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The Committee on Design (COD) was founded to promote design excellence among members of the AIA, the broader design community, and the public at large, both nationally and internationally.

2024 COD Conferences

Arkansas

April 3-7 | 21c Hotel | Bentonville and Eureka Springs - Registration is sold out.

Brazil

Thu, Oct 17 - Sat, Oct 26, 2024
Sao Paulo > Brasilia > Rio de Janerio.  Registration will open in late April.

2024 Sponsorships

Download the prospectus for Arkansas and Brazil opportunities.


2023 COD Conferences

Last year, COD held two domestic design conferences investigating The Authenticity of Place.  The first conference was held in New Orleans, LA.  View the short video of the venue tours and download the conference program book. The second conference was held in Minneapolis/St. Paul, MN, September 21-24, 2023. Download the Minneapolis guidebook and view the conference video

  • 1.  Future Industries -What Drives the next 20 Years of Change?

    Posted 03-16-2016 10:01 PM

    Future Industries -What Drives the next 20 Years of Change?

    To think about the future requires optimism. Depression can't see a future at all, fear doesn't want to see one, anger laments that it won't be like the past.

    But as the German novelist and writer Martin Walser recently observed, "there is no presence that isn't crying out for a future". There are at least three strong reasons for planning a future: ethics (things may not remain the way they are), philosophy (the presence is nothing but the confluence of past and future) and physics (the "arrow of time" or entropy is irreversible).

    So we turn to Baltimore resident, Johns Hopkins Fellow and former Special Advisor for Innovation at the State Department Alec Ross to learn about the future and "how the next wave of innovation and globalization will affect our countries, our societies and ourselves" (book cover), Ross has written a whole book about the future. But he isn't just a blue-eyed optimist writing "the typical techno-utopian fantasy" nor is he the whiny pessimist issuing a "the luddite jeremiad" (quotes from the Forbes review of his book). In his recently published book The Industries of the Future he "strikes a calm tone, never ceasing to consider the human cost of technological progress" (Forbes). Ross responds to his own question of "what is next after digitalization"? and shows both the possibilities and risks of what he thinks will come.
     
    The field of those who think and write about the future is...(For full article click on the link below)
     

    Community Architect: Future Industries -What Drives the next 20 Years of Change?

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    Community Architect: Future Industries -What Drives the next 20 Years of Change?
     
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    Nikolaus Philipsen FAIA
    Archplan Inc. Philipsen Architects
    Baltimore MD
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    2024 HRC Taliesin West


  • 2.  RE: Future Industries -What Drives the next 20 Years of Change?

    Posted 03-18-2016 03:01 PM

    Some Rambling Thoughts on the future:

    1. Less Expensive computer chips, eventually the cost of computer chips will be so low that the ability to skin a building in computer chips will become a reality. This will have implications and opportunities to affect the skin of buildings and will also impact who controls the skin. Architectural facades/ skins will become even more responsive to their environment. However the skin could also become a battle over control and design, is the skin now owned by the developer, the PR department, the advertising agency, branding? The Architect may develop the skin, but control of that skin may land in the hands of others and change how and what a building may look like, day to day, season by season, , tenant by tenant, owner by owner.

    2. Robotics- will affect the cost of labor and push some people out of work, fortunately the need for robotic and AI designers and maintenance staff will increase. This could include impact those involved in the construction industry and the movement of materials and resources. Robots will have the ability to construct buildings utilizing direct digital model information and have already been utilized for building a freeway wall. Robots do not take lunch breaks and currently do not have a union.

    3. 3D printing- the ability to design, construct and install components in real time by printing 3D objects at the job site will affect construction and other industries. The ability to build custom prosthetics or other medical components will impact the way we provide and deliver care. THe ability to order a 3D file from Amazon or it's replacement and then instead of delivery, the printer builds it at your home, office or school.

    4. Self driving cars- will impact the need for and the use of parking structures as well as the need for uber, taxi and truck drivers. Maybe now is the time to design parking structures that can be easily converted to other uses in the future, when the need for storing cars will be reduced significantly. It will also impact the design of housing as we reduce the need for parking under high density structures and the need for attached and detached garages for single family homes. Time to turn the garage into a VR/AR environment.

    5. AI- self learning computers will impact many industries including healthcare diagnosis and other industries requiring real time data. In architecture perhaps the cost of designs can be calculated in real time, providing designers and owners with a building that performs to their metrics (energy savings, labor savings, operational efficiency, philanthropy/ brand).

    6. VR and Augmented reality- will affect how we design buildings, travel (will we ), education and gaming. The question is will we become Wall-E, and become even less social by crawling into a VR / simulated world.

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    Lee Brennan AIA
    Cuningham Group Architecture, Inc.
    Culver City CA

    2024 HRC Taliesin West


  • 3.  RE: Future Industries -What Drives the next 20 Years of Change?

    Posted 03-21-2016 08:18 PM

    Provocative thoughts. Even before the technologies you mention are commercially available, we are primed for their arrival. We are already accustomed to designing with simulations (Rhino, Revit, etc.) and are losing the material  aspects of architecture. Drawing and physical model-making are no longer a necessary part of the design process. Our bodies are not involved in design any more. Designing with such media blurs the line between simulation and reality. A simulation's value lies in the fact that it behaves like the building we're designing. The building and the digital model can become almost interchangeable. The more dependent we become on technology, the more our work is determined by our technologies. Measurable metrics become our only design goals. How will we make sure that technology serves us and not the other way around?

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    David Scheer AIA
    Owner
    David Ross Scheer Architect, LLC
    Salt Lake City UT

    2024 HRC Taliesin West


  • 4.  RE: Future Industries -What Drives the next 20 Years of Change?

    Posted 03-23-2016 11:25 AM
    The Monterey Design Conference  in California, held  every other  year, regularly  features  the  work of up-and-coming young professionals.  For  the  last several  conferences, probably  going back ten years, the  vast majority  of the  work presented  by young  professionals has been about CAD/CAM and  the  technology and science  of making things.  Some of  it very fascinating, but most  of  it a long way from being  about  architecture, if  you consider architecture  to be  about  making  spaces and places  for  people.  And I wouldn't argue that  there were (are) larger  forces at work, like  the  economy and  lack  of architectural  opportunity, causing young people  to be  creative about finding niches  of  economic  opportunity  in a  changing  world.  But from this  perspective  it  sure  seems  we're  serving  technology  and not the other  way around.  If  you disagree,  try separating yourself from your PDA's for a week.





    2024 HRC Taliesin West