 workshops met in conference rooms throughout the three-day event. The conference addressed dozens of issues, including green building, design in the digital age, solar electric buildings, why projects flop and the language of light. But this year, Build Boston focused on three major, national issues regarding diversity, women in design and young architecture professionals.

A quote, scribbled in blue marker, hung from the wall in a classroom on the second floor. “The architectural profession staves off true diversity at its own peril,” it read. The quote, by Kathryn Anthony, a writer and speaker at Build Boston, summed up the main premise behind Natalie K. Camper’s workshop on Thursday.

Camper, president of Brookline-based The Camper Group, shuffled her 10 participants into groups that dissected discrimination in the architecture field.

“How do we get people in architecture to see the benefits of diversity when you see wealthy, white men coming in to construct buildings?” Camper said. “That’s the issue and it’s a real problem.”

Participation in Build Boston’s diversity sessions included industry professionals from across the country and overseas, including London and Seoul, Korea. Also, the American Institute of Architects sent at least six of its staff members to attend diversity workshops.

The AIA reports that there are more women and minority architecture principals than just a few years ago. Some attribute the difference to corporate downsizing and the creation of smaller companies by women and minorities striking out on their own.

“On the one hand, you rejoice at the emerging independence of women and people of color as entrepreneurs in design but at the same time it may show a lack of opportunity within the larger firms, and it’s inevitable that the larger firms get the largest and most complex projects,” said Landsmark, who is chairman of the AIA’s national diversity committee.

New School

Landsmark said change should start with recruitment at the educational and professional levels.

“Schools have been deficient in recruiting and retaining women and minorities; many of our most prestigious schools have fewer people of color than they did 30 years ago,” he said. “Many women and students of color find when they graduate that it’s difficult to obtain the mentorship that is necessary to succeed in the early stages of their careers. We all have to work as aggressively as the law and medical professions have over the last 50 years to equal the success they’ve had in changing the demographics.”

According to the AIA, 8 percent of licensed architects are people of color while about 13 percent are women. A Thursday morning session, titled “Divine Secrets of the Architecture Sisterhood,” discussed the trials and challenges of working in a traditionally male-dominated work force. Playing off of the bestselling book-turned-movie “Divine Secrets of the Ya Ya Sisterhood,” the panel emphasized the need for women to share their stories and support each other professionally.

“Women and minorities are still very, very underrepresented – I find that infuriating, I have to say,” one panel member said. “The one ray of hope is that women and people of color are starting their own firms. But they’re also dropping out of the field.”

After a few panel introductions, several women from the audience shared their own thoughts – one told the group that she switched from architecture to interior design because it had a higher comfort level with more women; another said her most challenging issue was finding support in juggling a career and family. Still another said that she came from an office that was 99 percent male and that the type of networking advocated in the “divine secrets” workshop was important to her.

The conference also focused on young architects with some workshops bearing suitably humorous titles designed to appeal to the newest generation in the trade, such as: “Do You Hear What I Hear? Or, What I Learned From the Brady Bunch.” A resource center named the “Idea Lab” served as a gathering place for young designers and an incubator for generating and implementing ideas. A daylong event, dubbed “Fast Forward,” also promoted the efforts of young architecture professionals, including relief efforts by Architecture for Humanity.

“It would be helpful if firms and the media provided more exposure for the work of talented women, minorities and young professionals,” Landsmark said. “This is a profession that continues to celebrate the work of older men without recognizing the innovative work being done by young professionals, women and minorities.”

Build Boston also included daily Big Dig tours, a design gallery, continuing education courses and daily restaurant tours that explored the themes created by architects, interior designers, graphic designers and restaurant owners.