Design industry lagging in meeting AIA 2030 Commitment goals, says AIA

The American Institute of Architects released a report recently stating that the industry is lagging in meeting AIA’s 2030 Commitment goals.

Each signatory to the 2030 Commitment program pledges to reach the goal of achieving carbon neutrality by 2030, and the industry has a long way to go to meet that goal. Only 4% of projects so far have met the 70% energy savings target for 2015 building performance, with the average savings coming in at 38%.

“We have made some progress in the overall program, with a noteworthy jump in the amount of buildings included in the report,” said Greg Mella, FAIA, Director of Sustainable Design at SmithGroupJJR and co-chair of the AIA 2030 Working Group. “But we are simply not making significant strides in crucial metrics that predict building performance. These findings should serve as a wake-up call to architects that there needs to be greater urgency to drive improved energy efficiency across their project portfolios if we are going to reach our ultimate carbon reduction goals.”

The AIA said that roughly six in 10 of signatory firms employ energy modeling early in the design process, a strategy that it says is critical to meeting the 2030 goals. “Seeing more firms including energy modeling into their workflow is one of the encouraging takeaways from this report,” said Andrea Love, AIA, Director of Building Science at Payette and co-chair of the AIA 2030 Working Group. “This is exactly the sort of broad, cultural shift that is required to make serious inroads towards carbon reduction in buildings.”

New York City has two very large buildings dedicated to answering the 911 calls of its five boroughs. With more than 11 million emergency calls annually, it makes perfect sense. The second of these buildings, the Public Safety Answering Center II (PSAC II) is located on a nine-acre parcel of land in the Bronx. It’s an imposing 450,000 square-foot structure—a 240-foot-wide by 240-foot-tall cube. The gleaming aluminum cube risesthe equivalent of 24 stories from behind a grassy berm, projecting the unlikely impression that it might actually be floating. Like most visually striking structures, the building has drawn as much scorn as it has admiration.