Gray B. Dougherty, AIA, received his M. Arch. from UC Berkeley and his B.A. in Economics from Princeton University. Gray founded and currently manages the Northern California office of Dougherty + Dougherty Architects, an award winning architecture firm specializing in public education and civic projects. He has been active in the AIA since he graduated from Berkeley in 2006 and currently serves on the AIACC Executive Committee as the Vice President of the Academy for Emerging Professionals.
Patrick Tighe, FAIA, is principal and lead designer of Tighe Architecture, an award winning architecture firm in Los Angeles founded in 2000. He received his M. Arch. from UCLA and a B.F.A. from the University of Massachusetts, Amherst. Prior to establishing the practice, Tighe was an associate at Morphosis. In 2006, Patrick was the recipient of the 40 under 40 Award and the AIA Young Architect Award. He is an active member of the AIALA Academic Outreach Committee. Patrick has held teaching appointments at UCLA and USC and is currently on the faculty at SCI-Arc.
Carol Shen, FAIA, earned her undergraduate degree from UC Berkeley and her M. Arch. from MIT. From 1973 to 1980, Carol worked as a Senior Project Manager for Bechtel Inc. and was subsequently a managing principal at ELS Architecture and Urban Design in Berkeley from 1980 to 2006, focusing on the firm’s retail and mixed-use portfolio. In 2006, Carol left ELS to consult on her own projects. (After all, architects never retire.) Carol’s AIA involvement has spanned numerous areas, with highlights including chairing many awards programs and chairing the National AIA Jury of Fellows.
In order to tackle the question of AIA value, we discussed a series of questions that cover the duration of our AIA involvement:
Why did you join the AIA? What was the expected benefit?
How do you feel about the architects who are not AIA members? What would you say to them?
How has the AIA affected your practice?
What AIA event or program was most valuable to you personally or professionally and why?
What is the role of the AIA in the profession? In society?
Where do you see the AIA going in the future?
Why did you join the AIA? What was the expected benefit?
Patrick: I joined the AIA because I knew I would benefit from the membership. We have access to crucial information needed for running a practice, such as use of contracts, professional practice seminars, and many other programs. There is also a sense of camaraderie amongst my AIA colleagues. It’s always nice to share information and get advice on issues related to running a practice.
Gray: Coming from a family of serious AIA enthusiasts, I guess I didn’t have much of a choice about joining the organization. I was looking for a good place to meet fellow architects, learn about aspects of the business that I might not be exposed to at work, and engage in leadership opportunities. I was pretty convinced early on that the AIA provides the only platform to positively affect the profession on a large scale.
Carol: I joined the AIA in 1976, a couple of years after I was licensed. Time flies! I’ve been in the AIA over half my life. At the time, I was working in San Francisco at Bechtel Inc., in a fledgling in-house architectural group that grew from 3 to nearly 100 architects by 1980, within a division that did transportation projects ranging from Muni substations to international airports. I expected that I would be able to network with other architects in more traditional architectural firms by joining the AIA East Bay chapter. Also, adding “AIA” after one’s name conveyed professional status and some sense of qualification and stature, which I thought was a benefit back then, being a minority woman architect within the corporate, 10,000-person engineering and management world at Bechtel.
How do you feel about the architects that are not AIA members? What would you say to them?
Gray: Inevitably, I’m a bit frustrated by architects who aren’t AIA members. The larger percentage of the profession that are members of the organization, the more influence the organization will have. Some people are just lazy. Others are turned off by the price or think that it isn’t relevant to their type of practice. There is the argument that, if you want to get something out of the AIA or have an impact, you need to be involved. For some reason, though, this argument doesn’t ring true with everyone. I would tell non-AIA architects that they’re seriously missing out. This is our organization and our support network. Despite its flaws, it’s the best organization we have, and it will only get stronger with greater membership.
Patrick: To each his/her own. The AIA is probably more important for some than others. As a firm owner, I benefit greatly from the organization.
Carol: Belonging to any group or professional organization is a personal choice. Architects may decide against joining or might give up their membership for many reasons, such as cost, continuing education requirements, distaste or disinterest in anything large-scale or corporate, or simply a need to be totally independent. Those who choose to not take part may be missing out on the sharing of knowledge, broader influences, and learning from the experience of others doing good work. As the AIA is dependent on the contribution of its members, it’s unfortunate the organization and the profession it serves overall both suffer when individual architects don’t participate. I feel it’s not my place to change their minds. In today’s difficult economic times, I would encourage students or recent grads who are working towards licensure or young professionals who are looking for employment to join and participate in the AIA for its programs, contacts, support, networking opportunities, and exposure to professional practice.
How has the AIA affected your practice?
Carol: During the ‘80s and ‘90s, I found the AIA provided ELS a valuable forum for increased exposure of our design work and insight into the exemplary efforts of other practices. Design awards and recognition, such as the 1991 AIACC Firm Award, brought honor not only to our practice, but also helped with our client relationships, as recognition from our peers reinforced our qualifications and good standing within our clients’ organizations and with the communities in which we worked. Publications, repeat clients, and marketing success were tangible results of local, state, and national AIA design awards and the collateral PR that came with them. In addition to awards programs, AIA conferences and seminars, publications and contracts, and continuing education programs provide valuable resources to smaller firms or individual practitioners that don’t have the luxury of corporate infrastructure training and management systems.
Patrick: Our firm has gained exposure through the award programs, including six national AIA and several local AIA design awards. We have also been pushed to do better work by being exposed to the work of others, and I’ve met many colleagues through the AIA who have helped, inspired, pushed, and offered advice over the past several years.
Gray: The AIA has really helped me establish myself as a leader in the profession at a young age. I’m able to affect positive change within our profession and beyond on a large scale in ways that wouldn’t be possible otherwise. My extensive network of other professionals across the state, both within architecture and in related fields, is a direct product of my AIA involvement. Practically, I’ve learned a great deal about regulatory and legislative issues that I wouldn’t otherwise have participated in. Just as we learn in architecture school that our environment is designed and nothing is as set or prescriptive as it may appear at first glance, I’ve had the opportunity to draw these same conclusions about our licensure, regulatory, and political system. Everything can be improved, no matter how immobile it may appear, including the AIA.
What AIA event or program was most valuable to you personally or professionally and why?
Patrick: The National Convention is always an opportunity to meet people, hear great speakers, and learn about the latest materials, building technologies, and more. Through the LA chapter, I was involved in the academic outreach committee, and through this committee we developed the 2×8 exhibition and scholarship. To date, the 2×8 exhibitions have raised close to $100,000 in scholarship funds redistributed to California design students. I also look forward to the National Convention this spring in New Orleans, where I will be elevated to the College of Fellows of the AIA. This is a real honor for me.
Carol: In looking back over the numerous conferences, committees, programs, and juries I’ve attended or been fortunate to serve on, two things stand out. First is the opportunity to have worked with the AIACC, several editors and editorial boards (1996-2005) in the evolution of the Council’s publication, Architecture California, into the quarterly journal arcCA is today. We wanted to reach practitioners, educators, urban designers, students, legislators, and design leaders across the state and promote thoughtful discourse about practice, work, design, and community issues. With every issue that arrives, I continue to look forward to a thought provoking read. It’s one example of AIA outreach and leadership potential. The second experience, valuable to me personally, was two years serving on, and the third year chairing, the FAIA jury. The jury process, where principled and articulate jury members studied and debated at length the pros and cons of each candidate to select the next class of Fellows, was an unforgettable education. The in-depth review of extraordinary candidates and the up-close-and-personal look at the service and work being produced around the country and world-wide were humbling and inspiring.
Gray: The AIACC Academy for Emerging Professionals (AEP) has changed the way that I think about the AIA. It’s not the impact of the organization itself, although that has also been significant, but the way that the rest of the AIACC sees the organization. I’ve been truly convinced that the AIA is, at its core, concerned with emerging professionals and adapting to meet the needs of the coming generation. More importantly, the speed with which the AEP has taken hold in California and has influenced the formation of the National Council of Emerging Professionals, has proven that the AIA will continue to evolve in the years to come and could one day prove to be the leading organization that we all desire. This is a dramatic change from hearing previous generations talk about how their AIA involvement has been like “nudging the Nimitz.”
What is the role of the AIA in the profession? In society?
Gray: Is it possible to ask a question that is closer to the heart of debates going on within the AIA right now? Objectively speaking, the AIA is our professional organization and represents the collective voice of architects (and supporters of architects, depending upon your beliefs about membership). Architects are in a unique position in society. We are all trained in “design thinking,” possibly before the phrase was coined. Collectively, architects are creative problem solvers and generally put the common good before any personal gain. You can see examples of this in initiatives such as the 2030 Challenge and the AIA COTE and Regional and Urban Design Committees. We need to recognize all that we have to offer to society, and to organize around issues greater than those that are simply meant to protect our profession. The AIA should be focused on establishing architects as trusted advisors to society, in the same way that we promote ourselves to our clients.
Patrick: To raise awareness. To advocate for architects and the profession of architecture. To promote the profession. To advance the status of the profession and its members.
Carol: Thought leadership, within the profession, as well as in the construction industry and our communities. As a national organization with members all across the country, the AIA is in a position to take a collective leadership role on behalf of the profession, beyond supporting individual members and firms at the local and regional level—to “do good,” to inspire, to lobby, to educate, and to harness the idealism that brought many of us to architecture school in the first place. At its best, the AIA takes the longer view toward balanced, healthy communities and looks beyond just design of isolated objects for its own sake and growing the business under any circumstances regardless of its impact. The AIA can push its members as well as its network of industry collaborators to be good citizens and better stewards of the planet.
Where do you see the AIA going in the future?
Carol: The individual as master-builder, though perhaps a sliver of the profession, is history. A lot of architects today find themselves struggling under the stresses and strains of a changing global economy, peak oil, and climate change. Many firms are merging into mega-entities. Technological and social issues further challenge us. Architects need to find better ways to participate, collaborate, and work, both in response to the complexities of our changing world, and pro-actively as agents of change. If the profession doesn’t evolve, architects will be left behind “polishing the brass on the Titanic.” The future of the AIA will depend upon how the AIA can become more inclusive—serve a wider spectrum more affordably—and if the organization can advocate for and be a driving force in reshaping the profession. The need is great for the profession and its members to address shelter and place at this precarious point of human habitation. Who and what else could be better suited to take action and make a difference than architects and their professional organization?
Patrick: I would like to see the AIA affect public policy more. The role of the architect in society has been trivialized, and I think that the AIA could work towards raising one’s perception of architecture and the value of architecture in today’s society.
Gray: Robert Ivy, FAIA. Okay, so I guess the AIA won’t exactly be going Bob Ivy, but his recent selection as the National EVP/CEO represents a crucial juncture in the development of the organization. Following on the heels of Paul Welch’s forward thinking interim leadership, Bob’s hiring has renewed my hope in the national organization. The AIA is truly a local organization, and programs and involvement at that level will always ebb and flow. However, AIA National has always been somewhat of a black box. We are all pretty convinced that we want it, but we often don’t know what we want it to do. As the former inspirational editor of Architectural Record, Bob will lead us to places we didn’t even know we wanted to go. Believe it or not, I was going through a moment of AIA self-doubt recently. Although it may not seem so, even those of us extremely dedicated to the organization sometimes question that dedication. With the success of the AIACC AEP and the newly formed National Council of Emerging Professionals, combined with Robert Ivy’s hiring as EVP/CEO, I am truly reenergized.
For three people who are all dedicated to the AIA, the organization has played different but equally important roles. Each joined the AIA for similar reasons: a support network, learning opportunities, and the branding and credibility that come with the professional title. Each feels slightly differently toward those architects who aren’t members, ranging from indignation to nonchalance to somewhere in between. Our practices and professional lives have been affected by various events and programs that the organization administers, and this seems to be the true lifeblood of the AIA. There is something for everybody.
The AIA provides personal growth opportunities, stimulating local and national events, and exceptional publications, all of which sum to a whole that keeps us coming back for more. Looking toward the future, we all agree that the AIA needs to take a leadership role both within the profession and in society. The trick is how to do it. Both the AIA and the architecture profession need to evolve. We have new strong national leadership, but the true power of the organization is within the individual. The organization needs to find those opportunities where the profession can take a true, global leadership role and mobilize its membership to engage these issues head on. As we careen towards a seemingly more complex and unsure future, it is time for architects to provide the thought leadership that we have been trained for. The AIA is our organization and our megaphone. It’s up to us to use it.
Originally published 1st quarter 2011, in arcCA 11.1, “Valuing the AIA.”
