Margaret Montgomery, FAIA, is the global sustainable design director at NBBJ and one of the stewards of AIA’s Framework for Design Excellence—a 10-principle outline that prioritizes climate, equity, resilience, and health in the built environment. The framework prompts architects to investigate areas such as well-being, equitable communities, and ecosystems, bringing a more holistic perspective to design. “Using this framework in the design process,” she says, “will almost always uncover at least one important design influence you might not have considered otherwise.”
Relevant design must encompass both performance and beauty. Most architects would agree that our work isn’t finished once we create an elegant form. [The structure] has to perform well in crucial ways. The framework articulates how design can improve our future, both as a society and as a profession. It was developed to speak to architects across many practices and scales.
The breadth of topics highlighted in the framework is intentional. An architect might be an expert in net-zero buildings, yet perhaps they’re less focused on community participation or material health. Those are blind spots. We all have them. These principles can help broaden our thinking, expose us to new angles, and uncover what we may have missed.
When we recently updated the framework to address systemic racial injustice, we wanted to make its aims explicit, yet also universal. We want the framework to prompt questions like, “Whom might the project be forgetting? How can the design process and its outcomes remove barriers and promote inclusion and social equity?” We want the framework to prompt questions and dialogue like this for all architects—to promote meaningful conversations and action steps that will only make our work better.
Embedded into the 10 principles is a vision for contributing to a more equitable society by changing how we craft the built environment. How we learn to apply the principles is the journey we each take—and there is so much more to do as we work to understand issues of social justice and sustainability on a deeper level.
This is an era of generosity rather than one of proprietary knowledge. Architects and designers want to create a better world, and the only way we do that is if every project makes progress in a positive direction. If we can get the performance right, the brilliance of the design is still up to the individual, the team, and the firm. But it should be richer in its content than by yesterday’s standards.
Because our access to information is so ubiquitous, it is critical that we talk to each other, question each other, and push each other. — As told to Steve Cimino
