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Welcome to The Cornerstone 2012!
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By Edmond G. Gauvreau, AIA
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| I want to take this opportunity to introduce myself to the Public Architects Knowledge Community as your editor for The Cornerstone this year. Some of you may recognize my name from my past involvement with the Public Architects Committee, but that seems to be light years away (think pre-Internet!).
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Message from the 2012 Chair
By Lane J. Beougher, AIA, Chair, Public Architects Advisory Group
On behalf of the Advisory Group for the Public Architects Committee, an AIA Knowledge Community, I’d like to thank you for reading our electronic newsletter, The Cornerstone. I would also like to welcome the newest member of the Advisory Group, David Trevino, AIA, with the City of Dallas, Texas. FULL STORY
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Prominent Fellows Highlight 2012 Public Architects Workshop
By Rona G. Rothenberg, FAIA
Eight award-winning architects from the U.S. and abroad, will be speaking at the 2012 Public Architects Workshop on Wednesday, May 16, the opening day of the AIA National Convention and Design Exposition in Washington, D.C.
The prominent group-which includes six members of the College of Fellows, among them two Thomas Jefferson Award winners-will speak about international, national, state, regional and local projects, programs and topics of broad interest to public sector architects and architects from private sector practice who specialize in public sector work. FULL STORY
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Back to Basics: the Next Generation for Master Planning
By Mark Mitsunaga
Site approval and good solid planning have been neglected and largely overlooked in recent years due to competing priorities imposed by transformation and Grow the Army initiatives. These high-priority projects generated confusion because they were completed outside the normal cycle of planning through the Military Construction program.
Getting back to the traditional process of master planning is more important than ever. Garrison master planners must take a step back to assess where they are and where they need to be in 50 years. They do not have the luxury of taking inordinate amounts of time to perform assessments and make determinations. The current operating tempo has reduced the time available to conduct detailed studies and analyses about who moves where on the installation. FULL STORY
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Master Planning Afghanistan
By Brandon Tobias, LEED BD+C
Tabula rasa rarely presents itself to the modern day master planner, civil engineer or architect. In an era when seemingly all corners of the world are mapped and catalogued - and summarily Instagram-ed, and Tweeted - few opportunities exist for a designer to look across acres of undisturbed land and see anything more than well-tilled farmland or a soon to open outlet mall. Backed by long-standing building and zoning codes, many city planners occupy themselves with little more than exercises in code interpretation and “sprawl-wrangling” rather than creating and redefining the boundaries of a “blank slate.”
Sadly, a master planner’s expertise typically expands beyond the confines of a city block only when riding the coattails of unfortunate circumstances. Furious tornadic winds erase entire towns from Midwestern plains. Tsunamis send crushing waves bearing down on fishing communities, effectively removing them from the coastline. And in even worse circumstances, cities are overrun by men with conflicts addressed by explosions and bloodshed. FULL STORY
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Planning with SRM and OPM for a Sustainable Future at Fort Hood
By Mark L. Gillem, AIA and John Burrow
While these wise words are not directly applicable to the efforts of Public Works staffs, the underlying theme is certainly relevant. Without a plan, which is more than a list of projects and platitudes, success is hard to reach.
But planners also know that plans change as soon as they encounter reality, so the recommendations and findings in installation master plans must be flexible if they are to last beyond the printing date. Moreover, planners cannot simply hand over their well-prepared plans to engineers and architects and just hope for the best. FULL STORY
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Paula Loomis, FAIA, Named Winner of Max Urbahn Award from SAME
By Edmond G. Gauvreau, AIA
The Society of American Military Engineers (SAME) announced that Paula Loomis, FAIA, LEED B&C, PMP, will receive the Max Urbahn Medal for 2011. The award is named for Max Urbahn, FAIA and rewards an architect for significant contributions to military engineering. She will receive the award May 23 at the SAME Joint Engineering Training Conference in St. Louis, MO. FULL STORY
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You Made the Short List! Interview Strategy and Execution:
What Works, What Doesn’t and Why: It takes more than just showing up to get a project
By Paul R. Menard, AIA
As a member of the selection panels interviewing architectural teams for the latest group of courthouse projects in California’s Courthouse Facilities Program I had the opportunity to observe some very good architectural firms trying to compel their selection in that most worrisome and unpredictable environment known as the architectural interview. Just making the short list for these projects was a considerable accomplishment in that we received from ten to thirty statements of qualifications for each project, which resulted in hundreds of submissions over a 10-year period for the 59 projects associated with the $6.9 Billion building program, the careful review of which yielded short lists of four to six firms. In our competitive selection process, all firms’ submissions for each were ranked by members of our professional team for the short lists by the published, competitive criteria for selection, and then ranked again by the same team members, by the same criteria, during the interview process. My observations pertain to this process. FULL STORY
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New Guidance on Master Planning on Its Way
By Jerry Zekert
Installations are championing a new approach to planning that is transforming them into sustainable communities rather than sprawling, inefficient and haphazard developments. In support of this new approach, the Office of the Deputy Under Secretary of Defense for Installations and Environment is championing the importance of installation planning to all of the services.
The updated Department of Defense (DoD) Unified Facilities Criteria (UFC) for master planning will define common planning practices throughout DoD. These practices will make planning consistent among all military services using the same planning strategies, common plan formats, regulated site approval processes and enterprise requirements for planning competency, training and professional development. FULL STORY
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The Problem with City Planning
By Walter Hosack
The problem with city planning and design is a language that is not equal to the debate it encounters and the leadership expected. The gap between city planning and city performance is caused by a common failure to easily predict the relationship of land use activity and architectural intensity to municipal income and context improvement.
Activity and intensity emerge from land use allocation within a city to produce context and revenue per acre. Revenue is expected to offset total expense per acre. Shelter intensity is served by movement, open space and life support systems. I’ve called the entire effort city design out of respect for its potential, but it is currently represented by sprawl and the isolation of encircled cities. It cannot presently connect land use allocation and intensity to economic performance and context improvement with an adequate language of development capacity evaluation. FULL STORY
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AIA Convention Events: Public Architects Workshop
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- The U.S. Capitol Complex: Historic and Modern
- May 16, 2012 | 8:00-9:00 a.m. | Public Architects Workshop | 1.00 LU
- Serving Our Neighbors
- May 16, 2012 | 9:15-10:15 a.m. | Public Architects Workshop | 1.00 LU | HSW
- GSA Design Excellence
- May 16, 2012 | 9:15-10:15 a.m. | Public Architects Workshop | 1.00 LU | HSW
- Sustainability, Austerity, and Public-Private Partnerships
- May 16, 2012 | 9:15-10:15 a.m. | Public Architects Workshop | 1.00 LU
- Designing the Airport of the Future
- May 16, 2012 | 10:30-11:30 a.m. | Public Architects Workshop | 1.00 LU | HSW
- Motivating Your Interns with Sustainability Challenges
- May 16, 2012 | 10:30-11:30 a.m. | Public Architects Workshop | 1.00 LU
- A Global Perspective on the Architecture of Democracy: Public Buildings in Israel
- May 16, 2012 | 10:30-11:30 a.m. | Public Architects Workshop | 1.00 LU
- How Design Excellence Is Making New York a Successful 21st-Century City
- May 16, 2012 | 11:30 a.m.-1:00 p.m. | Public Architects Workshop | 1.00 LU | HSW
- Public Architects and Corporate Architects and Facility Management Reception
- May 16, 2012 | 6:00-8:00 p.m. | AIA National Convention | $55.00
- D.C.'s Public Libraries: Connecting to Our Communities
- May 17, 2012 | 2:30-5:30 p.m. | Educational Tour | $85.00 | 2.00 LU
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 Public Architects kNet Discussions
Intensity Will Become a Measurement for Survival
Posted by Walter Hosack, AIA
Population needs shelter to survive, and intensity decisions will determine its ability to find shelter within a limited Built Domain that does not threaten its source of life. This statement may place a political, social and economic issue in its proper physical context -- the context of architecture and city design within sustainable limits. View full thread.
Confidentiality
Posted by Michael Krause, AIA
There have been projects I have worked on where we wanted to prevent any publication until all the facts are found and an appropriate solution defined. I believe a letter of confidentiality would be ideal for this particular project. Any help that could be provide regarding this would be appreciated. Comments or concerns regarding this tool, a standardized form letter would all be helpful. View full thread.
AIA Conference in Israel 19-23 April 2012
Posted by Yael Kinsky, AIA
Announcing a unique international opportunity: AIA Europe is organizing an International Conference in Israel in April 19-23 2012. Please announce and invite all AIA members and friends. For more information, visit the AIA Europe Israel Conference web site.
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Did you know anyone can join AIA Public Architects Committee for FREE? Sign-up on AIA KnowledgeNet and view AIA webinars on-demand on YouTube. Recent videos include hearing-impaired designer, Phillip Rubin, Assoc. AIA, speak through a sign-language interpreter about how Universal Design can improve everyone's lives.
Get involved! Start a discussion in the PAC Discussion Forum.
Call for Presentations
Community Dialogue:
Architecture for Justice and Renewal
October 10 -12, 2012 |
Toronto Hilton – Toronto, ON Canada
Submission Deadline: Friday, May 4, 2012 at 12:00 p.m. ET
Download the Submission Form Now
Get a Jump Start on 2012 with FREE CEH Webinars!
View an AIA Knowledge Community Webinar at your office. Upcoming webinars include:
- Proving Your Point: Researched Sustainable Strategies in Historic Housing
- Monday, April 1 | 12:00-1:00 p.m. EST | 1 HSW/SD CEH
- Beyond the ADA: How to incorporate Universal Design principles in commercial facilities
- Wednesday, April 11 | 1:00-2:00 p.m.| 1 HSW CEH
- BIG BIM Bang – Enterprise BIM and BIG Data – Sharing Data
- Friday, April 13 | 1:00-2:30 p.m. | 1.25 CEH
- Behavioral and Technical Housing Research
- Monday, May 7 | 12:00-1:00 p.m. | 1 HSW/SD CEH
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