Although the current financial crisis may make the good times of 2007 feel like ancient history, the AIA has confirmed that architectural compensation enjoyed a stratospheric rise from 2005 to the beginning of 2008. Not only did the 2008 AIA Compensation Survey find that salaries for architecture positions increased more than 5.7 percent annually during that period—the strongest performance since the AIA began collecting compensation data in 1990—but also that they outpaced the rest of the economy. Graphs courtesy AIA Since 2002, the salaries of architects and unlicensed staff have risen an impressive 29.2 percent while the salaries of all
A year ago, actor Brad Pitt presented lot owners in the devastated Lower 9th Ward of New Orleans with a portfolio of designs by 13 well-regarded architects, saying, in essence, choose a design and your house will be built. Photo ' Virginia Miller/courtesy Make It Right Foundation A house designed by Graft, a Los Angeles firm, is one of six recently completed in the Lower 9th Ward of New Orleans. The first six homes built by Pitt’s Make It Right Foundation are now finished. They represent not only fresh starts for homeowners, but also blueprints for affordable, storm-resistant, and sustainable
The American Institute of Architects today announced that Clyde Porter, FAIA, will receive its 2009 Whitney M. Young Jr. Award. Barbara Nadel, FAIA, will be honored with the 2009 Edward C. Kemper Award for Service to the Profession. The association’s Twenty-Five Year Award for 2009 will go to Faneuil Hall in Boston by Benjamin Thompson & Associates. The Whitney M. Young Jr. Award is given each year to an architect or organization “exemplifying the profession’s responsibility toward current social issues.” Both in his present position as the vice chancellor of facilities for the Dallas County Community College District and as
When the late Maria A. Bentel, FAIA, was a member of the Committee on Design (COD) in its earliest days four decades ago, the group decided to organize conferences overseas because “there was a lot of learning we could do to make us better architects.” So recalls Bentel’s daughter-in-law Carol Bentel, FAIA, a partner at New York-based Bentel & Bentel. The COD is one of the AIA’s 24 Knowledge Communities.
As summer ebbed, many U.S. architecture firms were touting how their expansion into foreign markets, which had ramped up in earnest over the last few years, could hedge them against any domestic economic downturn. The reasons? Strong currencies. Non-reliance on foreign trade. Under-housed populations. Robust oil revenue. Image courtesy HKS The HKS-designed Royal Children's Hospital, in Melbourne, is under construction. Despite the global financial crisis, HKS says there's still a demand for healthcare facilities in Australia. Related Links: Brazil: Firms Still Moving Forward China: Stimulus Package Offers Hope Germany: Looking Farther Afield for Jobs India: Bowing to New Realities Japan:
The London-based Arts Alliance Productions (AAP) has been putting on “ID: Identity of the Soul” since 1994. This theatrical work, based on Henrik Ibsen’s epic poem “Terje Vigen” and Mahmoud Darwish’s poem “A Soldier Dreams of White Lilies,” features dancers navigating around five screens displaying graphically manipulated landscapes. The set designs have been equally nimble. The show debuted in southern Norway with AAP improvising a lighthouse as a projection surface; for a staging in Japan in 2006, the group fashioned sails into screens by draping them over shipping containers in Yokohama harbor. Image courtesy Various Architects Measuring 40,900 square feet,
In 1973, the American Institute of Architects (AIA) moved into its 180,000-square-foot headquarters on New York Avenue, near the White House. The Modernist building was designed by The Architects Collaborative, a firm that counted Walter Gropius among its founders. Photo courtesy AIA The AIA is renovating its headquarters, designed by The Architects Collaborative and completed in 1973. Now, more than three decades later, the aging concrete building is slated to undergo its first comprehensive renovation. “The building is 35 years old and it is becoming increasingly difficult to keep the systems operational,” explains James Gatsch, FAIA, who is serving as
Olson Sundberg Kundig Allen Architects will receive the Firm of the Year Award, and Adele Naudé Santos, FAIA, will be honored with the 2009 Topaz Medallion for Excellence in Architectural Education.
Correction appended December 10, 2008 The UK has drawn fire from UNESCO, the United Nation’s cultural agency, for failing to adequately protect seven of its 27 World Heritage sites from the effects of development. Photo ' Atlantide Photography/Corbis (top); Douglas Pearson/Corbis (above). UNESCO says Westminster Abbey and the Tower of London are threatened by development. The warning, issued by UNESCO’s World Heritage Committee after its annual meeting in July, triggered a review that could lead the agency to label the sites as endangered. If sufficient action is not taken, the sites could be removed the World Heritage List. UNESCO’s warning
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