Committee on Design

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Who we are

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

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AIA Framework for Design Excellence: Design for Resources Session

  • 1.  AIA Framework for Design Excellence: Design for Resources Session

    Posted 08-14-2020 01:41 PM

    Design for Resources | AIA CA Climate Action Webinar Series

    Wednesday Aug 26, 2020 | 12:00 PM PT

    Design is not just about aesthetic components, but how buildings perform for people. The AIA Framework for Design Excellence is made up of 10 measures, formerly known as the COTE Top Ten. These can help organize our design thinking, can facilitate conversations with our clients and with the communities we serve, and they each set meaningful goals and targets for climate action.

    Join architects Larry Strain | Siegel & Strain and Brad Jacobson | EHDD who will speak about Design for Resources, including best practices, high impact strategies, resources, and case studies that promote climate action.  Earn 1 LU | HSW for attending.

    Register Now!  

    More information on the Climate Action Series can be found here: https://aiacalifornia.org/climate-action/



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


  • 2.  RE: AIA Framework for Design Excellence: Design for Resources Session

    Posted 08-14-2020 02:20 PM
    Kira, you refer to the importance of “how buildings perform for people”. For some reason you seem to set that against aesthetics. I do not think there is any conflict between your goals and aesthetics.

    More importantly though, not one of the framework’s standards seeks to measure how and whether this new piece of the built environment supports the human activities for which it is designed. These standards measure the engineering designs of the built environment. Architects can make moves that support more effective engineering. But that is not our most important skill. The special skill of architects must be their understating of human beings and how built environments can support human behavior, both practically and spiritually. COTE’s standards dance around those skills but never directly reward them.
    Let us hope that someday it becomes generally understood that there is no sustainability in the built environment without successfully focused attention on the human/built environment interface. Architecture lives at that interface. Everything else, indeed, everything COTE chooses to measure is supporting infrastructure, not architecture itself.
    Sincerely
    Mike Mense FAIA
    Hamilton Heights
    New York City
    Sent from my iPhone


    Sent from my iPhone


    2024 HRC Taliesin West