2020 Directory

17 symmetry here. Architects know our social contract stipulates we are the stewards of the built environment related to health, safety and well-being: • Health (human and economic) characterizes the challenge of COVID-19. • Safety (social and systemic) characterizes racial injustice. • Well-being (of people and the planet) characterizes climate change. The holistic view is the key to focus on our priority of Climate Action. We need to approach all three of these challenges at once. Our responsibility as architects is to find our agency at the intersection of these three nested crises related to the built environment. We have discovered that our efforts can be fruitful in making the built environ- ment more sustainable, safer and healthier for all. Just as we have an opportunity at this intersection to do good in an altruistic sense, we have an opportunity to do well in a business sense. Our profession can find profound relevancy and prosper precisely because we stepped up to help society. Along the Camino de Santiago, people have always been eager to support the pilgrims. Over time, they’ve built several thousand structures — churches, hostels and hospitals among them. Why? The health (hospitals), safety (hotels) and well-being (churches) of the pilgrims. The structures themselves stand in support, and the people who built them shout encouragement to the pilgrims in Lat- in: Ultreia! It means “onward!” In one sense, the Camino is AIA. We are the ones who have created those structures along the way so that our members can persist and thrive despite obstacles. In another sense, the Camino is society, and we architects are the ones who make sustaining the built environment possible by addressing health, safety and well-being. The real pilgrim knows, the point is not just to reach enlightenment at the St. James Cathedral. It is also to embrace the power of the experience, bring it home again, and transform the ordinary into the extraordinary. As daunting as these nested crises seem, I have faith we will prevail. We are architects. We have each other. We have design. I have never been prouder to call myself an architect or to be a member of AIA. I hope you feel that way too. I hope you will say it with me: ULTREIA! ONWARD! b Dan Hart, FAIA, P.E. is the executive vice president of architecture, a member of the board of directors and a principal with Parkhill, Smith & Cooper, a 450-person firm in Texas, New Mexico and Oklahoma. Based in Austin, Dan has been the Texas Society of Architects president and the American Institute of Architects (AIA) strategic council moderator. He is finishing his final year on the AIA board of directors, chairing the Public Outreach Committee and co-chairing the COVID-19 Business Continuity Task Force. He will be the nation- al president of the AIA in 2022. Dan was a dual degree graduate in architecture and civil engineering at Texas Tech and went on to licensure as both architect and engineer. Dan has taught architectural engineering at Texas Tech University to senior-level students. Dan was the 2017 Texas Tech University College of Architecture Distinguished Alumnus and the founding president of the college’s Design Leadership Alliance. Dan is proud to have served as the liaison from the AIA Board to the Western Mountain Region over the last three years.