Community engagement at the AIA Global Campus for Architecture & Design®

In its previous iteration, AIA’s headquarters building was always open to association members and the general public during business hours, but it definitely did not give welcome vibes. Even if one ventured up the looming concrete stairs from Washington’s New York Avenue Northwest and past the brick wall and iron gates, “you felt like you were going into this space that you were not supposed to be in,” says Terri Stewart, Hon. AIA, who is AIA’s chief finance and administration officer.

As discussions for renovating the 1973 Brutalist building designed by The Architects Collaborative began in 2020, one goal quickly surfaced: “to open it up to the community,” says Mary Kay Lanzillotta, FAIA, partner at Hartman-Cox Architects, GCAD’s local architect.

Building awareness

Following multiple stakeholder meetings with AIA leaders, building committee members, staff, and professional and student members, the project team sought to strengthen the building’s connection to a more diverse community of architects and the general public, says Rebecca Sharkey, AIA, principal at EHDD, GCAD’s architect of record and design lead.

The reimagining of HQ as the AIA Global Campus for Architecture & Design “changed our perspective because then it really became public-facing,” Stewart recalls. Along with supporting the design profession, she continues, GCAD could serve as  “a place where members in the community felt welcomed, could learn about architecture, and actually experience a good example of architecture.”

And with its close proximity to the White House and National Mall, GCAD could become a destination for “tourists, folks who are architecture aficionados, and families with young kids interested in becoming architects, and more," Sharkey adds.

Expanding access

To create a unified campus, the GCAD design team strengthened the visual and physical connection between the main Brutalist building and, to its southwest, the 1799 Federalist Octagon, AIA’s original headquarters and home of Architects Foundation. Though the former structure had an accessible entrance, the Octagon did not.

Led by landscape architect Hood Design Studio, the renovation, when fully completed, will make campus access equitable. Gone are the concrete stairs and non-historic brick walls of the fortress-like entrance. Instead, a walkway, with less than a 5% slope, will eventually wind back and forth among beds of native plants that soften a concrete-heavy city block. The walkway will branch off to the Octagon, with a new entry ramp, and continue to a shared central courtyard and the main building itself. “For the first time, both buildings can now be part of a coherent, fully accessible campus,” says Hartman-Cox partner Carl Holden, AIA.

The courtyard, scheduled for planting later this spring, opens the campus to shared programming and interaction. With preserved heritage trees and forthcoming hardscaping, the space will also welcome community members to gather and perhaps visit either building. With its increased visibility from the public sidewalks, the campus will feel “more inviting [for] visitors to come and know that they are allowed in,” Lanzillotta says.

Warm reception

During stakeholder engagement sessions, “the idea of advocacy through design was a main lens,” Sharkey says. Along with AIA’s advocacy in legislation and design excellence, could the new GCAD design “advocate for all the people that it serves, the profession, and the planet at large?” Along with introducing innovations in workplace design and building performance, the transformed building has become a “community hub that speaks to the value of place, face-to-face connections, fostering a culture of belonging, and this idea of welcoming everyone in,” she says.

Biophilic design elements in the light-filled lower, ground, and second floors extend the experience of the reimagined courtyard deep into the building through a glazed curtain wall façade. Multiple seating options, breakout rooms, and work pods allow members to conduct work while on-site and community members to linger after patronizing local roaster Grace Street Coffee. “We wanted spaces to be comfortable, productive, and flexible, but we also wanted reasons for members and the general public to feel welcomed,” says Amy Medawar, AIA managing director of campus operations and visitor experience.

Non-architecture organizations can also host small and midsize events in the ground-level venue space and second-level Commons, Medawar says. When Lanzillotta recently visited GCAD, for example, she found herself walking among attendees of an autonomous vehicle technology symposium.

Ongoing energy

The design team envisioned GCAD as a place of “perennial activation,” Sharkey says. “There’s always something new that’s happening at the building … to make people want to continuously come back and be a part of it.”

These attractions include rotating exhibitions on the main-level gallery and the AIA Design Shop, relocated to face directly onto New York Avenue. In early fall, the shop, a local favorite for its curated design products, will have a new dedicated entrance, allowing it to operate outside main building hours.

GCAD’s self-guided walking tour highlighting renovation features, such as the façade’s photovoltaic sunshades, continues to add points of interest complete with information about “embodied carbon, biophilic design, and materials in layperson [language], almost like a museum plaque,” Holden says.

Medawar is also busily filling GCAD’s programming calendar with ticketed public events, such as book lectures and sketching, LEGO building, and dried flowers workshops that also promote local businesses.

GCAD is a living model of how existing and historic structures can meet forward-facing needs. “For organizations that have old buildings, there is a way to breathe new life into them that keeps them useful and relevant,” Holden says.

Lanzillotta agrees: “We see the value of historic structures and using them to the extent they can be. It’s OK to make changes because as long as we keep the buildings active and engaged, that’s the best thing we can do for our culture and our community.”

Wanda Lau is a freelance writer covering architecture and design and a former editor of ARCHITECT magazine. She lives outside Chicago.