Message from the New AIA Oregon EVP/CEO

Heather Wilson
New AIA Oregon EVP/ CEO

“The purpose of life, after all, is to live it, to taste experience to the utmost, to reach out eagerly and without fear for newer and richer experience.”

– Eleanor Roosevelt

Eleanor Roosevelt led an active, full, and interesting life, if not a sad one. She was immediately stricken at an early age with the loss of her mother, father and brother to illness and depression, only to pull herself back together and have to nurse her husband, FDR, though his presidency and paralytic illness. Despite all of her obstacles, she maintained her drive and developed her voice as a feminist and anti-racist. She became an outspoken (and therefore criticized) woman in the public eye, redefining the role of “First Lady” with her social platforms, speaking engagements, and sometimes outright disagreement with her husband.

I love her example. Considering that in times gone before me, thought pioneers did more with less keeps me going. It reminds me that the fundamental task of finding your voice is the rudimentary first step but learning to flex it is another task entirely that requires dog-headed determination. It is not enough to be in the room if you never speak up – you must decipher a room and speak to your audience clearly, honestly, and sometimes, urgently.

Make no mistake; we find ourselves in urgent times that require the voices in the room to speak with authority. The availability and quality of our air, water, energy, and soil are at the mercy of our “progress” – our ingenuity cutting both ways. Simultaneously, we are asking similar questions around our societal structure: the quality of our schools, cities, public spaces and social capacity hang in the balance of unanswered questions around exactly how we ended up with so much brutality disrupting our ideals of humanity.

There is a deep public outcry for answers.

Forgive me for sounding too optimistic, perhaps, but I believe we – the designers, dreamers, artists, scientists and all-around bad-asses in AIA - can actualize a better future. I also believe the process will be just that – a process. It will require honest, open, clear communication facilitated by creative and inspiring thinkers that get things done. Forgive me again for sounding too naïve, but I believe our design community has the right tools for the challenge. Not only are you equipped by virtue of your training, education and passion; you have a secret weapon: AIA Oregon members and staff who are all dedicated to the same ideal.

And what can you get when you activate over one thousand people to accomplish high-end goals? Well, for the most part, you get ideas; and not all will work, but our job is to generate them, and share them, not judge them.

We will also create some great relationships, some that will serve to connect us to solutions in the near (and not so near) future. We will connect to communities we perhaps have not yet. And we’ll expand our knowledge at the same time we increase a sphere of influence.

Some of the outcomes will look like failures; I assure you they are not. They are continued attempts at success that will help us build resilience and working capacity. We’re going to increase our stamina and strength as a group recovering from COVID and racial unrest, and that will take time, consideration, and measured thought. But I know that if any group of individuals can come together to make it happen, its AIA members. Everywhere I have been in this nation, AIA members are poised and ready to take on tough issues, and now should be no different.

It won’t be easy at first, perhaps, to come back together after over a year apart. We’ll have to relearn some things, and maybe even disabuse ourselves of others. But as I start this week, my first as your full-time EVP, I know I’m looking forward to the journey, and I’m so glad I have the chance to do it with the members of AIA Oregon. As we get to know each other, I hope you’ll reach out by email or phone, and when we are meeting again regularly, I look forward to seeing how your individual contribution can make your membership that much more valuable to you. It’s going to be an exciting time and I thank you for trusting me to lead. Let’s envision and build collaborative solutions to an ever-changing world, together.

Looking forward to it,

Heather Wilson

Message from the AIA Portland Director-Elect

Ben Arico, AIA
AIA Portland Director-Elect

Cultural Awareness in Architecture

I began my work with AIA Oregon in 2019.  At that time, I had 10 years of total professional experience, with just over 4 years of experience working at Bora Architecture & Interiors.  My focus up to that point was entirely “heads down” on my project work, and I did not have much interaction or exposure to things happening in the greater architecture community.  After some encouragement, I started this journey by taking on the role of coordinator for the AIA Oregon InProcess lecture series.  The lecture series is based on architects and trade partners sharing insights and perspectives of their design process with the community.  These lectures have robust discussions following the presentations, and I started to register the value of community conversations and public dialogue about design. 

My concept of dialogue about design was largely constructed through my upbringing as a film student at the College of Santa Fe and then as an architecture student at the University of New Mexico in Albuquerque.  I learned to examine architecture as sculpture, architecture as abstract expressionism, and architecture as experience.  My heroes were Steven Holl, Peter Zumthor, Álvaro Siza, Herzog & de Meuron, and the like.  Whenever questions about community and culture came up, my response was to disregard this topic as not very important.  My understanding was that architecture is by nature an abstract form of communication, and I was much more interested in a cohesive and beautifully expressed building concept.  I focused on how form and light create spatial experiences of their own, glorifying the ability of architecture to express an experience devoid of culture; a walk through an abstract world where colors and shapes only relate to each other - not to the world that we live in or our society’s collective mind and history.

When I started coordinating the AIA InProcess lecture series, I continued to celebrate architecture through this lens.  I wanted to bring our community together so that we could examine and appreciate Design with a capital D, and we could all learn from each other about how to do that given all the challenges of making architecture.  I did not consider the cultural meaning or cultural messages in any of the work that we celebrated or studied.  I did not consider how my own cultural upbringing might influence the way I presented the series, and I did not consider how people with different cultural backgrounds from mine would feel as an audience member.

When I first heard about equity in architecture a few years ago I was completely mystified.  I kept hearing people talking about equity and diversity and inclusion and I just did not quite grasp the meaning of what they were talking about.  I was aware of our society’s issues with racism, ageism, sexism, homophobia, ableism, etc.  As someone who came out as gay at the age of 21, I was used to the idea that dominant culture can be incredibly unfair to people.  I had experienced it.  I could see how other people experienced it.  I just did not understand how any of us could change dominant culture, and I did not understand why this topic was particularly relevant to architects.  After several years of being exposed to equity conversations, going through 2 equity training programs, Critical Race Theory workshops, reading articles, and participating in AIA Oregon’s Social Justice Action Plan Committee, it has finally begun to sink in.  Architecture inherently engages in a cultural dialogue.

We all share the physical world.  Space is not unlimited.  It’s not like the internet or digital concepts of space.  When we build a building, we affect the entire community that comes into contact with it.  The cultural awareness of those who designed and paid for the building is imprinted on the community and affects everyone who views or uses the building.  The social and economic power structures that dominate our society are being physically manifested in the built environment.  When architects are not aware of the cultural messages that their buildings are communicating, dominant culture manifests itself unchecked.  This is the same dominant culture that excludes and oppresses minorities. 

It is not a coincidence that most of the architects practicing in Oregon belong to the dominant culture.  Architecture is one of the most difficult professions to be successful in.  The work is never done. Everything can be improved, re-drawn, or re-designed to work better.  It takes decades of experience before an architect may find his or her voice.  Young architects need allies in order to survive. Young architects need leaders who will help them learn from their mistakes and celebrate their successes.  Are we surprised that there are so few minority architects when we understand how automatic it is for dominant culture to exclude and oppresses those it considers to be different?  It makes the road exponentially more difficult for minority architects.  I’m very thankful for the allies that I have, but I also acknowledge that there is work to do in this regard.  This is something that architects can work towards, because having more diversity in the architecture profession will add more cultural awareness and inclusion to the built environment.

When I started coordinating the InProcess lecture series, my goal was to bring the people together to improve the design of our environment and the connections that we have with each other as members of the design community.  It took me a while, but I can see now that social injustice, systemic racism, and the treatment of women and minorities by dominant culture is the most important issue that we face right now.  We cannot be a healthy and functioning community when some of us are excluded and oppressed.  If one culture is dominating, everybody loses - even members of the dominant culture.  Who can really be happy when one person’s success is won at the expense of another person’s suffering?  If my goal is to work towards bringing the community together, it starts by acknowledging the inherent cultural dialogue of architecture and addressing the current imbalance in this regard.  It is not that Design with a capital D is irrelevant.  In fact, quite the opposite, but we must expand our concept of what architecture is to include the cultural implications and messages that the built environment inherently communicates.  Once we see the imbalance, we can begin the work to correct it. 

I am by no means an expert on this topic.  I’m aware that I have much more to learn, and I am only scratching the surface.  In some ways I feel inadequate to be writing this message.  I have incredibly deep gratitude for those who have been doing this work long before I was aware of this, and I am so thankful for those who have shared their knowledge and stories with me to help me begin to understand.  I am looking forward to continuing to listen and engage with an open mind and an intent to create healing.   One of my goals for the next year is to incorporate design dialogue with cultural awareness into the InProcess lecture series.  The series has the ability to highlight and celebrate those who are doing this work right now in our community.  If we center and amplify the voices of those in the margins, we can work to create healing.  Architects do have the opportunity to educate clients.  We are the experts at making spaces.  We can create healing through design.

Today is Earth Day.  What better way to celebrate the planet than to celebrate the value of every human and every culture?  If we believe that we can change the world, then we can do it.  I am proud to say that AIA Oregon supports this mission.  To truly create healing and change in our community, we have to find a way to link all of these efforts together, and that is one thing that a membership organization such as ours can help to do.  We can work together towards a future where diverse cultures and spaces are in harmony with each other, and all kinds of voices are included in the creation of the built environment.

I hope you will join the AIA Oregon Thursday Roundtable discussion on May 7th, where we will be discussing initiatives that our member architecture firms have taken to create or improve their firm cultures and promote discussion around equity and inclusion.

You can register for the event here: https://www.aiaoregon.org/events/2021/5/6/thursday-roundtable

If you’d like to find out more about this topic or get involved, visit our social justice resources page at: https://www.aiaoregon.org/social-justice-resources or email info@aiaoregon.org.

Message from the AIA Eugene Section Director

Colin Dean, AIA
AIA Eugene Section DIrector

An Update From AIA Eugene

With Spring in full bloom, a sense of optimism is in the air and with that, the prospect of returning to a more recognizable AIA cautiously appears within reach.  With that, we turn our gaze towards the potential of dialing back the Zoom events and slowly ramping up opportunities to meet in-person. At the local level, the planning has already begun and once it’s safe, the Eugene Section looks forward to seeing everyone’s smiling faces again without our computer screens filtering the view.  

Before I touch on some of the upcoming programs and initiatives currently being planned for later in the year, I’d like to quickly take a moment to look back at where we were prior to locking down. Back in January 2020, which seems like a lifetime ago, I took the helm of the Eugene Section. Working with our local steering committee, one of our first tasks was to develop an agenda for the upcoming year. In addition to our annual summer picnic and winter celebration, we were very excited to offer in-person construction tours of high-profile projects in our section area. These included Hayward Field, the Knight Campus, and the recently completed, at that time, Benton County Historical Society Museum. Rounding out the year, we were planning for the 30th Annual People’s Choice Awards along with an awards celebration. As March rolled around, we quickly had to reevaluate how we provided services to our members. Thankfully, 2019 saw Oregon’s numerous AIA Chapters combine under one umbrella to form a single-state chapter. Doing this offered the possibility of streamlining our member services while also harnessing the power of a professional staff to help with running our organization and programs. Under a single-state chapter, we investigated ways to incorporate technology to help unite members from around the state. As social distancing took hold, we accelerated our technology roll-out and in a relatively short period of time were able to begin offering lunch and learns, lectures, building tours and so forth digitally. While we would all prefer, under normal circumstances, to meet in person, having the groundwork already laid for offering digital services helped to mitigate the disruption to member services until the time arrived when we could safely meet in person. We’re cautiously optimistic that such a time is nearly upon us!

Right off the bat, there’s big news coming out of the Eugene CoLA. For those of you unfamiliar, the Eugene Committee on Local Affairs serves as a platform where members discuss the latest municipal projects, city council activity, and hear from local leaders about items affecting the built environment not just in Eugene but throughout our section area. Currently, Eugene CoLA is in the planning stages to offer a panel discussion with community and civic leaders to discuss a number of upcoming municipally led developments in Springfield, Glenwood, and Eugene. Under a hybrid model of in person member engagement we envision having a small group of members attend in person while the majority of attendees dial in virtually. If all goes to plan, this panel discussion will occur sometime between June but before August. Likewise, rumblings are beginning to emerge out of the Small Firms Exchange as they start to look ahead and resume actively meeting. In addition to committee activity, we have a number of section events on the horizon.

Coming up in August, after missing out last year, we’re planning to resume our annual summer picnic. Here members and their families can join together in a casual atmosphere, to celebrate and reconnect with one another after our long hiatus. Rounding out the year, in the fall we hope to resume our tradition of inviting the public to vote on their favorite member contributed projects at the annual People’s Choice Awards – to be held at a local venue along with an online voting component. 2021 marks the 31st anniversary of the inaugural AIA Eugene People’s Choice Awards and we’re excited to keep this tradition alive. We’ll follow up with a celebration of the winners at an awards ceremony shortly after. Near the end of the year, we plan to resume our annual holiday party. Sprinkled into the mix, we aim to offer in-person construction tours. Finally, while not an in-person event, we’ll be publishing the latest edition of the AIAO Design Annual in early 2022. Stay tuned!­

In closing, we have a ton to look forward to in 2021. At the local level, CoLA is actively meeting and is planning to hold a panel discussion to explore the many municipally led projects coming up around the corner. Small Firms Exchange is investigating the best way to relaunch, and we have a number of local events on the horizon. With all of this activity beginning to stir, please remember that AIAO Oregon is a member-driven organization and as such, we rely on our members to step up and help guide the conversation, plan our events, and create the vision for our future. As a member, your engagement is highly valued as it keeps our chapter and section energized and relevant to all of us. If you’ve never sat on a committee, participated in a planning session, or it has been a while since you last have, I strongly encourage you to join in and help as we relaunch in-person events. We depend greatly on our professional, associate, and allied members to raise their voice, create dialog, and help shape our future so we can continue to provide meaningful services to our members. Volunteer opportunities abound. Please reach out to me, or Kathy for more information. I’m excited to see what 2021 has in store.