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AIA headlines this week include:

• SDAT Brings New Ideas to Ancient Village

• AIA Meets with White House and Executive Branch Leadership

This May, the Center for Communities by Design conducted a Sustainable Design Assessment Team (SDAT) project in Sipaulovi Village, on the Second Mesa in Hopi Nation. The team included Wayne Feiden, FAICP, Tamara Burns, AIA, LEED AP, Tony Atkin, FAIA, Peter Flinker, ASLA, AICP, Charles O’Hara, MPA, and Mike Olkin.

Sipaulovi Village is over 1,000 years old. Its residents have carried on an oral tradition since the Village’s founding, passing their culture down to new generations. They have no formal planning tradition, and are faced with a range of severe challenges in maintaining their culture while adapting to modern conditions. As one local village elder stated, “we never want to lose the identity of who we are as a people.”

One of the SDAT team’s first tasks was to sit down with Village Elders and translate oral tradition about the boundaries of their land into a formal boundary map, using GPS tagging and a series of site visits. One member of the tribe explained the challenge for the Hopi: “we’ve never had to document because we are an oral tribe. We are just learning how to document our lands.” The official boundary map will aid dialogues with neighboring jurisdictions about existing conflicts over land, as well as aid future land use planning.

The team also focused on a 15-acre economic development site that the Hopi are hoping to utilize as a commercial center. Currently, the nearest gas station to Sipaulovi Village is over 20 miles away. Local leaders expressed a desire to locate a gas station on the site, with retail development that could provide another source of local jobs. Currently, there are three job sources in Hopi Nation: government employment, tribal government employment, and schools. There are six elementary schools that all feed into Hopi High School. Ultimately, local leaders would like to create the conditions necessary to attract the Hopi diaspora back to the Village.

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This week, as architects headed to Washington DC to take part in AIA’s 2012 National Convention and Design Exposition, AIA leadership met with members of the White House and Executive Branch agencies to discuss federal policies and programs related to the building, construction and transportation industries.

2012 AIA President Jeffery Potter, FAIA, began the briefing by emphasizing that architects are no longer merely names attached to one building or edifice, but connections between the built environment and the local community. Greg Nelson, Deputy Director of the Office of Public Engagement, reaffirmed this statement, stressing that as leaders in community development, sustainable practices and small business, architects are ideal advocates for policies that create livable communities and strengthen infrastructure.

The subsequent panel discussion included administration officials Michelle Moore, Senior Advisor to the Director of the Office of Management and Budget, Shelley Poticha, Director of the Office of Sustainable Housing and Communities, US Department of Housing and Urban Development, Bryna Helfner, Director of Public Engagement, US Department of Transportation and Jean Lupinacci, Director of ENERGY STAR Commercial and Industrial Branch of the US Environmental Protection Agency.

Moore noted that while the federal government’s maintains its commitment to best practices of land use, it has taken measures to accelerate infrastructure and building permitting. From interagency Rapid Response Teams to resolve issues facing renewable energy projects to programs like the Better Buildings Initiative that eliminates barriers to green building by combining tax incentives with private and public financing, federal agencies have aligned policies and priorities to better serve architects.

Helfner reiterated the importance of collaboration between the AIA, architects and policy makers, noting that “thinking and working together, in the end, creates a more effective built environment that works for everyone.” Healthier environments, sustainable development and energy efficiency through building performance are shared goals between the federal government and building and design industry leaders. Poticha pointed out that programs like ENERGY STAR, Transportation Tiger Grants and Community Development Block Grants (CDBG) have had far-reaching regional improvements through smaller scale projects. She spoke to some of the long-term objectives of HUD in partnership with the DOE such as retrofitting over one million homes in the United States annually and supporting programs that incentivize energy efficient, high-density multifamily urban housing.

“The realities of mainstreaming these ambitious, but achievable goals”, Poticha said, will require increased public awareness of federal programs and continued civic engagement of architects in Washington DC. The briefing concluded with questions to the panel and closing remarks by Michael Strautmanis, Deputy Assistant to the President and Counselor to the Senior Advisor for Strategic Engagement to the White House and Robert Ivy, FAIA, EVP and CEO of the AIA.

For more information on AIA’s government advocacy efforts how to get involved visit the AIA’s Issues and Advocacy page.

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