At its June 2022 meeting, the AIA Virginia Board of Directors created an At-large Director position, seeking applicants to serve in this leadership role.
At-large Director Position
The At-large Director is a vital link in the two-way communication between constituents of the American Institute of Architects in Virginia and the state organization. Individuals will be elected to serve on the AIA Virginia board because of their experience, contributions to the profession, and understanding of the organization, all of which should be shared with other members of the Board of Directors.
An At-large Director should bring the viewpoints of their colleagues; moreover, they have a responsibility to advise the members and stimulate them to work for results on which AIA Virginia has chosen to focus. As a member of the Board of Directors, the At-large Director’s viewpoints should be statewide in scope while at the same time representing the unique interests of each chapter’s geographic region. The term of office for this director is two years (non-renewable; non-consecutive terms).
Candidate Declaration
Any member-in-good-standing may declare their candidacy by informing the Secretary, through the Executive Vice President, of their intention to run for the At-large Director position.
Candidate submissions are due by 5:00 p.m. EDT Monday, August 5, 2024, to Paul R Battaglia, AIA | Executive Vice President at pbattaglia@aiava.org.
Candidates must submit the following:
A candidate’s resume, headshot, and statement of philosophy. The statement of philosophy is limited to 250 words.
A declaration indicating that the individual’s firm does not employ unpaid labor on projects.
A statement of acknowledgment from the local AIA component that the candidate will stand for election.
A letter of support from three different AIA Virginia members in good standing.
Voting for Candidates
Any member-in-good-standing may participate in the election of Directors. Voting will occur during Architecture Exchange East (ArchEx) at the Annual Meeting of the Membership on Wednesday 6 November 2024.
The AIA Virginia Justice, Equity, Diversity, and Inclusion (J.E.D.I.) committee has been highlighting the diversity of our profession through our “perspectives” campaign on our social media channels this year. Thank you to our members who have submitted their information for publication!
As a reminder, there is an EDI Resources page on aiava.org here>> where the committee posts useful best practices, book recommendations, articles and allied organizations doing EDI work.
For Mental Health Awareness Month in October, we would like to publish tips and comments from our members about how you tackle mental health issues. If you would like to participate (all anonymously!) answer 2 short questions below and submit.
Mental Health Awareness Month
AIA Virginia’s J.E.D.I. committee will be highlighting the answers to the following questions on our social media channels to help highlight Mental Health Awareness Month in October. All answers will remain anonymous.
The AIA Virginia Committee on the Environment (VACOTE) has been awarded the Knowledge Community Grant for 2024.
Virginia COTE will be organizing a three-part workshop educating members on energy modeling tools, processes, and best practices. In support of the AIA’s overall climate goals, Virginia COTE seeks to elevate understanding of the AIA 2030 Commitment and disseminate expertise to meet the Commitment’s goals among architects and designers. This workshop will help members move their organizations towards meeting the challenge goal of carbon-neutral building by 2030.
The grant will support providing this educational opportunity to AIA Virginia members by facilitating in-person meetups in each regional chapter and by maintaining a low-cost fee structure to maximize participation while providing access to top-level expert instructors.
As I sit inside, blissfully cooled by the air conditioner, I find myself thinking about the balancing acts we make in life. There’s the constant work-life balance that seems to ebb and flow with project deadlines and summer vacations, but for many of us, there is also the day-to-day balancing act of the various roles we may play across multiple projects. When working at different stages of different project types, how can we help ourselves from getting overwhelmed? How can we be our own air conditioners, and keep ourselves cool when the heat and pressure of multi-tasking rises?
The first bit of advice I can offer is prioritizing tasks – what items have the most pressing deadlines? Which items will take more time than others? Making a To-Do list for the week, day, or even afternoon can be very helpful in laying out what’s on the docket, and helps to navigate which tasks are more pressing than others. (Plus it’s always very satisfying when you can cross an item off your list.)
Another tip is to group similar tasks together. If you’re working on Construction Administration for one project, Schematic Design and renderings for another, and Construction Documentation for a third, etc… it can be overwhelming to constantly flip back and forth between the different phases and roles you may play. Each phase demands a different approach to working, a different means of communicating and often times, different tools and programs to get the tasks accomplished. It helps to group together similar tasks so that you don’t have to change your role back and forth as many times. You will be more productive focusing on one role at a time, than constantly jumping back and forth between multiple roles and tasks.
A favorite (and perhaps obvious) tip, is to remember to breathe! Not just your regular rhythm, but remembering to stop and take a deep breath, possibly get up from your desk to get water or take a bathroom break, before switching roles and tasks can be extremely helpful. A momentary pause will help clear your mind as you prepare to step into a different way of thinking and working.
Finally, if you can help it, try not to leave tasks half-way done before jumping to the next. This can be tricky depending on the size of the task at hand, or if you are waiting for information or review from others, but for tasks you can accomplish on your own, it’s helpful to see them all the way through and cross them off your list before jumping over to the next item. Leaving things incomplete can make it harder when you get back into them later, and often you have to reorient yourself to what work is complete and what work still remains.
There is no perfect way to balance multiple roles at once, both in life, or at the office. However, staying organized, focused, and above all, calm, will help keep the multi-tasking and role switching from becoming overwhelming. Each role you take on helps with personal and professional growth (for better or for worse), and learning to balance multi-tasking early on will make life afterwards that much smoother.
Great gathering of colleagues from around the country at the AIA National Convention in June. The first time many of us met in person (our meetings are virtual). Our ex-chairperson was shorter than I expected, and I was taller than most expected 🙂
SFx sponsored a meetup with topic experts on the convention floor. SFx DC sponsored an evening reception. SFx sponsored a Saturday Forum (that I missed, but heard it was great).
Our most recent monthly All-Call meeting was focused on Architect as Developer and the diversification of services offered with presentations by Bob Hillier, FAIA (NJ), Josh Zinder, AIA (NJ), and Alison Agley, AIA (CO). I can provide links to their presentations in the next newsletter.
More locally (AIA Central Virginia & AIA Richmond), C.J. LaMora (recent transplant to Central Virginia from DC) has engaged me and our local board to launch SFx Central Virginia. No sooner had we started this process when I was contacted by Maggie Schubert (Richmond) to see if we could start an SFx chapter in Richmond which morphed into a conversation to start a statewide SFx chapter. We are in early, early, early preliminary discussions to get this up and running, but anyone interested in participating/organizing should reach out to me directly.
The relentless hot and dry pattern we’ve experienced through most of June and into July may have us feeling parched and petered out, but AIA Virginia members and staff continue to execute on our mission of being ‘the voice of the architecture profession in the Commonwealth, dedicated to serving its members, advancing their value, and improving the quality of the built environment’.
Last Wednesday, leaders from AIA Virginia and all five local components gathered in person for the second state-wide Leadership Summit, where we reflected on what we’ve accomplished since our inaugural meeting in January, shared our challenges and offered ways for making our efforts more consistent and effective throughout the state. I loved witnessing component leaders sharing their experience and resources for a successful event or a process they’d mastered and paving the way for other components to replicate. We also continued to hone how the state-level component can best support the local components. We shared the official forming of the AIA Virginia Foundation, a 501c3 charitable foundation, and how it can benefit the local components. We discussed AIA’24 events and highlights, recent efforts to standardize local and state Design Awards submissions, the upcoming call for 2025 dues rates, and we executed an MOU to update the flow of funding from National. As the state and some local components are on a one-year leadership cycle, this will be the last gathering of this specific group. Still, we look forward to hosting the Leadership Summit next January with continuing and newly elected leaders.
Also last week, AIA Virginia hosted the third of five local Town Halls at Brambly Park with AIA Richmond, where we toasted to building connections and shared component updates. (Be sure to join us on September 5th in Central Virginia and October 3rd in Northern Virginia. Paul and I gave updates on our second state-wide Leadership Summit, planning for Architecture Exchange East, the formation of the Mid-Career Professionals program, and ongoing advocacy efforts that impact our practices and our profession. Remember: The AIA VA PAC $1000 prize is up for grabs! Help your local component win by donating here>>Caitlin Morgan, our STAR, shared her goals for serving as a liaison between Virginia and National for our Associate members. Have suggestions? Reach out to her here>>. And Gina Robinson, our State Licensing Advisor, was there to answer questions. Have questions? Get in touch with her here>>.
On June 4, Dennis Findley, AIA, was elected Chair of the Virginia Board of People with Disabilities, the state’s largest board. The Board advises the General Assembly and the Governor on disability matters to ensure disabled Virginians enjoy “A Life Like Yours.” As the parent of a disabled son, Dennis has been appointed by four successive governors to the Disability Board since 2009. He is a passionate advocate in the General Assembly, leading a six-year effort culminating in 2024 legislation that allows disabled Virginians to retain meaningful life jobs and essential services after a parent’s death.
Dennis Findley, AIA, is the President of Studio Findley Design in McLean, Virginia. He holds architecture degrees from Auburn University and Harvard University and has served a diverse clientele over his 40+ year career. His civic involvement is extensive; he represents the McLean Chamber of Commerce on the McLean Planning Committee as a Director and recently chaired the committee’s advisory role in drafting new streetscape urban design guidelines for McLean. Additionally, he serves on the Advisory Board for the McLean Project for the Arts and has been a member of the Heritage and Architectural Review Boards for the town of Herndon, Virginia. Elected to the McLean Community Center Governing Board in 2013, Dennis was also a candidate for the U.S. House of Representatives in 2010.
Hopefully, many of you are settling into your summer internships, working through your onboarding activities, and getting to know your teams. If this is your first summer working for an architecture firm, congratulations! This is an excellent time to establish your NCARB record and start documenting your work experience. If you’re not working for a firm, don’t worry, there may be a way for you to record your experience too.
While it can be a daunting task, the AXP (Architectural Experience Program) is an essential step on your licensure path. The objective of the AXP is to ensure candidates get diverse experience that will prepare them for practice after they become licensed. In fact, most US jurisdictions require candidates to complete the AXP before they can earn their initial licensure. If you’re just getting started, there are a few key things to keep in mind about the process.
Start as soon as possible. With 3,740 total hours to report and 96 tasks split among 6 experience areas, there’s a lot to cover. If you worked 40 hours a week full-time, it would take almost two years to complete the minimum requirement, and some jurisdictions require additional documentation or reporting. Even though you can report AXP and sit for your AREs concurrently, completing the AXP is required to earn your initial license.
Find your supervisor. Your supervisor in the office could be anyone, but your AXP supervisor must be a licensed architect. Ideally, your AXP supervisor is someone you talk with regularly, and who has a good idea of what you’re working on day-to-day. All the hours you report for AXP must be approved by your AXP supervisor, so it’s important to have a good relationship with that person. Always ask the person you have in mind before sending them an experience report! Starting off right and maintaining a connection with them will also come in handy as you start completing some experience areas and need to shift focus to complete others.
Ask for and be open to diverse experiences. Once you dive into the experience areas and tasks, you’ll start to understand the breadth of information the AXP wants you to complete and understand. On the surface, it might seem like you can get general experience aligned with each phase of a project, but the 96 tasks that are part of each experience area are actually closely aligned with the content you’ll see on the ARE. Skipping tasks or being too broad may set you up for frustration as you start to prepare for your exams.
Keep detailed notes. Candidates can choose to report hours weekly or in bulk, and it can be a lot to keep track of over 3,740 hours. To complicate things further, each firm approaches timesheets and hourly tracking differently. While you’re working through your AXP hours it’s a good idea to practice over-documentation. If there’s a section to add notes to your timesheet, list what activities you performed during the hours that you worked each day. If taking notes by hand is more your speed, take that approach instead. You’ll need that information later to align your hours to the tasks and experience areas, and your AXP supervisor may request it before they approve your report.
Don’t be afraid to ask questions! Every licensed architect you know had to start this process and work through its challenges, so you’re not the first and only candidate to ever struggle with AXP. NCARB provides and maintains AXP Guidelines for candidates and supervisors to reference. Reporting requirements have changed a few times over the years, so if your supervisor doesn’t know the answers, that’s a great opportunity to learn about it together, or to reach out to a Licensing Advisor for help.
Most of the above applies to candidates who are reporting hours under Setting A, which is work performed for an architecture firm under the supervision of a licensed architect. Some candidates may report hours under Setting O, which includes experience outside an architecture firm. This can include work for other licensed professionals (including engineers), construction work, design competitions, or community volunteering. While there are some restrictions on how many hours can be reported under Setting O, it’s a good way to get started on your AXP reporting, even if you don’t land a job at a firm.
Transferred In Diego Diez de Medina, AIA (Northern Virginia) from AIA Florida Aaron Sheffield, Assoc. AIA (Northern Virginia) from AIA Texas Society of Architects Julia Katherine Stokien Hunter, AIA (Northern Virginia) from AIA Pennsylvania
New/Renewed Allied Members Justin Trent, Design Director, Lynch Mykins Structural Engineers, PC Patrick Dyer, Vice President, Gulf Seaboard General Contractors Inc Stephan (Hobie) Andrews, Partner, O’Hagan Meyer PLLC
