The Three R's of Sustainability: Restructuring, Re-building, Re-vitalizing

The American Institute of Architecture Students (AIAS) is an organization which promotes collegiate architecture studies, industry professionals and architecture itself. The AIAS boasts 100+ chapters spanning across the United States, Puerto Rico and Canada. These chapters are broken down into four quadrants: South, West, Midwest and Northeast.

Lawrence Technological University in Southfield, MI belongs in the Midwest Quad. Lawrence Tech, or LTU, chartered a chapter to instill togetherness not only within architecture students at the university but within the community through education, conferences, forums and community service. 

Affiliated with AIAS is Freedom by Design, a purposeful community service program which allows architecture students to gain real world experience through design and construction solutions. Every year, thousands of people are confined in their homes with no way to access stairs, bathrooms or even their front yards. Freedom by Design serves to correct these shortcomings by providing ramps, grab bars and other means by which residents may access parts of their own home and not feel trapped.

The LTU AIAS chapter offers numerous educational and professional opportunities for students. These include a lecture series featuring various design professionals, resume & portfolio workshops, and firm tours within the Detroit area. They also participate in conferences throughout the year, which include Quad conferences where universities within the four quadrants (South, West, Midwest and Northeast) each elect a university to host a conference there in the Fall and Spring semesters. These are local conferences; however there are also national events which include the Grassroots Leadership conference held every year in Washington D.C. and Forum Annual Conference, which invites students from all chapters to learn about current issues within architecture. This year, Forum will be in Phoenix, AZ. 

Within the last few years, AIAS LTU has made tremendous strides toward sustainability, which the organization defines as providing long-term results to students within the university and community in order to keep up with this ever-changing profession.  After a zealous election process, the AIAS LTU chapter elected a new executive board for the 2011-12 academic year. Both the current and elected executive board then headed to Grand Rapids, MI for a retreat in order to discuss how to sustain this organization for the coming years.

While on this retreat, both e-boards spoke in detail about the items they would like to see changed and how to creatively and properly implement these ideas. These included long and short-term goals for the chapter as a whole, e-board, and Freedom by Design. Sustainability came down to three forums: re-structuring, re-building and re-vitalizing.

RE-STRUCTURING: Any and every organization inevitably goes through changes and AIAS is one of them. Re-structuring a professional organization like AIAS needs arduous planning and longevity. At the retreat, e-board members discussed in detail purposeful ways to re-organize operational functions in order to be better prepared for this ever changing global economy. 

RE-BUILDING: Using the resources such as members, advisors and faculty, the AIAS this year is planning to re-build many of the positions. This includes better utilization of committees which will spearhead many of the major events the AIAS will take on in the next academic year. 

RE-VITALIZE: This pertains especially to social outreach. Re-vitalizing the Freedom by Design program not only garners interest and membership, it also gives students hands on experience and a voice to the community. Educating the community on the events AIAS partakes in and runs will provide a more substantial presence within the organization from members.


The LTU AIAS boasts a long history of pride within the architecture community. The changes and re-development mentioned above will strengthen the base of members and give students more opportunities to get involved inside and outside the classroom. 


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