10.15 AIAVT News


Golf Tournament Drives in Funds for Architecture Students

Players in the Annual AIA Vermont Guy W. Teschmacher Memorial Golf Tournament teed off September 18 at the Williston Country Club in Williston, Vermont to raise funds for architecture students.   More...

from the PRESIDENT

My how time flies when you’re having fun! The first half of my presidency is complete and AIA Vermont is building quite a presence nationally.  More...

How Will the Clean Power Plan Affect Your Projects?

Building professionals know there are few complications more frustrating than finding out that a project’s fenestration fails to meet energy codes. As codes become stricter, the cost of compliance related to window, door, skylight and curtain wall failure will go up, threatening to put projects over budget and behind schedule.  More...

How Modern Design Can Enrich a Traditional Vermont Landscape: The Guilford Example

Nearly 30 attendees made the trek to the Windham County site of Guilford Sound and even those who drove a long distance felt rewarded.  More...

Vermont Architects Play with LEGO Bricks for So. Burlington’s 150th Birthday

All across Vermont this summer, architects played with LEGO® bricks. They put together models for the “City Center: Creating Place” booth at South Burlington’s CityFest, held August 15 in Veteran’s Memorial Park.  More...

Archistream Tour Makes Final Stop at Rutland Art Festival

Making good use of AIAVT's Archistream Mobile Design Gallery and Education Center, architects at Pittsfield-based Robert Carl Williams Associates (RCWA)  arranged to “bring architecture to the people” at the "Art in the Park Festival" in Rutland on October 10-11.   More...


Golf Tournament Drives in Funds for Architecture Students

By Carol Miklos

Players in the Annual AIAVT Guy W. Teschmacher Memorial Golf Tournament teed off September 18 at the Williston Country Club in Williston, Vermont to raise funds for architecture students. Amidst gentle rolling hills and fine views of Camel’s Hump, 25 teams made up of architects, engineers, building materials manufacturers, and others from across New England swung their clubs in support of the Hanne N. Williams Scholar Recognition Fund.

Particularly memorable this year was AIA member Joe Greene’s send off to the players at the start of day. Greene paid tribute to former colleague and friend Guy Teschmacher, a past president of AIAVT.

Guy was a truly active member of AIAVT and committed himself to the profession and the industry," said Greene. "He also really enjoyed golf, though he’d be the first to point out that he was not a 'golfer!' His connection to AIAVT and love of golf helped foster the idea of a scholarship fund that could help young, aspiring, designers-in-training with much needed higher education financial assistance. The now annual AIAVT golf tournament serves as a memorial to Guy—who was taken from us much too soon—and his legacy of contributions to the field of architecture."

Throughout the day, the Golf Committee (Marsha Wilmot, co-chair, Black River Design Architects; Keith Robinson, co-chair, Black River Design Architects; Todd Fitch, Exterus Business Furniture; Joel Page, AIA, Scott & Partners; and Ian Lanpher, The Garland Company) and several volunteers for the tournament performed a variety of tasks including registration, gift bag distribution, string sales, putting contest management, and in some cases team participation—all of which contributed to ensure a successful event.

First time participant Gene Pawlikowski of Trowel Trades said, “I had a blast. It was the first time I’d golfed in 15 years. It was great to see everyone—I didn’t know there were so many golfers in the architectural community. For the last few years, people have had to have their noses to the grindstone. I was glad to see so many architects and their colleagues taking a day off and having so much fun for such a good cause.” 

While being a serious golfer is in no way a requirement for this tournament, fine playing was in evidence. A team made up of Greene and his colleagues captured the “low gross” award with a score of 43 (aided with the use of 19 strings!) The “low net” team award, earned with a score of 46 (including handicap), went to John Higgins of Artisan Engineering and his associates. The second “low net” award went to the Curtis Lumber team. Architect Elizabeth Calabrese took home the Women’s Longest Drive, Tim Lavery won the Men’s Longest Drive, Alan Gould won the Closest to the Pin; John Alden, AIA, Scott & Partners and Jerry Marshall won Most Efficient to the Pin, and Lee Grutchfield, AIA, TruexCullins Architecture, captured the Putting Contest honors.

This year’s event generated over $11,000 for the Scholar Recognition Fund.  Much appreciated support came from Underwriter Window & Doors By Brownell, Dinner Sponsor Poole Professional Ltd, Lunch Sponsor Atlantic Plywood Corp., Eagle Sponsor STEP Warmfloor, and a host of other sponsors and contributors:  Accura Printing, Charron Inc., DEW Construction Co., Darn Tough Socks, Eaton Lighting, Efficiency Vermont, Engineering Ventures, Exterus Business Furniture, William Ford, The Garland Company, Golf & Ski Warehouse, Hallam-ICS, J & J Flooring Group, Johns Manville, Joseph Architects, Eric Morrow, AIA; Norway & Sons, Inc.; The Richards Group, Scott Sabol, PE; Greg Sellers, Swaney Lighting Associates, Vermont Heating & Ventilating, Vermont Verde Antique, and Marsha Wilmot.

AIAVT is deeply appreciative to everyone that helped grow the Scholar Recognition Fund this year. Special thanks to Guy’s son, Alex Teschmacher, for his superb graphic design services; he designed the print brochure, email invitation, and all of the signage. Thanks to Michael Hoffman, AIA, for serving as the tournament photographer and enthusiastically shuttling back and forth from the ninth and eighteenth greens to twice catch players in action on the course. Thanks to the day-of-event volunteers including Lisa Rovner, president, AIAVT and John Hameline.

The funds from the tournament allow AIAVT to recognize promising students at Norwich University and Vermont Technical College as well as Vermont high school seniors accepted into collegiate architecture programs.  (Read about the first year recipients of the new AIAVT high school student scholarships.)


How Will the Clean Power Plan Affect Your Projects?

By Tom Herron, LEED Green Associate 

Building professionals know there are few complications more frustrating than finding out that a project’s fenestration fails to meet energy codes. As codes become stricter, the cost of compliance related to window, door, skylight and curtain wall failure will go up, threatening to put projects over budget and behind schedule. 

A new challenge looming for building professionals is the Environmental Protection Agency’s (EPA) forthcoming Clean Power Plan (CPP). The plan mandates a carbon emissions reduction of 32 percent nationwide by 2030, with individual targets set for each state. State targets are based on “building blocks,” including the assumption that demand-side energy efficiency can improve by 1.5 percent per year for the next fifteen years. The EPA is encouraging states to tighten building energy codes in order to meet this aggressive goal. 

Fortunately, the National Fenestration Rating Council (NFRC) rating and labeling program can help architects and builders avoid potential overruns and comply with code changes resulting from new policies like the CPP. For more than 25 years, NFRC has provided building professionals and consumers with fair, accurate and credible fenestration performance ratings that allow them to compare products and meet all applicable building energy codes. 

NFRC’s ratings procedures appear in model building energy codes like ASHRAE 90.1 and the International Energy Conservation Code. NFRC ratings also determine eligibility for the ENERGY STAR? program for residential windows. Understanding NFRC’s ratings will be key to meeting updated energy codes. NFRC’s ratings include: 

  • Solar heat gain coefficient, which measures a product’s ability to block heat from the sun;
  • U-factor, which measures a product’s ability to prevent heat loss; and
  • Visible Transmittance, which measures the amount of light that comes through a product.

As state lawmakers seek to comply with the Clean Power Plan by cutting energy usage across the board, building professionals will need to focus on efficient fenestration more than ever. Taking fenestration into account during the earliest stages of design and construction will help ensure that projects comply with building codes and contribute to the state’s energy efficiency goals. 

Tom Herron is director, communications and marketing, for the National Fenestration Rating Council. He can be reached at therron@ nfrc.org.


How Modern Design Can Enrich a Traditional Vermont Landscape: The Guilford Example

By Carol Miklos

“What impressed me most about this particular talk and tour was that the architecture did not take a back seat to the programmatic and energy-neutral goals of the client.  It was clear from the presentation that a great deal of time and effort went into the design and incorporation of high-performance energy and acoustical building components, but in the end it was the buildings and the spaces the architects created that struck me the most.  It was also clear from the feedback of the client, who was on-site during the tour, that the architects and builder had not only satisfied his programmatic needs, but had also created a workplace that he was equally happy to live in,” said Clark Graff, AIA, about the AIAVT event held at the Guilford Sound Recording Studio and Vermont Performance Lab campus on July 24. 

Nearly 30 attendees made the trek to the Windham County site of Guilford Sound and even those who drove a long distance felt rewarded. The recording studio and artists-in-residence campus is situated on a vast number of pristine acres with a mix of rolling hills, forest, bridges, stone steps, and meandering paths that create, for any individual fortunate enough to be amidst them, a close to magical experience. 

The group convened at the performance lab building, where Ted Sheridan, AIA, ASA, LEED AP, Ryall Porter Sheridan Architects, New York, New York, presented a talk about the various goals, considerations, and challenges—including how to marry relatively small, spread-out structures with a Passive House standard. “We did three blower-door tests before we achieved the goal,” he said. 

Sheridan also explained (and later showed) the workings of the wood gasification “heating plant” that serves the entire campus, which also includes the owner’s home and a second artist’s residence in a restored farmhouse;  a series of underground Rovanco Piping System® insulated tubes connects all the buildings to the heating plant.  Additional features Sheridan discussed included the fluid-applied membrane on the roof that functions like a sealed “shower cap” with no flashing required, exterior panels sandblasted on the exterior to create a varied patina as they oxidize, Beiber® triple-pane windows, and solar arrays on the recording studio and main residence. 

Attendee Donald Sherefkin, AIA, a professor of architecture at Bennington College, said, “I had spoken with Dave Ross, the builder, about the performance lab project some time ago, so I was particularly interested in seeing how the building and the landscape were integrated. I've seen earth-sheltered buildings before, but this one was much more light-filled. I was highly impressed by the quality of the materials, and the meticulous way that they were assembled. The stair up to the meadow above was not yet finished, but we could imagine that it will be a strong sculptural element linking the house and its planted roof.”

In summarizing his opinions, Sherefkin said,“Strong modern architecture does not get as much attention in our state as it should. This project demonstrated to me how innovative modern work can be perfectly suited to our landscape.”


Architecture School Graduate Finds His Niche in Illustration

By Carol Miklos

“With the miracles of the Internet, online file sharing, and the convenience of FedEx,” says architectural illustrator Gary Barron, “I have for the past few years enjoyed ‘working’ in Dallas, Aspen, Sun Valley, and somewhere in North Carolina. Yet, I never even had to leave my office here in Bridgewater, Connecticut.”

Barron, the recipient of an architecture degree from Washington University in Saint Louis, was employed by two large Connecticut-based architecture firms, DuBose Associates and Kaestle Boos Architecture, where due to size, he says, “no two people did the same job…everyone seemed to have a specialty.” Though Barron was assigned to the design departments in both firms, the recognition of his illustration talent led to his being “somewhat pigeon-holed into doing renderings,” which eventually defined his career.

“I took the NCARB examinations and passed four of the sections, but as time passed I did more illustrations and the quest to practice architecture became a more distant goal,” says Barron.

Over 30+ years, Barron has shaped a career for himself as an illustrator of a variety of building types, including academic facilities, banks, residences, and shopping centers. His clients hire him to produce presentational-type work in order to help market their proposed designs. He has also produced schematic/imagery designs for clients.

Depending on the complexity of a project, Barron typically works on his hand-drawn renderings over the course of a week to ten days. His preferred medium is Prismacolor© pencil.

Barron’s work has been recognized many times over in drawing awards programs conducted by AIA Connecticut. According to a 1995 story in AIA Connecticut News, jurors said about Barron’s winning drawing of Connecticut College’s Morrison Hall, a building to whose 1960s curtain wall a collegiate Gothic façade was added, that it was a very elegant composition of fragments and vignettes. “The drawing, in which the center is vacant and the action is peripheral, deals with time fragments and memory and gives a sense of place through the experience of architectural moments…the composition creates a visit to a place on one page—in this case, a walk through the environment of a steeple, a window reflection and a piece of sculpture,” jurors added.

Besides his renderings for business clients, Barron also creates depictions of structures that are less photographically accurate and more akin to fine art. Currently, he is rediscovering the architectural gems of the Italian Renaissance through the production of experiential, “dream-like” illustrations of Florence’s Santa Maria della Fiori, Santa Maria Nouvella, and other structures.

Barron’s house in Connecticut is up for sale and he and his wife have their eyes on a residence in Andover, Vermont. But for now he is eager to assist Vermont architects with their illustration needs from his present location.   

Gary Barron is an affiliate member of AIAVT. He may be contacted by email at NEKVermont@ aol.com or by phone at 860 248 1947.


Vermont Architects Play with LEGO Bricks for So. Burlington’s 150th Birthday

All across Vermont this summer, architects played with LEGO® bricks. They put together models for the “City Center: Creating Place” booth at South Burlington’s CityFest, held August 15 in Veteran’s Memorial Park.  The idea originated in a City staff member’s accidental engagement with Olafu Eliasson’s Collectivity Project in New York; upon returning home she reached out to AIAVT for assistance. 

AIAVT was excited by the idea of bringing architects into South Burlington’s sesquicentennial celebration and sent out a request on the City’s behalf for voluntary participants.  Within minutes, architects began responding; Donna Church, AIA, of Studioblue Architecture, was first, and Steven Roy, AIA, of Wiemann Lamphere Architects, was right behind. 

Church stated that the opportunity to take part in the LEGO project “was fantastic.” She said, “I jumped on it quickly because LEGO’s bring me back to playing like a kid. Since there were no set parameters for the project design, I allowed myself to build and play with the only goal to be to use all of the pieces. I started creating a singular building, and in time realized that I needed to explore all the pieces available and group ‘like’ pieces, so I could take advantage of each and every shape. In the end, I created a series of different spaces that were interconnected, each being different and almost forming a playground of spaces.” 

In all, eight Vermont architectural firms responded—from one-person shops to partnerships with multiple offices. Some even provided their own materials. In addition to Studioblue, participating firms included: A. Ginsburg Architects, Dore and Whittier Architects, Freeman French Freeman, Inc; MorrisSwitzer | environments for health; Richard Henry Behr Architect P.C.; Studio Nexus Architects + Planners, LLC; and Wiemann Lamphere Architects.

At the CityFest event, the models were on display and also available to the community to play with, build onto, and create anew.  Festival attendees who visited the Vendor Village tent had access to the architects’ models and additional LEGO pieces. 

Church, who was also able to attend CityFest, said, “It was a great exposure to how everyone can be so creative in different ways. No two firm designs were similar and by having them up on tables, the display definitely engaged the public to come participate. There were people both young and old, building onto, and creating new parts to the exhibit. The event was very successful at bringing the public's attention to the future city center and the process of building and being creative.” 


Archistream Tour Makes Final Stop at Rutland Art Festival

By Carol Miklos

Making good use of AIAVT's Archistream Mobile Design Gallery and Education Center, architects at Pittsfield-based Robert Carl Williams Associates (RCWA)  arranged to “bring architecture to the people” at the "Art in the Park Festival" in Rutland on October 10-11. This was the last stop for the Archistream, a mechanism for carrying out a two-year AIAVT program designed to increase public and media awareness of architecture, AIAVT, and AIAVT members.

Firm Principal Daniel Pratt, AIA, and designer Elijah Kehn displayed an array of RCWA project boards on easels outside the Archistream and used digital media inside the trailer to show additional projects, including a presentation of the steps involved in constructing a lodge perched on a peak at Killington ski resort.  Pratt, Kehn and AIAVT Executive Director Carol Miklos staffed the Archistream booth at the Chaffee Art Center-presented festival. 

Over the course of the weekend, hundreds of individuals interacted with the Archistream, architecture, and AIAVT members and staff at the festival.  All in all, AIAVT’s Archistream program went out in style, achieving the goals the Board of Directors had envisioned. 

AIAVT extends thanks to LaValley and Glendenning LLC. Vermont Country Homes for their assistance in making this Rutland stop on the tour possible and a big thanks to our two-year Archistream Program Sponsors: Marvin Windows & Doors, Efficiency Vermont, Engelberth Construction, Tree Ridge Associates, and Norwich University School of Architecture & Art. 


Volansky Studio Opens in Stowe

By Carol Miklos

Andrew Volansky, AIA, a practicing architect since 1997, has started his own architecture practice in Stowe, Vermont.  Volansky first practiced in Vail, Colorado before returning to Stowe in 2003, where he worked for a local firm until this year. 

Over the course of his career, Volansky has had the opportunity to work on projects of widely varying scale. He has designed everything from 8,000 square-foot custom homes to a 1,600 square-foot compact home; from a small, student-built tree house for a local elementary school to high-end ski-in/ski-out townhomes each customized by individual owners; and from new construction of a commercial/retail building to interior commercial tenant/restaurant fit-up.  Volansky’s experience further ranges from supporting real estate agents to find building sites for their clients to full-blown 20-year campus master planning.

Volansky says, “In each project what’s been unique has been the clients—their project needs, personal styles and tastes, budgets, and building sites. Each of these aspects has to be studied to find ways to make that project belong to each client and make their project truly personal to them. When I work with someone, it’s not about me adhering to a specific design style or using an architect-driven process. It’s about listening to and prioritizing the needs of each person, business or family.”

Volansky feels so strongly about taking a collaborative approach in working on projects that he purposely chose to use the word “Studio” in naming his firm. The term Architecture Studio originated in France and refers to a process of collaborating with individuals and goes well beyond the walls of the physical studio. Volansky says his belief that the client, the various craftspeople, and the general contractors all have much to bring to the table is fundamental to the success of a project. 

For more information about Volansky Studio, email volanskystudio@outlook.com or call 802.793.4999.


Vermont Architects Attend Environment Summit in Maine

Northern New England AIA's Committee on the Environment Leadership Summit (COTE), an invitation-only event held in Portland, Maine on June 5 brought together 100 architects from Boston, Maine, New Hampshire, and Vermont.  AIA's 2030 Challenge calls for all new buildings, developments, and major renovations to be carbon-neutral by the year 2030.  The summit invited leaders from each participating state to discuss the biggest obstacles to the 2030 initiative for the Northern New England region and to brainstorm on potential solutions.

Architect participants from Vermont were Alan Benoit, AIA, Sustainable Design of Vermont; Joseph Cincotta, AIA, LineSync Architecture; Richard Deane, AIA, TruexCullins Architecture + Interior Design; John Doane, Center Studio; Andrea Kerz-Murray,  AIA, Vermont Integrated Architecture; Diantha Korzun, AIA, Gossens Bachman Architecture; Bill Maclay, AIA, Maclay Architects; Eric Morrow, AIA, Dore & Whittier Architects; Megan Nedzinski, AIA, Maclay Architects; David Pill, AIA, Pill-Maharam Architects; Steve Roy, AIA, Wiemann Lamphere Architects; Jim Williams, AIA, Williams + Frehsee, Inc., and Michael Wisniewski, AIA, Duncan Wisniewski Architecture.

The event began with an inspirational keynote session by Bob Berkebile, FAIA, who with his firm BNIM has been pushing the envelope on green design and development since before the time of LEED certification. Berkebile is the founding chairman of AIA’s national (COTE), so it was fitting that he kicked off this regional AIA COTE Summit. 

Berkebile started the event with an evening lecture at the Portland Museum of Art and shared stories from his work in post-disaster environments. His experience shows that natural disasters provide opportunities for new community conversations and extraordinary change. For example, participants heard about the City of Greensburg, Kansas that was devastated in a tornado and how Berkebile and his team brought the community together for conversations about what it was about Greensburg that they loved, what limited them, and what they wanted to create that would make it better. The result of these conversations was a city that was rebuilt to be a thriving green city (the first city in America to make LEED Platinum its standard). 

“The larger disaster,” Berkebile said, “is our limited thinking and the resulting failure of human systems everywhere.”  The trick, he explained, is to raise and address these important questions before nature informs us of our failures through natural disaster. 

Sections of this story are borrowed from a Northern New England COTE publication. To read the complete summary of the event, visit http://www.nneaiacote.org/white-paper-recap/

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from the PRESIDENT

I can’t believe the year is drawing to a close and we will soon have entered the holiday season! This means that my presidency is well into its final quarter. To everyone who had a part in making my year outstanding, thank you from the bottom of my heart. The second half of the year has so far been just as rewarding as the first. I look forward to aiding AIAVT’s next president, Gary Corey of Centerline Architects in Bennington, while serving as your immediate past president in 2016.

In July, we had a successful presentation and building tour of a Ryall Porter Sheridan Architects project—a recording studio and the Vermont Performance Lab—in Guilford, Vermont. A number of architects from all over the state attended the event. Read more about it in this issue; see "How Modern Design Can Enrich a Traditional Vermont Landscape: The Guilford Example".

In early September, we held one of our most-productive-ever golf tournaments to raise funds for architecture students. Thanks to the Golf Committee, headed up by Keith Robinson and Marsha Wilmot, the event was a complete success. The weather was gorgeous that day as well.  AIAVT couldn’t have asked for anything more from the committee or Mother Nature. Later in the month, AIAVT’s Emerging Professionals Network (EPN) held a Habitat for Humanity home-building event in Charlotte and launched the 2015-2016 architectural film series—this year showing at Contois Auditorium.

Our annual AIAVT-AIANH joint meeting, typically held in October, was postponed; it was decided that these meetings will now occur every other year. Diantha Korzun, Michael Hoffman, and I will soon be traveling to Hartford, Connecticut for an AIANE board meeting and the Annual AIANE Design Awards event. The event includes a lecture to be given by Steven Chung, AIA, host of PBS’s “Cool Spaces.” Plans for our studio social November 11 at Dore & Whittier Architects have changed; the window-focused presentation is being postponed and in its place we’ll host the first AIA 2030 Online Series session. Come prepared to learn…and schmooze! 

In June, AIA National contacted us to request that we hold a meeting with Senator Sander’s office to ensure his support in opposing the repeal of Section 433 of the Energy Independence and Security Act of 2007. Following that meeting, which I participated in with AIA members Brian Leet, Eric Morrow, and Megan Nedzinski, we were asked by AIA National to send a team of architects to Congressman Welch’s office to urge his support for the same issue.  Eric and Megan met with staff there on October 23. We are hopeful that voices were heard. 

Next year’s calendar of events is already in the works and 2016 is shaping up to be a great year. We’re planning a mentoring/“speed-dating” social, more AIA + 2030 energy educational sessions and, of course, ACX—our joint conference with CSIVT! I am signing off for this year and look forward to seeing you all December 10 at the AIAVT Annual Awards Dinner at the Middlebury Inn.

Sincerely, 

Lisa Rovner



new MEMBERS

Architects 

Karen S. Bushey, AIA, LEED AP, CPHC, is a Certified Passive House Consultant and licensed architect employed as a Residential Energy Consultant with Vermont Energy Investment Corporation.  She is a RESNET certified home energy rater and PHIUS+ Rater.  Bushey has a BArch degree from Carnegie Mellon University and spent a year of her studies as an exchange student at the École Polytechnique Fédérale de Lausanne.

Formerly at Charlotte-Vermont based Pill-Maharam Architects, Bushey specialized in energy efficient design, balancing the design aesthetics of buildings while optimizing the performance of the envelope and building systems. She has 20 years of experience in the field of architecture with 14 of those years concentrating in low environmental impact building design and construction. Her knowledge of high-performance design and experience working closely with numerous contractors has been key in the success of many residential and commercial projects in Vermont and Massachusetts, including three Passive Houses and many more high-performance buildings. Bushey is currently vice president of the Passive House Alliance, Vermont chapter.

Stefan Richter, AIA, received his MArch degree from the University of Utah in 1999. He has since gained experience in Utah and Vermont, including employment with a 100+ employee architecture and interior design firm, at several small architecture firms, and with a commercial Design/Build firm.  In addition, he has been an owner/partner in a residential design/build firm acting as a carpenter, project manager and designer. Currently, Richter is a project architect at S2 Architecture in Shelburne, Vermont, a firm that works on multi-family housing, institutional, commercial and residential projects.

Associates 

Jessica MacDonald, Assoc. AIA, Scott + Partners, Inc., Essex, Vermont

Kevin Z. White, Assoc. AIA, Sellers and Company Architects, Warren, Vermont



latest ACHIEVEMENTS

Alan Benoit, AIA, recently completed a six-week “Certified Passive House Consultant Refresher Course” where he learn the latest information about a variety of passive building topics, including quality assurance, materials, windows, mechanicals, the commercial and multifamily sectors,  and retrofit application.  During the course, the Passive House Institute U.S. (PHIUS) launched their PHIUS+ 2015—a climate-specific passive building standard for North America. The new standard yields aggressive, but attainable, climate-specific building energy performance targets that substantially cut carbon emissions and energy consumption in buildings that provide superb comfort, indoor air quality, and resilience. 

Matthew Bushey, AIA, LEED AP has been promoted to associate principal at TruexCullins Architecture + Interiors. Bushey’s areas of expertise include workplace and resort architecture and interior design. His recent architecture and interior design projects include: asset management and investment advisory firms in Portsmouth, New Hampshire and Burlington, Vermont; Dartmouth Computing Services and the Dartmouth Entrepreneurial Network workspaces in Hanover, New Hampshire; and interior design for Hotel Vermont in Burlington, Vermont. Bushey brings his professional skills to bear in the community as well, serving on the Burlington Design Advisory Board and the Burlington Historic Preservation Review Committee. He received his BArch degree from Carnegie Mellon University.

Evon Calabrese, Assoc. AIA, director of the AIAVT Emerging Professionals Network, organized an EPN volunteer day with Habitat for Humanity on September 5 at Harrington Village in Shelburne, Vermont.  Calabrese was joined by Kevin Dennis and Alex King, both designers at Maclay Architects. 

Claire Gear, an employee of Pill-Maharam Architects in Shelburne, Vermont has just received her professional license to practice architecture. Gear’s previous work experience includes 10 years as a designer in Seattle, New York City, Western New York, Norway, and Vermont. Her long-time focus has been on high performance, net-zero buildings and adaptive reuse; she is now pursuing training to become a Certified Passive House Consultant. Gear, who has been an Associate AIA member for a year, holds a MArch degree from the University of Washington.

Join the AIA for 2016 now and get the rest of 2015 free. And, when you rejoin by December 31, 2015, you'll be entered to win an AIA   Convention 2016 prize package for two including hotel, airfare, and registration.* Join with a colleague, and you could both win an Apple Watch Sport®.* 

* Some restrictions apply. 

Renew by December 31, 2015, and you'll be entered automatically to win one of three  prize packages including free registration to AIA Convention 2016 in Philadelphia.* 

Refer a new member before by December 31, 2015 and you will be entered in a drawing to win one of six Apple Watches.*

* Some restrictions apply.



FIRM news

Charrette Venture Group and UK Architects Expand Community Design Capacity in Upper Valley

Charrette Venture Group (CVG) (charrettevg.com), a venture group focused on supporting and enabling entrepreneurial architects, and UK Architects, PC (ukarch.com), recently announced that they have formed a new partnership designed to enhance the capabilities of the established architecture firm and expand its services throughout the Upper Valley region. 

Founded in 1992, UK Architects has deep roots in Hanover and the Upper Valley region of New Hampshire and Vermont. They specialize in bringing a high level of attention, quality and design to projects for clients ranging from educational institutions to healthcare organizations to private homeowners. Their focus is on projects that add to the community and quality of life that extends beyond the footprint of the buildings they create. 

"This deal helps us increase our ability to help our clients improve their communities and achieve their goals,” says Chris Kennedy, principal of UK Architects.  "CVG’s investment in our firm will provide us with the resources and professional guidance that will enable us to raise our game in a variety of areas so that we can focus on building a stronger business and providing even better service to our clients," says Kennedy. 

“Partnering with UK Architects allows us to raise the level of practice and service for communities and clients in an area where we’ve never been,” said Todd L. Reding, chief operations officer and vice president for investments at Charrette Venture Group. “Chris Kennedy and his team already bring a passion for quality and service to their projects. I’m excited that we’ll be helping them make an even greater impact in the Upper Valley region.” 

Charrette Venture Group is a global venture firm based in Grinnell, Iowa, that invests in small and growing design firms.  They specialize in helping these firms reach new heights by investing capital, resources and services to overcome common challenges.

AIAVT News is published by AIA Vermont, a Chapter of the American Institute of Architects. 

Opinions are not necessarily the views of AIAVT or any other organization.

AIAVT reserves the right to edit articles for available space and determine appropriate content prior to inclusion. For consideration, submissions must be received 60 days prior to publication month.

For advertising rate and specifications, see our Media Kit.

Please send articles, notices, letters, and graphic submissions to the editor:

Carol Miklos, Executive Director, AIA Vermont

CMiklos@ aiavt.org

88 Blackbird Lane

Charlotte, Vermont 05445

802-425-6162