Message from the Chair of the Committee on the Environment (COTE)

Elisa Rocha, AIA
Chair, Committee on the Environment (COTE)

On the heels of Earth Day, we acknowledge and celebrate the efforts of everyone who participated in acts of volunteerism, education, conservation, advocacy, and design intervention. The AIA Oregon Committee on the Environment (COTE) recognizes our collective responsibility to maintain that momentum and build on those efforts to protect and positively impact the environment and our community. As a local affiliate of the American Institute of Architects COTE Knowledge Community, AIA Oregon COTE supports AIA National COTE’s mission to work “for architects, allied professionals, and the public to achieve climate action and climate justice through design. We believe that design excellence is the foundation of a healthy, sustainable, and equitable future. Our work promotes design strategies that empower all AIA members to realize the best social and environmental outcomes with the clients and the communities they serve.” 

In support of this mission, AIAO COTE is focused on addressing issues of great importance in Oregon: energy use reduction, operational and embodied carbon reduction, climate justice and equity, health and well-being, and resiliency in response to extreme heat events and wildfires. We are committed to educating professionals and the public on these issues, and we do so by collaborating with sustainable design practitioners and allied professionals to provide educational programming through our AIA Digital Design Series presentations and through the annual Green Champion Summit, which takes place during Sustainable Building Week in October. We share resources and learning opportunities from COTE Network leaders across the country to help architects transform their practices for climate action and climate justice. And we contributed to the incorporation of the AIA Framework for Design Excellence principles into the design criteria for AIA Oregon Design Awards submissions.

AIAO COTE is open to architects and allied professionals, and we welcome everyone who is interested in participating in our efforts. We also invite all AIA 2030 signatory firms in Oregon to attend our monthly meetings, share their experiences, and assist us with developing educational opportunities to lift up all design professionals and give them the tools they need to take on that challenge.

We meet on the third Thursday of each month, and our meetings are a forum for open discussion about sustainable project work, initiatives, strategies, challenges, solutions, and advocacy. Our intention is to bring the community together to share, inspire, and cross-pollinate so we can learn from each other and strengthen our collective abilities to address climate change.

We hope to see you at our next meeting, and we invite you to attend the next Digital Design Series event on May 10th, which will feature the Oregon Design Awards 2030 Winner: the Oregon Treasury Administrative Office Building. It has been distinguished as the highest-rated USRC Platinum building in Oregon and the first USRC base-isolated structure in the United States. This DDS event will be a unique and important learning opportunity for all of us.

Thank you,

Elisa Rocha

Message from the AIAO Executive VP/CEO

Heather Wilson
AIAO EVP/CEO

“New and stirring things are belittled because if they are not belittled the humiliating question arises 'Why then are you not taking part in them?”

― H.G. Wells

The work of the AIA Oregon Headquarters task Force (HQTF) over the last quarter, presented in this weeks’ T@3, gives every member the opportunity to review and respond to the feedback they’ve started to interpret into recommendations for a path forward. In these next two online opportunities for feedback, April 27 and May 4, those who participate (hopefully you!) will receive information and ample chance to share any thoughts we may have missed.

Along with the Task Force members and our Board of Directors, I’ve listened to member feedback regarding the future of the AIA Oregon Headquarters. They were dedicated to reviewing the feedback in a thorough and timely fashion. Thank you to the 200+ members that have helped shape the conversation so far.

And now we’re hoping to hear from the rest of you!

I know everyone can’t be involved to the same degree, but we are going to try to offer as many opportunities as possible in different settings and formats over the next few months to hear from every member. With ackowledgment to the 200+ members who responded to the survey, that means roughly 1100 members were silent.

Over the next few months of spring and summer, AIA Oregon HQTF members and I will attend summer Section picnics, Third Thursday events and Emerging Professionals and Fellows events with on-site opportunities for sharing your thoughts and helping refine the conversation. You’ll see articles in the T@3 and perhaps some targeted email messages that ask for your feedback as a Section member or Committee member. And please remember the email we have dedicated to this string of conversation: info@ournewhq.com. You can send your thoughts and questions at any time.

My hope is that the full membership of AIA Oregon will be well served with whatever solution the HQTF recommends, and the Board ultimately approves; but what I know for sure is that the solution will serve those who have participated best.

Looking forward to hearing from you,

Message from a Small Firm Owner

Jim Walker, AIA
Owner / Principal Architect, Studio C (Portland)

SFx Oregon - Coffee and Collaboration

Small architecture firms occupy a unique and necessary role in our industry. (For the purpose of this article, a small firm is defined as having around 10 people or less but really it’s just a state of mind.) We’re nimble. We’re focused. We’re incredibly diverse. We’re everywhere in the state, within arm’s length of every project site. 

Because of the essential role that we play, small firms have unique opportunities and some interesting challenges. The opportunities tend to stem from the entrepreneurial spirit that stimulated the forming of small firms in the first place. The challenges are often related to how small firms have fewer resources so firm owners have to wear so many hats. When you are HR manager, accountant, business development director, quality assurance guru, Project Architect AND primary production staff while also being the face of the organization, sometimes you can feel like you’re on an island. Sometimes you just need someone to talk with to share your experiences and ideas and to get a fresh perspective on how you’re doing things.

Since October of 2022, AIAO’s Small Firm Exchange (SFx Oregon) has been meeting virtually on Wednesday mornings at 9am. We call it the SFx Coffee Break. It’s a 45 minute online meeting led by Jennifer Wright, AIA, where we meet other people that own or work at other small firms and find ways to learn from and help one another. 

Each meeting starts with a bit of networking. Everyone introduces themselves and what they often focus on as a business. While it may look like we’re just socializing, these get-to-know-you sessions have been very productive in helping people get comfortable with each other, ultimately resulting in at least one collaboration on a project between firms. Small firms are uniquely well suited to cross-firm collaborations and our hope is that the SFx Coffee Break can be a catalyst for many more such partnerships to come.

Once that’s all done, we have a weekly topic. We dig into the Topic of the Week where we’ve discussed such things as how to do community engagement, fire resiliency, accessibility, and the design of smart building envelopes. Next week’s topic is: 

“How to Price Your Services”

This will be a discussion about the different methods that are used to establish a design fee or rate and the ways that your contract can help you to stay within your design budget. We suspect that it is going to be a lively discussion! (Learn more here)

Like all of our meetings, this discussion will be purposefully free-form in nature rather than a stiff class with a strict syllabus. As such, please be willing to share your wisdom, however experienced it may be, with the group. Ask some tough questions as well. Please also be prepared for the discussion to touch on adjacent and relevant sidebars. Those usually result in the following week’s topic. 

This meeting can be whatever you want it to be. Just show up and help drive the agenda. It’s very easy and mindfully low-key. As mentioned, we’ve been meeting now for about 6 months. We’ve had folks from Bend, Medford, Eugene, Salem, and the Portland area joining in. We’d love to see people from other areas of Oregon joining as well. We have a reliable and diverse core group of participants that are eager to broaden the reach of the SFx Coffee Break and hope that you can join us Wednesdays at 9a.

I’m looking forward to having coffee with you.

Cheers.

-Jim