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TEACH YOUR CHILDREN WELL Contributors

Bradley W. Johnson Since last July, we’ve been getting ready for April’s Architecture Steven K. Dickens, AIA, LEED AP
(“Teaching Moments”), is senior associ-
Month celebration. This year marks the 50th anniversary of the 1968
uprisings following the death of Rev. Martin Luther King, Jr., and of
ate with Eric Colbert & Associates.
Resurrection City, a tent city set up on the Mall that was part of the
Poor People’s campaign that King was on his way to Washington to
(“Making Room for Art”), is an associate
lead when he was killed in Memphis. The year 1968 was pivotal for Peter James, AIA, LEED AP BD+C
Washington, as it was for the country as a whole, and our Architecture with Perkins Eastman DC.
Month programming will focus on how much the city has changed
since then—and on how much there is left to do. Denise Liebowitz (“The Curtain Rises”),
Within the fields of architecture and construction, one thing that formerly with the National Capital
has changed over the last 50 years is the role of minorities and women. More minorities and Planning Commission, is a regular
women now work as architects and occupy leading positions in architecture, construction, contributor to ARCHITECTUREDC.
and development firms. That’s a welcome change, but minorities and women are still
underrepresented in such positions. Deane Madsen, Assoc. AIA (“A DC
One of the best ways to correct this, AIA|DC believes, is to start with students, by Museum of Biblical Proportions”), is a
which we mean learners attending everything from middle schools to undergraduate and writer and architectural photographer
graduate-level programs in architecture. In support of that, the Washington Architectural based in Washington, DC, and founder
Foundation (WAF)—the pro bono affliate of our organization—hosted a STEM fair at the of the informal architectural appreciation
District Architecture Center in January for girls aged 10 and up. Within a couple of days of society Brutalist DC.
announcing this event, we had 100 girls signed up, with more on a waiting list.
G. Martin Moeller, Jr., Assoc. AIA
Welcome! curator and writer, as well as senior
(“Latest Edition”), is an independent

curator at the National Building
Museum. He is the editor
of ARCHITECTUREDC.
The fair was amazing. Our partners from the field of landscape architecture brought
virtual reality devices. One of our partner engineering firms, Thornton Tomasetti, showed Ronald O’Rourke (“Refresher
girls how to make structures and then test them for their seismic durability. AIA|DC’s Design Course”) is a regular contributor to
and Wellbeing committee demonstrated healthy building materials. And our great furniture ARCHITECTUREDC. His father, Jack
partners, Coalesse and Steelcase, taught the attendees about color and texture in design. O’Rourke, was an architect in San
These and other learning stations were set up to be interactive, and the girls dove right Francisco for more than four decades.
into them. They showed no hesitation in taking on challenges that ranged from building the
tallest towers they could out of Jenga blocks to experimenting with structural systems that
can better withstand earthquakes. There was no need to coax the girls into taking interest in
the design and building trades—they were already there.
Leaving the fair that afternoon, my husband said to me, “You might never learn of it,
but you may have changed someone’s life with that event—10 or 20 years from now, there
might be someone working as an architect or an engineer because of that fair.” It was great
to be in a room with all of those partners giving young girls a glimpse of how they could
build a better future for our city and country.
We hope you’ll join us in April for our month of tours, workshops, lectures and events.
Please see the fantastic Architecture Month poster designed by Erin McKeen Sherman on
page 15, and visit our website, aiadc.com, to sign up for events.
We look forward to seeing you there. And as always, as you go through this issue of
the magazine, which focuses on new educational and cultural buildings, please feel free to
drop me a line with your comments.

Mary Fitch, AICP, Hon. AIA
Publisher
mfitch@aiadc.com

WELCOME 5