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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.  Mazria / benefits of a green grid

    Posted 07-27-2020 12:38 PM

    Ed Mazria: "Besides reducing greenhouse gas emissions, creating a green grid will accomplish two things: produce jobs and save consumers money. The savings for U.S. energy consumers since 2005 is over a trillion dollars, because building sector energy consumption did not increase while we added billions of square feet to our building stock. The decoupling of building growth from energy consumption is important, because it completely negates the argument that it will cost an exorbitant amount of money to decarbonize the built environment. It isn't going to cost consumers anything! They will save money."

    h/t to Martin Pedersen for continuing to amplify many important voices in COMMON EDGE COLLABORATIVE, including Ed Mazria's, on the critical issues we face today, including ... including climate (without solving this one, all the ingenuity in the world on the others will be irrelevant)

    #climateaction

    #tellmesomethinggood

    #designthefuture

    https://commonedge.org/edward-mazria-with-some-good-news-about-combating-climate-change/?fbclid=IwAR1TCWoGSDrVzEJKshIylHF5WsaJf3_9h6dtHVIX9l1K_x1DNYZSJGm8_Zk



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    Kira Gould
    Principal
    Kira Gould CONNECT
    Oakland CA
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    2024 HRC Taliesin West


  • 2.  RE: Mazria / benefits of a green grid

    Posted 07-29-2020 09:47 AM
    No matter how you control the human activity that produces green house gasses and degrades the environment and living conditions on this planet, if the number of people—living and breathing human beings who contribute to that degradation continues to increase (for every one death out of 1000 individuals per day there are 2.3 births— google it). How do you catch up if this population increase continues?
    No one dares to talk about it but it is at the core of balancing a finite planet with the infinite growth of living creatures who inhabit it.
    I don’t mean to dismiss any reasonable actions to control the climate warming, but this core issue needs to be faced if we are ever to get a handle on the warming. The Chinese were doing something about it,but then abandoned limits on birth . Why? Greed -having discovered “capitalistic communism “—- opting for the biggest share, damn the rest of the world.
    Doris Erdman
    Dsearchplan@ Gmail.com


    2024 HRC Taliesin West


  • 3.  RE: Mazria / benefits of a green grid

    Posted 07-29-2020 10:09 AM
    I think that these issues are being discussed quite deeply by most serious, multi-faceted considerations of what we are confronting. Just a couple of examples: In Drawdown, which proposed and data-prioritizes dozens of tactics toward reversing global warming, strategies regarding women are explored in detail. In The Future We Choose: Surviving the Climate Crisis (by Christiana Figueres and Tom Rivett-Carnac), 10 critical actions are outlined, and one of these is Build Gender Equity. As the authors note, some 130 million girls are today being denied the right to attend school, and 100 percent enrollment of those girls would lessen the anticipated global population in 2050 by 843 million people. (This chapter also includes examples of programs that are working now to advance these aims. It is a brief, powerful section with numerous footnotes regarding the calcs like the one i just cited.) There is also a broad discussion around the world about adjusting the the human diet to include more plant protein and less animal protein, a related topic. These (and others) are valuable and important topics in the climate response discussion. 

    I think that for architects and the entire AEC/RE community, we can contribute most effectively by understanding and limiting embodied and operational carbon. And by being advocates for clean energy and clean grids and the numerous jobs that those sectors can realize right away. The design role in the public health crisis that is climate change is very clear, and it offers every architect and firm an unprecedented leadership opportunity.



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    2024 HRC Taliesin West