As one Boston architect, a personal friend of SDJ’s editor, can attest to, having been laid off in December, the American Institute of Architects projects an 11% drop in design and construction activity this year, according to its semi-annual Consensus Construction Forecast.
Therefore, because the building sector accounts for about one in every ten dollars of the U.S.’s GDP, the AIA is trying to impose itself into Obama’s economic recovery plans. The national architecture association has developed the Rebuild and Renew Plan.
“The AIA is calling on the new administration and Congress to create policies that ensure these monies are spent on the planning, design and construction of energy efficient, sustainable buildings and healthy communities that are advantageous for both the environment and economy,” according to an article posted on Dexigner.com. “If implemented correctly, the nearly $100 billion plan would create 1.6 million jobs throughout the design and construction industry. Recent reports estimate that the economic recovery package may total as much as $800 billion, with at least $350 billion dedicated to infrastructure projects.”
22/01/2009 • 2:30 pm 0
AIA makes suggestions for Obama recovery plans
19/01/2009 • 10:00 pm 0
Let there be light: Daylighting Saves $, Yields Natural Beauty
Photo credit
“Daylighting contributes to the public good by reducing the need for electrical lighting,” says Mike Crosbie, chairman of department of architecture of Univ. of Hartford, on AIA Podnet. It also reduces light pollution and ostensibly improving health and productivity. Still, it’s slow to take off. Who likes sitting under godawful florescent lights, what with their blue/green algae-like coloring?
What is daylighting technology? A way to control supplemental lighting or to control natural sunlight through shades.
Why hasn’t it been implemented more? Lighting systems should become integral to the building design; it is directly tied to space planning. Convince clients that lighting design affects long-term utility consumption and user comfort.
One brow-raising point raised during this podcast: let’s get rid of the status of windowed offices. While there are more alternatives (sidelights, clerestories, etc.), it doesn’t have to be like working in a tomb, what is your opinion about this?
Learn more about daylighting and/or listen to the full podcast for free.
Filed under: AIA, technology
18/01/2009 • 8:27 pm 0
Sustainable for Calamities
Sustainability isn’t just about being eco-friendly: it’s also about withstanding calamities such as the Oklahoma City and World Trade Center bombings. The architecture community has looked at these events and even Europe’s concern with vehicle bombs to create another element in building design, taking into consideration glazing, laminated glass, progressive collapse, building envelope, and structural design.
The challenge is, however, to prevent buildings from looking like fortresses.
according to Barbara Nadel, pricnipal of Barbara Nadel Architect
(Source: AIA Podnet podcast, Panel for Civic Architecture)
Read similar info through AIA.
Subscribe to the free weekly podcast, AIA Podnet.
Filed under: AIA, sustainability
18/01/2009 • 8:23 pm 0
Where Are the Women: Architects Still an Old Boys Game?
Though architecture schools have a 50/50 ratio of male to female students, in the largest firms only about 5% have female principals. Twenty percent of licensed architects are women.
(Info. from an AIA podcast episode titled “We the People”, a discussion by Carole Wedge and Nancy Alexander.)
Filed under: AIA
17/01/2009 • 10:00 pm 2
How we live today: Heed universal design
Here are some eyebrow-lifting stats from the AIA:
In 1973 60% of American kids walked to school. Remember that? Today it’s 13%.
Married couples with children comprised 61% of households.
The two largest groups of our population live in cities: baby boomers and millennials.
These are some stats Susan Szenasy., editor in chief of Metropolis mag, wrote in her letter from the editor last summer. She also wrote that one in six children has attended at least three schools. One speaker at the May AIA conference in Boston blamed this “instability” on “unhealthy… housing that forces people to move too often for their own good.”
That’s silly, almost preposterous. People don’t move (at least not a majority of people) bc their housing is poorly built. They move bc this is the 21st century, a transient era. They move bc the American public has been convinced by realtors, builders, developers, the Joneses, etc that only one housing type will function properly for each step in life. There is one style for post-college, one for newlyweds, one for young families, one for growing families, one for empty nesters, another for your golden years. C’mon now. Pay attention to the verbiage your peers are using; stop blaming it on shoddy housing. Point the finger of truth at materialism, socio-economic competition, and the lack of ability to think for oneself.
Go for universal design! It’s not just for wheelchair bound denizens.
Filed under: AIA, community, universal design, urbanization
16/01/2009 • 2:30 pm 0
Expanding Architectural Conversation
Metropolis editor in chief Susan S. Szenasy will discuss the publisher’s new book Expanding Architecture: Design as Activism with some of its contributors on Sat., 22 Jan., in Atlanta. Contributors include designers, developers (yes, they can fit nicely in the same sentence), manufacturers, policy makers and others.
Learn more about this free and participatory event through Metropolis.
Filed under: AIA, design, events, urbanization
13/01/2009 • 2:30 pm 0
Gertude Lempp Kerbis: An Architectural Pioneer
When she was in college she broke into Frank Lloyd Wright’s house in Wisconsin, slept in it overnight and listened to Beethoven, waking the next morning with a knowledge so enviably keen self-awareness: she would become an architect. In the next few years she would realize that intention, studying under world-renown architects Walter Gropius and Mies van der Rohe. Six decades later Chicago architect Gertrude “Gert” Lempp Kerbis has received the 2008 American Institute of Architects Chicago Lifetime Achievement Award. Some of her work includes Modernist designs on the Air Force Academy, O’Hare International Airport and a condo building in Chicago.
“Her contribution is definitely two-fold: the progress she made so that women can be architects and then the progress she made as a designer,” Carol Ross Barney, FAIA, principal of Ross Barney Architects, says in an 18-minute doc made about Gert. The doc was shown recently at the Cliff Dwellers Arts Foundation, an artsy hangout in Chicago’s Loop.
“I was inspired by Frank Lloyd Wright… (Gropius and Mies). These were the visionaries of our age,” says Lempp Kerbis says, who’s also worked for SOM.
While studying at the University of Wisconsin the Chicago native read a Life magazine article in which she discovered Wright’s Taliesin was just near. “So I immediately left the dorm and hitchhiked (there). It was like a group of buildings, and this particular building has glass going all the way to the floor… so you could easily see into these living rooms and bedrooms, which is what I was peering into. As I was peering into this marvelous enchantment I had heard heavy footsteps behind me and I turned around, thinking someone was going to scream at me, and it was a white peacock in full flutter. It was so amazing, it was like an outer body experience.”
Lempp Kerbis founded Chicago Women in Architecture (which meets Tuesday, 20 Jan). “I had asked Mies if I could please do my own thesis, and he said to me, ‘You mean you want me to work on your project and you don’t want to work on my project? No.’”
Shortly therafter Gert began working for Skidmore, Owings and Merrill. There she was lead designer of the dining hall of the Air Force Academy in Colorado Springs. She also designed O’Hare International Airport’s Seven Continents Building. One of her most discussed projects is an urban renewal project for the City of Chicago, an 11-unit condominium building at 2131 N. Clark Street. It earned her a Distinguished Building Award from the AIA.
Originally she thought it was a “very undesirable site.”
“I thought I could change that… if I created a kind of special space to isolate you from the bus line and the traffic. The bedrooms looked out on the greenhouse. Their living rooms and dining rooms opened out on the greenhouse. Forty percent of the people who originally bought the greenhouse 35 years ago are still residents. I love the project,” she says.
To learn more about Gert contact the Chicago AIA. Meanwhile see some recent video of her through the Art Institute of Chicago.
Filed under: AIA, architecture, events
08/12/2008 • 2:30 pm 2
101 Simple Things to Know about Architecture
Those interested in architecture and even practitioners might check out Matthew Frederick’s book, 101 Things I Learned in Architecture School.
The book eschews dogma and overly theoretical approaches. Instead Frederick’s intuitive approach blends levity, practicality, and fundamentals, proving quite edifying and refreshing. It is instrumental in understanding the essential concept of space in architecture.
Consider some of his 101 tips:
“Architects are late bloomers,” his last tip says. “Most architects do not hit their professional stride until around age 50!” As an example he points out that Zaha Hadid was born in 1950 and has only recently become a household name.
“We move through negative spaces and dwell in positive spaces.” This is also a concept you might hear interior designers employ.
“Suburban buildings are freestanding objects in space. Urban buildings are often shapers of space.”
“A good designer isn’t afraid to throw away a good idea,” he writes. “Just because an interesting idea occurs to you doesn’t mean in belongs in the building you are designing.”
“The public doesn’t understand well what we do. I think the public sees us as these Howard Rourke visionaries, the ‘starchitect’ who walks into a room with the cape draped on the shoulders and pronounces these great truths. The rest of society sees the architect as sort of a glorified drafter. This would be the client who comes to me and says, ‘I know what I want; I just need you to draft it for me.’ We took courses in social theory, perception and consciousness, art history and structural design,” he says in AIA’s podcast Podnet: Architecture Knowledge Review.
He’s stated several times that he wrote the book because of his nebulous and confusing experience as a student of architecture and his experiences teaching it at several colleges. The book, he says, is akin to an architectural “cheat sheet.” The sometimes comedic approach is useful for anyone who likes architecture as well as practitioners.
Learn more about his Mass.-based design studio.
Buy the book through the publisher.
Filed under: AIA, architecture, books, design
13/11/2008 • 2:30 pm 0
Building Your Job-Seeking Confidence, Designing Your Next Career Move
A friend who works for CBT in Boston has watched his firm drop from more than 270 employees to just hover above 200 since he started there in August ’07. He’s afraid he’s next on the layoff chopping block.
Home-related magazine editors from Maine, Cincinnati, and Sarasota have stopped distributing assignments if not completely ceased publication.
Builders and banks across the country have gone belly-up in this economic landslide.
So what to do when desperately searching for jobs that simply are not there?
In an October AIA podcast, Jim Zaniello, vice president of Association Strategies, an organizational development and executive search firm in Alexandria, Va., discussed how to find or keep a job in this blistery, wintery economy. SpaceDesignJournal has encapsulated his tips.
Before getting laid off:
1) Demonstrate your value to your employer.
A) Display your networking within the firm and in the community. Bring information back to the firm about what’s happening within the community.
B) “As firms get leaner, individuals should take on more work, even if it’s not at the level that you want. Making yourself as invaluable as possible at this time is helpful because it will be remembered,” Zaniello says.
C) Learn new skills.”You’ll be a hot prospect within your firm but also make yourself more marketable if you do need to get a new job.”
If you are laid off:
1) Try not to panic. You’re not alone in this.
2) Cut back on everything that’s not absolutely necessary. It’s only for a short amount of time.
3) Attend functions held by the local chapter of any professional organization you’re a member of. Even the Chamber of Commerce might lead somewhere.
4) “Do things you enjoy but never find time for. If that’s exercise, going to movies, or focusing on a hobby, these activities help you maintain your balance,” Zaniello says.
5) “If there are professional skills you want to brush up on, now is the time to do it. As an example, a colleague of mine recently found himself in transition. He spent as much time seeking a new position as he did taking … courses to bring his technological skill set to the cutting edge. It helped cut his job search shorter.”
Resources:
Indeed.com. this job search web site has forums, job listings, and reports on job trends.
40Plus is a Washington, D.C.-area organization that helps individuals over 40 years old to find and network about career management, job listings, and develop new skills such as creating a web presence.
Social networking sites such as LinkedIn. “They’re being used to get the word out about job openings. Early and mid-career level job applicants should definitely look at these,” Zaniello says.
In an interview:
“Remain confident and know what your success are. Tell prospective employers what you’ve done and how it will apply to the position sought,” he says, reminding job seekers of overall strategies when seeking work.
On a more personal note, he says, “Plan for the search to take longer than you expect. It has nothing to do with you or your ability; it has everything to do with the pace at which organizations will move to fill positions. You don’t have any control over their time table.”
30/10/2008 • 1:30 pm 0
Free Housing for the Homeless
Some architects know there is more to life than designing houses for the rich and famous.
The Mad Housers of Atlanta have found a simple, replicable way to provide free housing for the homeless. The non profit builds shelter for homeless people in metropolitan Atlanta on empty municipal land, abandoned lots and the like.
They specialize in wood-framed huts, 6 x 8 x 10, with a gabled roof, sleeping loft, locking door, and wood burning stove for both heat and cooking. They cost about $400, take a few hours to assemble and require almost no technical building knowledge. The Mad Housers assemble a dozen or so a year. Lately, they’ve been posting the huts’ blueprints and assembly instructions online for advocates elsewhere to permeate similar programs with their designs. Some 15 architects volunteer for the group.
Read similar stories the American Institute of Architects Archiblog.
Filed under: AIA, architecture
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