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ALBION DISTRICT LIBRARY BY PERKINS + WILL IS A 2018 COTE TOP TEN RECIPIENT. IMAGE: DOUBLESPACE PHOTOGRAPHY

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Who we are

The Committee on the Environment (COTE®) is an AIA Knowledge Community working for architects, allied professionals, and the public to achieve climate action and climate justice through design. We believe that design excellence is the foundation of a healthy, sustainable, and equitable future. Our work promotes design strategies that empower all AIA members to realize the best social and environmental outcomes with the clients and the communities they serve.

Enjoy our latest on COTE news (and follow us on X and LinkedIn). 

To learn about the Framework for Design Excellence (formerly the COTE Top Ten Measures), click here.

Check out COTE's history and timeline. 

Starting a local COTE or sustainability group and need some guidance? Check out the AIA COTE Network Resources here.

A big thank you to our 2024 sponsors: 
Founding sponsors: Building Green
Premier sponsors: Sherwin-Williams
Sustaining sponsors: GAF Roofing, Milliken, Andersen Windows,
BlueScope Buildings
Green sponsors: EPIC Metals
Allied sponsors: TLC Engineering, Sierra Pacific Windows

  • 1.  Ed Mazria in ARCHITECT, with urgency and optimism

    Posted 03-25-2021 01:48 PM

    "The U.S. can lead other nations with confidence and the knowledge that a 65% reduction is achievable. Why? U.S. carbon emissions today are already down 23% from 2005 levels. The building sector, the country's largest energy consumer, continues to reduce its emissions and is now 30% below 2005 levels, ahead of the U.S. Paris Agreement's NDC [Nationally Determined Contributions] of a 26% to 28% reduction by 2025. The Biden pledge of a clean electricity grid by 2035 should further cut emissions from the building sector, surpassing the targeted 65% reduction, and also drive emissions down in other sectors."

    https://www.architectmagazine.com/technology/carbonpositive-this-is-the-make-or-break-year-for-the-planet_o

    #climateaction #designthefuture #COP26



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    Kira Gould
    Principal
    Kira Gould CONNECT
    Oakland CA
    ------------------------------


  • 2.  RE: Ed Mazria in ARCHITECT, with urgency and optimism

    Posted 03-29-2021 04:33 PM
    I appreciate very much Ed Mazria's call for the US to lead on climate reduction.  But Dan Heinfeld's, in his opinion in the Architect's Newspaper, is also correct to note that the AIA could lead more decisively by linking its awards program to reporting building energy performance on the AIA 2030 challenge: https://www.archpaper.com/2021/03/op-ed-the-aia-should-link-awards-to-energy-performance/?trk_msg=TH3EVFC6IECKTCB145UG6UQAPC&trk_contact=MOQ4FTB1HCGGLLTJ6R5FDNDEN0&trk_sid=I5PI373FO8VAE1M2K6BHVPJ01O&utm_source=listrak&utm_medium=email&utm_term=Op-ed%3a+The+AIA+should+link+awards+to+energy+performance&utm_campaign=Late+Edition%3a+Community+groups+rally+ahead+of+West+Midtown+preservation+battle%2c+GSA+taps+Krueck+Sext

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    Ludmilla Pavlova-Gillham AIA
    Senior Campus Planner
    University of Massachusetts
    Amherst MA
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  • 3.  RE: Ed Mazria in ARCHITECT, with urgency and optimism

    Posted 03-30-2021 05:36 PM
    AIA’s National Honors & Awards has revised its application to include the Framework for Design Excellence information as part of the submittal process. That step I believe addresses Mr Heinfeld’s comment while supporting Mr Mazria’s advocacy. Its now important for the State, Regional and Local Component Awards programs align with National’s revision and adopt the Framework for Design Excellence to highlights the many performance aspects of an award winner's contributions to the built environment & society. The Framework gives the profession a much better way to communicate those contributions to the public at large.




  • 4.  RE: Ed Mazria in ARCHITECT, with urgency and optimism

    Posted 03-31-2021 09:28 AM
    With all due respect, I think that the components are, in many cases, advancing their awards programs more than Honors & Awards is at the national level. At the local/state level, several chapters are using the Common App (or adapted versions thereof) to bring elements of the Framework into their awards process and require performance metrics to show how buildings are really performing.

    It was great to see that Honors & Awards brought the Framework into the 2022 awards cycle, but the metrics are mostly still optional and there has not been a comprehensive look at how juries are instructed to interpret performance data when included (or how to consider what it means when it is not). There is still a disturbing disconnect between what we say we think is the architect's leadership role and what we honor at the highest level. (The COTE Top Ten program was founded in 1997 with the hope that it might be phased out after five years, by which time it was hoped that national Honors & Awards would have caught up. That process is still under way. Progress has been made, and that's a good thing, but the pace is too slow.)

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    415 690 0182


    writer / consultant: Kira Gould CONNECT

    volunteer / leader: AIA Committee on the Environment

    senior fellow: Architecture 2030


    listen to our Design the Future podcast 

    read my Q&A with Ed Mazria in ARCHITECT or the longer take in COTE news 







  • 5.  RE: Ed Mazria in ARCHITECT, with urgency and optimism

    Posted 04-01-2021 12:09 PM
    I concur with Ludmilla's comment that ALL AIA design award programs should be "decisively linked" to sustainability and the AIA 2030 Challenge. If architects are to demonstrate leadership in fighting climate change, then we need to be aggressive about representing architectural excellence and sustainable design in any design awards issued.

    --
    Michael J. Holtz, FAIA, NCARB, LEED AP
    Founder and CEO
    LightLouver LLC

    Phone:     303 834 0414
    E-mail:     mholtz@lightlouver.com
    Web site: www.lightlouver.com