Equity by WIELD in collaboration with the Design Excellence Committee invites fellow committee members and AIA|DC members to join us at our general body meeting and collaborative happy hour at The Square! 
 

Photo Credit: Garden City Elementary School, Fielding International
 

Join AIA|DC's Committee on Architecture for Education (CAE) for networking and rapid-fire style presentations at the committee’s "Back to School" Fall Social.

This event will showcase current work related to the design of learning environments by firms in the DC metropolitan region. Presentations will highlight emerging trends through designs still on the boards, completed within the last year, or under construction.

Learning Objectives:

• Explore and understand how diverse spaces can support lifelong learning.
• Describe new trends in school designs around the globe.
• Explain and analyze existing school facilities for their inherent challenges.
• Discuss and define 21st Century Learning Environments.     

Organized By: 

Committee for Architecture in Education

Sponsored By: 

In this presentation, we’ll discuss porcelain pavers as a durable and innovative paving option. Characteristics of
high-quality porcelain will be presented in contrast to a lower quality product. We will identify porcelain paver advantages while increasing your knowledge of uses and limitations from applications ranging from on-grade entrance ways to elevated plazas. A variety of installation methods will be examined as it pertains to each application type. It is our hope that at the conclusion of this presentation you will have gained a better understanding of porcelain pavers uses and characteristics, as well as how they compare to current materials in the market.

Learning Objectives:

• Compare and contrast the advantages of porcelain pavers to other types of materials.
• Explore the considerations for specifying porcelain pavers for a variety of applications.
• Identify installation best practices and considerations for porcelain pavers.
• Explore a variety of size and color options available for product specification.

Presented By: 

Brent Bevenour - Porcelain Technical Sales Director
 

Organized By:

Hanover Architectural Products
 

Join us to celebrate the opening of our two newest exhibits, and to celebrate the 2024 Chapter Design Award and Washingtonian Residential Design Award Winners!

The exhibition opening in the Sigal gallery, titled Designing a Learning City, reimagines our cities and public spaces as playful learning opportunities so that we can better prepare children for success in the 21st century. This exhibit is built upon the research supported by William Penn Foundation exploring Philadelphia's Playful Learning Landscapes Initiative. A joint project of Temple University's Infant and Child Laboratory, Playful Learning Landscapes Action Network (PLLAN), and the Brookings Institution. Playful Learning Landscapes is a broad umbrella initiative that marries community involvement and learning sciences with placemaking in order to design carefully curated playful experiences in everyday spaces. As it focuses on learning outcomes, particularly for children and families from under-resourced communities, Playful Learning Landscapes offers a new way to involve families in the kinds of experiences that enrich relationships and enhance children's development.

The exhibit opening in the Sorg gallery, Homesick: Camila Mancilla, challenges the traditional view of the home as a space linked to health and well-being, proposing instead that our homes also reflect our illnesses and mortality. Homesickness can be seen both as a medical condition and as a commentary on the "sick home," critiquing dense architecture that often disregards the cultural values inherent to dwelling. This exhibition serves as a theoretical and practical reflection, intertwining human behavior theories with architectural science. Each piece seeks to evoke emotions such as the repetition of memories, mania, and hysteria associated with longing and the pain of return, as described in the concept of nostalgia. At the same time, it critiques the notion of domestic architecture as inherently healthy, revealing instead how it can repress and homogenize us into a singular way of living. It invites us to view homes as places for illness rather than merely spaces for healing.

The 2024 Chapter Design and Washingtonian Residential Design Award winners are a group of extremely talented architects who not only demonstrate the value of good design, but also illustrate the wide variety of services performed by architects. Please help us to congratulate the winners and toast to this huge accomplishment!

We welcome your presence at this opening and invite you to attend. Drinks and light hors d’oeuvres will be served. 

Please join us for a behind-the-scenes architecture experience of President Lincoln's Cottage, organized in collaboration with President Lincoln's Cottage staff.

This tour, presented by President Lincoln's Cottage's Director of Preservation Jeffrey Larry, will go in depth into the architectural history of the house, as well as what it takes to preserve such a historic building. You will depart this tour with new intelligence on the history of this home, its various purposes over the years and, of course, how the beautiful Gothic revival house was built. 

Presented by: 

Jeffrey Larry, Director of Preservation- Jeff joined the staff at President Lincoln’s Cottage as Preservation Manager in January 2008. He started his career as sole-proprietor of a restoration business in Burlington, Vermont soon after receiving a BA in Historic Preservation from Mary Washington College in 1996.  After moving to Washington D.C., he completed projects on several local historic homes and sites, including the Decatur House and the south porch of The Old Naval Hospital, a building commissioned by Abraham Lincoln in 1864 to be the District’s first naval hospital. In addition to his work at the Cottage, Jeff uses his preservation and project management skills to bring improvements to his community in Baltimore.  He serves on the Board of the Charles Village Community Foundation, an organization that provides grants for groups and individuals whose projects will enhance the neighborhood’s quality of life; he is the Vice President of the Friends of the 26th Street Corridor, a community lead group that has been working with the city to turn a section of 26th street into a park; and he is a volunteer member of the Village Learning Place’s (VLP) Facilities Committee where he has performed pro-bono restoration work, developed a cyclical maintenance plan and managed numerous restoration projects to the slate roof, brickwork, interior surfaces, and gardens.

Learning Objectives:

• Identify the challenges in preserving a historic building, such as ensuring proper accessibility and maintaining integrity of the building, and how to overcome these challenges.
• Explain the importance of preserving a historic structure, including the benefits to the local community.
• Describe the cottage’s beautiful arched doorways and large windows, exploring the different characteristics of the Gothic revival style, as it relates to Washington D.C.’s diverse architecture history.
• Discuss the history of the cottage, and how the museum utilizes the building today to promote the true spirit of the Lincolns, build empathy, and inspire patrons to act upon their own ideas for social justice.

Organized by:

The District Architecture Center and President Lincoln's Cottage

In the third teen workshop, students will design a museum that reflects their own distinctive style and interests. Students will learn the planning, creative and design process for model-building.

 Leading model-builders in their fields will give each student feedback to guide each step of the way. They will demonstrate their own models and the planning process involved. 

All materials will be supplied: foam board, chipboard, balsa wood, butter board, hot glue and razors (which require adult supervision)

Students will see how different types of photography use natural and artificial elements to achieve a final product, and learn how architectural photography is like staging a scene in a movie. Students will walk to the National Portrait Gallery to use their smart phones in visually imaginative ways to capture images of the exterior and interior of the Gallery. Students will learn how to process their final photographs using the software in their own smart phones

Ron Ngiam, architect and photographer from CGS Architects, has 35+ years of experience in master planning, architecture, and interior design. His numerous design award work ranges in mixed-use development, commercial office building, multi-family residential, public sector, interiors and broadcast facilities. He is well verse in the design field, engaging design process with collaborators and bringing complex situation and requirements into an elegant solution. He earned his degree from Texas Tech University and has been in Washington DC area after graduation.

Locally, he has been serving in his neighborhood architectural review committee board. Growing up, he has developed a passion in photography, currently still pursuing architectural photography after hours with published work that can be seen in popular architectural magazine.

In this first series of teen workshops for ages 13-17, students will be learning and practicing the basics of sketching for architects. Mohammed Bilbeisi is a professor of architecture at the Oklahoma State University and has taught all over the world. He is passionate about the lost art of sketching. All materials will be supplied.

Mo Bilbeisi Artist | Art / Artist / Watercolor Paintings / Ink Sketches (mohdbilbeisiart.com) 

As the built environment generates almost 50% of global CO2 emissions, architects, engineers, planners, and building owners must work together and commit to net zero emissions by 2030 to reduce the impact on climate change as specified by various climate and decarbonization initiatives. Design professionals are uniquely suited to mitigate help resolve the climate crisis through design, educating clients, and working with navigating policy requirements to advance decarbonization and build greener cities.

One key approach to meeting these goals is adaptive use. DesignDC’s September conference will build on our previous symposiums of the year, with a focus on adaptability, resilience, and designing for change. 

Throughout this in-person symposium, we will cover new and innovative strategies for adaptive use; case studies that lend proven approaches to resilience, adaptation, survivability, and livability, and policy and design recommendations that advocate for construction, codes, zoning, and permitting solutions.

8:30am - Doors Open + Check-in
 

9:00am - Keynote: Old Buildings are the Future

• Julia Siple, AIA, LEED AP BD+C - Principal, Director of Sustainability, 
  Quinn Evans
• Sara Langmead, AIA, PE, LEED AP - Associate, Heritage Practice Co-Leader, Quinn Evans 
   

10:15am: Adaptive Use Through Building Conversions

• Eric Schlegel, AIA, LEED AP - Principal, WDG
• Susan Salsbury, AIA, LEED AP, WELL AP - Sr. Associate, WDG 
• Susan Garcia, International Associate AIA - Associate Principal, WDG 
• Matt Lam - Sr. Project Designer, WDG
   

11:30am - Revitalizing Historic School Buildings for Modern Learning and Community Vision

• Marquisha Powell, AIA, LEED AP BD+C - Senior Associate at StudioMB, 
• Sasha Petersen, AIA - Associate at StudioMB

1:00pm - The Best Years Are Ahead: Why Adaptive Reuse Is Ideal for Senior Living

• Jill Cavanaugh, AIA, AICP - Partner, Beyer Blinder Belle Architects & Planners
• James Adams - Senior Vice President, Real Estate Development & Acquisitions, Maplewood Senior Living
   

2:15pm - A Case for Alternation and Addition

• Michael Winstanley  AIA, AICP - Founder and Design Director at Winstanley Architects & Planners
• Leejung Hong LEED AP - Principal at Winstanley Architects & Planners
   

3:30pm - The Equity Lens: Leveraging the Existing

• Aida Ayuk, LEED Green Associate - Sustainable Design Coordinator, EskewDumezRipple

 Thank you to our sponsors:

Washington's Penn Quarter neighborhood is the original crossroads of the Federal Capital, envisioned by city planner Pierre L'Enfant as a civic core directly between the White House and U.S. Capitol Building. 19th century Washingtonians would have considered the area the commercial center of the city, boasting a massive Center Market, department stores like Lansburgh's and Woodies, a bustling train station, and original City Hall. With the decline of urban investment in the mid-20th century, some of these old landmarks were demolished. However, through both private and public development over the last 30 years, today's Penn Quarter is once again a bustling destination.

Learn about the enterprising reuse of Penn Quarter's historic buildings, recent design investment, and contemporary additions to this diverse neighborhood in the center of the city.

Where to Meet
The tour will begin and end at the District Architecture Center
GPS Address: 421 7th Street NW

What to Bring
Sturdy walking shoes, bottled water and comfortable clothes are recommended!

Sights and stops include:
- The Landsburg
- National Archives
- FBI Headquarters
- Old City Hall
- National Building Museum
- Capitol One Arena
- Friendship Archway
- City Center
- Martin Luther King Jr. Memorial Library
- Woodward and Lothrop Building
- Ford's Theater
- National Portrait Gallery
- Hotel Monaco

Learning Objectives:

• Discover the rich history and cultural significance of Penn Quarter and trace its evolution from the past to the present.
• Identify key landmarks and points of interest in the neighborhood and gain insights into their historical importance and contemporary relevance.
• Develop an understanding of one community's unique identity and ongoing revitalization efforts.
• Reflect on the significance and successes of urban development in shaping the character of Penn Quarter.

In partnership with DC Design Tours