By Beau Frail, AIA and Samantha Szeszulski, AIA
This article was originally published on AIA National’s website HERE

How can emerging professionals build stronger communities and advance their professional development at the same time?

We’ve all seen issues in our communities that would benefit from design solutions. From providing affordable housing to creating more equitable public spaces, the ways designers can help are plentiful. Social impact design aims to address complex challenges through a community-driven approach that places the public interest at the heart of the design process.

Practicing social impact design means considering more than just the financial bottom line. Architects and designers incorporate elements of social and environmental justice and engage with the community to ensure many voices shape the project.

Emerging professionals are increasingly seeing the value this work has in their communities and how working on such projects can be meaningful for their careers. While social impact design has unique challenges, young designers can find leadership opportunities and personal fulfillment by incorporating it into their careers.

Here are different ways you can get leverage your skills to benefit communities and grow in your career: (more…)

The New 2017 Michigan Electrical Code; Administrative Rules Part 8, became affective as of January 4, 2019.  All projects being submitted for permit on or later than this date should be in compliance with the new electrical code.  The code is based on the 2017 NEC with some amendments made by the State of Michigan.  The Michigan amendments can be found at the state website. See the link below:

http://dmbinternet.state.mi.us/DMB/ORRDocs/AdminCode/1677_2017-001LR_AdminCode.pdf

Individual commitment to a group effort – that is what makes a team work, a company work, a society work, a civilization work.
~Vince Lombardi

Every year during the holiday season the “red kettle campaign” begins, with volunteers at every Kroger, Macy’s and CVS in town. I’m often struck by the number of people that walk swiftly past, without a glance or offering of “thank you” to those frozen bell-ringers. We all know that every little bit counts – each and every penny, dime or dollar that is contributed helps the greater mission that organization stands for; doing the most good.

As I reflect on what AIA Detroit has done as an organization this past year, after committing to “doing the most good”, I am still astounded by the number of committee and volunteer hours; CEU credits; competitions, and networking opportunities we offered this past year. If you attended the Annual Meeting, you had the opportunity to see and hear about all the phenomenal work that we have done to increase the visibility and voice of architecture in Detroit. In my opinion, we have done better than simply “good”; we have been exemplary in the services provided to you, our members. And I say this, with a resounding applause, to the efforts of Lauren Myrand and Charlie Klecha, who contributed more than their share to making each of these services and events an outstanding success. There aren’t enough thank you’s in the world to signify our gratitude for their efforts. (more…)

Please Join AIA Detroit for our Annual Meeting on Thursday, November 15th, at 6:00pm. The meeting will be held at the WSU Industry Innovation Center, formerly known as NextEnergy. This meeting will include the annual report to the membership on significant accomplishments, events, and programming throughout the past year, and the election of the 2019 AIA Detroit Board of Directors.

We hope you will attend! The Annual Meeting is one of the few times throughout the year that we, as an organization, can reflect on our progress and discuss the future of AIA Detroit with our members. It is an opportunity to see everything that our staff and volunteers have worked so hard on, as well as a chance be face-to-face with AIA Detroit leadership in an intimate setting where questions and feedback can be discussed. We encourage you to RSVP for this free event as we wrap up another successful year at AIA Detroit!

If you cannot make the meeting in person and wish to participate in the election, you must request an absentee ballot by sending your name and AIA Number to elections@aiadetroit.com by November 14th, 2018. Absentee ballots must be completed by 12pm on November 15th, 2018.

RSVP Here for the Annual Meeting

GET TO KNOW THIS YEAR’S SLATE OF CANDIDATES… (more…)

Photo Credit: Three Lyons Creative

The 2018 AIA Detroit Honor Awards and the Celebration of Architecture are always the flagship events of the year for our organization, as they are for many of our friends and allied organizations across the AEC and design industries, but this year exceeded all expectations, thanks to a handful of new features, and over a hundred different partner organizations lending their time, money, and expertise to the execution of this momentous one-day gathering.  

Key to the success of this year’s event were a host of new features aimed at providing more opportunities for both industry members and the public to engage with each other, and with the programs and people that make up our community. A new “Industry Lounge” afforded our members, partners, and sponsors more time to network, and after years of fighting against the acoustics of a farmers market shed, Producing Partner Bluewater Technologies made certain that everyone in the Shed (and maybe beyond!) could hear what was going on onstage. 

Photo Credit: Three Lyons Creative

Balancing the enhanced exclusivity of the new Industry Lounge, AIA Detroit embraced inclusiveness and welcomed dozens of collaborating organizations for the first-ever “Industry Exhibit Galleries” at the Celebration of Architecture.  Ticketed attendees and the festival-going public alike were able to stroll freely through the dozens of larger-than-life exhibit banners representing the work of allied organizations across southeast Michigan seeking to improve our built environment. The exhibits also featured our own Honor Awards, the finalists for the first Commerce Design Detroit Awards (winners set to be announced later this month) and other AIA Detroit Committees and programs, like a public engagement exhibit on diversity in the workplace by our Committee on Diversity and Inclusion, and an interactive AR/VR demonstration by our Technology in Architectural Practice Committee with the Detroit-Area BIM User Group (DABUG).

Photo Credit: Three Lyons Creative (more…)

Eighteen Finalists named in inaugural Commerce Design Detroit Awards; International Jury to visit businesses this weekend

AIA Detroit and Design Core Detroit are thrilled to officially announce the (18) businesses selected as finalists for the first Commerce Design Detroit Awards program. The finalists were selected from a highly competitive group of (37) submissions, representing a broad range of businesses, scales, neighborhoods, and business types. The Jury, featuring both local and international design practitioners, will gather in Detroit this weekend to conduct on-site visits to each of the finalist businesses to learn more about their design process and the impact the project has had in its neighborhood context. The (18) finalists will also be recognized in a special exhibit at this year’s AIA Detroit Celebration of Architecture, the premier event of the year for the AEC and Design communities in southeast Michigan. 

Ten winning projects will be selected following the jury’s visits, and will be announced at a special event in late October at the Garden Theatre. Winning businesses will then be featured in a promotional campaign, including a “People’s Choice” vote on social media, leading up to a special edition Drinks x Design Crawl to the winning businesses on December 1st.

Congratulations to the finalist projects!:

Senior Architects Based in Detroit, D.C., and Baltimore

Quinn Evans Architects, one of the nation’s leading architectural firms specializing in planning, design, and historic preservation, has announced the promotion of four senior architects to principal. The new principals reflect the firm’s diverse expertise in the design of museums, theaters, and cultural buildings; libraries; schools and higher education facilities; and urban revitalization initiatives.

“Our four new principals reflect the high caliber of seasoned, diverse leadership that has become the standard at Quinn Evans Architects,” said Larry Barr, FAIA, president of the firm. “These architects have consistently championed resourceful design strategies that help to transform buildings and reinvigorate communities.”

In the Detroit office, Richard Hess has been promoted from senior associate to principal. With more than 20 years of experience, Hess has played a key role in several major revitalization projects in Detroit, including preservation initiatives at Michigan Central Station, the redevelopment of the historic Brewster Wheeler Recreation Center, the adaptive use of the former B. Siegel department store into the mixed-use 7.Liv, the new Woodward Willis mixed-use development in Midtown, and the restoration of the McGregor Memorial Pool and Sculpture Garden at Wayne State University. Elsewhere in Michigan, Hess is working with the City of Dexter on its downtown redevelopment initiatives.

Hess is a member of the Urban Land Institute. He holds a Master of Architecture from the University of Michigan (2003) and a Bachelor of Design in Architecture from the University of Florida (1996). (more…)

Many of the most inspiring stories to come out of Metro Detroit involve volunteers and their tireless efforts.  Volunteering can be both an extremely rewarding experience as well as a chance to get out of the office and try something new.  We here at AIA Detroit are fortunate to have within our membership many firms and architects who believe in wielding the powerful tool of design to give back to the local community.

Perhaps you have planted trees, built tiny homes, or lent your skills in constructing a habitat for those in need.

Maybe you have volunteered your time directly through AIA Detroit and our network: whether you have contributed to the revival of a street corner, lent your afternoons introducing architecture into the world of Detroit students, partaken in NOMA Detroit’s Project Pipeline, labored with us during the annual neighborhood-wide undertaking by Life Remodeled, or spent countless hours chairing or working for one of AIA Detroit’s numerous committees or programs, we salute you. 

No effort is too small, and your donated time will never go unnoticed.  As architects, you have the vision to change the future, and your involvement in such community efforts is guaranteed to leave a positive, lasting impact on the way we approach equity and diversity in design.

What makes an AIA membership truly worthwhile? One could easily offer up some basic examples—discounts on contract documents, the tracking of your continuing education credits, access to resources like health coverage through the AIA Trust—but there is something much more intrinsic at the core of AIA membership, something many of us often overlook or don’t even think to acknowledge. It is the reason the AIA still exists today: At the core of your AIA membership, there are individuals—some paid staff, many more simply passionate volunteers—who pour their hearts and souls into working countless hours to ensure that your time spent in the architecture and design profession is the best and most opportunistic that it can possibly be.

These people are part of an international organization 90,000-strong, with a legacy stretching over 160 years. They advocate on your behalf; fight for the future of the profession and its emerging designers; maintain an institutional framework that brings together architects to explore advances in the way we design; and create safe spaces that allow for those difficult, but necessary, conversations surrounding such topics as equity, diversity, and sustainability to occur.

Here at AIA Detroit, we are fortunate to have so many individuals who are willing to share their passion with the greater Metro-Detroit region, to volunteer their expertise and leverage their connections, so that our AIA member experience is enriching and advantageous. When you are a member of AIA Detroit, you are welcomed into a community that believes quality architecture and design make the world a better place. It is a bustling network waiting for you to engage, and the constant efforts of its volunteers to support and improve the architecture profession are what make your AIA membership so valuable.

We encourage you to join us next Monday, June 18th, for a Midyear Membership Meeting, where you will be able to meet the folks who drive our Chapter’s activity, and receive an update on all the exciting upcoming programs and initiatives they have planned for the AIA Detroit community.

We look forward to seeing you there!