Over the weekend I had the great pleasure of attending the 2011 AIA Ohio Valley Region Convention in Dayton, Ohio as a panelist for the topic “Alternative Career Paths in Architecture”. I represented myself as part of the home performance industry, performing home energy audits and quality control/quality assurance inspections. As a part of the panel, I feel that I was the furthest outside of the box from being in the traditional architectural field. Other fields or paths related to architecture that were represented were, specifications writing, historic preservation, university planning department, state architects office and web comics. The panel was moderated by Lee W. Waldrep, Ph.D who wrote the book Becoming an Architect: A Guide to Careers in Design and moderated similar panels at other conventions such as the 2011 AIA National Convention.
The overall convention was invigorating. It not only re-energized my spirits, but helped show me some directions that I can take my career. I also had the opportunity to network and talk with some colleagues that I have not seen in the past year or so, as well as meet a couple of up and coming celebrities, the creators of the popular web comic Architexts. Therefore, until next years convention I am looking forward to getting more involved in the architecture profession again, even if it is just participating in AIA events and meetings.
Again this year I was asked to present at the AIA Ohio Convention that was held these past couple of days in Toledo to provide a follow up to the results, as the intent was that each of the three category winning designs was to get built, and it is my pleasure to state that all 3 designs are getting built. Two are well under construction, and one is awaiting a permit. This year I was joined by one of our winning teams and habitat for humanity representative to discuss their experiences during and after the competition. Because the intent of the competition was to give younger un-registered architect a chance to take hold of a project and work directly for a client and learn more about energy efficient design. As well as provide habitat for humanity a new set of well designed prototypical homes that is more energy efficient and more aesthetically pleasing. We had a good turn out with some good information being shared by our design team on how it helped them progress and learn as well as how the competition helped one habitat affiliate bring community members together as well as foster discussion with other habitat affiliates throughout the state.
After 3 long years of volunteer work the N. 21st Street project received a Platinum certification from the United States Green Building Council (USGBC) under the LEED for Homes Pilot program on February 18th, 2009. It is the first Platinum home in Ohio and only the 17th within the country in the affordable category at the time of certification.