Designing safer offices

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by Deane

There have been far too many instances of workplace violence in recent years, but there are some design measures that can enhance office security while maintaining a low profile. I wrote about a few of them for Topic Architecture: 

Walking past visible security measures, such as cameras or an office lobby guard, can be a reassuring reminder that your workplace prioritizes safety. At the same time, installing metal detectors or bulletproof glass can introduce an unnecessary level of anxiety. Office security toes a fine line between remaining visible enough to provide deterrence and confidence while staying unobtrusive enough to avoid escalating fear, and architects play a crucial role in integrating these discreet security measures into office architecture and landscape.

Elizabeth Evitts Dickinson explored this delicate balance between safeguards and satisfying aesthetics in a 2016 article entitled Designing for Security. “Security is as much about perception as it is about reality, and cultural anxiety often influences building design,” she wrote. Those anxious influences all too often lead to highly fortified, defensive buildings that, while functional, look more intimidating than welcoming, which can be a problem for employees that want to feel comfortable while they’re at work.

One approach to security integration is called Crime Prevention Through Environmental Design (CPTED), which was developed by a network of building security-focused architects and planners as a set of best practices for industry professionals. Dr. Randy Atlas, FAIA, one of the preeminent spokespeople in the CPTED realm, lists the biggest sources of security issues in office buildings as access control, boundary definition, surveillance, maintenance, and management competence.

For more on office safety measures, read the full article at Topic Architecture. 

Practice Innovation Lab tackles the future of architecture

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by Deane

Participants in the AIA Practice Innovation Lab strategize elevator pitches for new models of practice.

Sixty architectural thought leaders looked ahead to strategize new models of practice

With so much of the world in flux, through changes to climate, technologies, and construction techniques, how will architects adapt ways of practicing to advance the profession? That was the question put to a group of 60 professionals—architects, designers, and practitioners from related fields—at the Practice Innovation Lab, held in mid-October and hosted by the AIA’s Young Architects Forum.

Over the course of the program, attendees heard experiences and examples from innovators before forming smaller teams and brainstorming ideas to evolve architectural practice. Interspersed between these discussions, addresses on the topic of innovation demonstrated means of breaking new ground in fields such as interaction design and public interest design. The smaller teams later reconvened to pitch their proposals to each other before voting on the best practice models.

The Practice Innovation Lab crammed an intense level of consensus-building into a short timeframe, and was designed to get architects out from behind their desks to strategize rather than theorize. Organizers Evelyn Lee, AIA, and Milan Jordan, Assoc. AIA, and moderator Laura Weiss, Assoc. AIA, kicked off the event with a challenge to elevate and propel the profession through the development of new practice models that “make inspiration actionable,” according to Weiss. “[We’re] laying the framework to elevate the profession and move it forward,” she said. Lee called upon emerging professionals to be the vanguard of practice by “pushing boundaries to see values that we bring as architects to the broader community.”

Read the story at AIA.org. A full report from the summit will be available in late 2017.

NCPC Approves Eisenhower Memorial and Carnegie Library Renovation

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by Deane

In its October meeting, the National Capital Planning Commission (NCPC) approved final plans for the proposed memorial to Dwight D. Eisenhower as well as renovations that would transform Washington, D.C.’s Carnegie Library into an Apple Store.

The Eisnenhower Memorial, designed by Frank O. Gehry Architects with sculptor Sergey Eylanbekov and tapestry designer Tomas Osinski, has been the source of lengthy and contentious debate, in large part due to inclusion of metal mesh tapestries depicting various scenes of President Eisenhower’s life and achievements, but received support from Eisenhower’s family last year.

Frank Gehry

Watch Frank Gehry explain his design for the Eisenhower Memorial. 

A groundbreaking ceremony for the memorial will take place next month.

Better Design Makes Healthier Hospitals

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by Deane

From broad strokes ideas, such as starting with a set of guiding principles that ensure clients’ needs are met. to specific solutions, like indirect lighting in patient settings and healing gardens for patients, staff, and visitors, architects work toward hospitals that are healthier, by design.

Medical practice has come a long way since the days of applying more leeches as a cure-all; modern advances in hospital design anticipate and accommodate changes in technology and practice while bolstering the case for healthier patients through better spaces. Architects can shape facilities around broad strategies such as patient-first thinking and evidence-based design. But they can also incorporate more finely grained details, down to optimal placement of equipment and lighting fixture arrangement as well as staff and visitor amenities that, in concert, produce healthcare facilities that help people heal faster–and with fewer leeches.

Better spaces, healthier people

A 2004 report examining more than 600 studies on the impact of hospital design on clinical outcomes found evidence that design plays a significant role: “Improved physical settings can be an important tool in making hospitals safer, more healing, and better places to work.” Yet figuring out where to begin design decisions in an ever-changing realm of technological innovations can be daunting.

It can help to have early conversations with your architect about your needs, whether the scope is a renovation of an aging hospital facility or a new structure designed to house doctors practicing the most current medicine with state-of-the-art devices. Every hospital project has its own unique set of constraints, such as site and budget, and an architect shows the possibilities that will work in each specific situation.

Read the full story at Topic Architecture. 

2017 AIA Women’s Leadership Summit

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by Deane

Nearly 400 women participated in the 2017 AIAWLS in Washington, D.C.

It was my great privilege to attend this year’s AIA Women’s Leadserhip Summit in Washington, D.C., in mid-September. The keynote speeches by Dina Griffin and Susan Colantuono were inspiring, as was the energy from attendees. Included among them was Beverly Willis, whose efforts at championing women in the building industry are unparalleled. Some observations from the event, which I wrote up forArchitectural Record, follow below:

Beverly Willis, an architect who founded the Beverly Willis Architecture Foundation in 2002 with the goal of increasing recognition of women architects’ contributions to the field, also attended this year’s AIAWLS. Now 89, Willis estimates that she has been talking about the need to address inequity across the entire building industry for some 55 years. Asked if the discussion had changed in that time, she said, “Not really. And that is one of the things that really concerns me: That we’re just talking about the same old things over and over again. On the other hand, women have made great gains within firms, and the sophistication of the women in this organization shows—both in terms of the speakers, who’ve been phenomenal, and the attendees.”

An intensive day of leadership programming kicked off with a welcome address by Rosa Sheng—the founding chair of Equity by Design, president-elect of AIA San Francisco’s board of directors, and a senior associate with Bohlin Cywinski Jackson. Sheng emphasized importance of transparent discussion, citing the AIA’s adoption of Resolution 15-1, which formalizes principles of equitable practice. She also teased findings of the 2016 Equity in Architecture Survey, which will be released publicly before the end of the year. According to Sheng, survey results indicate that architects often compromise personal welfare for professional aspirations, and that there’s enormous disparity in salary by caregiver status.

2016 Equity in Architecture Key Findings Presentation – AIASF Equity by Design from Rosa T. Sheng on Vimeo.

Read the full story at Architectural Record. 

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