Courtesy AIA New York
Members of KPF’s Environmental Performance Team gather in the firm’s New York City office. From left to right: Carlos Cerezo Davila, Christina X. Brown, Erin Heidelberger, and Remy Mermelstein.
An Environmental Performance Specialist at KPF, Christina joined colleagues from AIANY’s Women in Architecture Committee on September 18 to discuss how climate considerations can drive better design.
As the climate crisis deepens and our understanding of the link between the built environment and ecological devastation grows, architects must rethink their role and responsibilities. To that end, AIA has ratified the Resolution for Urgent and Sustained Climate Action, which drives the profession toward the decarbonization of buildings, and adopted the Framework for Design Excellence, which defines good design for the 21st century.
These documents do more than pay lip service to a massive problem or a create new set of rules for designers to navigate; approached correctly, they can open doors for architects to improve their designs and create projects that impact people and the planet for the better. Considering the fact that buildings are responsible for nearly 40% of the world’s carbon dioxide emissions, architects have the opportunity to make a real difference.
On September 18, Christina joined a panel of experienced architects, educators, and sustainability experts convened by AIANY’s Women in Architecture committee to discuss the challenges and opportunities surrounding such sustainability-focused initiatives and how considerations of social and environmental sustainability can be brought into every project. Christina holds both a B.Arch and a Master of Science in Sustainable Design from Carnegie Mellon University. As an Environmental Performance Specialist at KPF, she focuses on developing data-driven models for localized environmental solutions to improve architectural quality through smart decision-making. Speakers shared their experiences and insights across a number of topics such as navigating municipal regulations that require minimum energy performance, building circularity, resiliency, and innovation into the design process, and what good design means today. Audience members learned how the trifecta of climate change, social equity, and biodiversity can inform better, more responsible design decisions and how each of us can play a part in effecting change.
Learn more here.