december 22, 2006
  AIA 150
1997–2006: Entering the 21st Century
Born in the 19th century, growing and often triumphing in the 20th, the AIA entered the 21st century, as noted on each current e-mail message, as “the voice of the architectural profession and the resource for its members in service to society.” With more than 80,000 members as it approaches its 150th birthday, releases to the press note that “members of The American Institute of Architects have worked with each other and their communities to create more valuable, healthy, secure, and sustainable buildings and cityscapes.

review
Futurism with a Twist
From The Next Architect: A New Twist on the Future of Design, by James P. Cramer, Hon. AIA, and Scott Simpson, FAIA (Greenway Communications/Ostberg, 2007).
In the second edition of their book The Next Architect, (the first edition sold out this summer in six weeks), former AIA CEO/current Greenway Group Chair and CEO Jim Cramer, Hon. AIA, and former AIA director/current president and CEO of The Stubbins Associates Scott Simpson, FAIA, tell us that that the design and construction industry is teetering on the tipping point of great change. “Some of these [changes] are driven by new technologies and improved process, and others by a basic shift in attitude. Design itself is being redesigned,” they write. “The more we thought about this, the more intrigued we became, and that’s how The Next Architect was born.”

best practices
AIA Releases Updated Contract Documents Software
The AIA announced on December 15 the release of AIA Contract Documents software, Version 3, an update to its successful software application widely used in the design and construction industry. The revised software—based on responses to an extensive series of user interviews across the nation, widespread analysis of usage data, and comments from two separate beta trials—features a redesigned look to make it even more intuitive and simpler to use.

 

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This is the home of the weekly Best Practices column, news of tips and tools that you can use in your day-to-day practice and case studies illustrating “how-tos” and “lessons learned” for all stages of practice. The Practice Zone also features reports of research in architecture and related fields.