October 27–28, 2026 | MLK Library Conference Center + Around Washington, DC
Architecture is shaped by change and has the power to shape our city in return.
On October 27 and 28, AIA|DC’s annual conference, DesignDC 2026, brings together architects, designers, developers, policymakers, and the broader AEC community to explore this year’s theme: Architecture as a Tool for Change.
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Tuesday, October 27 | Learn + Connect
Join us at the MLK Library Conference Center from 10:00 a.m.– 5:30 p.m. for a full day of education focused on the challenges and opportunities reshaping architecture and the built environment.
9:30 - Registration
Location: Fifth Floor
10:00 - 11:00am Keynote: Architects & the Economy | CEUs Pending
The presentation will give attendees an overview of current economic conditions, how they influence firm operations and project pipelines, and the critical role architects play in driving economic activity and community development. The presentation will also introduce practical sources and forecasting tools that can help professionals at all career stages better evaluate business conditions and plan strategically for the year ahead.
Speaker: Michele Russo, Hon. AIA, LEED AP, Vice President, Research, AIA National
11:15am - 12:15pm The Cost of Going Up | 1.0 HSW|LU
Washington, DC needs more housing, but one of the least-discussed barriers to housing production may be hiding in plain sight: elevator regulations. In this session, Will Teass, AIA, and Stephen Smith of the Center for Building in North America examine how elevator requirements affect the feasibility, affordability, and design of small multifamily buildings. Drawing on recent research, local case studies, and examples from peer cities and international markets, the presenters will explore how current codes influence building form, construction costs, accessibility outcomes, and housing supply. Participants will gain a deeper understanding of the tradeoffs embedded within elevator regulations and how these requirements can inadvertently impact the production of missing-middle housing, small apartment buildings, and urban infill projects. The session will also examine alternative regulatory approaches that maintain health, safety, and accessibility goals while reducing unnecessary barriers to housing creation. Through a combination of data, project examples, and policy analysis, attendees will learn how thoughtful code reform can expand design flexibility, improve project feasibility, and support more attainable housing options. The discussion will equip architects to engage more effectively in conversations about building codes, housing policy, and the future of urban residential development.
Speakers:
Will Teass, AIA ASID LEED AP, Managing Principal, Teass \ Warren Architects
Stephen Smith, Executive Director, Center for Building
1:00 - 2:00pm Navigating the Evolving Regulatory Landscape in DC
The practice of architecture in Washington, DC is shaped by a regulatory environment that continues to evolve at both the local and federal levels. This session will examine recent and emerging developments affecting how architects and designers navigate approvals, review processes, preservation requirements, and federal oversight. As requirements and expectations continue to shift alongside broader changes in government and policy, practicing in the District can be difficult to predict. This panel discussion will provide greater clarity and a useful framework for understanding and responding to these changes.
Moderator: Neil Flanagan, RA, Scholar in Residence at the Heurich House Museum
Speakers:
Jill Cavanaugh, FAIA, Partner, Beyer Blinder Belle
Thomas Luebke, FAIA, Secretary, US Commission of Fine Arts
David Maloney, Associate Director for Historic Preservation and State Historic Preservation Officer, DC Office of Planning
Lauren McHale, President + CEO, The L’Enfant Trust
2:10 - 3:10pm Breakout Sessions
The Architecture Was Never The Problem | 1.0 HSW|LU
Around the world, brutalist buildings are the center of controversial discourse from critics and the public due to their misunderstood aesthetics, maintenance challenges, and negative public perception. The federal architecture of Washington, D.C., particularly its Brutalist buildings, stand at a perilous moment of reevaluation due to the ongoing downsizing of federal agencies and their office space. In their urban context, D.C.’s many Brutalist federal buildings are disconnected from the local urban fabric due to their sensitive programming and its secure nature. Left with little funding for maintenance, the deterioration and age of the buildings’ materials have begun to burden their usability for the many diverse agencies in the city.
Despite the factors that affect perception, the Brutalist federal buildings in D.C. represent a critical time period for our nation’s architectural and cultural history, reflecting an era of civic ambition, experimentation with new construction technologies, and an evolving form of collective identity for a world and nation recovering from the Second World War. Their adaptive reuse provides an opportunity to challenge and reshape public perceptions of Brutalist architecture, transforming what is seen as cold, harsh, or inaccessible into experiential architecture that actively participates in civic life. This presentation questions the factors that affect the perception of brutalist
federal buildings, and explores how their adaptive reuse could be most successful; using architecture as a tool.
Speaker:
Haley Jackson, Assoc. AIA, Leed Green Associate, Associate Project Consultant, Simpson Gumpterz & Heger
Architecture Without Architects: When AI Reaches the Client First | 1.0 LU
The profession's conversation about AI has focused almost entirely on how architects can use these tools. This session asks the more urgent question: what happens when the tools reach the client first, and the client decides the architect is optional? Two shifts make it immediate: research now finds AI completing 50 to 65 percent of text-based professional tasks at a minimally acceptable standard, including space planning, specification writing, code research, and permit documents, and the U.S. Department of Education's 2025 reclassification of the architecture degree as non-professional, effective July 2026, signals deprofessionalization at the federal level. Where residential work requires no licensed oversight, encroachment is already operational, with contractors and design-build firms marketing AI-enabled design directly to homeowners.
Lombardo presents findings from an unusual research position: a practitioner-researcher and AI educator designing a personal residence as an educated, unlicensed designer, deliberately testing the limits of AI-augmented lay practice using only consumer tools. The case study documents what AI-augmented laypeople can actually produce, where the absence of professional training creates risk AI cannot mitigate, and what that boundary reveals about the profession's irreplaceable contribution. Because the subject arrives wrapped in dread, the session opens with ten minutes on the staged approach Lombardo uses to help firms and nonprofits integrate AI safely and ethically, so the room examines the evidence from clarity rather than alarm. The second half is a structured discussion: what should licensure advocacy, service design, and public messaging look like when the capability boundary keeps moving?
Attendees leave with a QR-linked resource set containing the evidence base and a discussion guide for their own firms. The RIBA AI Report 2025 finds AI tools already enabling non-professionals to generate domestic plans without oversight; this session examines that jurisdictional shift in the city where jurisdiction is made.
Speaker: Amber Lombardo, Founder & CEO, Luna Lake LLC
Landscape Architecture as a Tool for Change: Age Well | 1.0 HSW|LU
As the senior living sector grapples with an aging population and rising expectations for quality of life, landscape architecture is emerging as a powerful lever for transforming how communities age, heal, and connect. This session examines Sunrise McLean Village, a 100-unit assisted living and memory care community in McLean, Virginia, where a tightly constrained 2.23-acre infill site was reimagined into a therapeutic, secure, and socially vibrant outdoor environment. Presenters Maureen Davis, Executive Director of Sunrise McLean Village, and Connie Fan, FASLA, Principal at LSG Landscape Architecture, will unpack how evidence-based design strategies — healing gardens, sensory planting, ADA-compliant wayfinding, and discreet security fencing — were woven into a dense, site-challenged parcel to directly improve resident health, safety, and engagement.
Beyond the resident experience, the session explores how the project extended its impact into the surrounding neighborhood through the McLean Heritage Garden, an 8,000-square-foot public park that preserves a heritage willow oak and celebrates local cultural and natural history with custom stone inlays and gathering spaces. This public-facing gesture illustrates how landscape architecture can serve as a bridge between an insular care setting and its broader community, fostering intergenerational connection and civic goodwill — outcomes that helped the project earn recognition in the Fairfax County McLean Urban Design Guidelines and the 2025 ASLA Potomac Award.
Attendees will leave with a candid, two-year post-occupancy evaluation — drawn directly from staff and resident feedback — that surfaces what worked, what didn't, and what the team would do differently, from lighting and seating to the popularity of the gazebo and the value of horticultural therapy programming. The session offers practical, transferable lessons on holistic site planning, early collaboration between designers and operators, and designing outdoor spaces that don't just accommodate aging residents but actively promote their well-being — reinforcing landscape architecture's role not as an amenity, but as an agent of meaningful change in senior care environments.
Speakers:
Connie Fan, FASLA, LEED AP, Principal, LSG Landscape Architecture
Ash Nabizad, McLean Village
3:20- 4:20pm Breakout Sessions
The Wrecking Ball: Driving Community Resilience and Housing Equity through Value-Inclusive Design | 1.0 HSW|LU
Housing equity requires a shift from traditional development models toward approaches that center the lived experiences, cultural identities, and priorities of historically underserved communities. This session argues that Value-Inclusive Design (VID) provides a framework for advancing community resilience by integrating meaningful public participation into every stage of planning, design, and implementation. Rather than viewing redevelopment solely as a physical intervention, the presentation reframes architecture as a catalyst for social transformation. The metaphor of the wrecking ball symbolizes regeneration and optimism, not simply the demolition of outdated structures, but the intentional removal of systemic inequities to create more just, inclusive, and resilient communities.
The proposed redevelopment of the Franklin D. Reeves Center in Washington, DC serves as a contemporary case study demonstrating how value-inclusive design can translate housing equity into practice. By incorporating affordable housing, preserving cultural heritage, prioritizing minority-owned businesses, and engaging residents throughout the planning process, the project illustrates how redevelopment can balance economic growth with community priorities. This presentation further argues that institutions such as the DAC + WAF play a critical role in advancing public understanding of housing equity by equipping scholars to communicate research beyond academia. Through public scholarship, interdisciplinary collaboration, and community engagement, the
Academy helps elevate underrepresented voices while informing broader conversations surrounding affordability, displacement, ownership, and equitable urban development.
Ultimately, this session positions architecture as both a professional practice and a public responsibility grounded in justice, inclusion, and long-term community well-being. By integrating Value-Inclusive Design, judicial equity, and the social value construct of transformation, it challenges market-driven approaches that prioritize short-term economic gains over lasting social impact. Instead, it calls upon architects, planners, educators, and policymakers to become stewards of equitable development by creating places that preserve cultural identity, expand access to affordable housing, and strengthen community resilience. Through this lens, the wrecking ball becomes a powerful symbol of transformative change, removing barriers created by systemic inequality while laying the foundation for more inclusive, sustainable, and equitable futures.
Speaker: Eric Harris, PhD, Associate AIA, NOMA, SSAC, BAIDA
An Unconventional Practice Model for Outsized Impact | 1.0 LU
For decades, firms have been encouraged to grow larger, specialize more narrowly, and adopt increasingly hierarchical organizational structures to compete for significant commissions. This session presents an unconventional small practice model intentionally designed to compete for transformational projects of greater civic and community impact through a multidisciplinary approach, project-specific design exploration, close client collaboration, and the strategic agility of senior practitioners. Attendees will leave with practical strategies to reposition their firms to pursue more consequential commissions, demonstrating how rethinking the practice of architecture can expand the profession's ability to shape the public realm and serve as a catalyst for positive change.
Presented jointly by the architect, founder, and creator of the practice model and a long-time client, the session offers the rare perspective of both practitioner and client. Together, they examine why this unconventional approach consistently won transformative commissions, delivered exceptional client value, and ultimately inspired this client to transition from commissioning the work to joining the firm as its Managing Director. The session concludes by demonstrating how AI strengthens, not replaces, this practice model. Rather than focusing on software or visualization, it explores practical applications that enhance project pursuits, research, communication, and project delivery, enabling smaller firms to compete more effectively for transformational commissions. Together, this practice model and the thoughtful integration of AI create new opportunities for architects to expand their influence, shape the public realm, and deliver work with greater public impact, regardless of firm size.
Speakers:
Michael Winstanley AIA, Founder and Design Director, Winstanley Architects & Planners
Mike Balaban, Managing Director, Winstanley Architects & Planners
4:30 - 5:30pm Breakout Sessions
Advocacy 101 | 1.0 LU
Architects shape communities every day — but our influence too often stops at the project boundary. The decisions that govern how buildings get designed, permitted, funded, and occupied — building codes, zoning, procurement rules, housing policy, resilience standards, licensure — are made in legislative chambers, agency rulemaking dockets, and public hearings where architects are rarely at the table. Led jointly by AIA National Government Affairs & Public Policy Department and the AIA|DC Advocacy Working Group, this workshop demystifies advocacy and offers a practical roadmap for engaging at both the District and federal levels. Attendees get a behind-the-scenes look at how policy priorities get set, how relationships with elected officials and agency staff are built and sustained, and how architects are mobilized when it counts — illustrated with recent campaigns drawn from both the Wilson Building and Capitol Hill.
This session is built for participation, not spectating. Through short exercises and real case studies, participants will practice framing an issue, making a clear ask, and finding the entry point that matches their available time and comfort level. Everyone leaves with a one-page advocacy action plan they can actually use — whether that means submitting testimony, joining a working group, or making a first call to a Council member's office.
Speakers:
Amal Mahrouki, Director of State and Local Affairs, AIA National Government Affairs & Public Policy Department
Haley Nicholson, Sr. Director, Federal Affairs, AIA National Government Affairs & Public Policy Department
Roark Redwood, AIA, AIA|DC President-Elect
Brian Forehand, AIA, AIA|DC Advocacy Working Group
Kimberly Bender, Executive Director, Washington Chapter, American Institute of Architects and the Washington Architectural Foundation
Art in the Public Sector | 1.0 HSW|LU
The District of Columbia’s Department of General Services (DGS) provides important community buildings in a city with a diverse range of civic needs and broad cultural influences. DGS complements these building efforts by including significant commissioned art installations to enrich a particular community and celebrate its diversity through its Percent for Art program. This program provides access to works of art beyond traditional gallery space by using community and agency participation in locating, budgeting and selecting artists of local, regional, or national importance. The works commissioned through the program reflect the communities within which each is set, reinforcing the role of these civic buildings. This session, moderated by Nicole Keroack, AIA and Associate at StudioMB, will present three speakers with deep involvement in the program who will share insights into how their efforts to include public art has helped shape design in the District’s building program.
Joining Nicole will be panelists Sandy Bellamy, DC DGS’s Percent for Art Program Manager; Peter Nohrden, DC Department of Parks and Recreation Project Manager; and Chandler Householder, Associate at StudioMB, who has worked extensively on DGS projects utilizing the Percent for Art program. Each brings a distinct perspective on the role of art in the design process and within the community. Together, they will inspire attendees to create lasting civic landmarks by integrating commissioned public art into projects within their own communities and districts.
Speakers:
Nicole Keroack, AIA, Associate, StudioMB
Chandler Householder, AIA, Project Architect, StudioMB
Sandy Bellamy, DC Department of General Services Percent for Art Program Manager
Peter Nohrden, ASLA, CPSI, DC Department of Parks and Recreation Project Manager
6:00 - 9:00pm Conference After-Party (Free for Conference Attendees)
The Puttery | 800 F Street NW, Washington DC
Tour Information - Wednesday, October 28
Optional; $40 each
Participants are responsible for their own transportation to the venue.
10:00am – 12:00pm
Shaw 1000 – 2.0 HSW|LUs
Shaw 1000 is part of an evolving model of urban living. One of seven co-living projects in Washington, D.C. designed by Square 134 Architects for Cohabs, a Belgium-based platform offering fully furnished shared housing in major cities worldwide, the project reflects a new approach to density, community, and adaptability.
Located within the Shaw Historic District, Shaw 1000 transforms a stately single-family home into a 10-bedroom shared residence. Rather than subdividing the house into isolated units, the design reimagines it as an intentional living community—balancing private bedrooms with generous communal kitchens, lounges, and gathering spaces that encourage connection.
The project carefully navigates the character and constraints of the historic district while introducing contemporary amenities and infrastructure to support modern co-living. The result is a layered space where historic fabric and new interventions coexist, creating housing that is flexible, social, and rooted in its neighborhood context.
Tour guides: Sabrina Nagel, AIA, NCARB. Architect Square 134 Architects PC
Ronald Schneck, AIA, NCARB. Principal Square 134 Architects PC
MLK Library - 2.0 HSW|LUs
In 2020, the MLK Library reopened its doors after undergoing a $211 million rehabilitation. The completely modernized library now includes elements such as a spectacular new, vibrant and transparent entryway, sculptured monumental staircase, a roof top terrace, and much more. Join Richard Reyes-Gavilan, Executive Director of DCPL, for an in-depth tour of the landmark renovation.
Tour guide: Richard Reyes-Gavilan, Executive Director, DCPL
2:00pm – 4:00pm
Southeast Library Modernization Project - 2.0 HSW|LUs
Construction is now underway at the historic Southeast Library. The $33 million modernization will include expanded space for children, teens and adults, preservation and restoration of the building's historic elements, a universally accessible entrance (as well as maintaining the original historic entrance), and restoration of the exterior landscape all through sustainable design.
Southeast Neighborhood Library, one of three Carnegie-funded libraries in DC and the second neighborhood library built, proved to be one of the library system's busiest from its opening on Dec. 8, 1922. The one-story brick building, designed by noted library architect Edward L. Tilton, sits at 403 7th St. SE on an irregularly shaped site in the Capitol Hill National Register District, purchased with $8,360 from Congress, and bolstered by $67,000 in construction funding from the Carnegie Corporation.
Tour guide: Jaspreet Pahwa, NCARB, LEED AP, Director, Capital Planning & Construction, DCPL
Heurich House Museum Preservation Tour - 2.0 HSW|LUs
The Heurich mansion was built in 1892-4 for German-American immigrant Christian Heurich (1842-1945), whose brewery was the largest in DC and a household name. It is the city's best-preserved example of Richardsonian Romanesque residential architecture and one of the most landmarked interiors in DC. The mansion incorporated many technological advancements, including metal speaking tubes, electric lighting, burglar alarms, and "fireproofing." The interior decoration and furnishings were made by numerous German-American craftspeople. The house remained in the Heurich family until 1956, when it was bequeathed to DC’s Historical Society. In 2003, a family-created non-profit purchased the house and turned it into a museum.
Go behind the scenes and experience something new on the Heurich House’s first-ever public Preservation Tours, led by long-time Preservation Director Dan Rudie.
During this tour, Rudie will share over 20 years of experience to highlight past, present, and future building projects at the Museum.
Tour guide: Dan Rudie, Preservation Director, Heurich House Museum
