Every project we, in the profession of architecture, work on has a new set of variables. Every project is an opportunity to move things forward and improve our built environment. Every day, we know architecture is a catalyst for innovation.
Innovation enables sustainability, reduces waste, and models building performance. It allows for a deeper understanding of how the built environment can enhance outcomes. It helps communities solve complex challenges by illustrating the viability of ideas and opportunities. It also allows for efficiency, automation, and modernization of project delivery.
However, it is also time consuming, and sometimes exasperating when encountering layers of contradictory conditions or limitations on time or resources.
AIA California continues to expand its interest in encouraging and celebrating innovation. We exist, in part, as a platform to amplify and showcase how design thinking can evolve and expand using technological solutions, how it can spark new applications of material resources, and how it is an opportunity to build partnerships necessary for California’s resilient, healthy, and equitable future. (Wording paraphrased from the AIA California Strategic plan, 2023-2026).
This focus is an opportunity to investigate the future of the architectural profession. By creating a forum for architects to explore practice innovation, cultivating new partnerships that foster the exchange of ideas and paradigms, and promoting new research in business, practice, design, and construction—each of these efforts equips architects and design professionals better for practice and delivery to clients and the people and communities that benefit from these efforts.
Beyond new methods that advance the realization of projects, AIA California continues to provide leadership in the development of innovative policy, design, and community building actions that address the link between architecture and social justice. Important societal questions beg for innovative approaches.
- How can the profession help communities understand they need multiple models of housing that address generational needs?
- How can reuse strategies not only reduce our carbon impact but also repurpose outdated spaces to give new life to communities?
- How can the facilities we develop help create supportive housing environments and reduce homelessness?
Hundreds of AIA California members throughout our state are focused on harnessing the transformative power of architecture and design to address the greatest economic, environmental, and social challenges of our time. This is our mandate; join us.
Scott Gaudineer, AIA, is President and CEO of Flewelling & Moody of Los Angeles and Lancaster, California, and is current President of AIA California.
