Public Comment Invited On Proposed Changes To ADA Regulations

September 23, 2009 – The public has been given 60 days to comment on proposed revisions to regulations implementing the Americans with Disabilities Act of 1990 (ADA), as amended by the ADA Amendments Act of 2008. The regulatory changes, contained in a Notice of Proposed Rulemaking just announced by the U.S. Equal Employment Opportunity Commission (EEOC), focuses on providing individuals seeking protection against employment discrimination under Title I of the ADA with a more expansive definition of “disability.”

AIA-NJ Announces “CANstruction” Event Will Be Held at Rowan University in Conjunction With Their ASCE Student Chapter

Students Help Feed Hungry With Design Contest That Benefits Community Food Programs

AIA-NJ) announces that Canstruction, its annual design exhibition and contest to benefit community food programs, will be held at Rowan University in Glassboro, N.J., on Oct. 27, 2009, at The Atrium in Rowan Hall.

Students mentored by architects, engineers and professors will compete to design and build giant structures made entirely from full cans of food. The giant structures, after being judged, awarded and displayed, will be disassembled and the cans of food will be donated to local charities.

Sponsored by AIA-NJ and Rowan University’s student chapter of the American Society of Civil Engineering (ASCE), and coordinated by the West Jersey section of AIA-NJ, the New Jersey exhibition is part of a national Canstruction event, which is being held under the auspices of the Society for Design Administration (SDA), an affiliate of the national AIA organization.

Landscape Architects Create New Sustainability Resource Guides

The American Society of Landscape Architects (ASLA) has announced a new series of comprehensive online resource guides on sustainable design and planning. Created for national and local policymakers, government agencies, design professionals, planners and students, the guides include hundreds of project case studies, research papers, organizations and other government resources on sustainable design aggregated for the first time. The announcement took place at the ASLA 2009 Annual Meeting and EXPO in Chicago.

Pilot Projects to Test First National Rating System for Sustainable Landscapes

The Sustainable Sites Initiative™ announced a November 5 call for pilot projects that will test the first national rating system for sustainable landscapes. The Initiative is a partnership between the American Society of Landscape Architects (ASLA), the Lady Bird Johnson Wildflower Center at The University of Texas at Austin and the United States Botanic Garden to create guidelines and performance benchmarks for sustainable landscapes, with or without buildings. The announcement took place at the ASLA Annual Meeting in Chicago.

The Initiative will accept applications starting November 5 and closing February 15, 2010, in conjunction with the release of the next report and new rating system, online at www.sustainablesites.org. Any type of designed landscape is eligible to participate, ranging from academic and corporate campuses, parks and recreation areas, transportation corridors to single residences so long as the total size exceeds 2,000 square feet. Fees for participating in the pilot project process may run between $500 to $5,000 depending on project size. Approximately 75 to 150 projects will take part in testing the rating system.

First Architect Nominated To New Jersey Hall of Fame

Architect Michael Graves Nominated by AIA-NJ

Michael Graves, FAIA

EAST RUTHERFORD, N.J. — The New Jersey Hall of Fame (NJHOF) announced Sept. 15 that architect Michael Graves, FAIA, of Princeton, N.J., has been nominated for its Class of 2010. Graves’ nomination was championed by the New Jersey chapter of the American Institute of Architects (NJ-AIA). Graves — the first architect to be nominated — was nominated in the Hall of Fame’s “Enterprise” category.

Graves was one of 30 nominees in five categories to be selected from a pool of more than 200 candidates who have made signature contributions to New Jersey and beyond. The announcement of the nominations commences voting for the Class of 2010. New Jerseyans — as well those from around the country — can vote on-line through Nov. 20 at the New Jersey Hall of Fame Web site at www.njhalloffame.org.

How the Public Perceives the Architect

Note: This article appeared in the June 2009 edition of the Mid Atlantic Real Estate Journal and the August 2009 edition of the Mann Report.

By Jerome Leslie Eben, AIA, PP, CID, NFPA

When I am at a gathering and meeting people for the first time, it is inevitable that they will ask, “What do you do for a living?” When I say that I am an architect, their response goes something like, “I considered being an architect, but couldn’t deal with the math!” When I ask if they know any architects, they reply, “There are the two Franks, but I can’t remember their last names…and wasn’t George Constanza an architect?”

Well, the two Franks are Wright and Gehry, and no, George (a fictional character on the television sitcom “Seinfeld”) was not an architect, but often claimed to be when he wanted to make a good first impression.

Why The Architect Should Be The Lead Professional On A Home-Building Team

NOTE: This article previously appeared in the Mid Atlantic Real Estate Journal in June 2009 and is slated to appear in the Mann Report in December.

By Seth A. Leeb, AIA
Immediate Past President, New Jersey Chapter, American Institute of Architects
Seth A. Leeb, AIA, immediate past present of the New Jersey chapter of the American Institute of Architects (AIA-NJ) is the principal of Seth A. Leeb Architect in Parsippany, N.J., which specializes in home additions and remodeling. He says that homeowners frequently make the mistake of not hiring an architect to lead their home-building or remodeling project. In this Q & A he addresses the issue of why the architect is important to the home-building team.

Why should the architect be the lead professional?

The architect wears many hats. He is the visionary who comes up with the concept. He develops the plans, does the construction drawings and understands the codes. He is also the communicator. He has to communicate ideas to both the homeowner and the builder. Sometimes he is the referee between the homeowner and the builder. He also has to communicate with subcontractors such as cabinetmakers, kitchen designers or interior designers — even the landscape architect or designer. So the architect plays many different roles. But he — or she — coordinates all these efforts. He is the orchestrator.

James Stewart Polshek, FAIA, Featured Speaker at Design Conference

James Stewart Polshek, FAIA

PRINCETON, N.J. — James Stewart Polshek, FAIA, will be the featured speaker at the annual Design Conference sponsored by the New Jersey chapter of the American Institute of Architects (AIA-NJ). Polshek, senior design counsel of Polshek Partnership Architects, will discuss his lifelong convictions about the importance of modesty and generosity in the practice of architecture.

The Design Conference, which will be held Sept. 30 at the Princeton University Theological Seminary in Princeton, N.J., will also feature a tour of the Princeton University campus and an interactive seminar with Carol Doscher, president of Graceworks, and Geoff Webb, vice president and CFO of Graceworks, on presentation, leadership and communications.

The daylong event will conclude with an address by Luke Tilley, regional economic advisor for the Federal Reserve Bank of Philadelphia on current economic conditions and the outlook going forward.

AIA-NJ Contributes to Discovery of Noted Architect’s Plans

Carl Kemm Loven Noted for Charming Norman Designs

Nancy Atkins Peck, Xiomara Paredes and Faulizbeth Vallejo cleaning and examining the plans of architect Carl Kemm Loven at the headquarters of the Glen Rock Historical Society (left to right).

GLEN ROCK, N.J. – It wasn’t quite the same as inspecting the Dead Sea Scrolls, but for amateur historians Nancy Atkins Peck and Xiomara C. Paredes, AIA, the level of excitement was no less great.

What they were inspecting was a cache of the plans of architect Carl Kemm Loven that had been stored in a barn in the town of Apalachin, N.Y., near Binghamton, and recently moved to the Glen Rock Historical and Preservation Society.

Loven was a Glen Rock architect who designed homes from the 1930s through his death in 1965 that are beloved by local residents and are known for their fairytale Norman Revival style complete with turrets, dovecotes, leaded glass windows and hand-forged hardware.

USGBC Addresses Building Performance

August 25, 2009

Washington, D.C. — The U.S. Green Building Council launched a Building Performance Initiative designed to put in place a comprehensive data collection effort from all buildings that have achieved LEED certification; implement an appropriate analysis methodology of that data; and provide feedback to building owners so they have better information with which to address any performance gaps that stem from predicted building performance versus actual performance.

This initiative complements the announcement earlier this year that will require ongoing performance data from buildings as part of their certification under the latest version of LEED and beyond.

“This initiative is about gathering knowledge about building performance in a way no one has ever done before,” said USGBC LEED Senior Vice President, Scot Horst. “The information that we collect from our certified projects is a workable, holistic approach for achieving better performing buildings.”