Blogs

Dear IAKC Members, As May greets us, we extend our warmest wishes to each of you. This year marks a momentous milestone—our 50th anniversary—and we are excited to celebrate this journey with you. The spaces we inhabit are profoundly significant, and the artistry of our interiors shapes our most immediate environment. We invite you to engage in inspiring dialogues within our community! Join us for our monthly At-Large meeting on the third Tuesday of every month. We delve into a tapestry of diverse topics that enrich our shared passion. Don't hesitate to contact Isabella Rosse, Director at AIA, at interiors@aia.org for a meeting ...

With over 25 years of experience in interior architecture, Candice brings a wealth of knowledge, creativity, and leadership to the AIA’s Interior Architecture Knowledge Community (IAKC), where she currently serves as co-chair. Now in her third year in the IAKC leadership group, Candice is a passionate advocate for thoughtful, forward-thinking, human-centered design in the interior environment. A native Marylander, Candice was born in Washington, D.C. and raised in the “DMV” (D.C., and its Maryland and Virginia suburbs). Candice’s architectural journey started her freshman year of high school in a drafting class. Here she experienced true flow, losing ...

by Eva Read-Warden, AIA, Principal-In-Charge, Arkitex Studio Intro Small and small-mid-size firm owners wear many hats and often struggle to find the time to develop a plan for acclimating new employees. Many of us wish people could walk into our offices and immediately be productive, but this is not realistic! Let’s look at onboarding of recent graduates; though most of the concepts, if not the specifics, could apply to any new employee. Onboarding is more than showing people where to find supplies, learning how to fill out a timesheet, or training on BIM software. Onboarding merges new employees into your firm's culture and provides them ...

JOIN COTE: Apply this spring/summer ror the national Leadership Group If you have been in the COTE community for a while, or are new to our tent, perhaps it’s time to think about applying to the national Leadership Group of COTE, an AIA Knowledge Community (since 1990). What does the COTE Leadership Group do? This group of a dozen people shape and shepherd COTE’s flagship programs, the COTE Top Ten Awards and the AIA/ACSA COTE Top Ten for Students Competition … as well as guiding knowledge development, collaborating with other climate groups at AIA (2030 Working Group, materials groups, the Resilience and Adaptation Group, and more). ...

Climate-responsive, affordable design: A case study In 2024, there were 27 $1 billion dollar weather events in the United States, so designing with climate in mind is more of an imperative than ever before. A new home in Austin, Texas makes a perfect case study in how to do this. Barley | Pfeiffer Architecture doesn’t describe their homes as “sustainable.” Instead, they favor “climate responsive.” The reason? “Climate-responsive homes are inherently sustainable but not every sustainable home is climate responsive,” said Peter L. Pfieffer, FAIA, principal. Their focus is on designing homes that reduce energy demand by accounting for real-world ...

5280 – If you’re from Denver, that number resonates. It’s everywhere, marking the “Mile High City.” From the row of purple seats in Coors Field to the engraved granite on the fifteenth step of the Colorado State Capitol, the mark of 5,280 feet above sea level appears again and again. (Note: Some 1969 researchers put the distinction of 5,280 feet at the 18th Capitol step, and in 2003, they changed it again to the 13th step. So let’s just say it’s approximately a mile high.) I had the privilege of visiting Denver earlier this month for the American Planning Association’s conference (#npc25). During the sessions and tours, one theme kept emerging: authenticity. ...

As an architecture professor and practitioner, collaboration is part of my daily routine. I invite interdisciplinary experts into my classes just as I invited them to be a part of my design teams. If you follow me on LinkedIn , you will see that this year, I hosted commissioning agents and mechanical engineers in my 5 th year workforce housing studio and just a couple weeks ago, I hosted social workers, nurses and psychologists in my well-being thesis studio. The written and verbal reflections of the guests and students after these workshops revealed a truth. None of us know it all, but together, we can sure learn a lot. As highlighted in my last chair letter, ...

After dismantling federal climate and energy policies, the current administration is moving on to state and local levels with the release of an Executive Order that attempts to eradicate state decarbonization efforts. As noted in a recent New York Times article, Gina McCarthy the former Administrator of the EPA said, “I think one of the reasons you see him going after states is that they are the final line of defense.” [1] In states where there are not strong climate policies, certain state governments are restricting cities from addressing concerns. Where I currently reside in Missouri (a home rule state) to pass a bill stating that no local jurisdiction ...

Toward a Carbon Neutral Corridor is an AIA Upjohn Research Initiative project that ambitiously explores how aging, auto-oriented commercial corridors in Middle America can be reimagined as vibrant, low-carbon, and socially resilient districts. Spearheaded by archimania , in collaboration with Transsolar - KlimaEngineering , the research builds upon the firm’s own South Cooper Street studio—the first adaptive reuse project certified as both Zero Energy and Zero Carbon by the International Living Future Institute, which also won a 2022 AIA COTE Top Ten award . This project delivers a set of layered toolkits designed for architects, ...

The Cote Network is excited to share an upcoming event If you are planning to attend the AIA National Conference this year in Boston! We hope that you can join us for a lively session of "curated networking" as the Committee on the Environment (COTE) hosts an open Forum. This will occur on Thursday, June 5 th at 11 am. COTE Chair Robin Puttock, the two past winners of the COTE Top Ten for Students Competition, and longtime industry leader and educator Barbra BatShalom will share remarks and engage in a great conversation! We hope to see everyone there! If you missed the Q1 COTE network call, don’t worry, you can find the recording and slides in our archive ...

This Earth Day, we’re proud to spotlight a selection of educational and advocacy initiatives from COTE groups at AIA state and local chapters that are making a tangible difference in their regions—proving that climate leadership starts at the local level. Architects and designers across the country are stepping up through their local networks—driving real change where it matters most: in their communities. The AIA Committee on the Environment (COTE) Network is a powerful force for environmental stewardship in architecture, with more than 60 local and state groups mobilizing around sustainable design, community resilience, and climate action. Educational ...

Be among the first to experience AIAU's groundbreaking Design for Decarbonization series with free access to the inaugural course, The Built Environment's Carbon Challenge —for a limited time. This exclusive opportunity ends after April 22 (Earth Day). After this date the course returns to regular pricing as part of our premium series. Course Link: https://aiau.aia.org/course/details/the-built-environments-carbon-challenge Promo Code: EARTHDAY2025 Please share with colleagues to amplify our industry's climate impact!