AIArchitect http://blog.aia.org/aiarchitect/ The blog of AIA's weekly publication for architects. en Copyright 2010 Thu, 12 Nov 2009 17:15:45 -0500 http://www.sixapart.com/movabletype/ http://blogs.law.harvard.edu/tech/rss Calling All Women: Finding the Forgotten Architect by Alexis Gregory

Alexis GregoryLook around you. How many women do you see in your architecture office? It seemed as if there were a lot of women working to become architects when you were a student, didn’t it? But where have all the women gone?

Have we forgotten those who toiled along with us late into the night during architecture school? Why have they disappeared? Women in architecture are facing a narrowing field in the progression from school to licensure and beyond, similar to women in other professions like business, law, and medicine. Women join the architectural world upon enrollment in schools, yet, once they receive their degrees, these women leave academia headed for pursuits other than the profession of architecture.

]]> http://blog.aia.org/aiarchitect/2009/11/calling_all_women_finding_the.html http://blog.aia.org/aiarchitect/2009/11/calling_all_women_finding_the.html Thu, 12 Nov 2009 17:15:45 -0500 Protect Your Project With New AIA Contract Documents On Tuesday, November 3, we released our latest version of AIA Contract Documents, which includes groundbreaking agreements that reflect the latest trends in our business:

]]> http://blog.aia.org/aiarchitect/2009/11/protect_your_project_with_new.html http://blog.aia.org/aiarchitect/2009/11/protect_your_project_with_new.html Wed, 04 Nov 2009 14:43:46 -0500 Architectural Illustrators Deserve Call-out Credit, Too by Richard Chenoweth, AIA

Thank you for the AIArchitect copyright article about photographers' rights.

As a past president of the American Society of Architectural Illustrators (2005), as well as a designer and licensed architect (and member of the Washington Chapter), I would like to suggest that architectural illustrators share a similar, perhaps far worse plight.

]]> http://blog.aia.org/aiarchitect/2009/10/architectural_illustrators_des.html http://blog.aia.org/aiarchitect/2009/10/architectural_illustrators_des.html Wed, 28 Oct 2009 15:29:09 -0500 Mies (and Obama’s Old Office) In Line for GSA Stimulus Dollars John C. Kluczynski Federal Building The office building used by President Barak Obama as his White House transition headquarters in Chicago is in line for its share of the General Service Administration’s(GSA) American Recovery and Reinvestment Act economic stimulus money. The 44th president’s time at the John C. Kluczynski Federal Building wasn’t the first time it’s been touched by history. Completed in 1975, the Kluczynski building was one of Mies van der Rohe’s last projects. 

According to Bloomberg , the 43-story building in the heart of Chicago’s Loop is waiting on $100 million dollars worth of energy performance upgrades, a small part of which has already been distributed for design and construction management services. The GSA selected the Chicago architecture firm O'Donnell Wicklund Pigozzi and Peterson for the project. This project is part of the $4.3 billion the GSA is spending on green building energy efficiency modernizations , and it’s estimated that 500 to 900 jobs will be created from this office building project alone.

]]> http://blog.aia.org/aiarchitect/2009/10/mies_and_obamas_old_office_in.html http://blog.aia.org/aiarchitect/2009/10/mies_and_obamas_old_office_in.html Tue, 20 Oct 2009 11:03:52 -0500 Solar Houses Are the New Cars (In a Good Way) Solar Deacathlon--Cornell and Team GermanyI'm working on a story for AIArchitect this week that focuses mainly on the economics of building a solar-powered house for the Department of Energy’s Solar Decathlon, but I don’t want all this talk of owner ROI and scales of prefab production to get in the way of a good design conversation. 

So: This year, more so than the last competition in 2007, marks an important signpost on the road to net-zero energy homes required for such buildings to ever be mass produced and palatable to a wide range of consumers.

Basically, I noticed that the houses all looked quite a bit different from each other.

]]> http://blog.aia.org/aiarchitect/2009/10/my_story_link_in_aiarchitect.html http://blog.aia.org/aiarchitect/2009/10/my_story_link_in_aiarchitect.html Tue, 13 Oct 2009 18:34:07 -0500 A Reasonable Way to Control RFIs by Shawn Mahoney

There has been good discussion on the Grant Simpson/Jim Atkins article on requests for information in the AIA-member-only LinkedIn page. In my experience, working both as an architect and construction manager, I think RFI's are essential to getting projects completed on time as well as providing the owner with accurate as-builts.

]]> http://blog.aia.org/aiarchitect/2009/10/a_reasonable_way_to_control_rf.html http://blog.aia.org/aiarchitect/2009/10/a_reasonable_way_to_control_rf.html Thu, 08 Oct 2009 10:58:27 -0500 AIA Nebraska Members Rebuild Little Sioux Scout Ranch by Bob Soukup, Assoc. AIA | LEED-AP
Carlson West Povondra Architects

On September 3-6, I was involved with a large volunteer effort to help build a new chapel at the Little Sioux Scout Ranch near Little Sioux, Iowa.  On June 11, 2008, a tornado destroyed a large area of the Boy Scout camp and killed four boys.  As a way to pay back the nation after the 9/11 attack on New York, a group of New York Fire Fighters came to Iowa for three days, along with 200 other volunteers from all over the nation, plus another 600 local volunteers. All the volunteers spent those three days working to rebuild the campground, in addition to building a new chapel. This chapel was constructed over the remaining floor slab from the cabin where the boys died.

]]> http://blog.aia.org/aiarchitect/2009/09/aia_nebraska_members_rebuild_l.html http://blog.aia.org/aiarchitect/2009/09/aia_nebraska_members_rebuild_l.html Mon, 28 Sep 2009 12:40:17 -0500 Crime and Mass Transit You can read all about the typical quality of life reasons for expanding mass transit in this week’s AIArchitect (shorter commute times, walkable neighborhoods, cleaner air)--and the participants at this week’s AIA/AIA DC transportation forum came up with a good many. Here’s an unexpected one that should cause us all to stop and think about the supreme influence people’s built environment has on their behavior and the way they interact with others: At the forum, Mindy Reiser, a sociologist who has studied public infrastructure issues, asked the panelists if they had heard of a study done in Bogota, Colombia, that showed that the installation of better mass transit reduced crime rates.

In fact, a report by the Institute for Transportation and Development Policy states that after the installation of the TransMilenio bus rapid transit system in 2000, violent crime dropped by 50 percent in the city. (Also, traffic fatalities dropped by 30 percent, commute times dropped by 32 percent, and noise pollution decreased by 30 percent.) Bus rapid transit systems shuttle people across cities by using dedicated bus lanes that regular traffic is not allowed on. They’re typically considered to be a less expensive option for cities that can’t afford light or heavy rail systems.

]]> http://blog.aia.org/aiarchitect/2009/09/crime_and_mass_transit.html http://blog.aia.org/aiarchitect/2009/09/crime_and_mass_transit.html Tue, 22 Sep 2009 17:06:53 -0500 Small and Green vs. Big and Gray Detroit holds a unique place in American history. It’s the cradle of some of the 20th century’s most enduring music, the birthplace of the American auto industry, and the subsequent exemplar of the American made-for-Manifest Destiny city by sprawl, ruled by highways, bypasses, and asphalt. Some of these same choices have made Detroit the quintessential sad poster child for catastrophic urban disinvestment.

]]> http://blog.aia.org/aiarchitect/2009/09/small_and_green_vs_big_and_gra.html http://blog.aia.org/aiarchitect/2009/09/small_and_green_vs_big_and_gra.html Thu, 17 Sep 2009 14:33:39 -0500 The Natural Order of Development Four years after Katrina breached the New Orleans levees, the area still has not addressed water management notes Derek Hoeferlin, senior lecturer at the Sam Fox School of Design & Visual Art at Washington University in St. Louis. Hoeferlin, who has worked extensively on post-Katrina restoration efforts, including working with Dutch engineers on successful coexistence with a sub-water-level landscape, writes that "the city must develop a more nuanced balance between the built environment and what the delta really wants to be: a soggy, sediment-rich landscape."

]]> http://blog.aia.org/aiarchitect/2009/09/the_natural_order_of_land_deve_1.html http://blog.aia.org/aiarchitect/2009/09/the_natural_order_of_land_deve_1.html Wed, 09 Sep 2009 15:50:35 -0500 9/11 Day of Service Photos courtesy of AIASMatthew Fochs, the director of design and outreach programs with the American Institute of Architecture Students wrote this to everyone here at the AIA national component headquarters recently: "President Barak Obama has declared that this year will mark the inaugural “9/11 Day of Service.” In Washington the day is being organized by the Greater DC Cares program. I am thinking about participating and wanted to see if anyone else from the office would like to join me (I know a few of you are traveling at some point that day). You can read more or sign up for the day of service by visiting the Web site."

]]> http://blog.aia.org/aiarchitect/2009/08/911_day_of_service.html http://blog.aia.org/aiarchitect/2009/08/911_day_of_service.html Thu, 27 Aug 2009 09:44:17 -0500 Is Recession Diminishing Design? Parrish Art Museum design conceptWhen the Parrish Art Museum—a fixture on the tony east end of Long Island since 1898—decided to build a new gallery more than twice the size of the original a few years ago, the plan was as ostentatious as the stock market was strong at the time. With a budget of $80 million, Swiss architects Herzog & de Meuron envisioned a village of buildings modeled after a selection of the art studios that dot the surrounding area. When the market plunge slashed the budget to a mere $30 million or so, the design morphed into a long, low "horizontal structure nestled discretely in the landscape, consisting of two parallel wings joined by a central circulation spine running the length of the building," as the Parrish Art Museum release describes it in glowing terms. New York Times critic Nicolai Ouroussoff is a bit more dismissive in his characterization: "a major step down in architectural ambition ... It is a creeping conservatism—and aversion to risk—that leaves little room for creative invention." He concludes with an oddly forced induction: "It makes you wonder if the cultural consequences of the financial collapse will be as liberating as some have predicted."

Renderings by Herzog & de Meuron.

]]> http://blog.aia.org/aiarchitect/2009/08/is_recession_diminishing_desig.html http://blog.aia.org/aiarchitect/2009/08/is_recession_diminishing_desig.html Thu, 20 Aug 2009 08:51:12 -0500 Charles Gwathmey: A Great Mentor and Friend Christopher Coe, AIAby Christopher Coe, AIA
CEO of COE Architecture International

I first met Charles Gwathmey when I was selected as the AIAS student representative on the 1983 National AIA Honor Awards Jury that he chaired.  Of course I knew his work well, Five Architects was my primer in school.  Three weeks later I moved to New York and started my architectural career at Gwathmey Siegel, even before finishing architecture school. It was the greatest education I could have received.

With Charles there was always great certainty about the approach to the work, that Modernism still had much to offer and that it could accept change and invention without losing its inherent power or meaning. In art, certainty this is hard to come by, but Charles was unrelenting in his beliefs about how he approached the work. There was certainly investigation and exploration, but always within that strict framework of belief. For a young architect beginning his career and looking for his “way” in the world, this was obviously appealing and inspiring.

]]> http://blog.aia.org/aiarchitect/2009/08/charles_gwathmey_a_great_mento.html http://blog.aia.org/aiarchitect/2009/08/charles_gwathmey_a_great_mento.html Wed, 12 Aug 2009 15:49:32 -0500 Communicate Directly with the 2010 and 2011 AIA Presidents Elect by Marvin Malecha, FAIA, 2009 AIA President

In formulating a strategice plan for 2010-2015, the AIA elected leadership has solicited input from internal and external stakeholders from the very outset; an effort that continues to-date and will continue through October.

If the outcome of what was an amazingly thoughtful and productive planning meeting July 10-11 can be boiled down to a few words, two come to mind: continuity and evolution.
• “Continuity” because many elements of the AIA’s current strategic plan have demonstrated their value and stood the test of time
• “Evolution” because we have the benefit of learning from experience, and, more to the point, the AIA serves a dynamic profession being shaped by and responding to change that grows more dynamic with each passing day.

Time and again research shows that the recognized value of an organization is in direct proportion to a member’s engagement. My asking you to become engaged in shaping the AIA’s future has a higher motivation as well. Through open member-to-member discussion, we connect to the Institute’s core values and goals to increase member value.

Please take a moment to look at the draft plan and give us your feedback. Let us know if the draft strategies are relevant for the future of the AIA. What do the strategies mean to you as a member? What challenges and opportunities will the AIA face in implementing these strategies? Are there more relevant strategies that have been missed?

In the near future, you will also have the opportunity to participate in one of three Web seminars—hosted by 2010 President-elect George Miller, FAIA, and 2011 President-elect Clark Manus, FAIA. The first is Wednesday, August 26, noon–1 p.m. ET; the second is September 9, 5–6 p.m. ET; and the third is Wednesday, September 16, 2–3 p.m. ET. Watch your e-mail in-box for more information about these Webinars.

]]> http://blog.aia.org/aiarchitect/2009/07/communicate_directly_with_the.html http://blog.aia.org/aiarchitect/2009/07/communicate_directly_with_the.html Wed, 29 Jul 2009 16:13:25 -0500 Blind and So He Sees There are certain elements of Chris Downey's story that are inspirational as human interest alone: an architect suddenly losing his sight then losing his job with Michelle Kaufman Designs has nonetheless kept strong his joy of being alive and tenacity for being employed.

]]> http://blog.aia.org/aiarchitect/2009/07/blind_and_so_he_sees.html http://blog.aia.org/aiarchitect/2009/07/blind_and_so_he_sees.html Thu, 23 Jul 2009 10:20:33 -0500