Launch: Mid-Career Professionals!

AIA CV launches a new program!

This month, mid-career professionals from our Chapter met in a daylit gallery at Jbird Supply Coffee Roaster in Studio IX to kick-off our newest program, the ‘Mid-Career Professionals’ group. This ‘pilot program’ builds on the work of the AIA Virginia Mid-Career Taskforce and Mid-Career Roundtables, to give members a venue to discuss the joys and challenges of balancing work and life in one of its most demanding seasons. Our goal is to build a thriving community for Mid-Career members and try out different meeting formats to help inform program development at AIA Virginia.

The group’s far-reaching and engaging conversation about our paths in the profession, successes and challenges, and what a group like this can provide yielded a number of themes and take-aways we’ll explore in our next few meetings:

• Comparison is the thief of joy - especially if you’re always ‘looking up’.

• Who can you look to for advice, or a model - especially when you’re unfulfilled, overwhelmed, or stuck?

• There are many paths to a good destination - but we have fewer choices ahead than behind.

• How do you get ‘back in the game’ if you’ve been in ‘the safe lane’?

• Community is what you make it!

After we met, almost half the attendees emailed me with ideas for future meetings and excitement about the possibilities of the group. It’s also encouraging that this group wants to keep ‘finding and celebrating joy’ at the center of our work together. I couldn’t agree more!
Thanks to all who attended, especially Allied Member Jeremy Boynton with Lighting Virginia, who donated the space!

-SHAWN MULLIGAN, AIA

AIA Central Virginia Mid-Career Professionals meet bi-monthly to learn from each other and local experts about the best ways to grow and thrive - in life and work. If you, or someone you know, wants to get involved, contact Shawn at: shawn@designclarity.co.

Fall Newsletter!

Visions for Architecture, AIA Virginia’s annual Design Awards in Richmond at ArchEx!

Fall Newsletter is out!
> Read it here

As fall gives way to winter, we’re enjoying time with the people we love and reflecting on lessons this year taught us. And at AIA CV, we’re busy making plans for next year - see our calendar for details - and reporting on some of the best architecture news in the region:

• Winter Social + Annual Meeting - WED DEC 20th @ Common House!

• Architecture Exchange East 2023 recap

• Four local firms win state Design Awards

• AIA CV Launches new program for Mid-Career Professionals

• ELA 2023 designs Resilience Hubs for Albemarle County

Summer Newsletter!

Our Summer Newsletter is out!
> read it here

As we close out summer we’re reflecting on change, and celebrating the great work our allies and members do to design better places and build stronger communities.

Here are a few highlights:

• AIA CV needs you - to join the Board!!

• Architecture Week recap!

• New Allied Membership program

• The Haven, homelessness, and ‘radical hospitality’

• Erwin-Ramsey Fellowship and affordable, equitable housing

• EPs meet Engineers (Sprinpoint + Line and Grade)

Apply for ELA Class of 2024!

Join AIA Virginia for a year-long educational intensive -- Emerging Leaders in Architecture Class of 2024!

ELA is an intensive program of educational sessions structured around presentations, discussions, team exploration, analysis, consensus-building, collaboration, and case study activities undertaken over the course of a year by a small cadre of participants selected for their potential to be outstanding contributors to the profession and the community. Facilitators and mentors who are established leaders in the building, finance, non-profit, development, university, legal, consulting, and design professions and in the community at large develop and deliver the sessions, designed to provide participants with advanced knowledge and skills related to specific areas of leadership and practice. The class project for 2024 will be in Northern Virginia, so many sessions and the project work days will be located in the Northern Virginia area.

Applications Due to AIA CV by OCT 2nd, and to AIA VA by NOV 10th

To apply to represent AIA Central Virginia, click here.
AIA Central Virginia nomination application due > OCTOBER 2, 2023 

To learn more about the ELA program and apply to AIA VA, click here.
AIA Virginia applications due > NOVEMBER 10, 2023.

Architecture Week: Apex Plaza Building Tour

We had a wonderful visit at the Apex Plaza for Architecture Week 2023! Thank you William McDonough + Partners, Staengl Engineers, Hourigan Construction, and Apex Clean Energy for taking the time to welcoming us into your space and provide such an in depth tour. Members were able to listen and ask questions on all stages of the project, particularly exciting to discuss a mass-timber, net-energy-positive office building!!

We were very happy to provide members the opportunity for 1 HSW LU, thanks for showing up members!

Architecture Week: CODE Building Tour

Thank you so much to Wolf Ackerman, Gregg Bleam Landscape Architect, and Hourigan Construction for kicking off Architecture Week 2023 with a wonderful tour of the Center of Developing Entrepreneurs (CODE) building! 

Lots of discussion on site strategies — addressing multiple elevations in the site alongside the Charlottesville Downtown Mall, the many access points the site has, and creating a central courtyard community space.

EP TOUR - Springpoint / Line and Grade

Outstanding conversation today! AIA CV Emerging Professionals talked with Springpoint Structural and Line and Grade civil engineers, about their work, career paths, starting new firms, and why they built the firm culture they have.

Thanks to Dan Heyer (Line and Grade) and Craig Swift (Springpoint) for covering a wide range of topics, from how to respond to adversity, being comfortable saying “I don’t know”, how to win work (hint: it’s all about relationships), and how they deal with uncertainty and fear. Special thanks to the incredible team of Emerging Professionals they brought from their office to discuss their work and career experience!

AIA CV thanks VMDO Architects for hosting us in their conference room!

AIA Central Virginia Emerging Professionals meet each month to learn from local creative businesses and non-profits while growing in the practice of architecture. If you, or someone you know, wants to get involved, please let us know.

ARCHITECTURE WEEK!

JOIN US - May 23 - May 30!

This is our first in-person Architecture Week in a four years, and we’re EXCITED! Tour award winning projects, grab a drink with friends, or enjoy a movie night on us! We can’t wait to see you at one of the events.

CODE Building (image Wolf Ackerman) and Apex Plaza (image William McDonough)

SCHEDULE

TUE May 23 TOUR the Award Winning CODE Building (1 HSW | LU)
Join Wolf Ackerman and Hourigan Construction for a tour of the Center of Developing Entrepeneurs (CODE) building - winner of the 2023 AIA National Honor Award and certified LEED Platinum. This 10-story 215,000 SF commercial office building on Charlottesville’s historic pedestrian mall includes a 15,000 SF co-working suite, auditorium, and retail food stalls - and it’s a case study in green building. Designed by Eskew Dumez Ripple and local architects Wolf Ackerman.

Learn how the design improves occupant health and recycles over 45% of the stormwater on site - while reducing its carbon footprint and energy use relative to industry benchmarks.
Earn 1 HSW LU | Reception to follow in the lobby!
> Details here

THU May 25 MOVIE NIGHT at the Violet Crown!
Let us take you to the movies! For this year’s Architecture Week we’re bringing back Movie Night. Let’s meet at the bar for drinks and snacks then head to our private screening of an award-winning architecture film.
Reception in the Bar before the movie
> Details here

TUE May 30 TOUR - Apex Plaza, a Net Positive Mass Timber Project (1 HSW | LU)
Join William McDonough + Partners, Hourigan Construction, and Apex Clean Energy for a tour of Charlottesville's first mass-timber office building! At 187,000 SF, this multi-tenant office building is the tallest mass-timber building on the east coast.

Learn how the team designed, coordinated, and built this net-energy-positive office building, while balancing Cradle to Cradle Certified material choices, occupant health, and rooftop solar and stormwater systems.
Earn 1 HSW LU | Enjoy appetizers + drinks!
> Details here

EP TOUR - Rocktown High School

Thanks to Grimm + Parker Architects and Scott Eschbach, AIA, LEED AP, CPD for an enriching tour of Rocktown High School in Harrisonburg VA! ⭐️ Scott led our Emerging Professionals through the project, communicating the variety of ways the site and building function to serve the students and broader community of Harrisonburg.

AIA Central Virginia Emerging Professionals meet each month to learn from local creative businesses and non-profits while growing in the practice of architecture. If you, or someone you know, wants to get involved, please reach out.

EP TOUR - UVA Facilities Management

Emerging Professionals joined leaders from UVA Facilities Management for a fantastic presentation on thier work supporting the University of Virginia’s wide range of research, academic and patient care programs. With over 1,200 employees, Facilities Management is responsible for the day to day operation repair and maintenance of UVA’s buildings, infrastructure and grounds as well as other University-owners and leased properties.

Thanks to our panelists Jennifer Heckman, Manager of Geospatial Engineering Services; Amy Eichenberger, Senior Project Manager with Project & Construction Management Services; Scott Clough, Associate Director for Design Services; Ryan Taylor, Assistant Director of Maintenance; Andrea Trimble, Sustainability Director in the Office for Sustainability; and Ben Hays, University Building Official. And thanks to board members Sidney Griffin and Jonathan Moore - who work at UVA FM!
> Read more about the visit here

AIA Central Virginia Emerging Professionals meet each month to learn from local creative businesses and non-profits while growing in the practice of architecture. If you, or someone you know, wants to get involved, please let us know.