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

Message from the Legislative Affairs Committee

Legislative Update
Provided by Cindy Robert, Legislative Lobbyist to AIA Oregon, Rainmakers LLC

With contributions from Kim Olson, AIA (Chair) and Chris Forney, AIA (Sustainability)

AIA at work in Salem

With the 82nd Oregon Legislative Assembly convening for the 2023 Legislative Session on Tuesday, January 17th, your AIAO Legislative committee began its work. The Governor has targeted housing, homelessness, mental health and education as her focus (and use of 75% of the general fund budget) and while we support her in many of her efforts to improve Oregon, our agenda has additional focus on sustainability, the environment and our practice.

Resilience

We have our own bills expanding the role of the State Resilience Officer role and assuring that new schools plan for large space like cafeterias and gyms to be built to resilient standards so communities can utilize them after a hazard. We are also tracking more than 20 bills dealing with resilience such as HB 2257 (which we testified for) establishing a School Safety Construction Fund, HB 2775 and 2875 creating the Oregon Disaster Recovery Authority, and HB 2858 requiring the Department of Land Conservation and Development do natural hazards mitigation planning. 

Sustainability
This past year, AIA participated on the 27-person Resilient and Efficiency Buildings (REBuilding) Task Force, convened by Rep Marsh and Sen Leiber. The task force identified and produced quantitative analysis for areas of significant impact for emissions reductions and community resilience.  Following the final REBuilding Task Force report, initial bill language for four bills was filed:

SB868: Healthy Heating and Cooling for All
SB869: Build Smart from the Start
SB870: Building Performance Standard
SB871: Smart State Buildings

We anticipate that there will be amendments needed and AIA will be engaged in those discussions.

Early in the process, AIA submitted Legislative Concept LC3296 – Energy Benchmarking, with Senator Dembrow. Currently, AIA is inclined to shift focus of our advocacy and our membership’s attention on the four SBs coming out of the Rebuilding Task force.

Practice

We are supporting changes to ORS 671, our practice act, brought forward by ORBAE in SB 224. Architects were involved during the interim developing language changes. As proposed, SB 224 updates terminology and describes concepts related to architectural practice in a way that is more consistent with architectural practice across the country. The changes also remove some barriers to registration for firms providing architectural services in Oregon.

It is always worrisome when you open up your practice act, that others might want to make changes that weren’t part of the ongoing collaborative efforts. In this case, a change to expand exemption language was offered increasing exempt building sizes and allowing some multifamily structure in definition of those not requiring an architect’s involvement. The proposer has recently been clear that he hopes to start a conversation with his proposed amendments, and has asked the legislature to move SB 224 forward without changes.

Duty to Defend

We join other design professionals in a simplified version of this issue we have brought before prior legislatures.

Professional service contracts often require design professionals including engineers, architects, surveyors, landscape architects, planners, and others to defend others for legal claims or damages even though the design professional is not responsible. This “duty to defend” language is problematic for us and we want it removed.

Design professionals may carry general liability insurance, and most of their activities are professional acts which are covered by their professional liability insurance. However, the professional liability insurance does not insure a contractual, up front, duty to defend.  In many cases, firms are compelled to accept the duty to defend contract language, or the client will seek another firm. Often, design firms do make the tough decision to walk away from contracts, but they cannot walk away every time. When designers are compelled to sign these agreements, they are committing their business assets to pay these costs, regardless of fault.  Because these risks are significant, and potentially catastrophic, the result is fewer firms seeking such work and diminished competition. We are stressing the impact “duty to defend” language in contracts has on small, emerging, women and minority owned businesses. At the same that the legislature is looking to increase diversity in public contracting, they are allowing use of archaic liability language in contract that defies those equity goals.

Oregon would join a number of states that have already addressed the design professional’s duty to defend with legislation stating that a design professional will only be responsible for defense costs to the proportionate extent of their liability or fault.

Interested in joining the conversation / participating in the Legislative Action Committee? Contact the LAC Chair, Kim Olson, directly: Kolson@mahlum.com