Blogs

AIA Corporate Partners COTE Newsletter Article: Sherwin-Williams January 2025

By Alison Karfeld posted yesterday
Sherwin-Williams recently launched our product portal to Ecomedes, a database of building product data. As an industry leader, we’re excited to make sustainability easier to deliver into the market every single day. With Ecomedes, you can simplify the evaluation and selection of sustainable materials via a one-stop shop. The platform pulls in all the certifications, documentation, and details of our products’ sustainability attributes, making it the perfect home for data on our extensive collection of architectural and industrial coatings. Plus, Ecomedes synthesizes product data into a simple lens that people can understand and use to identify the ...

COTE Book Review: Blue Architecture: Water, Design, and Environmental Futures by Brook Muller

By Orrin D. Goldsby AIA posted 3 days ago
It might seem strange to be a "fan" of water in architecture, but there are those of us who embrace this underrepresented interest—and we’re joined by futurist and author of Blue Architecture: Water, Design and Environmental Futures (University of Texas Press, 2022) , by Brook Muller. The author is also an education; he is the Charles Eliot Chair in Ecological Planning, Planning, Policy and Design at the University of the Atlantic in Bar Harbor, Maine. As architects and designers, we spend much of our time working to keep water out of building envelopes, ensuring it flows efficiently through pipes, and managing it in our cooling cycles. Despite all ...

COTE Network

By Lisa M. Ferretto AIA posted 5 days ago
COTE Network The COTE Network is a community of AIA Committee on the Environment (COTE) groups from over 60 Local and State AIA Components across the country. Network Quarterly Calls Calls take place once a quarter and feature updates from COTE committees throughout the country. Registration is required using the links provided here: 2025 Q1 Register – Tuesday, February 4, 2025, 2-3 pm ET Q2 Register – Tuesday, May 13, 2025, 2-3 pm ET Q3 Register – Tuesday, August 5, 2025, 2-3 pm ET Q4 Register – Tuesday, November 18, 2025, 2-3 pm ET There will also be an open office (half) ...

Join the Climate Conversation: Share Your Expertise with AIAU

By Kendra Minor posted 5 days ago
Are you ready to share your passion and expertise in climate action? AIAU is launching an exciting new series of courses on this critical topic, and we’re inviting guest speakers and course reviewers to join us. Share your insights on subjects like carbon literacy, passive design strategies, energy modeling, and more. This is your opportunity to make a meaningful impact—fill out this short form to get involved! Ways You Can Get Involved: Guest Speakers : Participate in a short 10 to 15 minute recorded interview conducted remotely via Riverside. Course Reviewers : Dedicate 2–3 hours to reviewing course content, ensuring it aligns with industry ...

2025 Green Schools Conference

By Lisa M. Ferretto AIA posted 5 days ago
March 3-4, 2025 - Green Schools Conference presented by the Center for Green Schools in partnership with the Green Schools National Network in the LEED Gold City of Orlando at the Hilton Orlando Lake Buena Vista at Disney Springs The annual Green Schools Conference (GSC) brings together everyone involved in creating and advocating for green schools, with a focus on those leading their schools and school systems toward whole-school sustainability. Now in its 15th year, the two-day event provides a platform for the green schools community that inspires and facilitates the progress of the green schools movement. ...

Letter from the chair - January / February 2025

By Robin Leigh Ziegenbalg Puttock AIA posted 7 days ago
The end of the year and the start of the next is a natural time for reflection. As I write my first AIA Committee on the Environment chair letter, it is late November. At COTE , there is a lot of reflecting going on. We are looking back on our past year, planning for the next one and perhaps most importantly, strategizing about the role of COTE in the context of the next AIA 5-year mission/vision cycle: the all-important five years leading up to 2030. I look forward to presenting the results of this thoughtful process in the next issue of COTE News. Another noteworthy point as we begin this year: 2025 marks the 35 th anniversary of COTE’s founding. For those ...

COTE Advocacy Update | Let's Get Local

By Joyce A. Raybuck AIA posted 7 days ago
With our political landscape shifting, the shared responsibility of meeting important climate goals will be impacted. This is not the time to feel sorry for ourselves but a time to change our mind set and to buy time. As we enter the next four years, aspects of our work will not be easy. But we must remind ourselves that we have been through this before. We know what works and what does not. We are organized and our movement is strong. In this spirit, I look back to my own experiences from 2016 to 2020 and events happening where I live in Kansas City, Missouri. During this time, advocacy efforts shifted to local and regional climate action and there was a ...

COTE Top Ten Award Winners

By Lisa M. Ferretto AIA posted 28 days ago
COTE Top Ten Award Winners: Explore the submission pdfs for additional images, detailed drawings, and diagrams for a visual narrative of architectural innovation integrating exemplary performance with a compelling design. 2024 2023

COTE news: November/December 2024

By Kira L. Gould Hon. AIA posted 11-07-2024
Check out the latest issue of COTE news ... our November/December 2024 issue has landed. This is news from The American Institute of Architects (AIA) Committee on the Environment, a Knowledge Community. https://bit.ly/COTEnewsNovDec24 In this issue you will find: the chair letter from the inimitable Michelle Amt, FAIA a reminder about COTE Top Ten submissions due on 8 January (pro tip: if you are having trouble finding it in the list of open programs, like I was, it's because AIA has refined the process in a really great way: look for "universal project entry" (and within the platform, you will choose the ...

AIA Climate Action Manager Position Available!

By Lisa M. Ferretto AIA posted 10-24-2024
AIA Climate Action Manager Position Available! Our Climate Action Manager position is posted! Please share with those who may be interested in joining our Climate Action and Design Excellence team here at AIA!

AIA Corporate Partners COTE Newsletter Article: BlueScope November 2024

By Alison Karfeld posted 10-21-2024
How BlueScope’s c limate a ction a pproach s hape s the s ustainability of s teel As climate change and environmental challenges continue to impact global well-being, architects are at the forefront of designing more sustainable, resilient structures. Achieving these outcomes requires collaboration across industries. Beyond partnerships, architects need materials that enable flexible, innovative designs. Steel plays a critical role by reducing embodied carbon, enhancing durability, and supporting circular construction approaches. The r ole of s teel Steel is a durable, ...

AIA Corporate Partners COTE Newsletter Article: Stantec November 2024

By Alison Karfeld posted 10-21-2024
Making the case: How designers can help the world say yes to decarbonization By David Martin , Stantec There’s never been a better time to make a difference through design than today . To forward decarbonization, however, we must combine our passion for good with pragmatism. Our society faces an overwhelming challenge in climate change. According to the International Energy Agency (IEA) and the United Nations, we have a narrow path for reducing greenhouse gas emissions by 2030 if we are to hit net zero emissions by 2050 and limit global temperature rise. As architects, we hold immense responsibility ...

COTE Network Update

By Bunny Tucker AIA posted 10-17-2024
By Bunny Tucker, AIA, CPHD The COTE Network will host its final quarterly call of the year on Tuesday November 12, 2024 at 2:00 pm ET. We hope you can join us to share the work of your committee and to hear what others have been up to this year. The event will be followed by office hours from 3:00 pm ET to 3:30 pm ET. We also want to announce that the Network is transitioning from Basecamp to a COTE Network Community Hub hosted on the AIA’s website as part of the AIA’s comprehensive communication strategy for Knowledge Communities. Similar to Basecamp, there will be a discussion board in which all members can participate. Please stay tuned for announcements ...

Submit your leading edge unbuilt work to the Holcim Foundation Awards

By Kira L. Gould Hon. AIA posted 10-17-2024
Submit your leading edge unbuilt work to the Holcim Foundation Awards -- get international recognition by Kira Gould The H olcim Foundation awards has opened their 2025 cycle. It may seem like there are so many awards programs these days, and they can be a big time and money sink, so it’s important to choose wisely. From the COTE community perspective, I find a lot of awards programs rather thin. Even if they are including sustainability in their criteria, many seem to do this (even now!) in vague ways that often seem designed to encourage greenwashy language (or worse). All that context is why I think so highly of the Holcim Foundation awards. This ...

Sharing the Top Ten 2024 Winners: Posters to Download & Print

By Kira L. Gould Hon. AIA posted 10-16-2024
Sharing the Top Ten 2024 Winners: Posters to Download & Print Alison Kwok, a Professor at the University of Oregon School of Architecture & Environment, is a longtime friend of COTE. She helped developed the earliest iteration of the Top Ten for Students Competition and has long championed the use of the AIA COTE Top Ten Award winning projects as a pedagogical tool. In 2019, they piloted this, making posters of all the winners. This year, she and others at the school reprised their translation of the winning projects into posters that they printed for their recent 2024 Reynolds Symposium: Design: Resilience. And true to form, they offered to ...

Building Performance Knowledge Community - Deep Focus on Performance on All Scales

By William P. Babbington FAIA posted 10-16-2024
Building Performance Knowledge Community - Deep Focus on Performance on All Scales by Will Babbington | FAIA, PE – Chair with contributions from BPKC Leadership Group Jason Danielson, AIA; Jessica Saravia, AIA; Rob Shearer, AIA; and Guanzhou Ji, AIA The profound impact of Building Performance on overall energy consumption is now well-known thanks to the efforts of groups like COTE. With more stringent requirements in current and future codes and standards, there's an increasing need to provide architects with even more tools and knowledge to lead design and construction teams towards higher performing buildings. With a large overlap ...

UPDATE from AIA 2030 & Materials Pledge

By David G. Arkin AIA posted 10-15-2024
Dear COTE community, On behalf AIA’s two climate signatory programs, the AIA 2030 Commitment and AIA A&D Materials Pledge , we’re excited to share this past year’s progress in the zero-carbon and materials realm – with reflections on how far we’ve come and much more to do! 2030 Commitment This year’s 2030 By the Numbers report has signs of hope within it, including a record breaking 490 firms reporting data, over 7,000 projects reporting Embodied Carbon Intensity (ECI), and increases in reported all - electric buildings and projects with renewable ...

Letter from the Chair -- November/December 2024

By Michelle Amt FAIA posted 10-14-2024
By Michelle Amt FAIA Just like that, a year has gone by. In that time, the COTE Leadership Group began the work to update COTE’s vision, mission and goals for 2025 – 2030. We also progressed initiatives, and launched new ones, around the themes I outlined in January: Supporting deeper integration of the Framework for Design Excellence (and its associated metrics) within the AIA and throughout academia. We continued to provide feedback on alignment efforts between AIA Working Groups and Knowledge Communities. Beth Brandt, 2024 COTE Network co-leader, and Lori Ferriss, 2023 COTE Chair, have joined a Committee on Climate Action and ...

The Enduring Power of Good Design

By Carlos Augusto Garcia AIA posted 10-09-2024
By Carlos Augusto Garcia AIA In the 1960s, New York’s Grand Central Terminal faced threats of demolition due to falling ridership and rising maintenance costs. In the 1980s, Union Station in Los Angeles saw calls for demolition when it couldn’t keep up with increases in traffic flow. A 1910 Allen Forge & Welding building in Raleigh - expanded in 1927 for the Brogden Produce Company - fell into disrepair before finally being purchased again in 1997. Today, Grand Central Terminal is a beloved icon in New York’s thriving commercial center. Union Station is a major transportation hub and a cherished landmark that embodies the history and cultural ...