Last week I had the opportunity to attend the American Institute of Architects (AIA) 2023 conference on architecture in San Francisco. In this post, I will share a recap of my experience.
Photo: National AIA Committee on the Environment (COTE) Leadership
The conference was held at Moscone Center in San Francisco. This is a great venue for 14k architects to get together to learn about and explore great architecture.
All of the photos below are in chronological order, helping to share how I experienced the event... from daily sessions, to the exhibit hall, open studios, and evening social events!
The evening before the conference officially started, Enscape hosted a happy hour, and a few of us went to dinner after! Photo: All Enscape folks are on the left, and three customers are on the right, all from San Antonio, TX, coincidentally.
The AIA conference bookstore had many great titles... including one I am reading: Build Beyond Zero, and Lake|Flato's newest book.
Here is a view of the lobby, where we registered. The bookstore is on the left.
A great early-in-the-conference session was on embodied carbon tools: CARE, Epic, EC3, and NREL Cambium.
Presenters:
- Alex Ianchenko, Miller Hull
- Efrie Escott, Schneider Electric
- Jack Rusk, EHDD
- Justin Schwartzhoff, LMN Architects
Lake|Flato Celebration Dinner
Wednesday evening Lake|Flato hosted a small dinner to celebrate our partner Tenna Florian FAIA being elevator to the AIA College of Fellows! Our COTE Top Ten winning project this year, Confluence Park, was also Tenna's project!!!
Design the Future Podcast Gathering at A'23
Kira Gould and Lindsay Baker (CEO ILFI) hosted an evening event to celebrate their podcast - Design the Future Podcast.
On the Mainstage - Day 1 Keynote
A lot happened on the main stage, and 14k people filled the room to see it. Barbra Bouza FAIA, president of Walt Disney Imagineering, talked about her journey and the interesting things she has worked on worldwide while at Disney.
Exhibit Hall
The exhibit hall was the largest I have ever seen anywhere... twice the size of Greenbuild in the space location this past November. I did not get a lot of photos here, but I was two exhibitors with a barista to draw in customers:)
Near the Autodesk booth, I saw many familiar faces and met Amy Bunszel (VP AEC, Autodesk), who moderated the AEC keynote panel on the main stage.
Performing Beautifully - COTE Top Ten Awards Session
Another COTE session I attended was titled Performing Beautifully: The COTE Top Ten Awards. Lori Ferris and Michelle Amt, Chair and Chair-elect of COTE leadership, presented background on the award, and then, each firm member had a few minutes to talk about their project. We also heard from two of the jurors!
Sunnie Diaz, AIA, LEED AP, Project Architect, Lake|Flato, spoke about our winning COTE Top Ten project she worked on, Confluence Park, here in San Antonio, Texas.
Seeing Green, Doing Green is a presentation based on a research project Lake|Flato and Dr. Erin Hamilton (UW - Madison). Since I lead the internal research program, making me a little biased, this was my favorite session:)
Last year we did a version of this presentation for AIA Japan, which was recorded and available here: https://www.aiajapan.org/lakeflato
Lake|Flato partner Ryan Jones and Dr. Hamilton presenting...
COTE Top Ten Toast
An evening event to celebrate the 2023 COTE Top Ten award winners! Our fearless COTE LG Chair, Lori Ferriss kicked off a short presentation during the event.
AIA 2023 President Emily Grandstaff-Rice (left) congratulated the winners! Robin Z. Puttock (right) spoke about the COTE Top Ten Student award program!
AIA Gold Medal Award
The AIA Gold Medal went to Carol Ross Barney!
I worked on two projects with her, at AOR firms, in the past. Earlier this year, I even went a little out of my way and visited her first Net Zero McDonald's project in Florida while on a family vacation.
Day 2 Keynote - AEC Industry Panel
Moderated by Amy Bunszel (VP AEC, Autodesk)
Panelists: Eric Lamb (Board Member of DPR Construction), Jennifer Devlin-Herbert (CEO EHDD) Robin Carnahan (Administrator, U.S. General Services Administration).
AIA COTE Open Forum Session
I am on the national AIA COTE sub-committee 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 recruit and organize the breakout group leaders with Kira Gould.
After a brief formal presentation, attendees could participate in two 20-minute breakout sessions.
They selected from the following topics:
- CLIMATE ACTION/ CLIMATE JUSTICE
- INFLATION REDUCTION ACT
- RESILIENCE & ADAPTATION
- ADVOCACY
- 2030 COMMITMENT
- FRAMEWORK
- COTE Chapters (Local / State): Start, Build, Sustain
As you can see, the COTE Open Forum was well attended!
Left: COTE Chapters facilitators!!!
Right: After the COTE Open Forum, several of the COTE LG team headed straight to the puppies in the exhibit hall!
Mithun won the AIA 2023 Firm of the Year award. They had a session describing their practice and firm culture.
Jason Steiner is a partner and Director of Digital Design at Mithun. He and I have met previously. It is amazing how closely our roles align, given the wide variety of things we do, including leading our internal research programs. It was exciting to see his role elevated and included in this presentation!
Friday evening, several local studios opened their doors for visits. I went to David Baker Architects (left photo) and Mithun Architects (right photo) offices!
Hanging out with my colleague Sophia Razzaque and new friends from Austin, Texas!
COTE Leadership in-person meeting Saturday morning!
Saturday lunch with old and new friends!
From left to right: Thesla Collier (Gensler), Aaron Vorwerk (Egnyte, formerly Autodesk), Cesar R. Escalante (Autodesk), and Argelia Barcena (Gensler).
Selfie-time
What can I say, I like taking selfies. I missed a lot of opportunities, but am sharing the ones I did not miss here, to close out this post:)
- Lori is the Chair of COTE LG
- Robin is COTE LG
- Principal at ZGF
- COTE LG
- Chair of COTE advocacy sub-committee
- Senior architect at Brooks + Scarpa Architects
- COTE LG
- COTE LG and national sustainable design leader at HED
- Lisa is with the AIA and works with COTE LG
- Ganesh is COTE LG, plus he and I worked together at BWBR in St Paul many years ago!
- Chair of the COTE LG Communications sub-committee
- I work closely with Kira on comms!
- Bunny is the COTE Network liaison to COTE LG
- Wei is the Young Architects Forum (YAF) liaison to COTE LG
She was just named the new dean of Morgan State University’s School of Architecture and Planning!
From Overland Partners in San Antonio... we were on the same plane and then the same train into San Francisco.
Enscape event... two new friends from SOM SF Office involved in building performance; Kiran Balakrishna and Jinish Gadhiya.
- I worked with Varun on the AIA Climate Action Business Playbook.
- He is the new sustainability director at Corgan.
- Randall CEO of Avail
- Mark worked at Revit before the Autodesk acquisition
- ARCAT Details podcaster extrodonar!
- I was a guest on episode 20:) Mass Timber | Hotel Magdalena
- Christian is the Enscape (Chaos) CEO
- Kam is the new Cheif Product Officer and AI expert
- AIA national staff
- Sustainability Program Director for the Built Environment
- I worked closely with Melissa while working on the AIA Climate Action Business Playbook!
- Director of sustainable practice at MSR Design
- National 2023 AIA young architect award recipient
- I presented with Simona last year at the AIA-MN conference
- Justin is the sustainability lead at LMN Architects
- Ale is a mechanical engineer and principal at AIRLIT studio
- Clair is Director at Atelier Ten
- Anish is Manager - Carbon Free Buildings at Rocky Mountain Institute
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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