Knowledge Scholarships Awarded For Palm Springs Conference
April 25, 2013
The AIA’s Committee on Design has selected two Knowledge Scholars to attend our Spring Conference—“Regional Modernism” in Palm Springs, California, May 9-12. The scholarship provides all travel expenses and registration to the conference and add-on activities. In exchange, the Scholars will provide COD with a written and illustrated 10-page report on one favorite Palm Springs project that will be used on the COD website and social media. In addition, The Scholars will follow through on the idea for communicating the value of their COD experience to a wider audience which they supplied in their application.
The goal of this scholarship is to introduce an architect to the Committee on Design and ask them to communicate the value of COD to other architects. We looked for individuals who are passionate about practicing architecture and who will have an ability to communicate what they learn at the conference to a wider audience. To that end, we sought applicants who have experience in practicing architecture as well communication skills with social media and blogging about architecture. Applicants needed to be AIA members who have been licensed architects for less than 10 years. In addition, our selections were limited to applicants who have not received travel funds from any other AIA group (AIA National, local chapter or Knowledge Community.)
Alvin Huang, AIA
Alvin Huang is the Founder and Design Principal of Synthesis Design + Architecture. He is an award-winning architect, designer, and educator. Alvin received a Master of Architecture and Urbanism from the Architectural Association Design Research Laboratory (2004) in London and a Bachelor of Architecture from the University of Southern California (1998) in Los Angeles. His work has been widely published and exhibited and has gained international recognition, including being selected to represent the UK at the Beijing Biennale in 2008. In 2009 he was awarded a D&AD Award for Environmental Design.
Alvin is currently a Tenure-track Professor at the USC School of Architecture in Los Angeles. He has also taught design studios and master classes at the Architectural Association (London),
Tongji University (Shanghai), Tsinghua University (Beijing), University of Lund (Sweden) and Chelsea
College of Art (London). He has been an invited critic and guest lecturer at various institutions in
the UK, US, Germany, Spain, Sweden Israel, Switzerland and China.
Learn more about Alvin Huang on the Synthesis DNA website here: http://synthesis-dna.com/
Deepika Padam, AIA
Deepika Padam is the founder and Principal of BLEND Architecture in San Francisco. Licensed since 2008, Deepika earned her Bachelor of Architecture degree from Guru Nanak Dev University in 1999 and went on to earn her Master of Architecture degree in 2003 from the University of Michigan. Since graduating, Deepika has worked for a number of architecture firms and has been engaged with the AIA through volunteer service and leadership roles in local, regional and national venues, recently winning the national 2013 AIA Young Architects Award.
As the Editor-in-Chief for YAF, she converted a single page newsletter to over 80 pages of eMagazine that has now become a go-to resource for over 23,000 young architect members of AIA. Last year, Deepika successfully got YAF Summit20 articles published with ARCHITECT magazine and Metropolis Blog in addition to voice/video recordings by Monocle Radio and AIA media. She is an active presence on a variety of social media including: Tumblr, WordPress, Pinterest, Instagram, Twitter, Facebook, Linkedin, Google+ and Foursquare.
Learn more about Deepika Padam on the BLEND Architecture website here: http://www.blendarch.com/Home.html
In addition to the other projects we will visit in Palm Springs during our Regional Modernism Conference, May 9-12, we will also be visiting the Marmol Radziner Prefab Desert house.
Photos courtesy of Megan Lawler.
Take a look at this 2 1/2 minute YouTube video of the designers talking about their work:
Other projects we will visit in Palm Springs include:
Menrad Residence by William Krisel
Edris House by E. Stewart Williams
Desert One by Jim Jennings
Steel Houses by Don Wexler
Grace Miller House by Richard Neutra
Abernathy House by William F. Cody
Hotel Lautner by John Lautner
L’Horizon Hotel by William F. Cody
Southridge Residence William F. Cody
There is still time to register! Click here for more information. And don’t forget to submit your images for the 2013 Member Slide Show.
2012 Spring Conference in Columbus Member Slideshow Attendees
The annual Member Slideshow is always an enjoyable event held at our spring conference. This year it will be held after the closing dinner on Saturday, May 11, in Palm Springs, California. It is intended to foster a dialogue among committee members about their recent projects.
All COD members are welcome to submit. Those in attendance at the conference will present their recent work in six images-sixty seconds, as described below.
With your permission, we will also post your work on the COD blog throughout the year. See here for an example. If you would like your work included you will need to return the copyright permission form that’s linked to at the bottom of this post. If you are unable to attend the conference, you are still welcome to submit your work in the same format, along with the permission form, and we will post it on the blog as well.
Friday, April 19: Deadline for Slideshow Submission
Saturday, May 11: Member Slideshow, at 6:00 pm, Palm Springs, CA
There is still time to register for the Spring Conference. See registration information on the COD website here.
Submission Requirements
The format is an informal PowerPoint slide presentation, moderated by Andy King, our Slideshow Coordinator. Each participant will be given one minute to briefly describe their work as their six images are projected.
To participate please submit the following by Friday, April 19:
1. One Title slide labeled with your firm name and including a photograph of you or your firm.
2. Six (6) slides, labeled with firm name, project name, project location, and photo credit if required.
Specifications for Submitting Digital Slides:
Resolution: 96 ppi (pixels per inch)
File Format: Jpg, Optimized (please do not send power point slides)
Document size (this the recommended sizes):
Maximum: 960 x 720 pixels
File size: Maximum: 2 mb
Please send the 7 total images (including the Title Slide) by e-mail to:
Andy King AIA, NCARB, LEED AP BD+C
aking@BBH-Design.com<mailto:aking@BBH-Design.com>
Or, mail on a CD to:
Andy King
c/o BBH Design
8708 Brownleigh Dr.
Raleigh, NC 27677-7411
Also, if you would like your work posted on the COD blog site please include with your slides the following permission form – completed in a digital or printed format.
The Committee on Design visited Columbus, Indiana in April, 2012. Click here to read the conference report written by John Morris Dixon, FAIA. Photos courtesy of Jim Childress, FAIA, Ann Thompson and Aaron Trahan.
Save The Dates: 2013 COD Events
January 16, 2013
Planning for this year’s Committee on Design events is in full swing. The following conferences and events are now scheduled with details to come. Please visit the COD website in the coming months to see details of these events.
Spring Conference: Regional Modernism, Palm Springs, May 9-12
We will spend three days exploring early modern buildings in Palm Springs, California. As with all of our conferences, we will be pulling all possible strings to give our members the opportunity to visit projects seldom seen.
The Spring Conference also includes the Annual Member Slideshow where all COD members have six slides and sixty seconds to show their work from the last year.
Miller House, Richard Neutra 1937
Elrod House, John Lautner 1968
National Convention Awards Reception and Dinner – Denver, June 20th
We will hold our annual Awards Reception and Dinner at the National Convention on Thursday, June 20th at 6:30 P.M. This event will be held at the McNichols Civic Center Building, a recently-restored Carnegie Library in Denver’s Civic Center Park. The reception and dinner will be an opportunity to celebrate this year’s winners of the Gold Medal, Firm Award, 25 Year Award, Honorary Fellows, and Collaborative Achievement Award. This event provides the opportunity to meet some of the best architects in the world in an informal setting.
2012 Gold Medal recipient Stephen Holl at the COD Annual Reception. Photo courtesy of Jeff Wolfram.
During the convention, the Committee on Design will also lead conversations with the Firm Award recipient, the Twenty-five Year Award recipient, the Honorary Fellows from around the world, and the Institute Honors for Collaborative Achievement Award recipients.
Fall Conference: Origins of Modernism – Berlin, September 22-28
We will spend five days exploring the roots of modernism in Berlin, Germany. This conference has been in planning for about four years and will provide an opportunity to visit early modern buildings as well new ones accompanied by their architects.
Neue Nationalgalerie, Ludwig Mies van der Rohe 1968. Photo by Jim Childress.
2012 Member SlideShow: Architectural Resources Cambridge (ARC), Cambridge, Massachusetts
December 28, 2012
Member Slideshows are created each year for the Spring Conference to illustrate the recent work of the attendee’s firms. All COD members are welcome to participate. Attendees have 6 slides and 60 seconds to present their projects, or whatever is on their mind. Many of the 2012 Member Slideshow slides are posted on the COD Pinterest page.
Philip Laird, AIA, LEEP AP of Architectural Resources Cambridge (ARC) in Cambridge, Massachusetts presented his slides.
Genzyme Corporation, Biologics Support Center, Framingham, MA. Photo courtesy of John Horner Photography.
Boston College, 2121 Commonwealth Avenue Renovation & Addition, Boston, Massachusetts. Photo courtesy of Paul S. Bartholomew Photography.
Tufts University School of Dental Medicine, Pre-Doctoral Clinic Renovations, Boston, Massachusetts. Photo courtesy of Warren Patterson.
The Skating Club Of Boston, New Skating Facility. Boston, Massachusetts. Image courtesy of ARC.
The Skating Club Of Boston, New Skating Facility. Boston, Massachusetts. Image courtesy of ARC.
The Skating Club Of Boston, New Skating Facility. Boston, Massachusetts. Image courtesy of ARC.
Fall Conference Scholarship Announcement
October 18, 2012
Image by Brownie Harris
We are delighted to announce that Sarah Corbitt, Assoc. AIA, LEED AP, from Charleston, South Carolina is the recipient of the COD Travel Scholarship to attend our fall conference in Seville, Spain.
Sarah Corbitt received a Master of Architecture from North Carolina State University in 2009 and a Bachelor of Arts in American Studies, UNC-Chapel Hill. She is an Architectural Intern with LS3P Associates Inc. in their Charleston, South Carolina office. She has experience blogging – sarahcorbitt.com/blog, as well as a background in video production including work for the Center for Documentary Studies at Duke University, and writing and producing short feature stories for a PBS affiliate in North Carolina. We are excited to have her join us and look forward to her sharing her observations.
This is our first year of providing scholarships to our spring and fall conferences. We are appreciative to the 69 people who applied for this scholarship. The talent and quality of applicants made a single selection very difficult. The scholarships are funded through private donations and we hope to grow this program so we are able to extend this opportunity to more recipients.
Join your colleagues from the Committee on Design and the Historic Resources Committee this November at our Fall Conference in and around Seville, Spain. Go to the AIA COD website for more information or click here to register.
Seville – photo by Jordi Puig, Artchitectours
We will spend 6 days, from Sunday November 11 through Saturday November 16 in Seville. For those who would like to stay longer we will continue to Granada, Cordoba, and Morocco from the 17th to the 21st.
We will stay in the old city of Seville. Our hosts, specialists in Spanish architecture, will introduce us to local architects, planners, and historians as we learn about the history and development of the city. We will visit the Roman ruins at Italica, the Cathedral of St. Mary of The See, the Medina, and have dinner on a boat as it travels down the Guadalquivir River.
Schindler Tower – photo by Mike Mense
Other highlights we’ll see will include tours of the Metropol Parasol by Jürgen Mayer-Hermann, the 1992 World’s Fair with structures by Santiago Calatrava, SITE, Grimshaw Architects, Tadao Ando, among others. We will visit the Casa de Retiro Espiritual by Emilio Ambasz and the Abengoa Solar Research Facility with buildings by Richard Rogers.
Casa de Retiro Espiritual – photo by Jordi Puig, Artchitectours
Costurero de la Reina, Seville – photo by Jordi Puig, Artchitectours
We will then travel to the historic cities of Granada and Cordoba to visit the Alhambra, The Grand Mosque and the Aga Kahn Award-winning Museum of Madinat-al-Zahra. The Madinat al Zahra is considered one of the most significant early Islamic archaeological sites in the world. We will visit the Madinat al Zahra Museum, by Nieto Sobejano Arquitectos S.L.P. Completed in 2008, the Museum won a 2010 Aga Khan Award for Architecture and provides a research and interpretive center for the historic site and a display of the archaeological findings.
Metropol Parasol – photo by Fernando Alda
Madinat al Zahra Museum -photo by Jordi Puig Artchitectours
Seville World’s Fair – photo by Jordi Puig Artchitectours
Alcázar Seville – photo by Jordi Puig, Artchitectours
An additional side trip will have us cross the Mediterranean to spend two days in Chefchaouen, Tétouan, and Fez, Morocco before returning to Seville to end our trip. Chefchaouen was founded in 1471 by Moorish exiles from Spain and is distinct for its blue-rinsed houses and buildings.
Alhambra – photo by Jordi Puig, Architectours
Fez, Morocco – photo by Jordi Puig, Architectours
- Chefchaouen, Morocco – photo by Will Adams
Early Registration is open until August 10, 2012
Like all of the COD Conferences, the adventure will recharge your batteries!
Defining Architectural Design Excellence in a Measuring Society with Will Bruder, Tom Fisher, Ed Feiner, Jane Weinzapfel, Susan Szenasy, Anne Schopf
Join us at the AIA National Convention in Washington, D.C. on Wednesday, May 16, 2012, 8 a.m. – 12 p.m.
The AIA Committee on Design (COD) is focused in 2012 on seeking definitions of architectural design excellence. Five prominent leaders of our profession have spent the past 10 months discussing and searching for those definitions. The definitions are important because they will allow architects to more clearly explain the value of their work to their clients and because architects will develop a greater shared understanding of architectural excellence and a greater ability to judge their own work as it develops. In addition, the presenters hope that attendees will contribute their own ideas. A related conversation is already under way in the COD Discussion Forum on the AIA.org Web site—a discussion that will continue long after this event. All architects invited to join that conversation.
Will Bruder is well known for his work in the southwest, and with projects now further afield brings an international perspective to the discussion. Tom Fisher is Professor of Architecture and Dean of the College of Design at the University of Minnesota. He has taught, lectured, and written extensively about architecture over the last few decades. Ed Feiner was the instigator and leader of the GSD design excellence program and brings insight on how to achieve excellence in public architecture. Jane Weinzapfel, of Leers Weinzapfel, provides a grounded voice in how to design with difficult programs in complex locations. Susan Szenasy, editor of Metropolis Magazine, is not an architect and provides a public point of view on how to judge excellence. Anne Schopf, former Chair of COD and design partner at Mahlum Architects in Seattle will moderate the conversation. It promises to be rich with insightful perspectives and provocative candor.
This workshop is a primary fund-raiser for COD. The fees for this lecture help COD continue to support design excellence through our awards programs, publications, and conferences.
Wednesday, May 16 | 8:00 a.m. – 12:00 p.m. | Earn 3.75 CEH | Cost $155.00
Register for this event here.
Meet The 2012 AIA COD Architectural Intern Scholars
April 10, 2012
The AIA’s Committee on Design offered two scholarships to attend our Spring Conference in Columbus, Indiana, April 12-15 providing all travel expenses and registration to the conference for architectural interns who have a BArch or MArch degree and are Associate Members of the AIA. In return, the Scholars will:
- Record through photographs, video, note taking, recording and drawings the places visited.
- Record through photographs, video, note taking, recording and drawings the Discussion, Parlor Chat, and other presentations.
- Post to the AIA_COD Twitter account as the conference is in session.
- Publish 15 blog posts on the COD website, and cross-reference through Facebook and Twitter. The posts should describe the places visited, lessons learned and your discoveries, and the ideas you garnered during the events.
Meet the Scholars:
Sheena Enriquez graduated with a Bachelor of Architecture from the Illinois Institute of Technology in 2011 where, in addition to her studies, she honed her skills in telling a compelling story and reporting objectively. This, in part, lead to her being selected as the student commencement speaker at her graduation last May. Ms. Enriquez served one term as the Vice-President of the AIA Students at the Illinois Institute of Technology. During that time, she represented their chapter at the Grassroots Leadership Conference, AIAS Forum, and the Spring and Fall Midwest Quad Conferences. Sheena is currently employed by the IIT Office of Undergraduate Admission as an Admission Counselor active in recruiting students and in outreach activities to underserved student populations. A cycling enthusiast, Sheena has been characterized as energetic, intelligent, enthusiastic and dedicated in her work to improve the world and can be found communicating her ideas on Facebook, Twitter and Pinterest.
Ms. Enriquez’ blog posts may be seen at: http://www.inventingthefuture.iit.edu/journal/author/iit-inventingthefuture
Aaron W. Trahan has been extremely active since graduating from Northeastern University with both Bachelors and Masters degrees in Architecture in 2010 and 2011, respectively. Not only has he been working full-time at Elkus Manfredi Architects in Boston – gaining experience on projects ranging from single family affordable housing to master planning and large scale developments, he has also been active in the Boston Society of Architects Housing Committee and is a contributing writer on the architecture blog UrbDeZine Boston. Aaron has been in charge of a social media and web design strategy for the BSA Housing Committee and is well-versed in the digital technologies of blogs, Facebook and Twitter, among others.
Aaron is extremely passionate about sustainable philosophy being successfully integrated into practice and design, and is a strong advocate for sustainable affordable housing, community development, and urban agriculture. You can typically find Aaron riding his bicycle around Boston, looking for a quiet place to read and catch up on work.
UrbDeZine Boston http://boston.urbdezine.com/
BSA Housing Committee at http://twitter.com/#!/BSAHousing
