Amy Vohs, AIA
Outgoing AIAO President
“What a long, strange trip it’s been.”
I hope you are all well and are able to spend some time away for the holidays. As I wrap up my term as AIA Oregon president I look back on what we were able to do in such unusual times. 2020 started out innocent enough with some good momentum behind our strategic plan for the next few years. We were looking forward to a lot of change as well as knowing we needed to hire a replacement Executive Vice President and work through our lease on the Center For Architecture ending December 2021. We were getting ready with the different task forces for these major events along with rolling out new educational programs for the year. The chapter was still merging into a single state chapter. We were debating on the best course of action to roll out long distance learning for equitable access across the state, with a plan to expand our technology with cameras and good streaming services to upgrade the existing capabilities for broadcasting programming.
Then COVID hit.
We took a month to regroup and understand what our mission was as a professional organization. What our members are paying for is quality education and activism in issues regarding our profession so our attention focused on how to move big events to the virtual world. We learned a lot from members on how they were making the transition, shared tips and were back up with a limited amount of programs as we also realized that our personal lives needed much more attention as well.
Memorial Day 2020 seemed to have it all. It was the start of the wildfire season that turned our skies red and our air quality toxic, forcing large evacuations and creating devastation that came to a head in September, devastation that communities are still working hard to rebuild. The Eugene and Southern Sections worked with other organizations to discuss better ways to build, landscape and protect communities from wildfires in the future. This will be an ongoing discussion with jurisdictions on code adoption as well as with the construction industry.
Also on Memorial Day, George Floyd was murdered, triggering an awakening to the many injustices facing people of color throughout the country and most notably to us, in Portland. It has changed how we look at our cities, how we collaborate with each other, how projects are planned, how we talk to our kids, and - I hope - how we govern our communities. As an organization, AIA Oregon changed our strategic initiatives by reviewing and improving programs to discuss equity in the built environment, community engagement and how we work better within our communities so that the past does not repeat itself. We created our Social Justice Action Plan focusing our efforts on six different areas to help us focus our efforts where we can be most effective.
Access to the Profession
Expand and Enhance Community Relationships
Advocacy
Continuing Education Training
Equity Within the Organization
Celebration of Architecture and Architects
We issued an update to where we were in our Action Plan earlier this year. We will continue to use this as a guide to continue to make progress. Social change is a continued effort that needs to constantly be reviewed and course corrected throughout our lives.
In 2021, as our communities started to rebuild, we have been slowly getting back on our feet with a new Executive Vice President, Heather Wilson, who brings such a strong background of working with AIA National and other chapters. She has already brought some amazing speakers to us and a different approach to facilities management.
With our Portland CFA lease ending at the end of 2021, we opted for signing a three year lease at the MODA center to allow us time to look for a new final home, to allow us outside opportunities for revenue generation and to provide a benefit to members and allied partners for a little different venue to socialize and network.
Future Vision 2021 brought some great discussions on equity from multiple voices. Room For More’s presentation on Equi-Districts pushing the discussion on how we can bring equity to the center of our design profession.
As Steven Lewis, FAIA mentioned in his keynote conversation with Chandra Robinson for 2021 Future Vision, we need to learn about the communities we work with and engage with them to let them guide what is needed for their own community. “If it is not with us, then it is not for us”. If you missed this conversation, please see the Vimeo recording linked above. The discussion was open and honest and I find myself revisiting it often.
The Keynote Speaker for Sustainable Building Week Hop Hopkins, Climate Justice Fellow with the Sierra Club, brought up discussions on disposable land and our relationship with people, land and pollution affects larger percentages of communities of color. This was a three part program with discussions on energy use, bringing sustainability to our homes and how to expand that to other communities.
These are just a few of the events AIA Oregon presented through the tireless efforts of our committee members. We are also working on coordinating efforts for organizing opportunities for high school internships or job shadows to provide students of color or students without access to the AE professions. This is continuing our efforts to expand access to the profession working with several other organizations NOMA PDX, Room for More, ACE, and others for a more equitable approach to working with firms and students.
This is just a fraction of the discussions we’ve had over the last two years. I look forward to 2022 with more opportunities to get back together with the Oregon Design Conference, Business of Architecture series, Tour of Homes, and others. I look forward to what the next board will bring to the table. Kaley Fought, AIA has been a part of this board for several years and has some amazing ideas to expand upon over the next two years. I look forward to what is to come. I feel blessed to have been your president for the last two years and thank you all for being a part of AIA Oregon. I wish you all a Happy New Year.
Peace out and I’ll leave you with one more Grateful Dead quote:
“If we had any nerve at all, if we had any real guts as a society, or whatever you need, whatever quality you need, real character, we would make an effort to really address the wrongs in this society, righteously.” ~ Jerry Garcia