March 2019 finds us hoping for Spring and excited about the future of our Knowledge Community. We held our leadership planning retreat on a bitterly cold February day in St. Louis and are excited to announce several changes that you will see over the coming year. We reflected on our mission, our value to our members, and our place within the greater AIA body. Out of this, we have a new name, a new mission statement, and a focused agenda for programming. Our new name, Small Project Design, and new mission statement clarify our purpose and differentiate us from other AIA member groups, namely Small Firm Exchange (SFx). Our new mission statement is:
AIA Small Project Design Knowledge Community supports, celebrates, and promotes small projects by engaging designers and the public.
Over the next year, we hope to engage our members more regularly through a quarterly email, continue to celebrate outstanding small project design through the Small Project Awards, relaunch the Small Project Design Grant, and retool the SPD Annual Review as a journal that documents our programs and is distributed to our AIA Conference session & forum participants.
We hope to see you at A’19, where our joint SFx-SPD forum seeks to engage you with our mission and asks you to become a participant in the community and the Small Project Awards session will recognize the outstanding projects that address our 2019 theme, Together We…
See you soon!
Melissa Harlan, AIA
2019 Small Project Design KC Chair