I lived in the Washington, DC region for 25 years. I am humbled to admit that during all those years, I never visited any of my elected federal officials in person…and they all worked less than 6 miles from my home. It took a move to Atlanta, GA, and my new incoming chair role on the National AIA Committee on the Environment (COTE) Leadership Group to get me to Capitol Hill to advocate for what I care about.
AIA’s Hill Day is part of the National AIA’s Annual Leadership Summit, formerly known as Grassroots. It is an opportunity for architects and allied professionals in leadership roles within the AIA to come together, network and, most importantly, learn how to best advocate for the architecture profession. The week started with a day of AIA-led training, much needed for this architecture professor who does not necessarily keep up with the 525,064 current House resolutions (www.congress.gov). During the training, I learned about three key policy issues that have potential for significant impact on our profession. I learned why each is important (in layman’s terms) and how we, as a unified group of 400, could best advocate to make an impact.
This year, the first of the three policy issues was support of House Resolution 964 / Senate Bill 366, also known as The Democracy in Design Act. As an architect and an educator, I already had some familiarity with this bipartisan legislation, being an architecturally-focused proposal to ensure the freedom for federal buildings to be designed in any style deemed appropriate with local community input, encouraging innovation and not subject to executive order.
The second policy issue was support of House Resolution 7024, also known as The Tax Relief for American Families and Workers Act of 2024. We learned that this Act would retroactively eliminate the requirement for architecture firms to amortize their research and development tax credit, which will have a significant impact on the ability for architecture firms to prioritize research and innovation in their designs. This is critical work as we strive to reduce carbon emissions resulting from the built environment.
The third key issue is mobilizing support for revising the fee limitation for federal design and construction projects from 6 to 10 percent. There is precedent here in regards to Department of Defense projects and this increase of fee percentage would support the growing complexity of design projects as well as the additional services required to deliver the innovation required to address the challenges of the climate crisis.
After my day of training, and feeling moderately prepared, the next morning I arrived on Capitol Hill and met up with 12 of my colleagues from the Georgia AIA delegation to start a day of meetings. We had six meetings, two with staff members representing our Georgia Senators and four with staff members representing a variety of Georgia Representatives. I was happy to be a passive observer in the first 2 meetings, absorbing as much of the dialogue as possible as well as starting to understand the rhythm of these meetings. My confidence grew, and by the third meeting, I felt prepared to take the co-lead, something I never could have imagined a mere 24 hours before.
My personal and professional growth curve over these two days was unprecedented. For that, I have many people to thank including the team at AIA that planned and executed the highly effective training and the experienced Georgia AIA delegates who were such generous mentors. AIA’s 2024 Hill Day was a day I won’t soon forget and it has inspired me to make the annual event a priority each February in the future.