New Angle E-mail Format: What do you think?
This issue, The Angle is trying a new format to assist our readers. What do you think? What else can The Angle do to make it more useful to you? Let us know.
AIA members met with more than 40 members of Congress and their staffs across the nation last week as part of the first-ever AIA Advocacy Week, reporting positive feedback from lawmakers on the AIA’s advocacy agenda.
Response to another AIA key ask, legislation to promote green housing, was positive.
Please share your component’s Advocacy Week experience. What worked? What didn’t work? What did your legislators say and do in your meeting? What was your impression?
The Local Relations team has recently been established within the Government and Community Relations department. A number of broad strategic plan goals have already been established for the year, ranging from the development of the Local Government Network to advocating for legislative and regulatory change to continued collaboration with NACo and the US Conference of Mayors. Within these goals, there will be a strong focus on sustainability, but as the program is new, there is an opportunity for you, the AIA members, and component leaders to tell the AIA what you would like Local Government Relations to do for you.
What issues are important to you at the local level, and how do you think AIA National can bolster your efforts and make local AIA components even more successful than they already are?
This year, the 2008 Grassroots Leadership and Legislative Conference will take place during the Presidents’ Day congressional recess, when legislators go to their home districts. Typically, AIA members go to Capitol Hill during the conference to meet with their legislators. Since doing so is not possible this year, AIA National is working with components to organize a nation-wide AIA Advocacy Week—an effort to get AIA members to meet with their members of Congress in their home districts.
Advocacy Week will take place the week of March 24-28, during the Easter congressional recess. During congressional recesses, representatives and senators will meet with constituents, hold town hall meetings, identify new issues in their communities, and communicate what they are working on in Washington.
What are your plans for Advocacy Week? Do you think this effort will get more architects involved in the AIA's advocacy outreach efforts? Let us know...
In the face of several years of failed legislation, the interior design lobby has returned in 2008 to push measures to regulate their profession and expand their market. Although there are a number of title registration laws across the country, only three states regulate the practice of interior design.
Legislation drafted in both Nebraska and Ohio would restrict the use of the title “interior designer” to individuals who meet certain specifications. Legislation in Arizona, South Carolina, Tennessee, and Washington, however, would not only restrict the use of the title, but would also prohibit individuals who do not meet those specifications from practicing interior design.
The AIA has fought this battle before. On average, 10 bills are introduced annually, but the majority of them face the same fate: they are killed in committee or on the floor. In fact, no bill has become law since a strict title act was passed in Iowa in 2005. Before that, only two states had enacted title regulations since 1999.
The AIA's position is that interior designers do not have the education or training necessary to protect the health, safety, and welfare of the public, and giving unqualified individuals the responsibility to do so could have severe consequences. Architects are the only professionals who have a broad enough knowledge base to understand the complexities of the whole building, its parts, and how each are interrelated.
[To read the full article in the January 31 issue of the Angle, click here.]
Question: Interior designers contend that they should be able to stamp and seal their own interior construction drawings for the purpose of obtaining a building permit. Do you think interior designers are equally qualified as architects to protect public HSW on the interior of a building? Share your perspective.
The State Department's Office of Overseas Building Operations (OBO) is in charge of the design, construction, and operation of U.S. missions abroad. Following the recent retirement of Maj. Gen. Charles Williams, Richard Shinnick, a retired Foreign Service Officer with experience in operations and management, has been named Interim Director/Chief Operation Officer for OBO.
In response to concerns that OBO was not building embassies fast or safe enough, former Director Maj. Gen. Williams re-organized the building operation along a corporate business model, using design-build contracts to build and modernize diplomatic missions under a tight timeframe and developing the "Standard Embassy Design" (SED) template for all new U.S. embassy buildings. While the State Department maintains that using the SED template saves time, money, and uncertainty, the new building program has been criticized by many in the building and diplomatic communities as not being particularly imaginative, resulting in a reduction in design quality and a failure to meet the varied needs of U.S. diplomatic missions around the world.
With the retirement of Maj. Gen. Williams, do you think OBO should continue to use the Standard Embassy Design template for all new embassy buildings? How do you think U.S. embassies should be designed in the future?
Debates, polls, endorsements, ads, who’s in, who’s out, fundraising, primaries and caucuses, and the rest of the “noise” of an election season: does any of this matter to your practice and the architecture profession?
The architect’s role in defining what “community” is continues to grow. Increasingly active in public affairs, planning, and urban and rural development, architects have a seat at many decision-making tables across the country. As part of this responsibility, the profession must participate in the campaign process, from voting to holding candidate forums, from running for national delegate positions, to talking about architects’ issues as the national parties develop their platforms.
The Government Advocacy team created DesignVote08 to help architects sort through the din of the campaign season. So the question this week is how can we help make this process easier for you? What information do you need to know today, and how will these needs change as the year moves forward? Tell us what is important to AIA members in 2008!
The AIA is launching DesignVote08, a major new initiative to help raise the profile of architecture in the 2008 election.
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DesignVote08 is the AIA's first-ever nonpartisan program to help its members get involved in the campaigns for president and the U.S. Senate. Reflecting the increased clout that architects have in the political process, and supporting the AIA's strategic goal of promoting citizen architects and civic engagement, DesignVote08 will empower AIA members and components to:
Through a dedicated Web site and other tools, DesignVote08 will give AIA members up-to-the-minute information on how they can engage in the presidential and key Senate races. The Web site will also offer voter registration information, links to candidates' Web sites, and tips on getting active in the election.
Earlier this month, the AIA launched one of the first initiatives under DesignVote08 by sending a 15-question survey to all the Democratic and Republican candidates for president. The questionnaire asks the candidates to identify where they stand on top AIA priorities. The AIA will place the responses to these questions online at the end of December.
Mickey Jacob, AIA, will serve as the chair of DesignVote08. Jacob, who completes his four-year tenure as ArchiPAC chair at the end of 2007 and is an AIA director from the Florida-Caribbean region, says he is excited about the opportunity that the coming campaign holds for architects: "The '08 election will be one of the most hotly contested in years. With Democrats holding a 51-49 majority in the U.S. Senate, the stakes in this election are extremely high. This initiative creates a terrific chance for the AIA and our 80,000-plus members to play an active role raising the profile of our issues in the coming debate."
Paul Mendelsohn, vice president for Government and Community Relations, says DesignVote08 is a natural outgrowth of the AIA's government advocacy efforts. "With all the successes we've had the last few years in advocating for sustainability, community development, regulatory reform, and other issues before Congress and the White House, it only makes sense to take this message to the candidates before they are elected to office."
Tell us ways that architects can get involved in politics and campaigns, and why you think it is important for architects to be involved in the decision-making and law-making processes.
The U.S. Fair Housing Act was originally enacted in 1968 to prohibit discrimination in the provision of housing due to race or color, religion, sex, national origin, familial status, or disability. The legislation targets direct providers of housing, such as landlords and real estate companies, as well as other entities like municipalities, banks and other lending institutions, and homeowners’ insurance companies whose discriminatory practices may make housing unavailable to particular groups.
There has often been confusion and inconsistency with the implementation and enforcement of the Fair Housing Act across the country. Though enacted in 1968, regulations to enforce the Act were not drafted by the U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development (HUD) until the late 1980s and early 1990s. HUD’s own regulations are at times inconsistent, making education on the rules to direct providers difficult. To add to the confusion, the Department of Justice, which enforces the regulations, often has interpreted the policies differently than HUD.
In recent months, the AIA has received an increasing number of reports of architects being targeted for violations or potential violations of the Fair Housing Act, particularly in regards to accessibility. Are you aware of these situations? In your opinion, what can the AIA do, both to prevent future violations as well as to help those who currently find themselves in this precarious circumstance?
Tell us what you think.
This year, the health care debate has focused mainly on expanding access to health care for children (today, the House is voting on a slightly revised version of the children’s health insurance bill that was vetoed by the President earlier this month). And several Presidential candidates have spoken of their plans for health care reform. But legislation to help small businesses purchase more affordable health insurance is not on Congress’ radar screen this year.
Does that mean that the issue is dead? Or that compromise is too hard to achieve? How should Congress and the President help smaller firms deal with the rising costs of health care?
What do you think?
