How Can Architects Help Their Community?
As designers of the built environment, architects play an important role in shaping our communities. Their design affects our safety, health, and the environment as well as the quality of life in our neighborhoods, towns, cities, and regions.
As your community implements its sustainable design vision and defines specific energy reduction goals, you may feel a little overwhelmed at times. Have no fear; architects are more than willing to help! In fact, the AIA comprises some 300 component organizations (chapters) across the country and around the world. These components can be of assistance to your communities' greening efforts.
How Architects Can Become Advocates For Livable Communities
This new advocacy guide offers architects the tools they will need to advocate for livable communities. It includes testimonials from AIA members, talking points on livability issues and other resources architects can use to become leaders in their communities. Click here to download.
The AIA Blueprint For America
In 2007, the AIA celebrates a significant anniversary--its sesquicentennial. Otherwise known as AIA 150, this occasion encourages members of the AIA to commemorate the Institute's 150 years of service to the profession and the nation by working with their communities to create a better future by design.
A key element of this year-long celebration is the Blueprint for America, an initiative characterized in part as a series of local forums and charrettes conducted across the nation in at least 150 component jurisdictions where architects, citizens, and community leaders come together to address a community’s distinct needs. AIA members will have opportunities to initiate efforts, join ongoing local programs, or help identify issues that are not currently being addressed in their communities.
The commonalities of these "visions" will be refined to inspire a national vision for healthy, safe, and sustainable American communities and to outline the necessary steps required to enhance the built environment. A compendium of the local programs will be gathered within a framework, providing a national mosaic with interrelated themes, issues, and solutions designed by AIA architects, community members, and community partners. The resulting mosaic will be presented to the nation as a gift for the future and as a testament to the value of design and the AIA architect.
AIA COTE
In addition to our local and state components, the AIA has an entire community of members who focus on sustainable design practice. With more than 7,200 members, the Committee on the Environment (COTE) has jumped to the forefront as a provider of quality sustainable design resources to members who want to significantly enhance their own communities.
AIA COTE has also established criteria to measure the performance of sustainable buildings and uses the metrics as the foundation of the COTE Top 10 Green Projects, an annual awards program. On the national level, AIA COTE has also put together a number of useful resources such as an overview on Creating a Sustainable Workplace and a series of best practice papers that cover the following topics.
Energy Design Guidelines for High-Performance Schools
Green Building Post-Occupancy Evaluations
Green Practice Advice
Guide to Eco-Charrettes
Low-Cost Greening Strategies
Responsible Energy Management
Sustainable Historic Preservation
