Reflections on the AIA25 Public Architects Symposium in Boston
By Phillip Neuberg, FAIA, Chair
The Public Architects Symposium, held on June 4th, at AIA25 was a resounding success, with 78 participants and over a dozen speakers. Our leadership committee carefully orchestrated the program to provide a broad overview of the work of public architects - from local to state, federal and international scales of impact - and the majority of presentations can be found on our Public Architects Resources page.
The Value of Public Architecture
By Mahbuba Khan, AIA, MPA, LEED AP, President of MnKhan Architects PLLC
Stephen T. Ayers, FAIA. Photo credit: Mahbuba Nahid N. Khan, AIA
The Public Architects Knowledge Committee Chair Phillip Neuberg, FAIA, welcomed Honorable Stephen T. Ayers, FAIA, for his keynote morning speech. As Interim EVP/Chief Executive Officer of the American Institute of Architects (AIA) and former 11th Architect of the Capitol, Mr. Ayers brings decades of leadership and a deep commitment to public service in architecture.
In his remarks, Mr. Ayers emphasized the unique role public architects play as both stewards of design excellence and navigators of governmental protocols. He highlighted the importance of educating the public about the value architects bring to civic life especially in times of uncertainty. His message strongly encouraged architects in all levels of their careers to engage more deeply with communities, collaborate with civic leaders, take actions and seize moments of crisis as opportunities for meaningful impact.
With AIA’s growing membership and the strength of its 21 Knowledge Communities, Mr. Ayers issued a powerful call to action:
“Don’t let a crisis go by without turning it into an opportunity.”
His words were a compelling reminder of the responsibility and potential architects hold in shaping the public realm.
Lessons from The Great Building of 20th-Century Boston: It’s a Landmark
By Ludmilla Pavlova-Gillham, FAIA
Gary Wolf, FAIA. Photo credit: Mahbuba Nahid N. Khan, AIA.
Gary Wolf, FAIA regaled us with tales from the history of the 250+ years of Boston city development and the success of his two decades long campaign to achieve historical landmark status for Boston City Hall. Who knew that Boston was shamed by Chicago to renovate its Old State House, and that Quincy Market was a type of public-private Partnership (P3) project? What were Boston politicians thinking when they chose a controversial design and built an ambitious city hall that was hailed as both one of the 10 most beautiful city halls and the world's fourth ugliest building (read more on that here)? What is the role of architectural drawings and representation in how we value "ugly" buildings? Wolf's presentation delighted and informed the audience with (counter-intuitive!) anecdotes about 19th and 20th century aesthetic and material preferences, changing opinions of modernism and monumentality, and editorial cartoons that underlined the intersection of architecture with politics, as well as Beantown Boston's famous sense of humor. Here are some key takeaways for current practice:
- Historic preservation and urban renewal goals may conflict, but they are not mutually exclusive; design excellence is engendered by a deliberate effort to integrate cultural and historic landmarks together with a commitment to a public program for future advancement.
- Carefully devised municipal architectural competitions have the capacity to inspire creative solutions to wicked problems of urban and economic decay.
- Architectural sketches and representations offer a metaphorical language and clarity of intent that serve not only the architectural design process, but also the client and future generations.
- The architecture of civic structures has the capacity to reveal the primary elements of government functions.
- Buildings are subjects to the vagaries of taste and electoral politics; the best of them endure when they inspire concrete manifestations of individual, institutional and public appreciation.
Takeaways from the Federal Real Estate Update
By Ludmilla Pavlova-Gillham, FAIA and Leslie Kahn, AIA
Adam Bodner, VP of Federal Real Property Association. Photo credit: Ludmilla Pavlova-Gillham, FAIA
Adam Bodner, VP of Federal Real Property Association, provided a sobering account of a significant shift that is occurring in the federal government’s management of their property. Among the issues that Adam cited were changes in the quantitative methods for assessing building occupancy and utilization, real asset value, and the disposition of federal assets that are in progress nationwide. Some insights include:
- The current loss of 120,000 employees has resulted in a large loss of professional management expertise and is likely to cause outsourcing/privatization of both facilities and services. The cuts have been more severe in certain departments; for example, the General Services Administration Public Buildings Services is aiming to go from 5,600 to 2,100 people--62% reduction.
- A focus on utilization rates to evaluate and consolidate public buildings and federally leased space.
- The GSA will exercise greater authority to make decisions and right-size the government’s real estate portfolio, going from ownership towards leasing.
- The cost of redevelopment of historic federal buildings may result in their considerable devaluation.
The Public University: Driving the Future
By Ludmilla Pavlova-Gillham, FAIA
From left to right: Ludmilla Pavlova-Gillham, FAIA, Adam Baacke, Kelly Hayes-McAlonie, FAIA and Douglas Marshall, AIA. Photo credit: Mahbuba Nahid N. Khan, AIA.
A panel with a focus on Massachusetts and New York public universities featured Adam Baacke, Commissioner, Division of Capital Asset Management and Maintenance (DCAMM), Commonwealth of Massachusetts, Kelly Hayes-McAlonie, FAIA, LEED AP, Director of Campus Planning, University of Buffalo, and Douglas Marshall, AIA, Assistant Director for Campus Planning, University of Massachusetts, Amherst, MA. The speakers explored the important role that architects in civic service play in ensuring that public assets are aligned with the community’s values and support the institutional mission.
Moderated by Ludmilla Pavlova-Gillham, FAIA, the panelists engaged in a broad discussion of how to meet capital funding challenges with strategies for building and maintaining sustainable and resilient facilities that support vibrant communities. Here are some takeaways:
- Governor Maura Healey’s higher education bill, the Bright Act, intends to invest up to $2.5 billion in new capital funding to modernize public higher education infrastructure while expanding access to 21st-century skills for students. A “shark chart”, showing MA investments in state infrastructure (in GSF) over the course of three centuries, provided the context for this historic investment by illustrating the high impact of mid-century modern facilities on the state portfolio.
- While MA and NY have different governance and funding models, each state leverages their public university to accomplish a range of strategic goals, such as developing important new technologies, providing workforce development, increasing access to housing, achieving decarbonization goals, and much more.
- All panelists emphasized the importance of design and construction standards that underscore design excellence, facility flexibility, sustainability and resilience, and that respect the culture and history of each institution.
- And all described efforts to use new project delivery methods, and to establish public-private-institutional partnerships that result in innovative economic solutions for strategic new construction projects, renewal of existing facilities, and for monetizing state assets.
Creating Connection, Creating Community
By Mahbuba Khan, AIA, MPA, LEED AP, President of MnKhan Architects PLLC
Kun Lim, President of Kun Lim Studio LLC. Photo credit: Ludmilla Pavlova-Gillham, FAIA
A presentation by Malaysian architect Kun Lim, President of Kun Lim Studio LLC based in Seattle, WA, with an additional office in Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia, concluded the symposium’s theme, “Scalable Design: From Local to Global.” Mr. Lim, shared his remarkable journey—from growing up as one of six children raised by a single mother in a Malaysian village to leading the planning of Malaysia’s capital city, Putrajaya.
His childhood experiences of communal living deeply influenced his approach to designing institutional buildings in developing countries around the world. His family’s self-sufficiency—growing their own food, reusing materials, and minimizing waste—naturally informed the sustainable features of his architecture and landscaping. His emphasis on energy conservation, building orientation, solar heat gain, and natural ventilation stems from these early life lessons.
Mr. Lim captivated the audience with compelling examples of his work and engaging, humorous stories. The Public Architects Knowledge Committee sincerely appreciates Kun Lim for making the trip to present and share his insights.
Architecture of Civic Sustainability
By Julia Laue, FAIA
From left to right: Julia Laue, FAIA, Paul Woolford, FAIA, Anica Landreneau, AIA, Eric Corey Freed, LEED Fellow
Julia Laue, FAIA, LEED AP, City Architect for San Francisco Public Works, led the final session--a panel discussion addressing how we can establish priorities, set goals, and develop effective practices and strategies with government municipalities at all levels from local, state to federal levels to achieve meaningful sustainability outcomes.
This was a perfect mix of speakers who each uniquely addressed sustainability in civic architecture. Julia Laue kicked it off with a high-level overview of how San Francisco has successfully implemented sustainability at the local level, since the launch of the LEED requirements in buildings in 1998 and the first Climate Action Plan in 2004 to the current issuance of the 2025 Climate Action Plan and the successful implementation of 11.2M SF of LEED Certified space.
Paul Woolford, FAIA, Principal Designer for HOK San Francisco highlighted (4) civic projects which included local, municipal and federal governments--from the San Francisco Public Safety Building to the NOAA Pacific Regional Headquarters in Honolulu, and the Moss Courthouse in Salt Lake City. He shared insights into creating high performing, contextually appropriate environmental responses at multiple scales. Most impressive was the passive cooling system implemented at the NOAA Oceanic & Atmospheric Administration building in Honolulu Hawaii where HOK challenged the group to consider out of the box innovative approaches to sustainability.
Anica Landreneau, AIA, Sustainable Design Director for HOK in Washington, D.C. provided an insightful presentation on how energy policies and codes have been implemented from the local to national levels. Anica has been instrumental in this area, providing testimony before congress on the importance of adoption of the latest energy codes including the Zero Code, benchmarking policies, building energy performance standards, embodied carbon and electrification. Policy recommendations were included in the House Select Committee report, Infrastructure Bill, and Inflation Reduction Act. Anica also highlighted the role of architects in influencing policy and regulatory changes that drive the demand for building decarbonization. Anica emphasized the importance of leadership at the subnational level to drive lasting change.
Eric Corey Freed, RA, LFA, LEED Fellow, EcoDistricts AP, Principal, Sustainability Director of Cannon Design wrapped up the panel narrative with his dynamic presentation on the humanistic side of sustainability and discussed how we can investigate various approaches and processes to incorporate these strategies from the outset, ensuring they are not removed from the project during the value-engineering process. Some of the takeaways here include incorporating sustainability in projects & specifications that do NOT cost additional funds and even have a positive effect on the health and well-being of occupants. Rather than selling sustainability, we need to be selling the outcomes and benefits that sustainable strategies provide.
Link to PA Symposium PowerPoint presentations:
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Project Delivery and Public Architects Open Forum
Image credit: Public Architects Knowledge Community (IDKC)
This year, Public Architects leadership committee collaborated with our counterparts in the Project Delivery knowledge community to deliver thought provoking and insightful explorations of how design project procurement, design standards and sustainability guidelines all coalesce in the interests of the two KCs.
The KC leaders had structured the assembled attendants’ experience by dividing participants into smaller groups focused on sharing their experiences with project procurement, design standards and sustainability guidelines. Following documentation of the several lively small group discussions, time was left for each group to report back to the larger assembly for their knowledge, enrichment, and comments.
- Common issues exist in implementing / deciphering sustainability and resiliency goals. Most owners have aspirational sustainability goals but not the budget or fully developed concept for what “sustainability” actually looks like in execution.
- The framework for design excellence has been a huge benefit for the public architect community as a foundation document. Both KCs would be well served if the template could be used for standardizing additional functional areas.
- Local laws / regulations allowing, most agencies/states/owners have transitioned to CM at risk delivery models with a high degree of success. Design-build continues to have some issues specific to the public project market. Owners report differing experiences working with a “bridging” or “criteria” architect in design-build projects.
- Advocacy for public private partnerships and increased awareness at the national and local level would help owner agencies navigate the process and conduct a realistic risk inventory.
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An invaluable benefit of participating in AIA25 is the opportunity for members of the Public Architects leadership committee to enjoy each other’s company and celebrate civic architecture. Please join our Public Architects Knowledge Community, and hope to see you at future events online and at AIA26!
Public Architects Leadership and friends, from left to right: Jean Caroon, Ludmilla Pavlova-Gillham, Phillip Neuberg, Adam Pantelimon, Paula Loomis, Lisa Berretta, Julia Laue, Bryce Bounds, Mahbuba Khan and Olimpia Pantelimon