Resilient Virginia Conference

Economic Opportunities for Community Resilience

Resilient Virginia’s 2023 Resilient Virginia Conference will deliver the tools, information, and networking opportunities you need to help build resilience in your community. Our hybrid event spans two days on August 1st and 2nd, and includes multiple tracks and breakout sessions as well as plenaries to help you on the path toward resilience. Join us in-person at UVA’s Darden School of Business or online.

The conference will highlight how businesses and communities can work together to:

  • Grow investments that support a low-carbon economy;
  • Provide examples from urban and rural communities on approaches to resiliency that include climate risk assessments that lead to economic, health, and equity considerations; and
  • Increase resilience in the face of disruption from extreme weather disasters and on-going climate concerns that impact community health and vitality.

The conference will also address the significant catalyst, provided by the Infrastructure Investment and Jobs Act (IIJA) and the Inflation Reduction Act (IRA), that is bringing business and workforce development to communities while providing extensive investments in the resilience of infrastructure and clean energy systems.

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Memorial to Enslaved Laborers at the University of Virginia

Join AIA Virginia for a free panel discussion on Wednesday, Aug. 12, 2020 at 4 p.m. about the design of a new Memorial to Enslaved Laborers (MEL) on the grounds of the University of Virginia.

Hear about the momentum of the project, beginning with student-led initiatives as early as 2010, the ideas competition, final design resolution, and the guiding work of the President’s Commission on Slavery and the University (PCSU). Learn about the robust community engagement process, including descendants of the enslaved and how the shared vision informed each element of the Memorial’s design. Register online.

The design of a new Memorial to Enslaved Laborers (MEL) on the grounds of the University of Virginia marks a critical moment to address the complex history of the University, slavery, and the country. It directly responds to a deep need to address an untold and uncomfortable history – one that is still very much a difficult, though necessary, national conversation on race. The goal of the Memorial is to create a physical place of remembrance and a symbolic acknowledgement of slavery and offers a place of learning and a place of healing.

The Memorial was designed as part of a collaboration between Howeler + Yoon Architects, Studio&, Gregg Bleam Landscape Architect, Eto Otitigbe, and had thoughtful input from many more. Learn more.

Earn 1 AIA LU | HSW

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Design for Climate Action

Live Event: Design for Climate Action: AIA – ACSA Intersections Symposium 2020

Take Action to address climate and the built environment AND earn HSW credit! Join us live, July 28 and 29, 4:00-5:30 pm ET, for Design for Climate Action: Intersections Symposium. Each session will share important research, which Intersects Practice and Academia, and can lead to new ways of addressing the critical issues of climate change.

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Description

Selected from more than 120 blind, peer-reviewed projects, the eight projects featured in this symposium have been curated by our Co-Chairs, Phoebe Crisman, AIA, and Kyle Konis, AIA into dynamic, 90-minute sessions. Each session will feature important findings, presented in brief PPT presentations, followed by a moderated discussion and audience Q&A.

Tuesday, July 28, 2020 4:00-5:30 pm (EDT)

Achieving Climate Action through Practice, Academia, & Policy

Join us and see how COLLABORATION and REENVISIONING across practice, academia, community, and government can be part of the answer to climate change. Ashlie Latiolais, AIA, shares her work in New Iberia, LA. She suggests new modes and methods of architectural practice and education to inspire a new generation of architects to re-imagine conventional deliverables in architectural community work. Richard Mohler, AIA, describes the climate and social equity challenges created by single-family zoning. He shares the results from a collaboration of his University of Washington design studio, AIA Seattle, and city government to revise public policy to be more aligned with the city’s climate and social equity goals. Designer Sasha Plotnikova illustrates how designing for de-growth presents an alternative model to conventional US urban development practices. She gives architects a way to help foster and realize community-based visions of equitable development that is also climate-responsive design. Ann Yoachim shares the work of Tulane’s community design center as a case study. Increased intensity of weather events and failing infrastructure have resulted in regular flooding of streets, homes, and businesses (including the center itself). Responding to immediate needs and planning for potential climate futures are often in conflict, so an engaged design process, related and unique projects, and research offer architecture practice and education an opportunity to respond. Join us for a lively discussion developing effective changes in practice, policy, and education, to realize climate action.

Learning objectives

  • Learn how to plant the seeds that blossom into stronger, more sustainable communities. Identify new techniques to respond to the current ecological crises and educate and train (future and current) architects to design buildings that co-exist with the environment, in improved ways from those that have formed the basis of the current environmental emergency.
  • Explore new modes and methods of inquiry and architectural practice to re-imagine and create environments that are socially equitable and ecologically sustainable. Create work (projects and research) that contributes directly to the greater public understanding of the role and value of professional architects.
  • Understand how outside influences can impact projects and how to stay aware to prevent unintended consequences that negatively impact our environment, our project, and our quality of life. Learn how to advance climate action and environmental stewardship through advising elected officials in revising public policy to be more aligned with climate and social equity goals necessary to address the magnitude of ecological, social, and economic challenges we face.
  • Learn how collaboration with clients, community members, stakeholders, and multiple expert groups can facilitate the design and planning process as well as educate and create capacity within the community to advocate for climate action and improved quality of life for all.

Wednesday, July 29, 4:00-5:30 pm (EDT)

Designing Across Scales for Climate Action

Today, designers are tackling climate action across a range of scales. Learn about four projects that address material exploration, buildings and systems, landscapes and habitats, and infrastructure. The Pulp studio, by Stephanie Davidson, uses recycled cellulose-based materials to cast temporary, biodegradable, thin-shell structures. She asks designers to see materials as responsive, constantly transforming, and asks them to consider where materials come from and where they end up, when making design decisions. The Pollinators Pavilion by architect Ariane Harrison seeks a larger role for architecture in environmental activism and focuses on biodiversity conservation and materials exploration. She uses artificial intelligence and automated scientific monitoring strategies to create and analyze habitat systems and increase building awareness. Award-winning Salty Urbanism presented by Jeffrey Huber, AIA, features projects in Ft. Lauderdale, Florida, and Venice, California. These projects use coastal-hazard adaptation approaches and a design framework for urban areas to address economic, engineering, environmental, and quality of life issues. Finally, landscape architect Zaneta Hong’s studio research demonstrates how changes in agricultural practices and food systems could address growing global populations and impact climate change, while defining roles of architects and designers in transforming future landscapes and material systems.

Learning objectives

  • Discover multiple ways to collaboratively address climate change and positively impact the public’s health, safety, and welfare, through innovative design and materials development that address water and storm water management, materials, and species extinction.
  • Learn ways that artificial intelligence technology impacts architecture and can improve our ability to design more resilient and sustainable ecosystems.
  • Discover new tools and design methodologies, using a multi-scale approach, that helps connect segregated disciplines, such as urban planning and environmental engineering with architecture, to meet complex challenges of urban development and water rise, while also generating action between bottom-up design thinking and top-down policy and planning.
  • Discover how we should be planning and designing today for our future global needs. Understand why mindful building processes, handling of resources (including material decisions), and awareness of our impact on the environment are critical to climate action. Action must begin now so that climate action successfully makes its way further into the construction industry’s education and practice.

Wellness and Design for Sea Level Rise

Posted on by cguske

Wellness is a timely topic in the midst of a global health crisis. Even before the COVID-19 pandemic, human and planetary health have been prominent in popular and scholarly publications. Faculty in several disciplines at the University of Virginia School of Architecture focus on wellness and the School’s Center for Design + Health showcases our diverse efforts. My scholarship at UVA and built work with Crisman+Petrus Architects develops sustainable design strategies for buildings, landscapes, and cities confronting climate change and sea level rise. While coastal Virginia experiences significant sea level rise that threatens human well-being, the creative and technical expertise of Virginia’s architects is needed to holistically imagine and integrate buildings, public spaces, and infrastructure in unprecedented ways.

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Designer Q & A: Lauren Shumate, AIA

Posted on by cguske

Contributor: Margaret Hancock

How did you come to architecture as a profession?

As an undergrad, I began studying historic preservation at a small liberal arts school. I quickly realized that my personal interest in the built environment was not just about researching, but about designing. So, I transferred to the University of Virginia and switched my academic focus to architecture — and loved every minute of it. After graduation, I worked for an architecture firm in Philadelphia for several years before returning to UVA for graduate school.

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