AIA Chicago - Through the Eyes of Christine

HKP sent Chris­tine Bald­win to the AIA Con­fer­ence on Ar­chi­tec­ture 2022 in Chicago at the end of June. Over the course of five days she at­tended keynotes, sem­i­nars, and tours that fo­cused on top­ics such as sus­tain­abil­ity, in­clu­siv­ity and eq­uity, com­mu­nity-based de­sign ap­proach, and over­com­ing site com­plex­i­ties with De­sign-Team in­ge­nu­ity. There was a con­sis­tent theme to the Sem­i­nars she at­tended – en­gag­ing the en­tire De­sign Team and Owner Team to com­bat the Built En­vi­ron­men­t’s im­pact on the en­vi­ron­ment through the use of car­bon se­ques­ter­ing, mass tim­ber, en­ergy ef­fi­ciency, and ma­te­r­ial ef­fi­ciency and ap­pro­pri­ate­ness. Out­side of the con­fer­ence, Chris­tine was able to take in the sites of Chicago, in­clud­ing Lake Michi­gan, Chi­na­town, Mil­le­nium Park – in­clud­ing the famed “bean” as the lo­cals call it – count­less Mies van der Rohe pro­jects, the River­walk, Willis Tower, and the John Han­cock Cen­ter. There was some­thing to see at every turn that in­spired and chal­lenged the mind of an Ar­chi­tect.