Archinect - News

AIA releases seven-point advocacy agenda for 2024 U.S. elections

2024-09-13T12:45:00-04:00

The American Institute of Architects has released a statement urging action on a number of key priorities related to architecture and the built environment for the 2024 presidential elections following Tuesday’s debate between candidates Kamala Harris and Donald Trump.

"Architects across the country are keen to see greater progress toward key goals related to the built environment and our businesses," 2024 AIA President Kimberly Dowdell says in a preface to the seven-point agenda. "Our top election priorities highlight critical issues including the need for increased investment in affordable housing, aggressive climate action measures, enhanced resiliency against natural disasters and sound tax policies."

"[The] AIA calls on the candidates as well as the incoming new Congress to listen to architects as experts on the forefront of designing a more sustainable future," her statement continues. "Through these priorities, AIA’s members will continue to move the built environment forwar...

Kate Wagner: Rescinding progress means architects must become the agents of change

2024-08-12T12:23:00-04:00

Organizing at the community level and putting pressure on politicians can go a long way, but it’s not enough. Architects have to start seeing themselves as political actors with high stakes in the same way communities and unions do. Architects are workers and they depend on work. The fight for climate justice, resiliency, and workers’ and tenants’ rights are only going to get harder in an era of political decay, cronyism, and systemic crisis.

The fight over congestion pricing and residential building retrofits in New York City are just a couple of the many flashpoints architects should involve themselves in heavily in order to better advocate for the profession, critic Kate Wagner writes. Rightly, she states, “The field’s most meaningful efforts to combat climate change are actually quite mundane.” Progress on a number of fronts, including the decarbonization of the building sector, is being either stalled or eroded at the hands of real estate and other interests. Now professionals face the choice of further subjecting their labor or pushing back via activism or other means.

AIA President Kimberly Dowdell outlines the need for better K-12 outreach to strengthen the architecture profession

2024-05-31T14:43:00-04:00

Reflecting upon her activities during the recently passed Architecture Week in Detroit, AIA President Kimberly Dowdell outlined the need to engage with the key K-12 demographic in order to cultivate and better prepare the next generation of American architects to match the challenges they and the country will face tomorrow.

"If we want to engage the best young talent to help us grow our profession in the future, we must start now. Kindergarten through 12th grade engagement provides a wonderful opportunity to educate and excite students about the amazing field of architecture," Dowdell stated, also relating her experience as a young student in the city public school system.

Outlining her vision for institutional change in a new five-point agenda, Dowdell (also currently a trustee of her alma mater Cornell University) said better youth engagement can be achieved by further connecting the AIA’s K-12 nationwide resources; increasing support for the Architects Foundation’s scholarship pr...

Kimberly Dowdell hits back at anti-DEI push in business circles and academia

2024-03-25T14:21:00-04:00

The new AIA President and Principal in HOK’s Chicago office, Kimberly Dowdell, talked with Crain’s recently, stating diversity, equity, and inclusion efforts must be sustained in the face of the latest anti-DEI pushback parroted by Elon Musk and other business leaders that contributed to the resignation of Harvard University President Claudine Gay and other rollbacks on Wall Street and in corporate America.

"It's really disturbing how quickly the pendulum is shifting back toward a less inclusive and diverse society," she says, referring to different policymakers who are beginning to codify their resistance in conservative states like Florida and Texas.

Revisit our 2019 Archinect Sessions interview with Kimberly Dowdell, then President of the National Organization of Minority Architects

Of her company’s ethos she says, "[It’s] about diversity and its multiple forms in terms of its people but also the work and the kinds of work that we do," something that has underpinned its success...

Philadelphia’s Center for Architecture and Design rebrands as DesignPhiladelphia

2024-01-31T19:51:00-05:00

Philadelphia’s Center for Architecture and Design has revealed its rebranding as DesignPhiladelphia, according to an announcement the educational nonprofit made public recently.

The name change heralds an expansion of services as an organization, which has been open to the public since 2002. AIA Philadelphia will continue as an anchor tenant, joined by the Community Design Collaborative, PhilaNOMA, Design Advocacy Group, Creative Mornings PHL, and eight new design associations as Residence Partners.

“The new name, DesignPhiladelphia, represents our commitment to inclusivity and collaboration across all design fields, including graphics, interiors, and more. Our programming: Design Education, the Festival, the Edmund N. Bacon Urban Design Awards, and the Louis I. Kahn Lecture will all continue underneath the new DesignPhiladelphia brand,” an FAQ on the Center’s website reads.

Former K-12 Architecture and Design Education programming will now be called simply Design Education progra...

British AEC groups urge government action on embodied carbon regulations

2024-01-31T19:21:00-05:00

A group of 11 AEC industry groups in the United Kingdom, including the Royal Institute of British Architects (RIBA), Chartered Institute of Building, and UK Green Building Council, have joined together in urging the government toward taking action on restricting embodied carbon emissions in the built environment ahead of an important national election that’s expected for November.

Their call endorses an amalgam of existing policy pushes while espousing lawmakers to include at least a portion of its findings into their respective manifestos with benchmarks for specific mandates and enforcements set for the end of this year, 2026, and 2028, respectively.

RIBA President Muyiwa Oki said: “Our message is clear — embodied carbon regulation is critical to reaching net zero. As built environment professionals, we understand our duty to reduce emissions and have been leading the charge. We now need urgent action from the next government to deliver a greener future that we deserve.”

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NYC public school students are pushing the city for greener school buildings

2024-01-09T13:48:00-05:00

New York City teens have launched an initiative, born out of a 2019 citywide climate walkout, to urge Mayor Adams to "speed up plans to retrofit school buildings to make them safer, healthier, and more climate-friendly."

The student-led environmental coalition named, TREEage is "asking peers across the city to post videos to social media about why their schools urgently need green energy upgrades. The group is also asking students to grade how green their school is from A to F," reports Jessica Gould of the Gothamist.

Over the years, they have gained significant concessions from the Adams administration, including a pledge to make all new public school building constructions all-electric by 2030.

Their advocacy for the city’s Green New Deal is bolstered by an understanding of the correlation between healthier environments and better learning outcomes.

TREEage is now preparing a social media campaign that will kick off next month using the hashtags #MayorAdamsFixMySchoo and #Gree...

Norman Foster says he has "no power as an architect, none whatsoever" – only advocacy

2015-11-23T12:19:00-05:00

"Do you believe in infrastructure?” asks Norman Foster, with challenge in his voice. He does. Infrastructure, he says, is about “investing not to solve the problems of today but to anticipate the issues of future generations”. [...] “I have no power as an architect, none whatsoever. I can’t even go on to a building site and tell people what to do.” Advocacy, he says, is the only power an architect ever has.

Cutting across the Chicago Architecture Biennial: the Architecture Lobby's uninvited installation takes aim at the field's labor issues

2015-10-22T13:53:00-04:00

Join us for an uninvited Chicago Biennial installation consisting of scenarios depicting the absurdities of architectural practice/labor/work. We seek to expand the current conversation about architecture to include an actionable critique of the real, often tragic circumstances that precarious creative workers face on a daily basis.

Alongside the official installations and programmed events, a host of uninvited and unofficial events have coalesced around the Chicago Architecture Biennial, the first major architecture biennial in the United States. One of the most promising comes from the Architecture Lobby, "an organization of architectural workers advocating for the value of architecture in the general public and for architectural work within the discipline."

After a reception from 6 to 11 pm next Friday, October 30, the Architecture Lobby will put on the installation (re)Working Architectur e, including a series of performances aimed at generating "new perspectives and possibilities for action on topics ranging from unpaid internships, the mystification of the role of the architect, and how we conceive of the value of our work."

The event also will include an architecture-themed "Beaux-Arts Ball" starting at 8 pm. Architecture Lobby encourages you to bring your dancing shows and a costume. The next morning, join...

Susan S. Szenasy on the Importance of Design in the Everyday

2015-04-27T19:19:00-04:00

Inside the soon-to-be-demolished A+D Museum in Los Angeles, a small group gathered last week for a conversation with Susan S. Szenasy, the Editor-in-Chief of Metropolis Magazine, followed by a signing of her new book of collected writings, Szenasy, Design Advocate. The talk is likely the last the museum will host in its Miracle Mile location, as the museum prepares to move to a new home in the Downtown Arts District following the expropriation of the current building to make room for an extension of the Metro Red Line. Moderated by architecture writer and curator Greg Goldin (whose previous “Never Built: Los Angeles” exhibition was on show at the A+D in 2013), the conversation focused on the personal relationships we have with design in everyday life.

“I was always railing against the idea that people were never talked about in architecture,” Szenasy recalled of her formative years at Interior magazine. “Designers reflect us back to ourselves,” she added a bit later. “They have a hug...

Barry Bergdoll on "The Art of Advocacy"

2011-09-17T18:57:35-04:00

While there is indeed real cause for anxiety, and new crises continue to emerge, the most pertinent stance young (and for that matter, established) designers can take is to translate the wealth of research emerging from design schools into further activist engagement and new research opportunities — and to advocate for that central role for designers in solving the profound dilemmas that define our time.

The Philip Johnson Chief Curator of Architecture and Design at the Museum of Modern Art describes his efforts to expand MoMA's role to support experimentation and advocacy in architecture and design. For several years now, through exhibitions and workshops MoMa has explored how designers can engage with a range of pressing topics including housing production, climate change and global poverty. Bergdoll goes on to argue that this relationship between design professionals, education/research and public advocacy must be the focus of renewed energy in order to meet the array of crises facing 21st century society.