Jeffrey Lurie, AIA President AIA Orlando

By Jeffrey Lurie, AIA

On September 12, 2001 I received a phone call from a fellow AIA member asking me two questions – first, how was I doing, and second, would I like to join the Orlando AIA Board. The mood of the day then had not even quite sunk in, the events of the previous day being barely twenty-four hours old. Fast forward eight years plus a couple months, and it seems everyone is asking those around them, “how are you doing?” Last week I attended AIA Grassroots in Washington DC – the annual lobbying day at the national level for our organization. The timing this year could not have been more of a reminder how much AIA plays a role in affecting the issues that eventually trickle down to the local level and influence our work. Each morning before our sessions we got the latest update on the status of the stimulus package, and the translation for architects in terms of work that might be generated. During our Capitol Hill visits we outlined ways for government to ease the burden on architects with tax breaks and continued funding for projects still in design. We asked that they not just go forward with “shovel-ready” projects, but with the best projects – including those that incorporate green design. This is what the AIA is doing to help architects during these economically challenging times.

The year ahead of us for the AIA Orlando Chapter does have highlights. Last year we won the bid for the AIA National Convention in 2019. The board is moving forward with initiatives to layout a 10 year plan that will prepare the Orlando Chapter for the spotlight the convention will bring to us. I’m sure many of us have experienced the questions from colleagues in other parts of the country asking “what’s in Orlando?” The site selection committee had this question on their minds as well – but we wowed them and won. By 2019 we will have even more to show them. I’m also happy to say that the AIA Board over the years has been financially prudent in saving for a rainy day – and we will not need to cut any of our member services or programs this year; we will still be providing free continuing education at many of our events, and going forward with our second year of Architecture Month.

I think its important that the pain and frustration firms and individuals are going through is acknowledged. The board is not out of touch with the reality in the offices. The people on the board and our committees volunteer their time because they care about the profession, and about our fellowship. The friends and colleagues I’ve made through the AIA are a large part of what will carry me and I hope many of you through this time. Our committees always need new ideas – so if you have time to donate, now is your moment. Joining a committee is also a great way to build your network, and to learn about new opportunities when they start to return. It was during not so pleasant times eight years ago that I joined AIA Orlando – perhaps you will find inspiration in getting more involved now.

Architects know what it means to be in something for the long haul. We’ve all been through the all-nighters during school – and still survived to stay awake for our presentation the next day. We are survivors and we know how to work hard and work smart. These are the character traits that will get us through this year.

I look forward to seeing you at one of our functions or at a committee meeting soon.

by Lee E. Martin, AIA

Gobbell Hays Partners, Inc.

At its monthly meeting on February 11, 2009 the AIA Orlando Board of Directors unanimously voted to support the central Florida commuter rail program known as SunRail. Additionally, the board voted to recommend support to other chapters around the state, and to AIA Florida in Tallahassee by letter from chapter president Jeff Lurie to state president Steve Jernigan. The SunRail proposal is contained in Senate Bill 1212, scheduled for consideration during the upcoming session of the Florida legislature. Commuter rail has been advocated for a number of years in central Florida as a means of reducing vehicular traffic on congested highways, increasing productivity, and improving the environment by visionaries such as architect and former City of Maitland Commissioner Robert Miller, AIA.

In its present form, the bill is supported by state and federal legislators in the central Florida area, as well as Governor Crist, as a means of providing short-term economic stimulus and job creation, as well as long-term sustainability as an alternative to having more trucks and commuter cars on I-4 and other major thoroughfares as central Florida population increases in coming decades. Governor Crist reaffirmed his support for SunRail at a town meeting held January 26, 2009 at the Valencia Community College Osceola campus, while Congressman John Mica discussed the importance of commuter rail generally, and SunRail in particular, at a recent Orlando Business Journal Power Breakfast held at the Citrus Club.

As proposed, SunRail would consist of two phases, the first of which is a 31-mile stretch linking Orlando to DeBarry. Phase II would connect DeBary to DeLand to the north of Orlando, and Orlando to Poinciana to the south. Phase I would consist of 12 stations, while Phase II would add five more. SunRail would run in Orange, Seminole, Volusia and Osceola Counties, however projected economic benefits are much more widespread. Service is scheduled to commence sometime in 2011.

Cost of the system is estimated at approximately $1.2 billion, although that number might increase based on a lack of bids on the first bid package consisting of $158 million in improvements, as reported in the Orlando Sentinel. FDOT officials will reformat the scope of the bid package and reissue it in the near future. Several other municipalities around the state are planning to either start new or expand existing commuter rail systems. More information on the SunRail system or Senate Bill 1212 can be found at www.sunrail.com  and www.flsenate.com, respectively.

By Lynda d’Espaignet

McGraw-Hill Construction/Dodge

America is turning green. With the expectation of millions of dollars in economic stimulus monies to be earmarked for environmentally responsible infrastructure and energy efficient building construction projects, there is no time like the present to design your sites and buildings with the goal of gaining some type of green certification.

There a several avenues to obtaining a green building certification and they are all much more similar than they are different as much of the criteria are the same. However, which certification portal one uses is personal preference unless there is a particular certification that is accepted for public buildings. Without a doubt, the United States Green Building Council (USGBC) is the lead certification portal for certifying green buildings throughout Florida and much of the United States.

USGBC – Leadership in Energy and Environmental Design (LEED) Building Rating System™

The rating systems for LEED certification cover all types of buildings for new construction, existing buildings (operation & maintenance), commercial interiors, core & shell, schools and single-family homes. In 2009 there will be additional rating systems available to better suit the design and development of neighborhoods, retail and healthcare. By going to www.usgbc.org, you can easily register your project and download checklists that cover the criteria for any and all of these categories.

Green Globes and the Green Building Initiative

Green Globes is a green building certification system that originated from Building Research Establishment’s Environmental Assessment (BREEAM), an assessment tool for the construction and renovation of new and existing buildings created by the Canadian Government. In 2000, BREEAM evolved into an online assessment tool used in both the Canadian and United States’ building industries now referred to as Green Globes. The Green Building Initiative (GBI) owns and operates the Green Globes in the U.S.  Their Web site claims a more efficient and effective assessment tool explained in layman’s terms with no prior training necessary. The general categories of assessment include new buildings or significant renovations, management and operation of existing buildings, building emergency management, building intelligence (formally known as BIQ™) and interior fit-ups/build-outs. For more information visit www.greenglobes.com and www.thegbi.org. Also, GBI has a database listing local green building incentives by each state at www.dsireusa.org/gbi/.

Minnesota Design Guidelines

The State of Minnesota has its own standards and certifications for sustainable building design and construction known as MSBG for new construction and B3-MSBG for major renovations. For more information on both of these standards go to www.msbg.umn.edu.

Additional Sources of Green Building Information

Building Green.com (www.buildinggreen.com) is an independent publishing company that focuses entirely on green building products and information.

BREEAM (www.breeam.org) is an assessment tool used through Green Globes but also has a plethora of information regarding green design and products, training outlets, professional collaboration and international assessment protocols and procedures.

Energy Star (www.energystar.gov) is a United States of America governmental agency that certifies the energy efficiency of energy-consumptive equipment and buildings. The site also has much information regarding green building design and construction for residential and commercial properties.

International Initiative for a Sustainable Built Environment (www.iisbe.org) is a database with a registry of skilled professionals for the ‘green building’ industry as well as an international collaboration of such people.

National Association of Home Builders/NAHB (www.nahbgreen.org)

National Association of the Remodeling Industry/NARI (www.nari.org)

Residential Energy Services Network/RESNET (www.resnet.us)

United States Environmental Protection Agency (USEPA) has a section on their Web site dedicated to sustainability at http://www.epa.gov/sustainability/.

By: Jim Hall, AICP, ASLA

Urban planning has been touting full service, mixed use lifestyle as a partial solution to the proliferation of the mono-land use single family subdivisions that sprawl across our metropolitan landscapes. The idea is simple; mix land uses up together to provide a wider variety of opportunities closer to where you live. By creating diverse developments centered on walking distances, neighborhoods are created where you can actually live, work and play.

This idea has been fine tuned by the medical industry to include hospitals. Hospitals serve as regional attractors for employment and healing. They are busy 24/7 places that are a microcosm of a city; people working, living on a short term basis, eating, shopping, coming and going. Further, the hospital needs a significant amount of support beyond the walls of the hospital itself. Medical offices, medical services, restaurants, pharmacies and the like all are needed to serve the demand from the services provided at the hospital. The trend is to provide all these services in the same way planners are designing new communities; concentrate the mixture of uses together within a human-scaled, pedestrian-friendly environment based upon walking distances.

It is important to add in residential uses to these hospital communities to provide even more demand for the everyday commercial services that support the hospital. The housing can also support hospital workers; particularly the staff. This recipe for development creates a very diverse mix of land uses and social demographics to create a vibrant lifestyle.

Hospitals have a significant need for vehicular access; from ambulances, to delivery trucks, to employees to visitors. All these various trip types need to be segregated from each other for efficiently moving vehicles and people around the campus and to the hospital. This is a significant design consideration for a hospital campus which does not necessarily embrace the essence of the human-scaled, pedestrian-friendly street. Thus, there must be a balance between the pragmatic vehicle requirements of a hospital and the pedestrian friendly streetscapes of a neighborhood.

The City of Orlando has two such mixed-use, pedestrian-oriented projects in the works. Florida Hospital has been approved for entitlements for their Health Village. Orlando Regional Medical Center is a part of the City’s South Downtown area plan. Both of these examples go a step farther in neighborhood design; Transit-Oriented Development. Orlando will soon (hopefully) have a commuter rail line from the outlaying towns to Downtown Orlando. Both hospitals will be served with a rail station. This significantly increases the need for multi-modal transportation which starts with walking. Thus, pedestrian friendly design is a must. Add in a diverse mix of uses based upon neighborhood design principles and you have a great opportunity to create a place where people can live, work and heal.

Tom Wannen, AIA, an architect with HuntonBrady Architects of Orlando, placed third in the Florida Foundation For Architecture Florida Cottage Design award competition. The competition focused on sustainable, affordable modular housing that could be deployed in emergency situations. Tom's winning design submission, The Sarasota House, is a contemporary interpretation of the principles used by well-known Florida modern designers.

“My submission explored a contemporary interpretation of the principles used by Paul Rudolph, Ralph Twitchell and others from The Sarasota School of Architecture,” Wannen explained. “What developed was a simple, modernist home that would be affordable and sustainable. The house could be deployed to disaster regions quickly and with minimal sitework required.”

C.T. Hsu + Associates today announced that Jenny Alvarez and Taren Sienkiewicz have earned accreditation by the U.S. Green Building Council’s “Leadership in Energy & Environmental Design” (LEED) program. Both are intern architects at the firm.

Jenny Alvarez

Alvarez earned her Master’s degree in Architecture from the University of South Florida where she was a member of the AIA student chapter and AIA Women in Architecture, served on the AIA building tour committee and volunteered with Habitat for Humanity in Pinellas County.

Taren Sienkiewicz

Sienkiewicz received her Bachelor’s degree in Architecture from the Universidad Nacional Autonoma de Honduras (National University of Honduras) and is a recipient of the XIX ELEA Students’ Competition Award for proposing new solutions to the urban and architectural problems of the Acapulco Bay in Mexico.

“With its introduction in 2000, the LEED Green Building Rating System helped to spark a revolution that changed the way we approach the design, construction and operation of our offices, schools, hospitals and homes,” according to the U.S. Green Building Council. In March, the USGBC will launch sweeping revisions to the program; with LEED 2009 increasing the rating system's emphasis on a building's environmental, economic and social impact and consolidating the many LEED variants into a core set of requirements.

By Mark Freeman

The relationship between China and Taiwan, which has improved in the recent past, will be the focus of a new program at the University of Central Florida. The program will examine the ties between the two governments in the context of their regional impact, as well as their importance for the United States.

Supported by the C.T. and Jean Hsu Fund of the Global Connections Foundation, the China-Taiwan Cross-Strait Program at UCF will sponsor public discussions featuring top speakers and panels, encourage scholarship and research, offer fellowships and work with partners worldwide. The program will also provide the base for other opportunities on campus related to cross-strait relations.

The program will be neutral and favor neither China nor Taiwan. Rather, it aims, in an objective fashion, to promote awareness, understanding and discussion of the key issues in the China-Taiwan relationship.

The program will be part of the Department of Political Science in the College of Sciences. Roger Handberg, chairman of the department, will join John C. Bersia in co-chairing the program on an interim basis.

Jean and C.T. Hsu

The program will be assisted by an international advisory board that includes such prominent Asia/China/Taiwan scholars as Amy Chua, author of "World on Fire" and "Day of Empire" and the John M. Duff, Jr. Professor of Law at Yale University; Gerrit Gong, author of "Taiwan Strait Dilemmas," special assistant to the president at Brigham Young University and a senior associate at the Center for Strategic and International Studies in Washington, D.C.; Minxin Pei, author of "China’s Trapped Transition" and a senior associate in the China Program at the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace in Washington, D.C.; and Kate Zhou, author of "How the Farmers Changed China" and a professor in the Department of Political Science at the University of Hawaii.

SchenkelShultz Architecture received a prestigious 2008 Tilt-Up Achievement Award for its outstanding design of the School District of Palm Beach County’s $28 million, 202,500-square-foot Palm Springs Community Middle School in West Palm Beach,FL. The Tilt-Up Achievement Awards are presented annually by the Tilt-Up Concrete Association, Mt. Vernon, IA. The project also received the 2007 Florida Educational Facilities Planners’ Association First Place award, as well as the 2007 Educational Design Project of Distinction award from School Planning and Management magazine. The 1,526-student facility contains: self-contained separate student learning centers for each grade level with three science labs; a fine arts building including an art gallery, four music suites, two art classrooms, home economics and a drama classroom with a portable stage; a 458-seat dining/multi-purpose space; a 1,000-seat gymnasium, soccer and softball fields, basketball and tennis courts; a secure courtyard with an outdoor amphitheater; and an administrative suite with a separate adult administration complex.

Perkins+Will announces that Alberto Sanchez de Fuentes (AIA, LEED AP, CIA), Anne Briggs (LEED AP) and Binh Nguyen have joined the firm's Orlando office. The addition of these three team members helps fuel the expansion of the firm's presence in the Southeast.

"We are thrilled to welcome these talented professionals to our office," said William Hercules, Associate Principal of Perkins+Will's Orlando office. "They will bring an immediate impact to our growing practice and significantly deepen our expertise in the healthcare design."

Alberto Sanchez de Fuentes

Alberto Sanchez de Fuentes has joined Perkins+Will from HKS, Inc., where he focused his practice on hospital design. Notable projects include: Walter Reed National Military Medical Center (Bethesda MD); Davie County Hospital (Bermuda Run, NC); Dr. P. Phillips Hospital (Orlando, FL); Bayfront Medical Center (St. Petersburg, FL); Palm Bay Community Hospital (Palm Bay, FL); Florida Hospital East Orlando (Orlando, FL); and, Holmes Regional Medical Center (Melbourne, FL).

Anne Briggs

Anne Briggs has joined Perkins+Will from RH&S. Briggs brings experience in the planning, programming and design of healthcare environments, as well as an expertise in specialty healthcare services, including Pathology Lab, Cardiology and Pharmacy. She has worked on several projects in Central Florida, including H. Lee Moffitt Cancer Center and Research Institute (Tampa, FL) and LifeLink Foundation (Tampa, FL). Other important projects include: North Shore Medical Center (Salem, MA); Salem Hospital (Salem, MA); Spaulding Rehabilitation Hospital (Boston, MA); and, SwedishAmerican Hospital (Rockford, IL).

Binh Nguyen

Binh Nguyen is a recent graduate from the University of Florida, where he received both his Bachelor of Design of Architecture and Master of Architecture. During his graduate program, Nguyen worked with SwiMcau (Sanders Wang MacLeod) and contributed to several projects in the Southeast region, including Creative Village (Orlando, FL) and "A Restoration Project" (New Orleans, LA).