San Francisco Federal Reserve Bank’s Center for Community Development Investments Signs on as Architects’ Decade of Design Partner
New York, N.Y. – September 26, 2013 – (RealEstateRama) — The American Institute of Architects (AIA) today announced that the Center for Community Development Investments at the Federal Reserve Bank of San Francisco signed on as a Clinton Global Initiative Commitment partner with the AIA’s Decade of Design.
AIA Chief Executive Officer Robert Ivy, FAIA, announced the Center as a Commitment partner at the Clinton Global Initiative (CGI) Annual Meeting, where more than 1,000 global leaders are gathering to address the theme, “Mobilizing for Impact.”
“We are excited to have the advice and counsel of the Center for Community Development Investments as we proceed with our decade long commitment to make design a catalyst for public health,” said Ivy. “It’s clear that the insight the Center can bring to this effort will be of tremendous help solving the unique challenges the design community will face in this effort.”
The AIA announced the Decade of Design as a commitment at last year’s CGI Annual Meeting. It is a major research initiative sponsored by the AIA to develop design and technology solutions for cities that address challenges faced on public health, sustainability, and resiliency to natural disasters.
“Our bodies and our health are the sum record of our challenges and opportunities; In community development we do our best to revitalize low-income communities to maximize opportunity by providing funding for small businesses, by building affordable housing and the facilities that struggling communities need – schools, clinics, grocery stores, and other public spaces,” said David Erickson, Director of the Center for Community Development Investments.
“The “Decade of Design: Health + Urbanism” initiative is a unique effort that can tie our work to a bigger theme—that it is possible to maximize opportunity through more thoughtful urban design and building that will environmentally, socially, and economically improve our cities and ourselves,” Erickson said.
The addition of the Center comes as the AIA and Massachusetts Institute of Technology’s Center for Advanced Urbanism (CAU) unveiled a status report on the two organizations’ research into the impact of design on public health. The research is the result of an ongoing collaboration between the AIA and the CAU that focuses on how design can improve the health of urban communities. The project will be highlighted on stage in a video presentation today at the CGI Annual Meeting’s Opening General Session.
About the American Institute of Architects
For over 150 years, members of the American Institute of Architects have worked with each other and their communities to create more valuable, healthy, secure, and sustainable buildings and cityscapes. Members adhere to a code of ethics and professional conduct to ensure the highest standards in professional practice. Embracing their responsibility to serve society, AIA members engage civic and government leaders and the public in helping find needed solutions to pressing issues facing our communities, institutions, nation and world. Visit www.aia.org.
About the Federal Reserve Bank of San Francisco
The Federal Reserve Bank of San Francisco oversees the Twelfth Federal Reserve District, which includes the nine western states—Alaska, Arizona, California, Hawaii, Idaho, Nevada, Oregon, Utah, and Washington—plus American Samoa, Guam, and the Commonwealth of the Northern Mariana Islands. Of the 12 Federal Reserve Districts, the Twelfth District is the largest by geography and the size of its economy. One fifth of the nation’s population lives in the Twelfth District.
About the Clinton Global Initiative
Established in 2005 by President Bill Clinton, the Clinton Global Initiative (CGI) convenes global leaders to create and implement innovative solutions to the world’s most pressing challenges. CGI Annual Meetings have brought together more than 150 heads of state, 20 Nobel Prize laureates, and hundreds of leading CEOs, heads of foundations and NGOs, major philanthropists, and members of the media. To date CGI members have made more than 2,300 commitments, which have improved the lives of over 400 million people in more than 180 countries. When fully funded and implemented, these commitments will be valued at more than $73.1 billion.
About the MIT, Center for Advanced Urbanism
Established in 2012, the MIT Center for Advanced Urbanism’s objective is to become the world’s pre-eminent cultural center about the design of metropolitan environments, by articulating methods and projects to integrate separate disciplinary agendas in architecture, landscape, ecology, transportation engineering, politics and political philosophy, technology and real estate through a most eloquent design culture on scales ranging from the complex infrastructural intersection, to that of a neighborhood, on to the scale of an entire regional system.
Contact: John Schneidawind
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