Earlier this month, the American Institute of Architects announced the election of Kimberly Dowdell as the AIA’s 2024 president. She will be the first Black woman to serve as president in the group's 165-year history.

In her campaign for election, Dowdell proposed an “alphabet platform” consisting of advocacy for architects in practice, belonging, climate action and designing the future.

“I think it's important that the AIA is advocating for the prosperity and fulfillment of architects,”她告诉建筑记录，E新利lucknr的姐妹杂志。“通过提高我们的相关性并向公众开放更多的世界，我们可以吸引更多的年轻人想要追求建筑并拥有更多知识的客户。”

友邦保险第一位女总统in 1992

Susan A. Maxman was AIA’s first woman president, in 1992-93. Marshall E. Purnell was the first Black AIA president, in 2007-08. William J. Bates was the second, in 2018-2019.

Dowdell曾担任50年历史的少数民族建筑师组织（NOMA）的2019 - 2020年总裁。在任职期间，她将工作人员从零开始增加到三名，而三年来的会员资格从500多个增加到3,000多个。

“Kim, as my predecessor at NOMA, I was amazed at your leadership, even though you were blindsided by the pandemic," said Jason Pugh, a principal at Gensler and the current NOMA president, at the A’22, the AIA’s conference on architecture in Chicago, June 22-25.

Tiffany Brown, NOMA's executive director, is "over the moon" about Dowdell's AIA win. "NOMA will support Kim," in her AIA role, she said, at the NOMA leadership panel, which also included Pascale Sablan, a senior associate with Adjaye Associates and the incoming NOMA president, beginning next year.

聚会-首先自1920年共同1920年开始—drew more than 12,000 registrants, down from 16,000 in 2019.

Dowdell graduated from Cornell University with a bachelor of architecture in 2006 and received a master of public administration from Harvard University in 2015. She is currently a marketing principal at HOK Architects.

A member of the AIA since 2007, Dowdell served on AIA’s equity and the future of architecture committee from 2019-20 and the new urban agenda task force from 2019-21.

Increasing Demand for Design Services

In a release June 22 at the conference, AIA indicated architecture firms reported increasing demand for design services in May.

The建筑帐单指数score for last month was 53.5, down from April’s score of 56.5. But AIA says the score still indicates "very strong business conditions overall," because any score above 50 indicates an increase in billings from the prior month. Also in May, both the new project inquiries and design contracts indexes expanded, posting scores of 63.9 and 56.9 respectively.