Join AIAVA COTE and USGBC for our 2026 building tour series! We wish to celebrate exciting and innovative sustainable building design around the Commonwealth. Each month we will focus on a project in one of the five AIA Virginia component areas that has achieved LEED or other sustainable certification. Tours will provide AIA and USGC CEU’s for participants.
Join us on June 17 to tour the LEED-Gold renovation of Shannon library. The renovation brought the building up to current standards of performance, safety, accessibility and service. It was essential to restore the library to the position it enjoyed when it first opened in 1938 — a contemporary library with modern amenities suited to the needs of its users. Scope includes a new 130,000-square-foot addition and renovation of 100,000 square feet of the historic building, encompassing open shelving for better access to the extensive holdings, study areas, reading rooms, staff work areas and spaces for scholarly research and preservation of books. The building offers a better layout and more natural light, including in two new study courts, for members of the University community as they study, research, and socialize. Historic fixtures, furniture and bookshelves were refinished and restored, with the lighting converted to LED. 75,000 gallon cisterns under Nameless field retain rainwater runoff, and over 120 tons of metal shelving was recycled. Aligning with UVA standards, there is no irrigation on-site. The project demonstrated over 40% energy cost savings from the baseline and prioritized low-emitting products and those with transparency in manufacturing and content. It is now ready to serve the University community for another century.
1 AIA LU | HSW
1 GBCI LEED Specific BD+C and LEED Green Associate CE
Join AIAVA COTE and USGBC for our 2026 building tour series! We wish to celebrate exciting and innovative sustainable building design around the Commonwealth. Each month we will focus on a project in one of the five AIA Virginia component areas that has achieved LEED or other sustainable certification. Tours will provide AIA and USGC CEU’s for participants.
Join us on May 21 for a tour of The Data and Decision Sciences Building at Virginia Tech is a 120,000 SF, four-story academic facility that opened in 2023 to support interdisciplinary collaboration in data analytics and decision sciences. Located on the campus in Blacksburg, Virginia, the building brings together students and faculty from the College of Engineering, the College of Science, and the Pamplin College of Business. Its Collegiate Gothic exterior clad in Hokie Stone reflects the university’s architectural traditions, while the interior features a vibrant multilevel atrium, advanced data visualization classrooms, a trading lab, and more than 30 team rooms designed for collaborative learning.
The tour will highlight key sustainability strategies integrated into the project, including a 33% reduction in whole-building energy use, 35% reduction in indoor water use, and participation in demand-response programs. Additional highlights include high-performance indoor air quality strategies, responsible material sourcing and transparency, 87% construction waste diversion, and biophilic design elements that support occupant wellbeing and connection to nature.
1 AIA LU | HSW (submitted for approval)
1 GBCI LEED Specific BD+C and LEED Green Associate CE (submitted for approval)
Join us for the AIA Virginia COTE 2026 Sustainability Summit on Thursday, May 28, 2026 in Richmond, VA.
The Virginia COTE Sustainability Summit brings together design professionals across Virginia committed to advancing sustainability throughout our practices. This full-day summit is structured to spark inspiration, elevate practitioner insight, and produce tangible next steps for the profession.
An opening keynote will frame the urgency and opportunity before us. Short, focused presentations by practitioners will highlight critical topics, innovations, and on-the-ground experiences to set the stage for more in depth discussion. Participants will then engage in breakout sessions centered on key sustainability issues — the specific focus of these breakouts will ultimately be defined by the attendees, but at a high level topics are anticipated to include policy and legislation, energy innovations, the AIA Materials Pledge, and resilience imperatives across the state. Each group will identify strategic priorities and actionable recommendations before sharing insights with the broader audience. The day concludes with a collective synthesis session, where themes are refined and distilled into a focused set of priorities to guide our shared work in the coming year.
Draft Agenda for the day:
8:30-9:00am: Arrival/check in & networking 9:00-9:30am: Opening keynote 9:30-9:50: Three 5-minute presentations by practitioners 9:50-10:15: Define 3-5 subtopics for breakouts/bio break/networking break 10:15-11:15: Breakout discussion sessions 11:15-11:45: Report out 12:00-1:00: Lunch 1:00-1:30: Three 5-minute presentations by practitioners 1:30-1:45: Define 3-5 subtopics for breakouts 1:45-2:45: Breakout discussions 2:45-3:15: Report out 3:15-4:00: Closing session – review priorities established during breakouts and confirm COTE priorities moving forward 2026-2027
Join AIA Virginia COTE for the 2026 Sustainability Summit on Thursday, May 28, 2026 in Richmond, VA.
The Virginia COTE Sustainability Summit brings together design professionals across Virginia committed to advancing sustainability throughout our practices. This full-day summit is structured to spark inspiration, elevate practitioner insight, and produce tangible next steps for the profession.
An opening keynote will frame the urgency and opportunity before us. Short, focused presentations by practitioners will highlight critical topics, innovations, and on-the-ground experiences to set the stage for more in depth discussion. Participants will then engage in breakout sessions centered on key sustainability issues — the specific focus of these breakouts will ultimately be defined by the attendees, but at a high level topics are anticipated to include policy and legislation, energy innovations, the AIA Materials Pledge, and resilience imperatives across the state. Each group will identify strategic priorities and actionable recommendations before sharing insights with the broader audience. The day concludes with a collective synthesis session, where themes are refined and distilled into a focused set of priorities to guide our shared work in the coming year.
More details to follow soon – Save the Date! (Photo credits: Illustration by Thanh Huong Bui on Unsplash)
Join AIAVA COTE and USGBC for our 2026 building tour series! We wish to celebrate exciting and innovative sustainable building design around the Commonwealth. Each month we will focus on a project in one of the five AIA Virginia component areas that has achieved LEED or other sustainable certification. Tours will provide AIA and USGC CEU’s for participants.
Join us for a tour of LEED Gold Highland Springs High School, located in eastern Henrico County, and experience how thoughtful design and public investment can deliver measurable energy, health, and community benefits. The building features an on-site solar PV array contributing to 54% whole-building energy cost savings, supported by building-level energy metering, demand-response participation, and comprehensive commissioning of building systems and envelope. A strong emphasis on indoor environmental quality—including MERV-13 filtration, low-VOC materials, construction IAQ management, acoustic performance targets, and occupant thermal and lighting controls—supports healthier, more productive learning environments. The project also showcases smart site reuse, reduced water use, dark-sky compliant lighting, waste reduction, and material transparency, offering a replicable model for cost-effective, resilient, and community-focused public school design.
Join AIAVA COTE and USGBC for our 2026 building tour series! We wish to celebrate exciting and innovative sustainable building design around the Commonwealth. Each month we will focus on a project in one of the five AIA Virginia component areas that has achieved LEED or other sustainable certification. Tours will provide AIA and USGC CEU’s for participants.
The addition to the Sadler Center at the College of William and Mary realizes the College’s vision for a “Student Life Neighborhood” at the heart of campus, consolidating 11 student affairs departments into a single, high-performance building for students and staff. The design process and building itself aimed to foster ownership and agency among students, truly creating a “student building.” Sustainable design elements such as an overhang shade system along the addition’s southwestern-exposed curtain wall, low-flow plumbing fixtures, and radiant ceilings for heating and cooling create a healthy and comfortable interior environment for occupants that also further the College’s goals for longevity and developing a bright future for their students.
Join AIA Virginia for a webinar about LEED v5 on Tuesday, August 19 from 12:00-1:00pm EST.
LEED v5 is bringing a bold shift in priorities and design teams need to be ready. This AIA-approved CE webinar, led by a practicing LEED consultant, will walk you through the most significant updates in LEED v5 compared to LEED v4, and what they mean for architects.
We’ll cover:
Key credit changes and new emphasis areas (including decarbonization, equity, and performance)
How these updates impact early design decisions, materials selection, and MEP coordination
A side-by-side comparison of LEED v4 and v5 scorecards for a real building
Tips to align design team sustainability goals with LEED v5 requirements
Whether you’re new to LEED or an experienced user, you’ll leave this session with practical strategies to navigate LEED v5 and use it as a tool for meaningful, measurable impact.
Interested in joining the VA COTE monthly calls!? We would love to have you join and participate.
Meetings are held virtually the first Wednesday of each month from 4:00-5:00 p.m. For more information and to join the calls, please contact Delaney Ogden at dogden@aiava.org.
In this three-part workshop, sustainability experts will focus on the basics of what architects need to know to integrate successful energy modeling into their practices. Various types of modeling systems will be discussed as well as how to decipher the layers of data needed to successfully complete a sustainable project.
Virtual WorkshopDates:
October 9 (Great Design – Climate, Daylighting and Comfort) October 23 (Energy Modeling Basics)
November 21 (Optimizing Energy Models)
Time: 12:00-1:00pm
Location: Zoom webinar
Cost: FREE
Up to 3 AIA LU
Session Three will provide detailed studies and the optimization of energy modeling for an architectural practice. Panelists will discuss the advantages of simplified “shoebox” energy models for initial design planning. They will also demonstrate multiple zone energy models for more advanced modeling. Participants will workshop the shoebox energy model and study how it can be an effective tool using a portfolio of industry standard software tools. This final presentation will tie together the tools needed for the integration of energy modeling in architectural practice.
After this session participants will be able to:
Discuss the advantages of shoebox energy modeling for initial design planning.
Describe the differences between shoebox energy modeling and multiple zone energy models.
In this three-part workshop, sustainability experts will focus on the basics of what architects need to know to integrate successful energy modeling into their practices. Various types of modeling systems will be discussed as well as how to decipher the layers of data needed to successfully complete a sustainable project.
Virtual WorkshopDates:
October 9 (Great Design – Climate, Daylighting and Comfort) October 23 (Energy Modeling Basics)
November 21 (Optimizing Energy Models)
Time: 12:00-1:00pm
Location: Zoom webinar
Cost: FREE
Up to 3 AIA LU
Session Two will demonstrate the basics of energy modeling. Panelists will describe what metrics should be considered. They will explore environmental loading, peak studies, net annual loading, net benefits, how to access climate data, as well as other basic metrics. Participants will workshop simple massing studies. Panel members will demonstrate energy modeling using a portfolio of industry standard software tools.
After this session participants will be able to:
Evaluate useful metrics and studies that may be applied to a specific project type.
Describe basic environmental loads that should be investigated in project planning.
Appraise which energy modeling programs will be applicable to their projects.
Discuss how massing studies will help model the basics of environmental loading.
