Conference Day 2. AIA24. Washington D.C. ArchiWeek.

Architectural AssistantContent CreatorArchitecture Event

25 Jun

Written by Aliya Pinnock, Edited by Aliya @archistudentnotes

Archiweek

ArchiWeek is the sub-section of archistudentnotes sharing week in the life accounts from Architecture Students, Architectural Assistants and Architects from all over the world. It is free to read and free to submit!

This ArchiWeek we have a week in the life submission of my experience at the American Institute of Architects Annual Conference 2024 in Washington D.C! I was invited by the AIA due to the work I have done here at archistudentnotes so what better way to share my week than with a (rather long) ArchiWeek submission here at archistudentnotes.com!

This post is Day 2 of the Conference itself! If you are interested in reading my week from Monday click here!

Would you have tackled the week any differently?

AIA Conference:

Day 2.

Second day of the conference but the first Keynote event! It was a rather early start as we had to get to the Conference Centre for an 8.30am start. I was told that my Ultimate Pass got me and my guest pass priority seating so I wasn't too worried when we didn't arrive until 8.15.

We grabbed some water (its like 30 degrees), asked about the Ultimate Pass and they said we could sit in the reserved seating on either side of the red carpet….:O Cool cool.

Welcomed by the band (not us personally, can you imagine) we found a couple of seats, marvelled at the scale of it all and waited for the event to start. I had assumed it would be 45 mins of just the keynote but it actually started with some introductions from the MC for the keynotes; CBS Senior White House Correspondent; Weijia Jiang, The President of the AIA; Kimberly Dowdell and the CEO of the AIA; Lakisha Ann Woods, the presenting of the AIA Whitney M. Young Jr. Award 2024 to Douglas Ito and the Architecture Firm award to Quinn Evans both followed by really inspirational acceptance speeches. We also heard from the White House Climate Advisor, Ali Zaidi who made a speech concerning sustainability and climate change which was nice to see and it would seem a much requested link between government and the AIA.

Then it was the keynote, Arthur C. Brooks and what a way to start the keynote speaker programme. An excellent, engaging and charismatic speaker focusing on how to make your life happier and it genuinely changed the way I look at life. There were literally people crying in the audience with happiness and realization...it was that good.

Following the keynote I felt like I didn't need to go to any more seminars, lectures..I was just done, I had all the information I would ever need for life. Of course this was just a post-Arthur C. Brooks high (which I am sure anyone who has heard him speak has also experienced). So I kept my plan to attend the seminars, they however did not start till about 1pm today so we went to the Expo, which I believe was as a big as 4 football fields? Please fact check me.

There was loads to see, products, software, systems.. We of course beelined for the Lego area where Richard Paules had a stall set up where we could play ahem, I mean build with some Lego.

After my stunning success with the Lego we continued walking around and I headed towards anything that looked interesting which tended to brands that I recognised, Monograph, ArchiCAD, AutoDesk, VRay and Enscape, Sketch Up etc. I also found a new brand snaptude where we were given a demonstration on the product which was actually pretty interesting. What stood out to me was the work presented by ArchiCAD I believe where they were capturing building blocks in real time, running that image through a software and it was spitting out an AI image based on prompts that had been input which meant that the image would update as you experimented with different block formations. It was really interesting to witness!

During our browsing session, we came across a lonely Cybertruck. Which of course we had to get in, press all the buttons and pretend like we were in a car showroom ready to purchase.

It was actually kind of interesting to see it because on YouTube Videos and photos, it looked ridiculous but when you compared it to the size of US cars/trucks, it really wasn't. UK just isn't there main target market it would seem.

We then found the puppy park, filled with 8 week old very sleepy puppies.

I mean, the photo really just says it. I would have flown thousands of miles just for this.. (I wouldn't have, but I could have..)

I would say playtime over, time for a seminar but my next seminar was actually really fun a lot more interactive than previous seminars I had attended. It was a talk by Joshua René - PRO100 – Pro Series: I'm Not My Business Card!

Walking into the room, I was quite worried. I expected a huge crowd, not only because of the subject matter but because it was part of the ‘Pro Series’. This however was not the case, there were people scatterd around what was a huge ballroom, maybe 50 at a push for a room that could hold nearly 1000 people (I checked).

The session started a bit late, I assume to give some extra people time to arrive and then just before we started we were encouraged to move to the front so that by the time the talk started we were all on about 8-10 tables right at the front. Me being me, I would have disappointed with the turn out and it would have impacted my talk, Joshua Rene however absolutely took it in his stride.

He started speaking and you would have thought he had planned the talk for a small intimate group. It was his confidence that made me less anxious about the idea of it being a more interactive seminar and there being a need to actively talk to people. Talking of the interactive elements, there were two. The first involved filling out a fake business card with your name and your value e.g Hey, I’m: Aliya, Value: Empathetic. We then were asked to get up and find a new person to talk to, but we could not talk about our job, our job title. our credientials etc etc. I found this quite hard at first, one because I can get nervous, and two because I focused way too much on what I written on my business card and forgot that I could actually just talk the person.

After more of the talk where we focused on the importance of telling a story and really connecting with someone, we went again, this time filling out a card where we looked at your biggest accomplishment, what lead to it and any challenges. My ‘partner’ in the seminar went first and their biggest accomplishment was qualifying as an Architect well after they had originally expected to. They discussed the challenges they had, the impact of money and time and I felt like I knew them as a person rather than another Architect I had met. My accomplishment was being invited to the AIA24 Conference as I thought this was probably the most relevant. It allowed me to talk about where I was from, what I was doing and the impact of content creation.

This seminar led perfectly onto Authentic Connections: Learning to Love Networking. I sat a table towards the back but with someone already on it. Another person joined us later and encouraged by the note on the projection to talk to the person next to you, we did have a little informal chat before the session. During the session a lot of the same concepts were dicussed that were in the ‘I am not my Business Card’ seminar but this was great as it really just reinforced by learning. We had another interactive session where we had 3 minutes to introduce ourselves and tell a story based on an accomplishment. The first woman talked about her roller derby accomplishment and the second woman, with a bit of a push, talked about an award she had won. I felt so much more comfortable just speaking after this.

At the end of this session, as I was gathering my stuff one of you, Aidan Gonzales to be specific actually recognized me which was amazing! I am not used to this, especially being at a conference in America so I was a bit shocked but glad the work I have been doing is reaching loads of people across the world! Aidan is currently updating his Architecture Instagram account so show some support and give them a follow!

Next time, maybe a more informal meet up next time?

I’ll organise :) anyway, end of the Conference Day, quick rest at the hotel and then freshened up for some BBQ. On the way back we stopped off at Subway and picked up the now in the UK footlong cookie, because of course and headed back to the hotel.

I kept on saying I wanted to see the rooftop so we managed to get up there and see parts of Washington from above at Sunset. I know I keep sayign it, but really what is my life right now?