Message from an AIO Board At-Large Director

Katherine Austin, AIA
AIAO At-Large Director

Hello, I’m Kathy Austin, and I’m your newest At-Large Member of the Board. I was licensed in 1991 in California after graduating from UCLA in 1986 with an M Arch. I’m currently licensed in Oregon after moving here six years ago to Bend. Though I moved here from CA I was born in Maryland and raised primarily in Alexandria VA. I have a BFA and MFA in painting from Boston University.

I have a long history with AIA, having joined in 1991. I served 5 years on the Housing Knowledge Community at National and then 3 more years on the Board Knowledge Committee. I am a past President of the Redwood Empire Chapter and served on the California Board representing my Chapter. This past Grassroots was my 10th. So I’m a bit of an AIA nerd, if you will. One of the main reasons I’ve been a long-time AIA member is for its advocacy for our profession.

Advocacy and its impact on our profession is a significant part of my being. I am currently on the Bend Section’s Leadership and have been on the City of Bend’s Affordable Housing Advisory Committee for four years. Bend members may recall that I helped put on a couple of programs on Affordable Housing as that has been my focus since starting my own practice in 1995.

In addition to my AIA involvement, I’ve been a Planning Commissioner, City Councilor and former Mayor of the small town of Sebastopol in California. I understand deeply the connection between our state and local laws pertaining to land use and its impact on our profession. I am part of a stakeholder group in Bend re-writing our zoning code to meet HB2001 to allow for the missing middle housing we so greatly need. I know what is coming to all of our cities in Oregon and would like to help where possible as a resource to our members. Additionally, I sit on the board of Housing for All - a Central Oregon group dedicated to all issues around housing affordability. We advocate locally and support State Legislation that impacts Housing.

So yes, I do have a practice, but as I get older I’m in a position to work more part-time. My most recent work is in that missing middle type of housing. I work on live/work, cottage clusters, town homes, mixed-use and small lot subdivisions. I’ve designed homeless shelters, multi-family affordable housing, self-help build homes, senior housing and Habitat for Humanity homes, all at a higher density. My nickname in CA was Dr. Density.

On the State Board I have advocated to start a Housing and Community Development Committee patterned after the National Knowledge Community. We have had one informal meeting for those interested. I hope to grow interest in the group and help advocate for issues on Housing for our members. I am also the liaison for the Committee on Local Affairs and lead that group in Bend. I believe there will be times for crossover between those two committees and with the Legislative Affairs Committee. Synergy is our friend.

I’d like to see more involvement from our membership in Advocacy for our profession. I hope that I can serve as a resource to our membership in that regard. If you are interested in joining our Housing and Community Development Committee or forming a Committee on Local Affairs please get in touch with me directly or through Kathy Wendland. Our voices are respected by our elected officials; we are recognized as experts in our field. You shouldn’t be so busy with work that you don’t look up and examine how you can impact our entire built environment with your Advocacy. I hope you will join me in that effort.

Katherine Austin, AIA, Architect

Message from an Urbanism Next Planning Committee Member

Scott Clarke, AIA
Associate, PIVOT Architecture
Urbanism Next Planning Committee Member

We live in a time characterized by change. How we communicate, meet, socialize, read, and work have transformed so fundamentally that the world I knew, say, in college, now seems like a quaint work of historical fiction. So, too, will our current situation be considered by us not far from now. As we work our way through this rather perilous time, we can take stock in where we are and where we’d like to be. If there is an upside to the current turmoil, it’s that this moment represents an opportunity to reconsider things about our world that we have long considered immutable.

Technology, of course, is responsible for much of this change and some of the turmoil. Consideration of the consequence of technology to urban form is at the core of the work of Urbanism Next, a research, education, and consulting initiative of the University of Oregon. Urbanism Next is directed by Nico Larco, AIA, Professor of Architecture and Urban Design. The organization is inherently multi-disciplinary, engaging a broad range of professionals including planners, technologists, lawyers, communication people, journalists, economists, real estate experts, and others. Together, these professionals gather with the intent of understanding how our cities have the potential to evolve as new technology alters their meaning and purpose. Autonomous vehicles, micro-transit, e-commerce, and the sharing economy are all examples of technological developments that may have profound consequences to our urban environments. Mindful consideration of these and other similar issues, it is presumed, can facilitate identification of positive outcomes from these changes, and it is acknowledged that lack of careful thought about our cities’ inevitable change will very likely result in poor outcomes.

My engagement with Urbanism Next stems from my recent concentration in transit projects. For the last five years, I’ve been mostly engaged in the design of bus rapid transit systems in a variety of western states. My involvement with TriMet’s first BRT project, now under construction along Division in East Portland and extending to Gresham, led to my participation in Urbanism Next’s annual conference nearly three years ago. I shared what we were up to with the Division Transit Project in a pre-conference workshop, and then was able to participate in a captivating and well-run conference filled with great speakers, interesting topics, and good conversations. I left with a greatly expanded understanding of why I cared so much about the transit projects I’ve been engaged with, as I better understand how essential they are for the wellbeing of the cities they serve. These systems are absolutely essential elements of equitable and sustainable communities. They connect us with opportunity, food, health care, and importantly, with each other. These systems accomplish all of this while conserving space and reducing the amount of energy and resultant emissions required to provide the mobility we need to lead happy, productive, and healthy lives.

I also came away from the conference concerned that architects were underrepresented among conference attendees. This is a little disappointing, as the issues discussed are fundamental to our work, and our perspective is needed in these discussions. I often reflect on the shift of perspective that occurs when I engage in transit projects. Like most architects, I previously conceptualized my domain as extending from within some piece of real estate to, usually, a border on at least one edge formed by a right of way line. Now, I’m concerned with the space between two right of way lines, looking to the properties beyond. The public realm that lies between those two lines needs us! We are responsible for understanding the relationship between physical form and human experience. The quality of the public realm is dependent on our engagement with its design. Of course, that public realm is also profoundly affected by what is placed at its edges. Resultingly, the work of those engaged with either side of the line is of deep concern to the scope of consideration represented by Urbanism Next’s endeavors.

Two years ago, Curt Wilson asked me to represent AIA Oregon on Urbanism Next’s conference planning committee, and I gladly agreed. I’ve served since, so was engaged in last year’s conference and its transition from a physical to virtual format. The virtual conference had the same sense of vitality and relevance as the first I attended, so planning for the upcoming second virtual conference, to be held March 17-19, was done with the confidence that this format can provide meaningful experiences for its presenters and participants. I hope that you will consider joining me in a few weeks as we continue to explore the kinds of cities we aspire to create and live within. For more information see https://www.urbanismnext.org/events-categories/conferences.

Scott Clarke, AIA

Scott Clarke, AIA, is an associate at PIVOT Architecture in Eugene, Oregon. He has been engaged in bus rapid transit projects in Oregon, Utah, and Washington, as well as many non-transit projects over the last 20 years. He is a frequent pro tempore studio instructor at the University of Oregon, and was president of the AIA Southwest Oregon Chapter in 2014.

Message from the AIAO Communications Committee Chair

John Flynn, AIA
Communications Committee Chair

Hello, Colleagues –

I’m writing this week to give you all an update on AIA Oregon Communications.  As always, the Communications Committee endeavors to provide our members with the most useful, helpful, and meaningful content through all our platforms.  We continue to improve our communications strategies and methods – and that has never been more important than in the past year.

Let me pause to acknowledge that the heavy lifting for the Communications Committee is done by the great staff at AIA Oregon.  So, a big thank you to Kathy, Adrienne, Colleen, and Curt for all your hard work!  Keep in mind that since last year’s pandemic-induced shutdown, almost all AIA programs, meetings, and special events have been conducted virtually.  I think that, in a way, this has promoted our goal of building a strong and united architecture community statewide.

As an integral component of AIAO’s member services, our communications content and platforms have continued to deliver on the pressing issues of the day – be it navigating the pandemic landscape, addressing the struggle for Social Justice, or responding to climate change/natural disasters.  In addition to the Covid-19 resources available on our website, we have published our Social Justice Action Plan and important related resources.  As well, recent Thursdays @ Three messages and today’s Thursday Roundtable address preparedness and recovery as our state navigates natural disasters such as wildfires and power outages.  I encourage you to visit our Resources page for many links to useful information on these topics and more.

For the Communications Committee, one carry-over “to do” item from 2020 is the development and launch of the “Find an Architect” page of our website.  During this first quarter of 2021, we have restarted our work on this outreach component.  Note that the AIA Oregon Profile Directory, available through our website, continues to serve in its capacity as a link to member firms.  However, a new searchable database, with categorized filters, that includes member firms from throughout the state has been a goal since we transitioned to a single statewide Chapter.  Two weeks ago, our weekly Thursday Roundtable hosted a discussion on how best to formulate this search tool.  We know that all member firms will be represented – it’s the categorizations and filters that need to be fine-tuned.

Our main goal as we develop our search tool is, obviously, to promote member architects and firms.  But we are committed to doing this in a fair and inclusive way.  For reference, we have been looking at some of our peer organizations (AIA Austin, AIA Colorado) to gauge the effectiveness of how their search pages are organized. We want to look carefully at the typical filter categories – firm size, geographic location, project types – to yield effective short lists of firms.  We are challenging ourselves to find means of organizing search results (for example, non-alphabetical listings) so that all firms get a fair chance at showing up at the top of a search listing.  And we’re sensitive to the fact that each member firm offers a unique set of attributes to potential clients; so perhaps there’s a “spotlight” filter that allows users to find firms that are differentiated by characteristics such as minority-/women-ownership, design-build capacity, or experience with non-profits.

That's a tall set of tasks but we’re confident that all firms will be equitably and fairly represented.  As we sort through our decisions, we have engaged a web development specialty consultant who will provide the coding and plug-ins that will make the page functional.  It’s going to be a great feature on the website!  Stay tuned to Thursdays @ Three for notification that “Find an Architect” has gone live.

Thanks and best wishes to everyone!