Summary: A growing coalition of national organizations focused on the built environment has agreed to create a new National Academy of Environmental Design (NAED) to coordinate research; generate new knowledge; distribute vital information; and make recommendations to policy makers on how to reduce the negative impact of cities, buildings, landscapes, and transportation on our global climate. The coalition’s steering committee will work to organize the NAED with a plan to seek congressional support for its establishment in 2009.

The AIA has joined forces with the Association of Collegiate Schools of Architecture (ACSA), American Society of Landscape Architects, American Institute of Architecture Students, Association of Collegiate Schools of Planning, and the Council of Educators in Landscape Architecture in endorsing a resolution to establish the NAED. The NAED would incorporate the full range of design and planning disciplines, including architecture, urban planning, landscape architecture, interior design, product design, and graphic design and work with the other National Academies in providing expertise for the National Research Council boards and committees that advise Congress and other levels of government on public policy.

The deans of more than 20 schools and more than 100 faculty members nationwide have signed on in support of this proposal, as have other professional organizations such as the Environmental Design Research Association and the Architecture Research Centers Consortium.

To address critical issues
The built environment produces nearly half of all the greenhouse gases and consumes almost 40 percent of the energy that humans use. Architects, engineers, landscape architects, interior designers, public health physicians, building contractors, researchers, scientists, and many others each plays a vital role in designing and constructing the built environment. Yet there is no single entity, no national-level public or private body, charged with coordinating the existing work or defining the needed research to improve the energy performance and environmental impact of the designed world. Similarly, there is no single entity charged with understanding and documenting improvements to the quality of life that can come through a better built environment. The NAED will take up that charge.

“Today, the United States and the world face pressing and catastrophic challenges, including precipitous climate change, species extinction, epidemics affecting human health, and a wide range of toxins, the impacts of which are poorly understood even when recognized,” said Kim Tanzer, AIA, president of ACSA. “The NAED will marshal the extensive knowledge of the environmental design disciplines to help the existing academies, through the National Research Council, and address these critically important issues.”

The existing National Academies bring together committees of experts in areas of scientific, engineering, and technological endeavor to serve pro bono to address critical national issues and give advice to the federal government and the public. Four organizations compose the academies: the National Academy of Sciences (created in 1863), the National Academy of Engineering (created in 1964), the Institute of Medicine (created in 1970), and the National Research Council (created in 1916). The National Academies receive funding from a range of sources, including government allocations, private grants, and foundation support. All four organizations were established during times of extreme need for the nation to act in the face of crisis—the Civil War, World War I, and the Space Race.

The founding organizations of the NAED believe that we have entered just such a perilous period in our planet’s history and that we must act now to secure the future for our children and the generations to come.