Thursday, July 21, 2022

AIA 2022 Conference on Architecture Recap

Last month I had the opportunity to attend and present at the national American Institute of Architects (AIA) 2022 conference on architecture in Chicago. I wanted to share a recap of my experience of the event in this blog post.


keep reading to learn more...

The conference was held at McCormick Place in downtown Chicago. This is a great venue for 10k architects to get together to learn about and explore great architecture. I love the Dale Chihuly art glass piece but I do wish they would correct the spelling of his name as I wrote about in this post.

Here are a few topics I will cover in this post:
  • Main stage highlights
  • Whitney Young award
  • Presentations
  • AIA Bookstore and book signings
  • Lake Flato awards
  • Dinners/fun
For what it's worth, most photos are shared in chronological order... 

Adjacent Pre-Event

Kate Sector, Lake|Flato Design Performance Coordinator, and I arrived a day early to attend the BuildingGreen SDL mini-summit hosted at the HKS Chicago office. 15 sustainability leaders gathered for a working session and presentations, as shown in the following three photos.




My Presentation

I was a co-presenter in one of the first classes on the first day! The session title was Building Design Cultures for Climate Action: Technology, Workflows, and Teams which you can read more about here. 

The speakers were:
  • Panelist:  Daniel Stine – Director of Design Technology, Lake|Flato Architects
  • Panelist:  Misha Semenov – Senior Architect & Sustainability Coordinator, Centerbrook Architects & Planners
  • Panelist:  Jack Rusk – Sustainability Research Associate, EHDD Architecture
  • Moderator:  Mark Herter – Associate Principal, Centerbrook Architects & Planners


The calm before the storm... ready to present!


The day ended with a dinner to celebrate the many meetings preparing for what turned out to be a successful presentation! Joining us from EHDD was SiJing Sanchez, AIA, who later spoke in a session about their AIA COTE Top Ten award!



On the Mainstage

There was a lot that happened on the mainstage... from inspiring AIA CEO and AIA president messages to award announcements and a live in-person interview with President Barack Obama (no photos allowed for this)!

The mainstage host throughout the conference was Chicago local Lee Bey, Chicago Sun-Times Architecture Critic. I brought my copy of his book Sourther Exposure and was able to get it signed!



I heard attendance was approximately 10k.


Several great messages and interviews led by:


The founder of Madame Architect, Julia Gamolina, Assoc. AIA, interviewed Lakisha Woods about her plans as the new CEO of the AIA. All I can say is that we are in good hands!


A local student singing group performed as attendees arrived for one keynote session.



AIA Whitney M. Young Jr. 2022 award

This year's AIA Whitney M. Young Jr. 2022 award went to Riding the VORTEX. To learn more about this award, please click here.



I had the honor of talking with Kathryn (Tyler) Prigmore, one of the award recipients, at an evening awards ceremony.


AIA Conference Bookstore

The conference had a bookstore featuring many wonderful books, including one from Lake|Flato!


Paired with the book offering were several book signings!


As I already mentioned, I brought my copy of Lee Bey's book with me and managed to get it signed!


Lake|Lake Awards

Our firm won three awards at conference this year...


Education Facility Design...


COTE Top Ten...


Architecture...



Colleague Presentation 

I sat in on a session led by four of my colleagues titled Lessons from Post-Occupancy Energy Evaluation. Overall, seven Lake|Flato staff were involved in five sessions.

The speakers were:
  • Panelist: Sam Rusek - Project Designer, Lake|Flato Architects
  • Panelist: Sunnie Diaz - Project Director, Lake|Flato Architects
  • Panelist: Gus Starkey - Project Designer, Lake|Flato Architects
  • Moderator: Kate Sector - Design Performance Coordinator, Lake|Flato Architects



Lake|Flato Awards Celebration Dinner

Wednesday evening Lake|Flato hosted a small dinner at Cindy's (rooftop restaurant in Chicago) to celebrate the awards we won this year.

Pictured, are:




AIA COTE Session

I am on the national AIA COTE subcommittee on Climate Action | Climate Justice. We had a session led by Lori Ferriss, AIA, PE, LEED AP, Director of Sustainability and Climate Action at Goody Clancy. I helped lead a breakout session during this session, as did Sam Rusek in our office!




The table I was at also included (selfie below):



During this COTE session, we also heard from Angela Tovar, Cheif Sustainability Officer for the City of Chicago. The city is doing great things in this area. A favorite quote "equity is like yoga, you have to keep at it". Not sure if that is the exact wording, but the sentiment is clear!




Lori shared our committee's working definition of climate action and Climate Justice (in architecture).


Here is an example of one of the breakout group's activities... 


A selfie with our fearless committee leader, Lori...



COTE Top Ten Awards Session

Another COTE session I attended (but was not involved in) was titled Performing Beautifully: The COTE Top Ten Awards. Led by one of this year's jurors, Margaret Cavenagh, AIA, Studio Gang, gave a brief overview of each winning project. Then, each firm member had a few minutes to talk about their project.


Lewis McNeel, Associate Partner, Lake|Flato, spoke about our winning COTE Top Ten project he worked on, Knox College Whitcomb Art Center in Galesburg, Illinois.



Conclusion

I highly recommend it if you have never been to the national AIA convention. There are many learning opportunities, a great exhibit hall (which I did not even cover), fantastic networking, and much more!



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