Because we design the built environments that make up cities, architects are especially poised for significant collaborations with civic leaders, community members, and urban planners in imagining and shaping different possibilities for a city. For this reason, it is important for architects to remain engaged and find opportunities to plug into their local conversations about their city’s development.
What is it that separates buildings from architecture? How does one begin to make the distinction between insignificant work and significant architecture, with a conviction which contributes to advancing design excellence for our clients, our firms, and ultimately, our profession? 
Architects are often called, or called upon, to serve as “citizen architects,” a role that engages our unique problem-solving skills and knowledge to fill a need or address a community issue. For those who are interested in exploring international service opportunities, Engineering Ministries International (eMi) is an excellent avenue to pursue.
Gone are the days where companies sell a product or service; in today’s market, organizations must sell their brands.  This brand ambassadorship applies to attracting candidates just as much as it applies to attracting clients.  The application of brand building techniques in recruiting talent is not new; however, it is something each of us should be doing every day.
In the spirit of innovation and collaboration, AIA South Atlantic recently hosted a joint conference in Asheville, NC for members of AIA NC, AIA SC, AIA GA, and beyond. The ASPIRE Experience hosted world-class designers and thinkers for a three-day event using venues across the city in April; the resulting conversations were inspiring and energizing.
LS3P’s Faith Studio begins every project by listening intently to understand each church’s unique ministry and vision. Our team adheres to the premise that we partner with the churches we serve to create a structure that will ultimately serve as a tool to amplify their ministries. Our “Canvas Session” workshops allow us to understand our clients’ needs, goals, and vision. Once we have a grasp on the vision, our design team uses a variety of tools to enable the churches we serve to more effectively cast this vision to their congregation. Each church’s journey is different, so we work with each on a case-by-case basis to help provide information, images, videos, models, and immersive experiences that allow each congregation to tell its unique story.
“Manner is personality—the outward manifestation of one’s innate character and attitude toward life.” - Emily Post. On any given day, we may find ourselves communicating with our clients and colleagues by e-mail, instant messaging, smart phones, texts, teaming software, various social media channels, and occasionally even face-to-face contact. The complexities of technology and our tendencies toward information overload can accelerate the pace of communication, but may also encourage shortcuts in our interactions, to the detriment of our intentions to show courtesy to everyone we encounter.
Those who are drawn to work in the architectural profession are a unique bunch. We may arrive at a design firm with different backgrounds, career goals, workflows, and perspectives, but we tend to have more commonalities than differences in the things that matter most. We believe that design matters, and we believe in using our critical thinking and problem-solving skills to address important challenges.
Those of us who live in coastal areas like my hometown of Wilmington, NC are accustomed to weathering hurricanes. We stock up on batteries, board up windows, and make sure we have enough nonperishable food to last a couple of days if the power goes out. We’ll swap family stories with those who remember Hurricanes Hazel or Fran or Floyd, and maybe make coffee on the grill to share with our neighbors.
The first rule of high performance design is to create spaces that are beautiful and beloved by all stakeholders including the client, users, and community. This will ensure the building is preserved, relevant and maintained for 25, 50, 100, 200 years.
For those of us who didn’t grow up playing video games, Virtual Reality (VR) might at first seem like a design tool that requires advanced-level digital expertise and a great deal of work. My recent VR experience, however, has taught me that VR technology is a fantastic way to draw people into the design process. (The high-tech gamer headsets are just a bonus.) The technology allows us to collaborate and share our ideas in an efficient, engaging way that creates a vivid experience of walking through a space. In addition to being a lot of fun, VR is an excellent tool for building a shared understanding among team members and makes it easy for us to visualize and adjust the design throughout the process.
Today’s architects are living in interesting times. Long gone are the days when we had to be experts in drafting by hand; computer-aided design (CAD) software and 3-D modeling tools can generate measured drawings and photorealistic renderings with a keystroke. Is this a good thing? Not always. When it comes to the design process, technology is both a blessing and a curse. It can speed us up, or slow us down; expand our design capabilities, or limit our imagination to what we can accomplish expediently within the limits of the software. Digital tools can drive the design process in unconscious ways that inhibit exploration. As it turns out, old-school connection of hand-to-paper is a vital part of the process of “design thinking.”
Recognizing that representation matters, the architecture, construction, and engineering industry has made substantial progress in recent years in terms of increasing both gender and racial diversity. As a profession we still have a long way to go, but these days we are doing a far better job of recruiting potential future architects among one important demographic in particular: the kids in our communities.
LEAN Design principles have long been associated with the manufacturing industry. Toyota originally pioneered this process for its automotive assembly lines, and LEAN principles have since been disseminated and applied worldwide. Eliminating waste- whether in materials, motions, or time- is a fantastic way to improve production and reduce errors, whether the product is cars or widgets or boxes of cereal.
In recent years, biofuels have become feasible and economically competitive. This has resulted in manufacturing plants that grow microalgae in large open fields or work in tandem with coal plants sequestering carbon dioxide by feeding it directly to an attached algae plant. The US alone has over 50 research institutions and 100 companies working on algae technologies. The existing market uses microalgae facilities as add-ons to existing power plants; however, this is predicted to be a temporary transitional phase before biofuel plants begins to overtake conventional stored fuel sources and large-scale algae fields become more common.
We instinctively configure our homes to create a sense of safety. Our most public and transparent spaces are typically at our entries, while our most private and secluded spaces tend to be more solid and sheltered from public view. Our furnishings, art, and mementoes create a sense of comfort and connection; our homes are a haven from the stresses of the outside world.