2015 Directory

18 WYOMING ARCHITECTURE .15 | www.aia-wyoming.org AIA Western Mountain Region Conference S eventeen acclaimed architects and design professionals presented programs. Thursday’s topics ranged from creative culture to the economies of design and from simple shelters and 3D printing to the mitigation of complexities. Friday found us in awe with the presentation by AndrewAlbers, AIA from the Office of James Burnett. Andrewwalked us through several visionary and highly complex landscape designs. He was followed by Ben Gilmartin, AIA fromDiller Scofidio + Renfro. The five or six projects Ben presented exemplified the art in architecture. These visionary projects captured everyone’s attention. As always, the best was saved for last. Saturday’s speakers included John Sparano, FAIAwith Sparano andMooney. His office’s designs evolve from the heuristic creation of models and forms that eventually translate into architecture. Roberto De Leon, Jr., AIA, a young architect with a passion for non profit design projects, followed John Sparano. In addition to a vast array of community based design efforts, Roberto has also created iconic structures for theWild Turkey Distillery. Mark Sexton, FAIA fromKrueck and Sexton presented a simplified and focused process to gain recognition in GSAwork. As a consequence, Mark was awarded a contract to design a Federal Building for the FBI in Florida. It was jaw dropping. Finally, John Patkau, Honorary FAIA took us on a wonderful journey of Canadian architecture including three unique houses and other innovative structures and then contrasted these with recent works of simple foldedmaterials to create architecture. The vendors were in force and there were many friendly and familiar faces. Every display was well attended and I’m confident the vendors left totally exhausted. AIAColorado and AIA/WMR celebrated design with evening Galas. In addition to voting on the revisions to theWMR Bylaws, there were three significant highlights at the business meeting on Saturday afternoon. First, we learned a great deal from a presentation by AIA 2015 First Vice President/2016 President Elect Russ Davidson, FAIA. We foundmany similarities between the National repositioning programs and the ways we are evolving as a region. In some terrific news for AIAWyoming, Katie Wilson, AIAwas elected to serve a two year term as AIA/WMR Secretary. Her presentation was inspiring. The final highlight of the meeting was a special presentation to SusanMenghini who was recognized as the Nation- al CACE Executive of the year. Ed Vance, FAIA and Stuart Coppedge, AIA wrote strong letters of support for Susan and the entire room shared in the celebration. b BY DAN STALKER, AIA I am pleased to report that AIA Wyoming was well represented at this year’s AIA/WMR Conference. In attendance were Chet Lockard, AIA, Dan Stalker, AIA, Katie Wilson, AIA, Rande Pouppirt, AIA and our Executive Director, Susan Menghini. The three day conference was convened in the mountains of central Colorado at the Keystone Resort. The weather was spectacular and overall attendance from the region was gratifying.