A collection of “how-to” guides, by a variety of authors (including me). Click on a title to download a PDF.
AIA Continuing Education Credit
AIA members can receive continuing education credit for “Self-Designed Activities.” For such activities, you receive credit for the time spent in direct learning, which can include “researching new product information, preparing for lectures, presentations, study-travel, computer programs, self-study, etc. ” The activity must take a minimum of one hour, with additional credit given in quarter hour increments. HSW (Health, Safety, and Welfare) credit is not available. If you find any of the material available here to be of educational value–either by itself or in combination with other resources–please consider reporting the time you spend for AIA Continuing Education System (AIA/CES) credit.
Becoming Influential: a Workbook for Architects and Other People
A series of individual and group exercises that will help you build networks that nurture your expertise and make it visible in the world.
Some people are comfortable telling others their accomplishments and abilities, and others aren’t. Here are some suggestions for tooting your horn without feeling like a big wind-bag.
The handout from a presentation I gave at the 2006 AIA Convention in Los Angeles. “Why promote the value of design? Because it’s what we profess, it’s what we love. Because of the emotions we feel when we’re in a remarkable space, and because we want others to enjoy those emotions. But also because it’s our business, it’s how we make a living. And because it’s better for everyone if we are paid to do our best. So we promote the value of design to align business with goodness.”
For architects who may be frustrated by the general public’s lack of understanding of architecture, here are some tips for drawing others into the fold, graciously. This version was selected for the AIA’s Best Practices series.
Confessions of a Design Reviewer: Ten Guidelines for Coming Out As an Architect
Drawing on her experience as a member of Denver’s Lower Downtown Design and Demolition Review Board, Wendy Kohn offers sage advice on how to behave–and how not to behave–at a Design Review hearing. From arcCA 07.2, “Design Review.”
Thank You For Submitting: Advice for the Award-Lorn
David Meckel, FAIA, provides insightful counsel to those who are flummoxed by the process of submitting for design awards. From arcCA 07.3, “Comparing Awards.”
Work Plans from the Client’s Perspective
Michael Strogoff, FAIA, explains how to communicate effectively that your work plan is based on client benefit.
If you’ve ever been asked to take over a project that had been begun by another architect, you know that this process (known as “supplanting”) can be fraught with problems. Kurt Cooknick, Assoc. AIA, Director of Regulation & Practice for the AIA California Council, offers advice.
A concise guide to the process by Sasha Culvahouse, age 6.
For possible AIA/CES/HSW credit, by Theo Culvahouse, age 6.
__________
Sidewalk Plazas
Public Architecture’s Open Space Strategy proposes to reconfigure San Francisco’s Folsom and Howard as two-way streets, while still accommodating intensive traffic. At the heart of the plan is a proposal to make Folsom more pedestrian-oriented, with generous sidewalks creating new spaces for a variety of outdoor activities and urban amenities. These generous sidewalks, or Sidewalk Plazas, would be installed incrementally, programmed with diverse public amenities, keyed to the particular conditions of SoMa’s varying uses.
From 2000 to 2012, I edited arcCA (Architecture California), the quarterly journal of the AIA California Council; I am currently Editor and Content Strategist for the Council. Other consulting projects for the AIACC have included the consolidation and editing of the Council’s Long Range Plan and the editing of A Century of California Architecture, a centennial history of the Division of the State Architect.
Other clients include:
Andrea Cochran Landscape Architecture
The Office of Charles F. Bloszies
Karen Fiene, FAIA, Campus Architect, Mills College
Anne Fougeron, FAIA, Fougeron Architects
Elizabeth Ranieri, FAIA, Kuth Ranieri Architects
Wayne Ruga, FAIA, The CARITAS Project
Adam Shalleck, FAIA, The Shalleck Collaborative
Bryan Shiles, FAIA, WRNS Studio
Skidmore, Owings & Merrill, LLP
Starkweather Bondy Architecture, LLP
Pam Touschner, FAIA, DLR Group
Ernesto Vasquez, FAIA, MVE Institutional
Alyosha Vehrzbinsky, FAIA, TEF Design
William Worthen, FAIA, Urban Fabrick
Other clients include :
The Office of Charles F. Bloszies, AIA
Starkweather Bondy Architecture, LLP
Places: Forum for the Design of the Public Realm
These entries are samples from among approximately two hundred observations on the spatial character of New Orleans, which I’m preparing for publication in book form. A series of articles based on this material, published on Places:Design Observer, begins with “Stoop, Balcony, Pilot House: Making It Right in the Lower Ninth Ward.”
Kelly Macy, Macy Office of Design
Kelly Macy is the design director and brand development strategist at Macy Office of Design (MOD). They create building branding, brand strategy outlines, marketing scenarios, design a broad range of work for print and screen graphics, identity systems, brand collateral, interactive and physical environments, environmental graphics, products, content development and packaging. A particular passion is their work in design for public interest that brings positive change to individuals and communities. Kelly is also the creative director, and a founding member, of UP Urban.
Jeremy Mende / MendeDesign
Jeremy Mende is the principal and creative director of MendeDesign, a visual communications firm that specializes in producing memorable, poetic, and uniquely focused messages and images for design-centric clients. Areas of expertise include brand definition, identity, marketing collateral, image design, monograph design, and online experience/website design. MendeDesign, when questioned, will deny being Modernists but will enthusiastically admit to a belief in beauty and its enduring social value.