Difficulty: Hard
How-To:
Think About What Matters to You - Are there issues that are particularly important because you’re a member of the architecture community? If so, your professional expertise may be persuasive to others, and help you to make a bigger impact in the areas that matter to you most.
Leverage Resources - Once you have decided what issues are important to you, begin to identify like-minded organizations and individuals within the AEC community . By finding allied organizations, you can leverage existing resources and have a more immediate impact. These groups may also be able to provide relevant research, talking points, or tool kits that help you to share your architectural expertise on your issues with elected officials and members of your community.
Resources:
New Urban Agenda - Habitat 3
Talk to your local AIA Advocacy Committee, or your state AIA Lobbyist about the AIA’s legislative priorities at a local level. You may find partners and resources, or even help shape your component’s agenda.
Why it is important:
In 1968 at the AIA National Convention, Whitney M. Young famously rebuked the architecture profession by stating, “...you are not a profession that has distinguished itself by your social and civic contributions to the cause of civil rights...You are most distinguished by your thunderous silences and your complete irrelevance.” Since that wake up call forty-nine years ago, activism has become a much bigger part of the architecture profession through the efforts of dedicated citizen architects, as well as the AIA, NOMA and other organizations. Each of us has the opportunity to join this movement and demonstrate that architecture and architects are concerned not only with buildings, but with the people who inhabit them and with the political processes that shape the ways that they are made. Your voice as an architect matters in the political process. We are respected professionals, employers, shapers, designers, and influencers of the built environment. We, as a group, have the ability to collectively speak up with a greater power and voice than one person can alone.
Further Reading:
Whitney Young’s Keynote Address from the 1968 AIA Convention
Architect Magazine’s “Change Agents”
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Description of Difficulty Levels:
Very Easy - Takes no more than a couple of minutes, requires almost no effort
Easy - Takes no more than fifteen to thirty minutes, requires little effort
Medium - Takes no more than an hour, moderate effort required, might have to put yourself out there a bit
Hard - Takes a couple of hours, effort required, will have to put yourself out there.
- Very Hard - Takes more than a couple of hours, may be a recurring commitment. Requires a solid amount of effort. Challenge yourself!