2021 CSI Certification Classes

For the 39th consecutive year, the Construction Specifications Institute–Willamette Valley Chapter (CSI-WVC) is pleased to offer a series of classes on Construction Contract Documents in addition to another set covering Construction Contract Administration. While the principal purpose of the courses is to assist those planning to take one or more of the CSI-sponsored certification examinations, they’re also beneficial to anyone in the AEC industry seeking foundational training in the preparation and use of construction documents. Additionally, the classes can be of significant value to architectural interns and to the firms for whom they work, as well as very helpful to those preparing to take the State Architectural Licensing Exams.  

The evening classes begin in January 2021 and continue weekly through the first part of March.  

Click on the following links to locate detailed information about the classes, dates, fees, and registration: 

Construction Contract Documents (CDT) Classes:

https://app.box.com/s/6e7aa92vlwt9c2g71ekxetbe306o8sxm

Construction Contract Administration (CCA) Classes:   

https://app.box.com/s/1ztg67o1gzfxsiq815a1e4f6aktupagy

Due to the continued risks associated the COVID-19 outbreak, the Chapter will conduct the 2021 certification classes virtually rather than in person. The organizers are confident the quality of instruction will be as close to the real classroom experience as possible; regardless, the Willamette Valley Chapter’s board of directors approved a 50% reduction of the standard registration fees in acknowledgement of the limitations of online teaching. 

Photo by Chris Montgomery on Unsplash

Both certification courses can help students develop a conceptual understanding of the entire construction process, and concrete skills in: 

• Construction documentation development and administration
• Specification writing and enforcement
• Product research and sourcing
• Communication with the design and contracting teams

The Construction Documents program provides a comprehensive overview for anyone who writes, interprets, enforces, or manages construction documents. Being able to understand and interpret written construction documents helps architects, contractors, contract administrators, material suppliers, and manufacturers' representatives perform their jobs more effectively. Understanding the roles and relationships of all participants improves communication among all members of the construction team. The Construction Contract Administration course goes further to emphasize the specific knowledge and skills necessary to administer and enforce construction contract documentation. While not necessary, some students may find it helpful to have completed the Construction Documents course before taking the Construction Contract Administration program.

As mentioned above, both classes serve as excellent means to prepare for CSI’s certification exams. Certification as a Construction Documents Technologist (CDT) means you have demonstrated ability to prepare, use, and interpret construction documents. CDT certification is a prerequisite to CSI’s advanced certifications, which include Certified Construction Specifier (CCS), Certified Construction Contract Administrator (CCCA), and Certified Construction Product Representative (CCPR).

CSI offers its certification examinations twice annually, in the spring and the fall. Taking the 2021 Willamette Valley Chapters classes this winter would set you up nicely to register for the spring set of exams.

The classes are especially beneficial for emerging design & construction industry professionals, and to the firms for which they work. They’re also particularly helpful to aspiring architects preparing to take a State Licensing Exam.

By taking either of the classes, fully fledged architects can earn up to 16 Continuing Professional Education (CPE) hours to apply toward maintaining Oregon State Board of Architect Examiners professional licensure; AIA Members can earn up 16 Continuing Education Learning Units (LU) which CSI will report directly to AIA/CES.

Hundreds of local AEC professionals have already benefitted immeasurably by taking one or both CSI certification classes. Do the same and you’ll learn about the importance of clear, concise, correct, and complete construction documents, and more fully understand how projects unfold from conception to delivery. Best of all, you’ll advance your career prospects and become a highly valued member of any project team.

If you have any questions or encounter any problems with the course registration process, please email me at rnishimura@robertsonsherwood.com.  

 

The Better Angels of our Nature

(Photo by Brittani Burns)

If we could travel back through time and ask some of history’s most revered architects whether they believe their work is “inclusive,” undoubtedly many would assert without any hint of irony that it is. Of course, with the benefit of hindsight and our current experience we know their buildings often do (or did) exclude or alienate end users. These buildings unwittingly failed to speak to the needs and comfort of many people from all walks of life. They may have presented or continue to present barriers of all sorts, discouraging or barring use for reasons of age, physical or developmental abilities, gender, income, cultural beliefs, or other factors. 

To the credit of our society and more specifically the architectural profession, designing with inclusivity and diversity in mind—appealing to and accommodating as broad a cross-section of users as possible—is now at the forefront of considerations for every new project. This evolution toward inclusive design is in part attributable to the advent of legislated protections, such as the Civil Rights Act (1964) and the Americans with Disabilities Act (1990). It is also a product of the collective social change that has transformed cultural and social institutions over time, and consequently our perception of cultural norms. Architects are more considerate today of the myriad factors that influence whether everyone will feel comfortable and welcome in the buildings they design. They have learned to listen respectfully to and learn from others who have different life experiences than their own. 

Still, architects cannot assume they know what is right. They must be willing to place themselves in the position of others who may be very different from themselves and avoid the trap of insular or parochial perspectives. An inclusive mindset should always be a prerequisite to programming and design. Another is being able to envision successful spaces through the eyes of those who will benefit from them most. This is proving as necessary today as it ever has in the past. Our current, nationwide conversation regarding persistent, systemic racism speaks to how much remains to be done in this country and elsewhere. The goal continues to be to erase barriers to participation and the persistent inequities that debase everyone. 

Beyond conformance with enforceable mandates, what are some of the concrete strategies the design professions can employ to support diversity and the creation of inclusive spaces?

First and foremost, architects must acknowledge their biases and the privilege they enjoy. They might not be aware of the hurdles others regularly confront if they don’t experience those hurdles on a daily basis themselves. Research is necessary to gain an understanding of issues the members of the community who will be affected by the project consider important. 

Second is a focus on equality of experience. Accessibility guidelines ensure built places meet minimum standards for the mitigation of physical barriers. Designed correctly, ramps will not be too steep, hallways will be wide enough, faucets will be operable without requiring tight grasping and twisting, and so on. Generally, architects are thoroughly familiar with the guidelines, so much so that incorporating their requirements occurs without second thought. The trick is to integrate the measures seamlessly so they avoid the appearance of being targeted specifically to a particular subset of the population. If done ham handedly, they might inadvertently stigmatize the very people they’re intended to help. 

The imperative to safeguard equality of experience extends well beyond conformance with minimum standards. In a perfect world, everyone would always feel comfortable and welcome in places they have a right to encounter and use. Thoughtful, good design can help ensure people do not miss the possibility of desirable experiences because they anticipate personal risk. For example, to be able to relate to and comfortably choose to have a new experience, they should be able to preview and imagine its impact and meaning and assess its opportunities. Design-wise, this might translate to making spaces where one can watch things happening without immediately needing to participate themselves. For example, the configuration of a plan might provide opportunities to pass by a place to observe what is happening before committing to joining in. People find places and situations that are overly complex or reveal themselves all at once (as opposed to being slowly revealed) overwhelming and confusing. Such conditions are not inclusive. 

Atrium in the American Wing, Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York: Detached participation and preview (my photo)

The need to address inclusivity, diversity, and choice in the built environment comes from the inevitable collision between the relative permanence of what is built and changing circumstances and value systems. Activities and purposes change. People are wonderfully diverse and different. Sometimes the differences are minor; sometimes the differences are enough to erode the very foundation of what has been built. Because of this, the built environment must be able to flex. The best places do this without losing the ability to evoke and inspire. By providing open, opportunity-rich structure—structure that offers many possibilities and many suggestive cues—they sustain both their usefulness and their meaning over time. 

Spatial qualities and opportunities offering more than what is required to meet the exclusive needs of a particular group and first uses make places that are inclusive and remain useful and meaningful over time. From a design perspective, offering more can be achieved by:

• Providing generous support to activities and purpose so they are more than just basically useful. 
• Recognizing and supporting the full family of activities implicit in and brought to life by the building program and the needs/desires of first users (all places attract more uses than were initially anticipated but some activity families are especially active this way).
• Developing spatial structure that is precisely general; that is structure that is accommodating and evocative without being one-sided or limiting, open-ended in its possibilities without being barren or undeveloped. 
• Establishing spatial variety and ranges of spatial opportunity; for example: large/small, public/private, inside/outside, fixed-use/multi-use, edge/internal, stop-in/pass through, changeable/fixed, etc. 
• Developing the full potential of in-between, residual, or left-over spaces (they may join or separate adjacent spaces, provide necessary transition, define or clarify adjacent spaces, address or form a larger outside space, accommodate spontaneous use, provide opportunity for interaction, provide opportunity to pause without invading or intruding, provide opportunity for retreat, provide opportunity for detached participation).
• Establishing opportunities for imprinting.
• Establishing opportunities for interaction with other people, with ideas, and with events.
• Establishing opportunities for retreat.

If the built environment offers diversity, choice, and degrees of changeability it can better accommodate people of all backgrounds and abilities, and change more broadly. It provides a looser fit, but still a fit. As society evolves, our places should likewise be able to evolve, to flex and adapt in spite of their seeming permanence, and accommodate what is new (whether that be people, new circumstances, new purposes, new values, or all of these). If designed with these abilities in mind, they are more likely to be inclusive. 

The spaces architects design reflect their values and those of their clients. A fair criterion to apply to every project is to ask whether it actively promotes inclusion while limiting exclusion. Certainly, designing with inclusivity in mind presumes a good measure of selflessness and empathy. The most conducive inner traits architects can possess include a good conscience, an ability to acknowledge their biases and privilege, and a broad sphere of universal moral concern. The demands of inclusive design appeal to the better angels of our nature. 

2020 AIA Eugene People’s Choice Awards

Emerald Street Residence by Arbor South Architecture, one of this year's People's Choice Awards entries

Each year, AIA Eugene, in collaboration with the Willamette Valley Section of the American Society of Landscape Architects (ASLA), sponsors the People’s Choice Awards for Architecture. These awards aim to educate and inspire our fellow citizens by showcasing architecture, interiors, and landscape architecture projects created within the AIA Eugene Section area by AIA or ASLA members. The program demonstrates to the public the role of the architectural profession in enhancing the built environment by showcasing the talents of AIA Eugene and ASLA members. This year’s is the 31st edition of the venerable and popular program. 

The “Colleague’s Choice” vote is an adjunct to the People’s Choice Awards and meant to be a fun way for our AIA-SWO and ASLA members to weigh in on the question of which of their peers’ projects are most worthy of recognition. 

As the current spike in cases in Lane County attests, COVID-19 is still very dangerous and continues to pose a real threat. Accordingly, all voting this year will be via AIA Oregon’s online platform (click here) and there is no onsite voting at a physical display of the entries. Everyone can vote for their favorite designs, one entry in each of eight categories, for a total of eight votes. If you change your mind, you can revoke your selection by going back to the project’s page and clicking the “unvote” button. 

This year’s eight categories are: 

• Commercial
• Public/Institutional
• Landscape
• Multi-Family Residential
• Single-Family Residential
• Unbuilt Landscape
• Unbuilt Projects
• Student/Emerging Professional

The voting deadline is October 15, so don’t wait until the last minute to cast your ballot. As a means to deliver a message about the benefits of design excellence and what design professionals provide to enhance the built environment, the People’s Choice Awards are priceless and the very best kind of publicity for AIA Eugene and ASLA. We all deserve a break from 2020’s calendar of chaos so give yourself a real treat and check out the outstanding entries in this year’s People’s Choice program! 

*     *     *     *     *

Big thanks to this year’s sponsors for their support of the 2020 People’s Choice Awards: 

• Arbor South Architecture
• Central Print & Reprographic Services
• KPFF
• Rubenstein’s

Campfire Collaborative Wins 2020 AIA NW+PR Region Award

Jenna Fribley, AIA celebrates the announcement of her firm being awarded the 2020 AIA Northwest & Pacific Region Emerging Firm Award (photos from Campfire Collaborative's Facebook page) 

I'm super busy this weekend with work commitments, so I was happy to hear good news I can share for this week’s blog post: as reported by AIA Eugene, local firm Campfire Collaborative received the 2020 AIA Northwest & Pacific Region Emerging Firm Award! AIA NW+PR bestowed the award during its virtual 2020 Region Awards event this past Thursday evening. 

Campfire co-owner Jenna Fribley, AIA likewise announced the selection on her firm’s Facebook page: 

“We are so humbled, honored, and ecstatic to have received the AIA Northwest & Pacific Region Emerging Firms Award last night!!!! It’s still hard to believe that our little firm in Springfield was chosen for this award from a field of candidates across Oregon, Washington, Idaho, Montana, Alaska, Hawaii, and Guam/Micronesia. 

“A lot of our work focuses on revitalization within our community, and while we have an awesome design team, our efforts wouldn’t be possible without the amazing partnerships and support from our clients, colleagues, the city, and local developers. We’re also lucky to be part of an amazing community of design professionals with at active AIA presence and the architecture program at the University of Oregon.  

Thanks everyone!!!!”

 

As the AIANW+PR website states, the Emerging Firm Award seeks to recognize new practices that are challenging traditional perceptions and methods of architecture. For sure, Campfire Collaborative is increasingly making its mark on the local architectural scene, especially in Springfield, where the firm’s office is located.

 

Congratulations to Jenna, co-owner Kelsey Buzzell, and the entire Campfire Collaborative team!

 

Interaction

Photo by Khamkéo Vilaysing on Unsplash

The SARS-CoV-2 virus required us to accept dramatic and sudden changes in societal behavior, most notably social distancing. While self-isolation or quarantining is necessary to minimize viral transmission, social distancing amplifies the risk of adverse emotional and psychological effects. Humans are social beings, so the closure or reduced access to areas of interaction between people has increased loneliness, anxiety, stress, fear, and boredom. Psychological harm has been the toxic corollary of our COVID-19 existence.

The following excerpt from the late Bill Kleinsasser’s self-published textbook SYNTHESIS stressed his belief in the importance of built environments supportive of human interaction. In Bill’s mind, such places were nothing less than a mental health imperative. He deemed the considerations associated with designing spaces supportive of gracious, inclusive, and life-affirming interactions between people to be essential to the making of good architecture. Fundamentally, he believed it was the architect’s duty to prioritize how the designed environment accommodates healthful societal interactions. This responsibility has never been so evident as it is now.

Interaction

It is possible and desirable to make conditions and supports in the built environment that help people achieve (and continue to achieve) significant interactions with one another. 

This frame of reference concerns the development of those places where people already collect because of activity patterns or necessity. Slight additions or adjustments often make such places supportive of important interaction. At the same time, it is recognized that built conditions in any environment may have little or nothing to do with interaction among people.

Interaction with other human beings (if it is significant, rational, and constructive) is apparently necessary if one is to establish a complete self-image which is in accord with reality. An individual cannot always, through introspection, see what and who he really is.

Conditions of modern life seem to reduce seriously the number of opportunities for meaningful interaction among people. Many sociologists and anthropologists have expressed great concern about the destruction caused by modern life to “primary groups,” which were previously the main framework for human associations and cooperation, and to the quality of interactions among people. Others warn about the workings of our natural defense mechanisms which tend to perpetuate incomplete and untrue views of self and life. 

The study of interaction clearly must involve the study of various kinds of interaction, various needs that are manifest when interaction does not happen, variables that particularize the meaning of interaction in any situation, groups, and group dynamics, etc. 

There are many forms of human interaction. We commonly are not discerning enough (specific enough) when we use the term, and as usual our lack of precision leads to design trouble—at least, it doesn’t help us in the generation of design responses. Consequently, our good intentions do not result in better environmental conditions. Without pretenses about completeness, some kinds of human interaction are as follows:

• Being with others . . . in the presence of others.
• Sharing the same space.
• Sharing the same routine.
• Doing something with others over an extended period of time—a hard job or an ordeal—like the army, school, community projects.
• Doing more casual things with others . . . infrequently.
• Daily meeting . . . casual exchange.
• Being exposed to new ideas, styles, attitudes, etc.
• Receiving messages that reveal the presence of people.
• Expression of self.
• Sharing experience of an event of any kind, whether in daily life, in literature, in poetry, music, etc. especially hard times or adversity.
• Forthright, “hair down,” frank, relaxed, non-role-playing times . . . where normal barriers are removed.
• Physical touching.
• Just talking to someone . . . telling someone something . . . teaching someone something.
• Finding one’s own inner, infrequently known self.
• Overseeing, overhearing, watching . . . vicarious contact . . . watching people play, watching events . . . being in touch.

Some forms of interaction cause the need to withdraw or retreat, to break off from interaction. This happens when there are too many people, or when it becomes too hot or too hard to breathe, or too crowded . . . when interaction is relentless and out of control, or when it is too sudden or too prolonged.

Some forms of interaction lead to relaxed relationships: openness, long-lasting friendship, and love.

Some forms of interaction lead to comfortable relationships: temporary ones, not deep, but significant and positive.

It is not possible to always predict the consequences of the various forms of interaction. People’s circumstances, states of mind, and dependencies all vary, and the physical environment doesn’t always matter. 

Nevertheless, we can establish a variety of conditions to encourage interaction and hope for the best. The physical environment around us often lacks these conditions. It often discourages constructive interaction among people and sometimes prevents it. 

Some conditions that can be established in response are:

1. The development of sunny spots, shady spots, edges, activity nodes, entries, stairs, heavily used spaces . . . so that people are invited to gather there . . . simply taking advantage of an already existing situation.
2. Establishing places that are events, or that cause or invite events—open places—that are not overly designated for use.
3. Overlapping and /or reinforcing uses.
4. Structure of organizing systems that break down normal barriers.
5. Places that push people together . . . or places that collect people.
6. Places that can be shared by small groups (because large groups diffuse possession) . . . size, position, and visual contact are crucial.
7. Places that allow those who live there to communicate about themselves . . . their ideas, feelings, and their care and concern about how their place was/is made.
8. Places that are in touch with people’s sounds, words, inflections, expressions, gestures . . . connected intimately.

Summary:

Observation of places in which people interact (interact in a variety of ways) suggests that designers should consider the following actions in the design of places that offer opportunities for interaction:

• Making places that push people together (judiciously).
• Developing sunny and shady places (people like to be there).
• Making places that allow people to do things together.
• Developing spatial invitations to pause, linger, stay.
• Developing groups of needed facilities.
• Making places that allow people to show or express themselves (allowing a choice of different degrees of making themselves accessible).
• Developing activity nodes where people will be anyway (entries, stairways, intersections, heavily used places) so they are invited to stay.
• Developing edge, in-between, and leftover spaces (they usually have potential for spontaneous use inasmuch as they usually don’t’ belong to anyone, any group, or any purpose) . . . “open” spaces.
• Establishing places that are events in themselves (interesting, important, engaging).
• Establishing laces that invite many events (“open” places that are neither over- or under-designated).
• Developing places of overlapping or reinforcing uses (one activity needs or supports another, thereby collecting more people to a group of places).
• Organizing or structuring places in ways that break down normal barriers to interaction.

WK / 1981