Due to popular demand, the AIA has added some exciting new continuing education opportunities to the roster of the AIA National Convention in Los Angeles, June 8–10.

LA 4 Ideas
This session brings together three exciting young local designers—David Erdman, Santa Monica; Elena Manferdini, Venice; and Alexis Rochas, Los Angeles—and Annie Chu, AIA, Chu + Gooding Architect, a seasoned architect from Los Angeles, all pursuing diverse forms of creative practice. Each will share aspects of his or her current work and ideas followed by discussion in this program sponsored by the Young Architects Forum. (TH57: Thursday, June 8, 4–5:30 p.m.)

Best Practices of Professional Development: CES 2006 Award of Excellence Large and Small Firm
The development of a strong professional development program within a firm enhances its practice and competitive edge. To recognize some of the exemplary continuing professional education and development practices taking place in architecture firms nationwide, the AIA holds its annual CES Award of Excellence competition. Join Thom Lowther, EdS, the AIA director of Continuing Education Systems, and hear what this year’s award recipients, Rogers Krajnak Architects Inc. in Columbus, Ohio (small firm), and Cannon Design Inc. in Grand Island, N.Y. (large firm), are doing. (TH58: Thursday, June 8, 4–5:30 p.m.)

Los Angeles—An Urban Law unto Itself [HSW]
Is Los Angeles a city that ought to rely on external models in planning its future or is Los Angeles an urban law unto itself? How useful are the caricatures of Los Angeles that represent the city as movie town “Hollywood,” or avant-guard “Venice,” or the city of endless freeways? Is Los Angeles perpetually a “collection of suburbs,” or is the city “without a center” about to become centered? Sylvia Lavin, UCLA, School of the Arts and Architecture, and Eric Owen Moss, FAIA, SCI-Arc, will discuss these questions and examine the role of cultural traditions, experimental design and planning precedents, and the evolving purposes of infrastructure—freeways, train routes, power grids, and the concrete Los Angeles River—in the re-imagining of the next Los Angeles. (FR18: Friday, June 9, 8:15–9:45 a.m.)

Deans Discuss Campus Architecture: Relationships, Representation, and Realities
Three deans of nationally prominent architecture schools—Karen Van Lengen, AIA, University of Virginia School of Architecture, Charlottesville, Va.; Mark Robbins, Syracuse University School of Architecture, Syracuse; and Donna V. Robertson, FAIA, Illinois Institute of Technology College of Architecture, Chicago—will discuss and debate the development of architecture and planning on their campuses and the role of design in the development of their institutional values. (SA36: Saturday, June 10, 1:30–3 p.m.)

Urban Next: LA and the Gulf Coast
New Orleans will soon endeavor to remake itself, as will the entire Mississippi Gulf Coast. But according to what criteria? In an entirely different urban context, in accord with a very different pro forma, downtown Los Angeles is also re-imagining itself. If we internationalize the discussion, it’s clear that from Mexico City to St. Petersburg, Russia, and Guangzhou, China, an often rancorous debate on the remaking of cities is ongoing. At the intersection of tradition, innovation, evolving conceptions of politics and sociology, conceptions of use, re-use, and urban purpose is a quintessentially American argument. Debators: Councilwoman Jan Perry, representing the downtown Los Angeles district; developer Tom Gilmore, who has entirely altered the housing sociology of L.A.’s downtown by planning and building a number of new housing projects; Architect Eric Owen Moss, author of the central L.A./Culver City Project; L.A. Times architecture critic Christopher Hawthorne; and New Urbanist and Architect Stephanos Polyzoides, who was involved in the Gulf Coast re-planning. (SA37: Saturday, June 10, 1:30–3 p.m.) (Photo by Daniel Lobo.)

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