Downtown Raleigh Alliance

North Carolina Architects Ready to Make Major Capital City Investment
With the Selection of a Winning Architectural Design, a New Headquarters Building Becomes More Than an Idea

A generally disregarded patch of land carved out at the corner of Wilmington and Peace Streets has kept architects from across North Carolina on their toes for the past two months; and it’s about to make some of them downright anxious.

Maybe it’s not the patch of land, so much as what’s going on it: New Headquarters for the American Institute of Architects, North Carolina Chapter. (AIA NC). The organization, which serves over 2,300 professionals statewide, has been working toward new facilities since 2004, when the leadership recognized that they had outgrown their Water Tower home in downtown Raleigh. After completing a survey of the existing conditions of the converted City of Raleigh Water Tower, the Task Force charged with studying options concluded that new facilities were worth pursuing.

“The Task Force decided early on that AIA North Carolina was not interested in being an absentee landlord,” notes David Crawford, the Executive Vice President for the organization, “so we had to make the difficult but necessary decision to sell the current headquarters to someone who would be a good steward of this historic property and relocate.”

With that decision made, AIA North Carolina members set about defining the program for a new space; holding many design and visioning sessions to hash out the details of how they would meet their needs in a new location. What new services could they provide to the membership? How could they engage the public in new ways? Where would the financing come from?

Who would design it?
Crawford says that a design competition was the obvious and only solution. “It was an easy decision to host a Design Competition for the new Headquarters - with all the design talent in this State, we knew we would get stunning results from opening up the creative process.”

This unprecedented competition opened in November, 2007, and will come to a dramatic conclusion on January 23, 2008 at the Fletcher Opera Theater of the Progress Energy Center, at 6:30pm. That is when architects from all over the state, legislators, city government officials, the design competition jury, and the National AIA President (Marshall Purnell, FAIA) will be on hand to view all of the entries and witness the announcement of the winning design. The reception and announcement is free and open to the public.

The winner of the competition must meet criteria defined in the entry guidelines to complete construction on the project and meet the vision of the membership for the new facilities, which includes creating a space that will inform the public about the value of architects and architecture, enhance service to AIA NC members, promote the profession and quality environments for living, and most importantly, educate visitors about good design. 

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What is good design?
Lately, it seems that good design equals “green” design, but who knows exactly what that means? AIA North Carolina architects do. And they’ve made it a goal to use their new facilities to teach the public about what is means to design with the environment and the future in mind.

“The new building will be our testament to sustainable architecture, the built environment, and the role of architects in this endeavor,” says Walt Teague, the Immediate Past President of AIA North Carolina from Greensboro. The building will be designed to meet both LEED® (Leadership in Energy and Environmental Design) standards as well as the AIA’s COTE (Committee on the Environment) goals, which include regional connectivity strategies, land use and site ecology, sustainable materials and methods of construction, reduced water usage, and increased energy efficiency.

In fact, the winning building design will strive to meet the AIA 2030 Challenge: Carbon-neutral building construction by the year 2030. This initiative, accepted in the new Energy Independence Act of 2007 (section 433, passed by Congress in December 2007) states that “buildings shall be designed so that the fossil fuel-generated energy consumption of the buildings is reduced…by the percentage specified in the following table:

Fiscal Year Percentage Reduction
2010 55
2015 65
2020 80
2025 90
2030 100


Jurors
Bill McMinn, FAIA, the competition Advisor, will be joined by Daniel Bennett, FAIA, the Dean of the College of Architecture at Auburn University in Alabama; Allison Ewing, AIA, LEED® AP, a partner of Hays + Ewing Design Studio in Charlottesville, Virginia; M. David Lee, FAIA, partner at Stull & Lee in Boston, Massachusetts; and Susan Maxman, FAIA, founder and Design Principal of SMP Architects in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania. The team will deliberate over the 60+ entries all day on January 23, and announce the winner by 8pm that evening.

“It will be an exciting evening,” notes Wayne Camas, AIA, the current AIA NC President from Charlotte. Crawford agrees, noting that the winner will be designing the building that symbolizes AIA NC’s $4.5M investment in North Carolina - and creating the new home that will represent all that architects contribute to their communities.