In February, four members of the Congress of Residential Architecture (CORA) released a position paper urging change within the profession. Since then, the paper has been circulating electronically and has undergone several revisions based on peer feedback. As of April 21, it had garnered 243 signatures, and authors David Andreozzi, AIA, Duo Dickinson, AIA, Jeremiah Eck, FAIA, and Michael Griffith, SARA, are hoping for more endorsements in the coming months. They’ve written a resolution based on the paper, to be presented at a meeting on Saturday, June 12, at the AIA National Convention in Miami.
The four architects came together out of frustration with what they describe in the paper’s preamble as the profession’s “long-term drift away from social relevance and public credibility.” Notes Dickinson, “This is not a list of demands; it’s a statement of concerns. This is about a generational change that has pushed our profession further and further away from relevance.” He and his co-authors say the economic downturn propelled them into action, but that the underlying issues they address existed well before the fall of Lehman Brothers. “A lot of these things have been simmering for a lot of years,” Eck points out. CORA’s founding mission statement was first published in May 2004 in this magazine, and the organization has been a partner with residential architect’s Reinvention Symposium since the conference began also in 2004.
The paper’s “Call to Action” section lists eight specific goals, among them a shift to schools and NCARB as the exclusive arbiters of continuing education units. It also requests the inclusion of “legal status equivalent to LEED accreditation” as part of licensure. Another stated goal tackles the issue of architectural education, calling for accredited schools to expand their base curricula by requiring mentoring, internships, and hands-on building experience. And the authors also call for the AIA and its local chapters to “recognize residential architecture as a unique discipline.” (To read the entire paper, click here, and to read the online discussion and comments, click here.)
The authors have gathered an impressive list of signatures, some from leading residential architects such as CORA founding counselors Dale Mulfinger, FAIA and James Estes, FAIA, as well as Wayne Good, FAIA. “I signed it right away,” says Good, of Good Architecture in Annapolis, Md. “The problems they outlined have been evolving slowly for a long time, and have come into focus like a 2x4 upside the head.” The AIA’s Central Valley chapter in California also has agreed to officially support the paper, particularly the eight listed goals. “We think those are valid points that need to be discussed,” says Bruce Monighan, AIA, the Central Valley chapter’s vice president/president elect.
Others have declined to sign thus far, citing the paper’s criticisms of the AIA and other institutions, academia, architectural journalism, and the government. “As I look at this paper, we seem to be calling on everyone else, not each other,” says John Senhauser, FAIA, also a CORA founding counselor. “But it’s a good place to begin a dialogue. These are impassioned people, and I truly respect that.”
CRAN (the AIA’s Custom Residential Architect’s Network) has not taken an official position on the matter. “We did not feel it was right for CRAN to endorse it or not endorse it,” says Luis Jauregui, AIA, CRAN’s president. “We wanted to let individuals decide for themselves.” AIBD (American Institute of Building Design) president Dan F. Sater II, AIBD, said he hoped to collaborate with CORA members as long as the paper steered clear of trying to exclude residential designers. “I will be glad to meet and work with them in ensuring a better built world,” he says. And while the U.S. Green Building Council, which administers LEED credentials, had no direct comment on the paper, spokeswoman Ashley Katz noted that architects helped write the original LEED standards. “We’ve always convened architects in the discussion,” she adds. AIA National, for its part, is waiting to comment until the paper has been presented at its June convention.
Dennis Wedlick, AIA, the co-founder of CORA along with Dickinson and Eck, agrees with Senhauser that the paper places too much focus outside the profession. But he’s signed it and has posted an additional letter urging others to sign, even if they disagree with some portions. He also is encouraging his peers to attend the AIA national convention in June. “Residential architects need to come to Miami en masse,” he says. “If they don’t show up, there’s a missed opportunity.”
If CORA’s resolution is adopted by the AIA delegates in Miami, it will go to the AIA’s board of directors, who would vote on it at a September 2010 board meeting. At that time, according to AIA spokesperson Scott Frank, the board could vote to ratify the resolution in its complete form, partially, or not at all. If some form of the resolution is ratified, the AIA would then take further steps to act on it, depending on how or whether it affects the institute’s bylaws provisions.