Enrichment Program Gives Employees a Chance to Pursue Intellectual, Artistic Passions
HMC Architects offers travel grants for personal, professional development
California-based HMC Architects regularly offers its employees a chance to compete for scholarships for trips across the U.S. and overseas to pursue their intellectual and artistic passions. The journeys do not need to correlate directly with their jobs and may nourish interests outside of architecture. An HMC design director says the program’s benefits are exponential to the firm’s investment of money and time.

The Architecture in the Schools Program Helps to Create the Ideal Client
The best architecture results from the interaction of a knowledgeable client and a creative architect, writes David Dibner, FAIA. n the pursuit of our profession, too often we do not devote the necessary time to educate the public about the importance of architecture and the built environment so that they as clients can contribute their talents and understanding to creating better projects. However, there is a growing movement in which employees and owners of architecture firms invest a relatively small amount of time to helping future clients become more knowledgeable, and as a result our world becomes a better place. At the same time we learn quite a bit ourselves. Read on!

Pre-Fab Prison with Oldcastle Precast Modular
Off-site, pre-fabricated construction has been making big promises of late, aided not in the least by the MoMA’s Home Delivery: Fabricating the Modern Dwelling exhibit. [That exhibition showed visitors unrivaled visions of customization and hyper-efficient fabrication with KieranTimberlake’s Cellophane House, and the extreme mobility and flexibly of Horden Cherry Lee’s Micro Compact House. For a design ideal that makes so many pledges to affordability and efficiency, pre-fab modular building systems are still often premium items. What’s often missing are evolutionary steps in building system technology.

Introducing the AIA National Speakers Registry
In response to requests for architects to speak at events and continuing education workshops and promote AIA members as authoritative sources of information on the design profession, the AIA has recently launched a national registry of speakers. As an AIA member, you are encouraged to register as a speaker or to use the registry as a resource to find a presenter for an upcoming event.