Design freedom, climate risk, and the White House expansion

Matt Toddy, AIA, is the founder and principal of Elevation Studio in Columbus, Ohio, as well as a member of AIA’s Board of Directors in the capacity of 2025–2027 at-large director. He serves on the board’s Government Affairs Committee. 

Amid several recent federal-level decisions that have the potential to impact architects’ work, we caught up with Toddy on what’s happening and what architects can do to get involved and make their voices heard.

The president issued an executive order setting official federal design preferences for federal buildings. What is design freedom and why is it important? 

This is, obviously, a topic that’s very important to us as designers and as architects. Unfortunately, this is not the first time we’ve dealt with this issue. We had a similar conversation during the first [Trump] administration. 

Any sort of executive order that would limit design freedom is problematic because it stifles the very nature of what we do as architects. It limits innovation and limits material choices on projects, but most importantly, it limits the cultural impact of our civic spaces. So instead of having freedom to let the context or the culture take precedent, we have to put those things aside and [adhere] to a prescribed set of design criteria. It’s not good for the outcome, it’s not good for the community, and it’s not good for the long-term health of the spaces we’re designing. Public architecture should honor the identities and aspirations of the people it serves, and this is difficult to achieve when architects are required to achieve arbitrary design parameters. 

What are AIA and the design community’s concerns with the proposed 90,000-square-foot White House expansion?

I would categorize the concerns into two main categories. One deals entirely with process. We have to confront the reality that the announcement of this expansion to the White House did not follow any conventional process—for example, qualification-based selection through the GSA. 

The other category goes back to the design aspect: the nuance of what is being designed and how it’s being designed. My understanding of the project to date is that it has been prescriptive: Here’s an addition to a historic building that is protected from a design standpoint. There has not been any opportunity for various entities to weigh in or provide input on the design. That’s also problematic, because here, we have an example of a very small group of people making decisions that in almost any other setting would be subject to committee review, preservation review, public input—all these things. We’re not seeing that with this particular project. 

AIA released a statement on Aug. 13 strongly opposing the EPA’s deregulation of greenhouse gas emissions. How might deregulation of greenhouse gases make architects’ work more difficult? 

I really think this question comes down to risk. At the end of the day, a lot of our job, as architects, is to minimize risk. That can mean personally, in our own businesses, but when we talk about the health, safety, and welfare of the public, we’re talking about the risk to the communities that we are a part of. Rolling back greenhouse gas [regulations] will only make the work that we do harder. It’s going to reduce predictability, and it’s going to make our work riskier and more expensive. 

I think in very broad terms, it’s apparent that the less that we are doing to control our emissions and our work to mitigate our carbon footprint in the environment, the harder we’re making it in the future to build the buildings that we need in a way that’s affordable and efficient.

It’s always easier to worry about the present time and not the future, but this is really a case of: The future is kind of staring us down. If we don’t act, or if we just let these things happen, our lives are going to become a lot more difficult in the future. 
What is the best way for architects to get involved in advocacy at a federal or local level? 

We need our members to be engaged at all levels. What that could look like is taking a seat on a commission or a board. It could also look like just finding time to meet with your local representative or state senator or U.S. rep or U.S. senator. Know who these people are, know where their offices are, and pay a visit. Stop in, say “Hi,” introduce yourself, leave a card, all those things. 

A good example: We had a chance to have coffee with one of our central Ohio state representatives just this week. We learned about some upcoming legislation that we want to support as an organization, and we’re building a relationship with this representative. That’s going to pay dividends down the road, because now we have an ally in the legislature. It took several weeks to get it organized, but the conversation was great, and it’s going somewhere. My recommendation would be to figure out who these people are, get to know them, and build a relationship —just to have an advocate or at least an open door. 

We have our advocacy day, Capitol Hill Day, in February every year. That’s a great way to start the conversation, but it needs to be more than just one day a year where there’s a few hundred of us in D.C. It really takes time for these relationships to develop, and we need them in place to have advocates on the Hill, in the state house, in the city council chambers to be able to make change and make enough noise when things come up that we have something to say about.

Is there anything in the advocacy landscape, especially from your perspective as a small firm owner, that you think architects should be aware of or that might not be getting enough attention currently? 

It’s a tough question because I think there are a number of issues that receive a lot of attention, but that doesn’t make them any less important. Housing continues to be a number one priority for a lot of architects. Climate action and resilience remains a number one priority for a lot of architects, justifiably so. Those are really important issues. We are doing a lot at the federal level to work on those particular issues. 

I would like to flip the question around and say that, you know, I’m plugged in where I’m plugged in. I get to be a part of some really important conversations as a part of the federal advocacy team. But we need people to be our ears and eyes locally because we only have so much bandwidth. So, if there’s an issue that’s happening in your neck of the woods, I want to know about it and see if we can be connectors, or if we can help support in some way. 

I’m in the Midwest. We have different issues than folks in the Southwest. I’d like to know: What are architects facing in Phoenix? What are architects facing in southern California? That’s not my lived experience, and I can’t advocate for those things as a member of the federal government affairs team unless I know about them. 

So, my request would be: Please connect with me, connect with our committee or with our staff support team and tell us what’s going on in your area so that we can be aware and provide support.

Katherine Flynn is Director, Digital Content at AIA.