Blueprint South Dakota

By Tim Hawk, FAIA2019-2021 At-large Director, AIA National Board of Directors Members of the American Institute of Architects have stepped forward with unprecedented energy to help peers and communities’ weather the COVID-19 pandemic. As a professor of architectural history, I believe that we respond in part because of our knowledge of history, and our awareness …

Continue reading “June 2020 AIA National Board Outreach Network Report”

The AIA National has added a new feature to their website. The organization reviews K-12 architecture resources and activities and posts them on their website. There are activities, videos, interactive programs, and career information. My favorite is #askanarchitect that directs you to youtube and features several interviews.

According to the current State Engineer, Stacy Watters, PE, each state engineer (all the way back to 1898) had to submit a report to legislation showcasing every project of theirs over the previous year. The following report book is from 1908 and the State Engineer at the time included this poem he found. It’s amazing …

Continue reading “An Engineer’s Poem”

This is the inaugural post of series in which we ask community leaders about the community they live in and share their answers with you. We hear what their favorite spaces are in the city and why and what issues their city faces from their point of view. Our goal is to get a sense of South Dakota and the cities that make it up. We hope to have a variety of cities and perspectives of the same cities. By engaging community leaders, designers and communities can see the spaces in a city from a different perspective: the people that are making decisions.

The second round of application review for the NCSR Friendly Firm Award has been completed. The list of EP Friendly Firms continues to grow. If you would like your firm recognized you can still apply. Applicants simply need to have an office in the region, and have an AIA member firm principal and an AIA member emerging professional fill out and sign the form together.

April 15, 2019. The iconic Notre Dame cathedral took a devastating blow as a fire broke out internally and the roof partially collapsed as a result. How could such a history be rebuilt to its former state? Well, by looking at the building in its former state! Not by photographs or detailed drawings, but a digital environment. A detailed 3D scan of the cathedral was taken years prior and has been helping with the restoration process by looking at the possibilities while keeping its quiddity.

Nearly four months ago I concluded my architectural internship at Tesla: a time I consider an absolute pleasure and a great start to my professional career. I want to note that I did not seek out this internship as a car enthusiast, but due to my interest in the role that vehicles take in shaping the fabric of the urban design. In a holistic sense, I do not view Tesla as an automotive company, but rather a clean energy company that aims to change the world using sustainable sources. Nevertheless, they do have arguably one of the greatest cars on the market as one of their lines of product.

Imagine: It’s the fall semester of your senior year of college. You can’t wait to see all of your friends, have late nights in the studio, and take multiple trips to Lowes. Fast forward to your spring break. You have just finished your midterm architecture review and said, “See you later” to your friends and classmates. Little did you know, you probably won’t ever be seeing some of those classmates ever again.

In a profession that has multiple answers for every problem, having a means to use analytical data in your design almost seems like a cheat code to success. Film has benefited from the same the concept that this idea rests so firmly on; human curiosity. My interest in how our environment influences our attentiveness turned me towards videography. What if your environment is a screen in front of you? Publishing websites like YouTube and Vimeo both have integrated analytics that break down things like “average user watch time” and “retention rate.” While these terms seem outlandish when put into juxtaposition with the design of our built environment, they are used in the same way serial vision is implemented in architecture. Every videographer’s goal is to create something that holds the viewers’ attention through the ending. Most of us know what it’s like to watch the first 30 seconds of a video only to stop watching because it didn’t interest us.

The last AIA Convention’s theme was rural resiliency. At that time, we didn’t know the challenges we have faced the last month or so. I keep coming back to the idea though. I have hope that our state will bounce back. Midwesterners are known for their toughness and ability to weather the storms: their resiliency. This year’s spring meeting was evidence of that attitude. The plan was to hold the meeting in Brookings hosted by SDSU’s chapter of AIAS. The students had put time and thought into an informative agenda. Social distancing changed plans.