YAF Summit History A Snapshot of the Last 30 Years

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AIA Young Architects Forum Summit events typically occur every five years, commemorating 15, 20, 25, and now 30 years of the national committee’s existence. This milestone celebration is designed as a future focused event that reevaluates the needs of young architects and pushes boundaries to propel the profession forward. Summits have historically been application based, two-day in-person events for 60 fully funded attendees. Regardless of their background, everyone’s goal is to improve the quality of the future of the profession through the voice of YAF. The outcomes of the event have been recorded in a variety of ways over the years, but are typically synthesized into a singular strategic initiative, which focuses the YAF Committee efforts for the next five years.

As we start off 2023 with our new strategic initiative, it is important to take a look back at where our focus has been and what we are moving towards.

Summit 15 (2007): Celebrate the Past, Design the Future developed ways to provide support and programming for future leaders.

The takeaway from this event was a top 10 list of issues that should be addressed in the next 15 years. At the Summit, action plans were developed for the top six issues: mentorship, human capital, leadership interaction skills, practice management, credibility of the architect, and responsibility of the architect.

The YAF committee developed an action plan for each issue that identified key stakeholders, key partners, specific goals, a strategy matrix, timeline, and budget implications.

From 2008-2012, the YAF Strategic Initiative was Mentorship and Leadership.

Summit 20 (2012): Top Issues for the Future began with a nationwide survey developed of YAF. In 2012, Survey20 was released and responses identified four top issues. The YAF Advisory Committee selected two issues and the remaining four were selected by the Summit 20 participants.

“Via a secret ballot, the top ten selected issues were ranked by the assembly and the top six were defined, and outcomes and tasks were discussed. Advancement of the Profession and Career Advancement were tied for first place followed by Value of Design, Starting Your Own Firm, Value of Licensure, and Economy & Change.” The YAF committee then developed an action plan to reinforce the top six issues at the national, regional, and local levels.

From 2013-2017, the YAF Strategic Initiative was Career Advancement.

Summit 25 (2017): Practice Innovation Lab redefined future practice models. Summit attendees were broken up into ten teams that developed what they believed to be the architectural business models of tomorrow.

From this event, a publication outlining 10 different practice models for architecture firms was released along with a minivideo documentary. One team received a grant to implement their proposed business model. A shark-tank inspired series of four sessions at A’19 in Las Vegas and the YAF committee compiled a toolkit for AIA Chapters to host their own minipractice innovation lab, which have been held in more than six states so far.

From 2018-2022, the YAF Strategic Initiative was Practice Innovation, Redefining Purpose.

Summit 30 (2022): Mission 2130 catapulted the focus of the event towards the future by integrating newer technology features throughout. This event was also unique in the fact that there were three parts. Part one was a virtual, crowdsourcing effort termed ‘Code Red Charrettes’. This gathered international participants to help brainstorm potential future strengths, opportunities, threats and weaknesses related to the building environment, the planet, and society through a digital whiteboard platform. The Steering Committee released a Code Red Charrette to expand access to the event and then worked with a consultant to synthesize the charrette data into a series of word clouds to refine the plan for part two of the summit event.

Part two was the five-weeks leading up to the in-person meeting. Building upon the successful framework of the previous summit, Mission 2130 attendees were divided up into eight crews and provided with a Crew Manual outlining weekly tasks. These tasks ranged from written excerpts, videos, and collaboration with an AI consultant with the end goal of creating a written and visual outline of what the world could look like in the year 2130.

Part three was the in-person event that took place in August 2022. Through a combination of keynote speakers and breakout time, each crew developed a challenge to answer the question of “What comes after the 2030 commitment ends.’ Crews identified milestones of their challenge, measurable successes, and three actions that could be started tomorrow to help us meet the goals of that specific challenge.

After the summit event, the YAF committee synthesized the crew challenges, identified synergies with the AIA Strategic Plan, and developed the committee’s next Strategic Initiative.

From 2023-2027, the YAF Strategic Initiative is Architects in Action, Catalyzing for Change.

Looking back at the event outcomes of each summit, it is easy to see the evolution and revolution of thoughts, ideas, and focus areas. This shows the event is achieving its purpose: to reevaluate the needs of young architects and propel the profession forward. I am not sure what the Summit 35 theme will be, but I am excited to see where our future leaders take it!

Above | Code Red Charrettes, Mission 2130, 2022.