Having It All: Balancing Work-Life Stages

Women are renowned for their ability to multitask and juggle numerous responsibilities in their careers and personal lives. They strive to excel in all fronts, upholding high expectations at work while navigating pressures within their personal lives. Not all women have the same aspirations, nor are fortunate to have choices in their careers. However, amplifying women's voices at the leadership level allows for greater support and opportunities across all workplaces.

The AIA DC Equity Committee by WIELD celebrates its eighth Annual WIELD Event that provides a storytelling platform for four female leaders in the building industry to share what “having it all” means to them, how they achieved it (or didn’t), and what compromises they faced along the way. Join us for inspiring, personal stories about challenges and triumphs along the path of “having it all.”

Learning Objectives:

• Explore stories of empowerment and resilience as it relates to gender equity in the building profession.
• Identify internal and external obstacles women face in their careers and strategies to overcome them.
• Describe ways to help women overcome their mid-career pinch points and maintain career paths to leadership.
• Plan ways to become advocates for emerging female leaders.

Presented by:

Renée Byng Yancey

AIA National Chief Equity, Diversity & Inclusion (EDI) Officer

Renée Byng Yancey is the Chief External Equity, Diversity & inclusion Officer of the American Institute of Architects (AIA), a dynamic network of more than 96,000 architects and design professionals throughout over two hundred chapters committed to enhancing the built environment. During her tenure, she has held two inaugural senior leadership roles. Renée’s global portfolio includes enterprise-wide strategic leadership of three teams—Knowledge & Practice, Member & Component Engagement and Marketing & Communications—each led by a senior vice president. She is a direct report of the CEO, and a member of the Senior Leadership Team.  Her combined teams encompass nearly half of the AIA workforce, management of hundreds of volunteers and four board-level committees. Renée is committed to coaching leaders to bring about transformation in business practices, individual professional growth, and member excellence.

With an early career in commercial banking, Renée is dedicated to social change, strong and thriving organizations and communities leveraging equity, diversity, inclusion, and effectiveness. 

Renée works at the intersections of the AIA’s strategic priorities to advance racial, ethnic and gender equity and climate action for human and ecological health. She currently serves on the board of trustees of Peirce College in Philadelphia. An avid sports fan, Renée is proud to root for her hometown Philadelphia sports teams. She earned a Master of Science degree from Drexel University and holds an honorary Doctorate of Humane Letters from Peirce College. 

Joanna Schmickel, FAIA
CGS Architects

Joanna Schmickel, Principal of CGS Architects (formerly KressCox Associates) has been a practicing architect in Washington DC since 1985. During this period, Joanna has managed a diverse set of award-winning local and national projects for educational, institutional, commercial, and residential clients. She has been the lead designer on projects ranging from individual structures to full campus master plans concluding in design and construction of multiple buildings.
In partnership with the AIA, Joanna has created and delivered multiple youth workshops for the Washington Architectural Foundation, led an Architecture in the Schools team, and was an inaugural creator of the Achi-Builder Studio. She is the founder of the Design Like a Girl Mentor Program, a STEM mentorship program focused on introducing young women to Architecture and inspiring them to take leadership roles in the fields of architecture, engineering, and construction. The Program is in its 8th year in Washington DC, its 2nd year in Bucks County PA, and about to begin its 1st year in Denver CO. In 2017 Joanna was awarded the Washington Architectural Foundation’s John ‘Wieb’ Wiebenson Award for Architecture in the Public Interest in recognition of her work to develop and execute the Design Like a Girl program.
Joanna received her Bachelor of Architecture degree from Syracuse University (1985). She is a registered architect in the District of Columbia, the State of Maryland and the Commonwealth of Virginia.

Patricia Mao Booker
KTGY

Patricia Booker applies nearly 20 years of industry experience to her work as a director of production at KTGY’s Tysons office. She currently serves as a member of the company’s Key Leaders group, the body responsible for refining and implementing a successful corporate strategy. She also leads KTGY Community, an employee-driven community outreach program. Her day-to-day duties include design development, code analysis, multi-discipline coordination as well as field and office construction administration. Extensive experience in multifamily design and production has earned her a portfolio of multifamily communities, childcare facilities, senior and military housing, and affordable developments. She is passionate about finding ways to address housing affordability, and previously served as a committee member for HomeAid Northern Virginia. In her down time, you can find Ms. Booker spending time with her family and two children.

Morina Peterson, NOMA, AIA, LEED AP
HDR + DC NOMA Vice President

Morina Peterson is one of the founding members of WIELD (Women Inspiring Emerging Leaders in Design). Throughout her career, Morina has served as a mentor and enthusiastically championed various career development initiatives. These efforts include the DC NOMA Project Pipeline (volunteer), the NOMA HBCU Professional Development Program, and serving as a juror/portfolio reviewer at the Howard, UDC, and Marymount Universities. She has held various positions since graduating from Hampton University with a Bachelor of Architecture, including owner's representative, project architect, staffing manager, supervisor, IDE Ambassador, and LEED Coordinator. Morina is a Senior Healthcare Project Manager and employee-owner at HDR, a global architecture and engineering company. With over 25 years of experience in the architectural industry, she has worked on approximately three million SF of healthcare projects ranging in scale from a 915 SF renovation to an 850,000 SF clinical research new construction. Most of these projects have focused on welcoming the community and improving patient care. Morina has a successful track record of being proactive and highly collaborative. This approach has consistently met project requirements and client/user aspirations in Design and Construction Administration Phases. She is excited and honored to have this opportunity to share her journey with you.

Cynthia Bailey
Fairfax County Attorney’s Office

Cynthia Bailey currently serves as a Deputy County Attorney for Fairfax County, Virginia, and has served in the Fairfax County Attorney’s Office for almost 25 years. Her work there has covered a variety of legal areas including litigation, the First Amendment, and procurement. Most recently, she leads the County’s legal team in support of affordable housing development and the management of public records. She is the immediate past chair of Leadership Fairfax Institute and has served as the chair of the Virginia State Bar’s Local Government Section. She is also the past chair of two non-profits devoted to early childhood development: Infant Toddler Family Day Care and Main Street Child Development Center. She is an adjunct professor of Legal Writing at the Antonin Scalia Law School at George Mason University and is a graduate of both Boston College and Boston College Law School. She claims Fairfax County as home—a place where she raised three children and lives with her husband.

Organized by:

AIA|DC Equity Committee by WIELD

Sponsored by:

With this virtual event, the AIA National CAE Advocacy Committee brings together leaders from the AIA, the 21st Century School Fund, the U.S. Departments of Education and Energy, and the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency to discuss the state of our K-12 school facilities. We will report on recent legislation resulting from stakeholder advocacy, available funds, and resulting programmatic impacts. Together, we will explore how we might leverage our influence as facility professionals and educational architects to ensure equitable access to healthy, safe, sustainable, resilient, educationally exceptional learning environments.    

Learning Objectives:

• Identify current conditions at public PreK-12 school facilities - the “state of our schools”.
• Describe potential improvements and strengthen aspirations important to public-school communities.
• Identify federal resources currently available to improve public school facilities.
• Understand and advocate for legislation designed to develop appropriately scaled federal programs that encourage equitable access to healthy, safe, sustainable, resilient, and educationally excellent PK-12 buildings and grounds.

Panelists:

Andrea Swiatocha, U.S. Department of Energy

Becky Cook-Shyovitz, U.S. Environmental Protection Agency

Andrea Falken, U.S. Department of Education

Mary Filardo, 21st Century School Fund 

Stephanie Lamore - AIA Senior Manager, Advocacy

Hosts:

Tracy Hucul, Co-Chair of the AIA National CAE Advocacy Committee

Jeff Luker, Co-Chair of AIA|DC CAE

Organized by:

AIA National Committee on Architecture for Education

AIA|DC Committee on Architecture for Education

Music and architecture share a vocabulary and they overlap through analogies and metaphors. Composers "build" symphonies, which are highly structured. And architects dream of buildings that unfold to the senses like music, a seamless flow of experience through time and space. Both forms use terms like ornament, balance and symmetry. But is architecture really "frozen music," an idea that emerged in the late 18th century when musical forms were becoming longer and more complex? Join PCE for Bouncing off the Walls: Music and Architecture, a concert which explores the complex relation between the two art forms, from music that was specifically written for particular buildings to early 20th-century modernist efforts to reduce both forms to their elemental materials. The program includes an overture by Beethoven written to celebrate a newly remodeled theater and opera house, works by Gabrieli, composed for the mighty Basilica of San Marco in Venice, a symphony by Haydn featuring one of the most complicated “architectural” forms ever composed, a short but volcanic work by Anton Webern and a classic overture by Rossini, reassembled to maximize the acoustic possibilities of the Kennedy Center Terrace Theatre. 

Organized by: 

Postclassical Ensemble

Today's building envelope is built tighter than ever before. Recognize the integral role of a gap within the exterior wall and understand the selection criteria to consider when designing for moisture management in wall systems. Learn the appropriate ways to determine drainage and drying principles for a variety for cladding systems. Selecting the appropriate moisture management system for the building envelope can be a daunting task. Determining the appropriate rainscreen application can be based on several contributing factors – climate, building codes, cladding, and a variety of others. This course will explore the importance of rainscreens as a moisture management solution, as well as the characteristics of the assortment of applications.​

Learning Objectives:

• Recognize the integral role of a gap within the exterior wall
• Understand the performance characteristics of drainable housewrap & rainscreen systems
• Understand the selection criteria to consider when designing for moisture management in wall systems
• Understand how products are installed to achieve optimum performance

Presented by:

Michael Lee

Michael is the Market Development Manager for Benjamin Obdyke. He's got experience in the residential, commercial, and civil / industrial markets.

Organized by:

Benjamin Obdyke

We live in a world of limited resources, and the AEC industry not only has a large impact on the use of those resources, but also the overall health of our planet. As designers, it is important to consider the impact of the project not only on the environment, but also on the health of its occupants.

In this course, we’ll discuss how to better identify and reduce a design’s carbon footprint using Building Information Modeling (BIM). Specifying high-quality, sustainable materials for interiors can not only lead to longer product life cycles and better energy management, but also benefit the overall health of the occupant by limiting the use of toxic substances and volatile organic compounds (VOCs). We’ll demonstrate how BIM gives the designer more control over a building’s level of sustainability – such as generating embodied carbon calculations – and gives the designer more opportunities to enhance the aesthetics and occupant comfort by using a systems approach.

Learning Objectives:

• List the seven core principles of sustainable construction.

• Explain how high-quality materials lead to the health, safety, and welfare of occupants, a reduction of embodied carbon, and less waste.

• Describe how materials and BIM software provide a systems approach that leads to more efficient buildings.

• Recognize how high-quality materials and design can lead to cost savings and a reduced carbon footprint without sacrificing aesthetics or occupant comfort.

Presented by:

Sarah Barrett

Senior Architect Product Specialist, Vectorworks

Sarah Barrett brings more than a decade of experience as an architect and graphic designer, as well as professional expertise in the field of parametric modeling, to her role as a Senior Architect Product Specialist at Vectorworks, Inc. In addition to serving as an architectural expert and BIM specialist for the company, Sarah helps create best practices for Marionette, the integrated algorithmic modeling tool in Vectorworks software. She also leads webinars and workshops on a variety of industry topics and develops materials to help customers improve their workflows and design processes. Sarah has an M.Arch. from the University of Michigan and a B.A. in architectural studies from Brown University.

Organized by:

Vectorworks

For just one day a year, the Modern Architecture + Design Society and listModern host a celebration of residential modern architecture and design...

The DC-Metro Modern Home Tour is returning this year to the traditional first-Saturday-in-October… Saturday, October 7, 2023! We are back to continue with the annual early October tradition of celebrating some of the finest examples of current Modern residential architecture in the DC area – and the people who created them! We have a full slate of homes and a killer “Last Stop” location with champagne presented by our local partners at listModern.

Participants:

BLDUS

Alair Homes

MPR Architecture

Sagatov Design+Build

Paola One Design

Green Build Group

Host/Organizer: Modern Architecture + Design Society

Partner/"Last Stop" Hosts: listModern

Call for Papers:

The Latrobe Chapter of the Society of Architectural Historians welcomes paper proposals for a symposium that examines the broad subject matter of the architecture of food. We invite proposals from anyone with an interest in the built environment and its connection to food landscapes, including students, scholars, practitioners, and culinary enthusiasts. 

Potential themes may focus on: 

• food-shaped novelty buildings and roadside architecture 
• markets, halls, and suburban food courts 
• ethnic neighborhoods as food destinations 
• food and transportation planning 
• dining in institutional settings (i.e., government, schools, prisons) 
• concessions at sports venues and theaters 
• food banks, food pantries and faith-based organizations 
• urban farmsteads, community gardens and apiaries 
• food festivals, tours and media-based culinary experiences 
• food trucks, pop-ups, streeteries and food apps 
• Breweries, wineries and distilleries 
• interiors or behind-the-scenes spaces (i.e., dining rooms, kitchens, storage) 

The purpose of the symposium is to feature recent research in a format that encourages comment and discussion. Papers must be analytical rather than descriptive in nature and should place the subject in a comparative context of political, social, economic, technological, or cultural forces, as appropriate. 

All paper sessions will take place on Saturday, April 6, 2024, at The Catholic University of America School of Architecture and Planning. 

Submission Details:
Please send a one-page, 350-word abstract of a 20-minute paper and an abbreviated curriculum vitae by November 15, 2023, to the Latrobe Chapter at info@latrobechaptersah.org. 

All applicants will be notified of the selection by December 15, 2023. The deadline for final text is March 15, 2024. 

For further information, contact the Latrobe Chapter at info@latrobechaptersah.org. 

Symposium Details:

THE ARCHITECTURE OF FOOD

Fourteenth Biennial Symposium | Washington, DC | April 6, 2024

Boozy brunch, spongy injera dinners, empanada midnight snacks—modern residents of the nation’s capital enjoy a dynamic food center, noted for its variety of culinary experiences and foods authentic to the region, including half smokes, mumbo sauce, and crabcakes. Less explored is how this culinary geography intersects with the built environment, and how those intersections have changed over time. From farms and agricultural homesteads that supplied historic markets to ethnic food enclaves fostered by DC’s role as the capital, the city is an experiment in democracy, architecture and flavor. How has the Washington metropolitan area facilitated the production and dissemination of foodstuffs across the region? How have patterns of work shaped patterns of eating? How does a focus on food generate new types of research methodologies? 

Divine House
Cunningham Quill Architects
Anice Hoachlander Photography

Join Loewen Windows and Doors and The Sanders Company for a live webinar "The Future of Fenestration in Resilient Building Design". This course will explore the growing importance of resilient building design due to accelerating climate change and extreme weather events. We will discuss resilient design principles and fenestration's role in resilient design, including the importance of building product durability, energy efficiency, storm and hurricane protection, and how simple, passive and flexible systems are more resilient. The course will also explore the future of fenestration and emerging window technologies that will be able to respond to climate and occupant preferences.

Learning Objectives:

• Analyze the importance of resilient design and how to apply resilient design principles in the built environment.

• Examine fenestration's role in resilient design and considerations for specifying highly durable and energy efficient products.

• Identify high performance windows and door products that should be considered when designing for resiliency.

• Explore the future of fenestration and emerging window technologies that can respond to climate and occupant preferences.

Presented by:

Diane van Horn

Diane van Horn is the Mid-Atlantic Architectural Territory Manager for Loewen Windows and Doors. In her role Diane is responsible for architectural specifications, project reviews, design assistance and delivering Continuing Education courses. Diane has experience in fenestration products for both residential and commercial applications. In addition, Diane is a member of the Construction Specifications Institute (CSI) where she earned her Construction Document Technologist (CDT) certification and serves on the Board of Directors for the New Jersey Chapter.

Organized by:

Loewen Windows and Doors

Truesdell Elementary School Modernization (DCPS), Image courtesy of VMDO-DC

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 nation
• Explain and analyze existing school facilities for their inherent challenges
• Discuss and define 21st Century Learning Environments

Presented by:

AIA|DC Committee on Architecture for Education

The Washington DC Committee on Architecture for Education (AIA|DC CAE) is a forum to gather a broad range of stakeholders (designers, builders, learners, educators, administrators, and the public) interested in the design of great educational environments.

Sponsored by:

Lead the dialogue at A’24

Every year, AIA opens a Call for Proposals to solicit the best speakers and content for the AIA Conference on Architecture. We’re looking for ahead-of-the-curve educational content from a diversity of voices, career stages, and AEC industries.

The A’24 Call for Proposals: What to expect

The A’24 Call for Proposals is open from August 31–October 5, 2023. This year’s event includes a Call for Educational Sessions and a brand-new Call for Tours. Important deadlines are listed below.

Why submit a proposal? It’s your opportunity to inspire others, share your knowledge, network, and connect on a global stage. Lead the dialogue at one of the most anticipated events in architecture and design, and be part of a diverse, collaborative community shaping the future.

Need inspiration? Check out the A’23 schedule

Important dates

• August 31: Call for Proposals/Tours opens
• October 5, 11:59pm ET: Call for Proposals/Tours closes
• Mid-December: Notification of final acceptance