In many ways, technology is creating new opportunities and challenges for architects and designers. Mr. Tony Rinella, Assoc. AIA and CIO of Ashen+Allen Architects, describes how technology can create a virtual classroom as well as a virtual design center. For him, electronic collaboration technologies and group document authoring create strong communities of practice to promote knowledge-sharing. New programs now help visualize designs concurrently with cost estimates and constructability evaluations, creating a much more efficient and streamlined process.

The challenge for the industry now is how to respond to these new technologies and how to learn to use them effectively. Mr. Rinella suggests that the learning curve for using these technologies is steep, but not insurmountable and looks to the next generation of architects to advance the industry even further.