Housing and Community Development

Happy New Year! 

2021 was busy and productive. Despite the obvious challenges of the pandemic and continued dialogue and demonstration concerning the national conversation about race in America, the HCD members and staff created innovative new ways to connect with our 11,800 knowledge community members and our industry-wide partners.

We started 2021 by convening a Right-to-Housing Working Group to refresh our Knowledge Community’s mission statement. This updated mission statement reaffirmed the commitment of our Advisory Group members, reinvigorated our collective work, and provides a critical touchstone for our group moving forward. The mission statement reads:

The AIA Housing and Community Development Knowledge Community (HCD) is a network of architects and allied stakeholders that promotes equity in housing, excellence in residential design, and sustainable, vibrant communities for all, through education, research, awards, and advocacy

Updating our mission statement built upon a foundational statement made by the American Institute of Architects in 2017, which declared that access to housing is a “fundamental right.”

The AIA advocates for access to housing as a fundamental right. Architects are at the forefront of the challenges inherent to providing safe, healthy, and sustainable housing to all. The AIA advocates for governmental policies, programs, and incentives to promote the design, construction, renovation, rehabilitation, preservation and stabilization of safe, healthy, affordable, sustainable and disaster-resistant housing within the means of all people. In addition, the AIA supports regional, private-public, non-traditional, holistic approaches to solving the global housing crisis, teaching communities the benefits of higher-density housing near transit. We must proactively stem future sprawl and work with communities and legislators to provide real solutions that can accommodate the additional 2.5 billion people estimated to live on this planet by 2050.
(approved December 2017)

We believe that with the increased focus and advocacy of the AIA leadership on the critical issue of housing, plus AIA’s declaration in 2017, coupled with the refreshed mission statement of HCD, we are collectively working towards longstanding global humanitarian standards, namely adequate housing as recognized in the 1948 Universal Declaration of Human Rights [drive.google.com], which was signed by the United States.

We invite you to join our conversations about what the right to housing means and how architects can contribute to the goal through design practice and advocacy. Register for our first free AIA HCD webinar [network.aia.org] in a Right-to-Housing series, with Eric Tars, Legal Director for the National Homelessness Law Center, Monday, February 7, 2022, 12pm EST.
Other highlights of our work in 2021 include:

EDUCATION:

HCD's long-standing monthly webinars continue to be emblematic of our educational resources. Ranging in content from “Lessons learned from COVID-19” to “Can Land-use Laws be Fixed” and “Cost Escalation - Causes and Effects.” The webinars, which are offered the first Monday of the month at 12pm ET, are free, AIA continuing education (CE) credit-bearing, primarily Health, Safety and Welfare (HSW), and open to members as well as the general public. Visit the webinar schedule and registration here.

A highlight of this year was the creation of the Housing & Community Development KC Virtual Forum, a half-day convening to consider current issues in the field. We intend for the Forum to be an annual fall event. Recordings of the 2021 gathering can be found here.

Before it was canceled, HCD had been selected for an AIA’20 pre-convention workshop in partnership with Los Angeles Skid Row Housing Trust named “The Role of Architects in Ending Homelessness | Tour of innovative architecture that gives hope and dignity to our neighbors who have lost their homes.” We’re proud that this session will be offered at the Association of Collegiate Schools of Architecture (ACSA) conference this spring.

RESEARCH:

HCD commissioned research on the impacts of design on housing residents. Part one of the grant “Innovative Strategies for Measuring Success in Affordable Housing” was presented as a webinar in 2021 and part two will become available in 2022.

AWARDS:

In a wonderful transformation, we celebrated two years of the AIA Housing Award recipients, from 2020 and 2021, in a retooled virtual event that allowed the jurors to discuss the winning projects and the recipients themselves to join in the conversation.

It is a very rich and informative format which we envision continuing. Award-winning examples of excellence in housing design can be found in the awards books here.

HCD, in partnership with the New Urban Agenda Task Force, sent out a call to AIA components nationally to highlight completed projects that demonstrate how local groups are understanding and communicating New Urban Agenda principles. Component awards and cash prizes were given to AIA Minnesota for their 21st Century Development project, AIA Los Angeles for Design for Dignity: Housing an Inclusive Community, and AIA New York Design Corps, for the Small Business Reopening Network.

PARTNERSHIPS:

HCD members partnered with St. Louis community-based collaborative, 4theVille, to create a virtual tour and interactive session for the Association of Collegiate Schools of Architecture (ACSA) conference in spring 2021. HCD members were very involved in the Association for Community Design (ACD) and its conference and webinars. Several members made presentations and participated in the 50th Anniversary celebrations for the National Organization of Minority Architects (NOMA) conference in Detroit. HCD collaborated with the AIA Custom Residential Architects Network (CRAN) and the Royal Institute of British Architects (RIBA) on webinars.

ADVOCACY:

HCD has an extremely active advocacy component and has membership on the AIA Government Advocacy Committee (GAC).

A highlight of 2021 was working intensively with the AIA Strategic Council Housing Area Study group for a second year, working together to solidify housing as a top priority for the AIA. 

HCD members encouraged the AIA to require acknowledgment of the Architects Code of Conduct as a prerequisite to participating in virtual convenings to ensure an environment of civil discourse.

MEMBERSHIP:

We heartily congratulate current HCD Vice Chair Melissa Daniel and Past HCD Chair Katherine Williams and their colleagues as recipients of the prestigious 2022 AIA Whitney M. Young Jr. Award for work on their Riding the Vortex Initiative, which focuses on increasing the number of people of color licensed to practice architecture. Read more here.

We are delighted to welcome four new members to the HCD Advisory Group for 2022: Susan Odell, AIA is a senior associate at Paul B. Bailey Architect in New Haven, CT; Mike McGlone, AIA is founding principal of Alamo Architects in San Antonio, TX;  John Clark, AIA is a project manager and Enterprise Rose Fellow with South Florida Community Land Trust in Fort Lauderdale, FL; and Saakshi Terway, Associate AIA, a designer at Wiencek + Associates Architects + Planners in Washington, DC.

We look forward to a collaborative and productive 2022. Onward!

Elizabeth Debs, AIA - 2021 Chair

Ray Demers, Assoc. AIA - 2022 Chair 

American Institute of Architects | Housing and Community Development Knowledge Community