Open Studios + Keynote Presentation at Keene State College Architecture School

Open Studios and Reception 4:00 - 5:30pm

Join AIA New Hampshire to meet future architects in the design studios at Keene State College. Students will share their final term projects - design work for the City of Keene and Town of Peterborough. Professionals will have a chance to offer feedback to the students and learn of their future career plans.

Keynote Presentation 5:45 - 7:00pm

Building a Planetary Solution: Regenerative Design and Construction for the Future of Human Settlement

Alan Organschi, Principal, GOA Architecture, Director, Yale Building Project LAB

The eco-systemic sources from which we draw virgin raw material for building are receding and weakening, encroached upon by our continual expansion of human settlement and increasingly unable to supply the ecosystem services (clean air and water, habitat, foodstuffs) that are critical to our and our fellow species’ survival. Despite massive physical investment and environmental impact, the global building sector has failed to meet the basic need for safe and secure shelter and convivial living conditions for broad swaths of humanity. As we approach critical planetary tipping points, how can we, as architects (and with our colleagues in the building sector) mitigate or even reverse the ecological and atmospheric impacts of our work while offering building solutions for the demands of burgeoning global populations? These are challenges that we must face as we conduct our work as architects in the 21st century.

What if—instead of continuing to deplete and degrade our planet’s natural ecosystem—it’s forests, peatlands, wetlands—the making of global buildings and cities could become a force to incentivize their restoration, reverse climate change, and enhance biodiversity? As ecosystem science and techniques such as sustainable silviculture evolve, concurrent innovations in circular and bio-based construction materials and technologies and associated impact assessment methods offer the possibility for a new and powerful symbiosis between the terrestrial biosphere and convivial urban growth.

AIA Emerging Professionals are professionals that have completed their academic studies up to the point of licensure as well as up to 10 years after licensure.

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