Join DAC in partnership with the Danish Embassy in Washington, DC, for a Danish-American dialogue on resilient communities and how to build for the future.

With rapid urbanization, demographic changes and climate changes globally, our cities and buildings are facing immense challenges. This calls for innovative design solutions in order to secure communities strong enough to handle the urban challenges. But how do we achieve these goals?

Through a cross-cultural dialogue and case examples, we explore how Danish architectural firms - known for their focus on sustainability - and American architects are balancing the variety of aspects needed in comprehensive urban development, that strengthens resilient communities.

Learning Objectives:

• Gain in-depth knowledge on the design process and choices made specifically by Danish architects when trying to maximize sustainability.
• Illustrate examples of international sustainable design and their positive impact on the environment and local cultures.
• Identify the challenges architects face in urban development while seeking to make sustainable design and material choices.
• Understand the benefits of international cooperation and dialogue as they apply to sustainable design and eco-friendly urban development.

Speakers include:

Anna Muessig, Gehl- Anna is a Partner and Senior Project Director at Gehl where she leads Gehl’s US partnerships in the public sector. Anna partners with municipal agencies, business improvement districts, and others to realize a vision of public life as a driver of shared prosperity, community belonging, and climate action. A skilled listener and facilitator, Anna brings 15 years of experience leading complex processes with multiple stakeholders to deliver transformational urban projects. Anna leads teams that translate community voice and behavioral insights into catalytic projects. She holds a Master in City Planning from MIT. Before Gehl, she founded a public art nonprofit and served on the board of Brooklyn's Green Hill Food Cooperative.
 

Daniel Baumann, Henning Larsen- Daniel Baumann, Partner and Design Director at Henning Larsen, co-leads the firm’s US studio in New York City. With nearly 15 years at Henning Larsen's offices in Copenhagen, Munich, and New York, he has directed several award-winning projects across Scandinavia, Europe, and North America. As a key member of the global leadership, Daniel maintains a commitment to design excellence and international knowledge-sharing. In the New York office, he oversees complex projects with an iterative, research-based, and co-creative process, coordinates large teams, and manages decision-making. His design philosophy emphasizes a contextual approach, with each project being uniquely tailored to its site, microclimate, program, density, and user experience at eye level, resulting in innovative and practical solutions. In 2018, Daniel—a Danish-German dual citizen—relocated to New York City to help steer Henning Larsen’s ambitions in North America. He leads significant international projects, including innovation districts, mixed-use masterplans and buildings, commercial offices, multifamily and student residences, and civic projects.

Tanya T. Eagle, AICP, LEED AP BD+C, WELL AP, PERKINS EASTMAN- With fifteen years of experience in the sustainable design and planning industries, Tanya leads sustainability efforts and manages third-party market standards across Perkins Eastman. Tanya creates and manages firmwide sustainability initiatives and policies, leads material health initiatives across the firm, and guides project consultation across global offices. Tanya is currently the co-chair of the AIA Materials Pledge Working Group and helped develop the recently released AIA Materials Pledge reporting framework. Tanya advocates for the intersection of health, wellness, and the built environment, and has extensive experience speaking at leading industry forums such as the AIA Conference on Architecture & Design, NeoCon, and Metropolis symposiums. She is active in industry leadership groups, and is passionate about sharing practical steps toward a sustainable future.

Moderated by: 

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Lance Davis, FAIA, LEED FELLOW, MSU Fellow- Lance Davis is the sustainability architect for the U.S. General Services Administration in Washington, DC. He is also the program manager for P100, the Facilities Standards for the Public Buildings Service. He has a Bachelors of Architecture from Mississippi State University where he is a Fellow. He is also a Fellow of the AIA and a LEED Fellow. He is past chair of the USGBC's LEED Steering Committee,is appointed to President Biden’s Climate Smart Infrastructure Working Group, and a former member of ASHRAE’s Task Force for Decarbonization. He helped author the book Sustainability Matters and is featured in the book, The Rise of Living Architecture.  

Organized by:

The District Architecture Center & Embassy of Denmark in Washington D.C.

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: 

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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: