In the wake of the September 11 terrorist attacks on the U.S., the AIA national component has pledged to help our members serve in leadership roles for rethinking and rebuilding our architectural and urban fabric, a task in which we all will need to participate. You can see the beginnings of that effort in the creation of a national AIA Security by Design Resource Center, which has started the process of assembling pertinent materials and making them available to everyone on the front page of the Institute's Web site, www.aia.org.

If ever there were a time for interprofession cooperation, this is it. The resource center will reach out to architects and beyond; witness the Web site's presentation of the performance of the Pentagon during the attack, courtesy of the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers. Along with a course on security design for schools, it offers HSW learning units for AIA members at no charge. We encourage you to check www.aia.org often because we will continue to add information and resources to the site as quickly as we can.

There's a simple task you can start with. Please answer the following three questions to help the AIA take the pulse of the profession's sense of building-security status in the U.S.

Thank you.

Copyright 2001 The American Institute of Architects. All rights reserved.